The Fear of God

The Fear of God

I recently came across a topic that piqued my interest—the fear of God. The Bible speaks a fair bit about fearing God, and one can come away with the impression that we’re supposed to be afraid of God in the sense of being terrified of incurring His wrath. For Christians, this can be difficult to reconcile with the fact that God so loved the world that He sent His only Son to manifest His love, and we are to love God with all our hearts, minds, and souls.

There are verses throughout the Bible which speak of being afraid of God and His wrath, but there are many other verses which speak of fearing Him as something positive. When the Bible speaks of fearing God, there are two different concepts being referred to—being afraid of God and His wrath is one, and the other is honoring Him and having reverence for Him. Understanding this difference, we can see the relationship between fearing God and receiving His blessings.



Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in His commandments![1]



Oh, how abundant is Your goodness, which You have stored up for those who fear You.[2]

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding.[3]



The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.[4]

The fear of the Lord prolongs life.[5]

The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life.[6]

The fear of the Lord leads to life, and whoever has it rests satisfied.[7]

I know that it will be well with those who fear God, because they fear before Him.[8]

Better is a little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble with it.[9]

The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear Him.[10]

The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and delivers them.[11]

Oh, fear the Lord, you His saints, for those who fear Him have no lack![12]



He will bless those who fear the Lord, both the small and the great.[13]

The reward for humility and fear of the Lord is riches and honor and life.[14]

One of the concepts of fearing God portrayed in the Bible, as mentioned briefly above, is terror, dread, or fear; it’s in reference to being afraid of God, and is used mainly when speaking of people who have sinned and are going to face God’s judgment. Some examples of this concept are:



People shall enter the caves of the rocks and the holes of the ground, from before the terror of the Lord, and from the splendor of His majesty, when He rises to terrify the earth.[15]



How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has spurned the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which He was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge His people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.[16]

Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.[17]

This concept of the fear of God is different from the one that is spoken of in the positive sense of reverencing God.—That is, having awe, reverence, honor, and respect for Him. Synonyms for these words are wonder, admiration, amazement, astonishment, esteem, veneration, worship, devotion, high opinion, deference, regard. Fearing God in this way brings blessing and goodness to our lives.

In the King James translation, there are times when the word fear is used to meanreverence Newer translations often render it reverence or revere or respect. For example, Leviticus 19:3, which is translated in the King James Version (KJV) as “Ye shall fear every man his mother, and his father,” is rendered in the English Standard Version (ESV) as “Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father.” It reads as “Every one of you shallreverence his mother and his father” in the New American Standard Bible (NASB), and “Each of you must respect his mother and father” in the New International Version (NIV).

Another example of fearing God meaning something other than “being afraid of Him” is from the book of Isaiah, which spoke of the Messiah fearing God.

The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.[18]

Clearly, the Messiah wasn’t going to be in dread and terror of God. Rather it can be seen as the Messiah loving, reverencing, and giving glory to the Father.

I honor My Father.[19]

[Jesus] lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son that the Son may glorify You.”[20]



Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him.”[21]

There are examples of people in the Old and New Testaments who honored and revered God, and thus were said to fear Him.

[The Lord] said [to Abraham], “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”[22]

There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.[23]

At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort, a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God.[24]

By contrast, there are those who are unbelievers or are wicked, who are said to have no fear of God, meaning no reverence, respect, or honor for God.

Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart; there is no fear of God before his eyes.[25]

Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.[26]

It will not be well with the wicked, neither will he prolong his days like a shadow, because he does not fear before God.[27]

Your evil will chastise you, and your apostasy will reprove you. Know and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the Lord your God; the fear of Me is not in you, declares the Lord God of hosts.[28]

As saved Christians, we need not have the dread of punishment for our sins, for Jesus has already taken that punishment on Himself through His death on the cross. We have been forgiven for our sins and delivered from the “wages of sin” through the gift of God of salvation and eternal life with God.

That doesn’t mean there won’t be any consequences for our sins in this life; nor does it mean that God will countenance willful sin and disobedience of His moral laws. The Bible does speak of chastisement or being disciplined. Chastisement in Scripture is generally spoken of as training or causing one to learn, the molding of the character by reproof or admonition, which is quite different from punishment for our sins. The Lord may chastise us in some way for our sins for the purpose of teaching us or molding us, which is an act of His love.



For the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and chastises every son whom He receives.[29]

As believers, the right reaction to all God is and has done is having the fear of the Lord—in the sense of veneration and devotion, of reverence and deference, of worship and devotion, as well as awe and wonder. When we think of His creating the universe, from all of the stars to subatomic particles, we can only marvel at His power and glory. When we realize that as human beings we sin and therefore deserve His punishment, but that because of His love He made our salvation and reconciliation possible, then the correct response is praise and worship, honor, love, obedience, and reverence. It’s all part of acknowledging that He is God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

There are blessings in store for those who honor Him in this way.

Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in His commandments![30]

Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in His ways![31]

Oh, how abundant is Your goodness, which You have stored up for those who fear You and worked for those who take refuge in You, in the sight of the children of mankind![32]

The time for the dead to be judged, and for rewarding Your servants, the prophets and saints, and those who fear Your name, both small and great.[33]

Those of us who love the Lord don’t need to have the type of fear that causes us to be afraid of God and His wrath. We are part of His family, having been given this right through our faith in Jesus. Our sins are forgiven, so we won’t face the punishment of God. We are redeemed. Our relationship with the Lord is one of love, of gratitude, of praise and worship. As such, we are rightly to fear the Lord by giving Him our love, obeying His Word, and living in a manner that glorifies Him, for He is infinitely worthy.

Worthy are You, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things, and by Your will they existed and were created.[34]


Notes

Unless otherwise indicated, all scriptures are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.



[1] Psalm 112:1.


[2] Psalm 31:19.


[3] Psalm 111:10.


[4] Proverbs 1:7.


[5] Proverbs 10:27.


[6] Proverbs 14:27.


[7] Proverbs 19:23.


[8] Ecclesiastes 8:12.


[9] Proverbs 15:16.


[10] Psalm 25:14.


[11] Psalm 34:7.


[12] Psalm 34:9.


[13] Psalm 115:13.


[14] Proverbs 22:4.


[15] Isaiah 2:19.


[16] Hebrews 10:29–31.


[17] Matthew 10:28.


[18] Isaiah 11:2–3.


[19] John 8:49.


[20] John 17:1.


[21] John 13:31.


[22] Genesis 22:12.


[23] Job 1:1.


[24] Acts 10:1–2.


[25] Psalm 36:1.


[26] Romans 3:14–18.


[27] Ecclesiastes 8:13.


[28] Jeremiah 2:19.


[29] Hebrews 12:6.


[30] Psalm 112:1.


[31] Psalm 128:1.


[32] Psalm 31:19.


[33] Revelation 11:18.


[34] Revelation 4:11.

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The Heart of It All: Sin

By Peter Amersterdam

September 18, 2012
What Is Sin?

This set of articles is going to address the topic of sin. It will cover the definitions of sin, the origins of sin and its effects on humanity and the world, and will touch on God’s plan for redemption from sin. (Redemption will be covered at length in future articles.)

Sin is an important topic to cover, since it affects the life of every human being and is what has caused the separation of humans from God. Thankfully, God, in His love and mercy, has made salvation from sin available to humanity through Jesus’ suffering and death. As Christians, we have the incredible blessing of being forgiven for and redeemed from our sins. We are saved from the punishment of sin in the afterlife, a gift which is of inestimable value, as we will live forever with God. Sadly, we live in a world with many who don’t know that salvation is available. It is our mission as Christians to share the good news of the Gospel with them.

As Christians, it is important for us to understand the various aspects and effects of sin in our personal lives as well as in the lives of others we are trying to reach and help; also, it motivates us to bring the good news of salvation from sin to those who haven’t yet received it. It also helps us to better understand and explain to others why evil things happen in our world, and the origin of many of the problems and suffering humankind faces today. Having a fuller picture of sin helps us to better understand and communicate to others the need for and importance of salvation, while bringing about a deeper appreciation for our own salvation and what we’ve been saved from. While we’ve been blessed with redemption, for those who reject salvation, the effects of sin will have serious long-term consequences, not just in this life but in the life to come.

Christian philosopher Rufus M. Jones offers the following exposition of sin:

Sin is no abstract dogma. It is not a debt which somebody can pay and so wash off the slate. Sin is a fact within our lives. It is a condition of heart and will. There is no sin apart from a sinner. Wherever sin exists there is a conscious deviation from a standard, a sag of the nature, and it produces an effect upon the entire personality. The person who sins disobeys a sense of right. He falls below his vision of the good. He sees a path, but he does not walk in it. He hears a voice, but he says “no” instead of “yes.” He is aware of a higher self which makes its appeal, but he lets the lower have the reins. There is no description of sin anywhere to compare with the powerful narrative out of the actual life of the Apostle Paul, found in Romans 7:9–25. The thing which moves us as we read it is the picture here drawn of our own state. A lower nature dominates us and spoils our life. “What I would, I do not; what I would not, that I do.”[1]

The main topic of these articles is sin in humanity in general and the effects and consequences of sin on human beings overall. It will also touch on the sins or weaknesses of Christians, but that is not the main focus.
What Sin Is

The most common Hebrew word used for sin in the Old Testament is chata, which is defined as “to miss the goal or path of right and duty, to miss the mark, to wander from the way.” The Old Testament also uses words translated as to break off (as in breaking God’s covenant), transgression of God’s will, rebellion, going astray.

The New Testament uses a variety of words when speaking of sin. These are translated as violate, transgress, overstep, miss the mark, go past, fall beside, failure, wrongdoing, deviate from the right path, turn aside, a deviation from truth and uprightness, unrighteousness of heart and life, lawlessness, ungodliness, unbelief, rebellious disobedience, and falling away.

Some definitions of sin from theologians are as follows:

Sin may be defined as the personal act of turning away from God and His will. It is the transgression of God’s law … the violation of God’s command. It is the turning away from God’s expressed will.[2]



We define sin in general as a deviation from the divine moral law, no matter whether that law has been written in the human heart, or communicated to man by positive precept [through Scripture].[3]



Sin is any failure to conform to the moral law of God in act, attitude, or nature.[4]

While God has expressed His will and moral law through the Bible, there was a time when the Bible didn’t exist. There are also many who haven’t heard of it or read it, or don’t know that it contains truth about God and His will. However, all throughout history humans have inherently known God’s moral law to some extent, as God has embedded it in the heart of each person.



When Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them.[5]

While many people do not specifically know the moral laws of God as expressed in Scripture, everyone has a basic understanding that murder, stealing, lying, etc., are wrong, which is evidence of an overall moral consciousness that humans have. This understanding is often referred to as natural law or moral law and is contained within the Ten Commandments, some of which state:

You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.[6]

Because humans have intuitive knowledge of the moral law within them, they have a sense of what is right and what is wrong, of moral accountability. Their conscience “bears witness.”

J. I. Packer offers the following explanation:



Conscience has in it two elements, (a) an awareness of certain things as being right and wrong, and (b) an ability to apply laws and rules to specific situations. Conscience, as distinct from our other powers of mind, is unique; it feels like a person detached from us, often speaking when we would like it to be silent and saying things that we would rather not hear. We can decide whether to heed conscience, but we cannot decide whether or not it will speak; our experience is that it decides that for itself. Because of its insistence on judging us by the highest standard we know, we call it God’s voice in the soul, and in that extent so it is.[7]

Wayne Grudem explains it this way:



The consciences of unbelievers bear witness to God’s moral standards, but at times this evidence of God’s law on the hearts of unbelievers is distorted or suppressed. Sometimes their thoughts “accuse” them, and sometimes their thoughts “excuse” them, Paul says. The knowledge of God’s law as derived from such sources is never perfect, but it is enough to give an awareness of God’s moral demands to all mankind. (And it is on this basis that Paul argues that all humanity is held guilty before God for sin, even those who do not have the written laws of God in Scripture.)[8]

God’s expressed moral law and will in Scripture, and each person having an intuitive knowledge of the moral law and a conscience that bears witness when they break the moral law, means that all humans—whether they know Scripture or not—are aware that they fail to conform to or that they deviate from the moral law, and that they are doing wrong.



Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.[9]

While the sins humans commit are often sins against others, such as stealing from someone or lying about them, and while these sins can also damage the person committing the sin, they are first and foremost sins against God. To do such things is to break the moral laws of God; however, more importantly, these are sins against the Lawgiver Himself. They are an affront to His holiness and righteousness, and cause a separation between human beings and Him.


Sin Is Universal

The Bible teaches that sin is universal—that every human being, with the exception of Jesus, has been and is a sinner. Both the Old and New Testaments speak of everyone as sinners and no one as fully righteous.



All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.[10]

No one living is righteous before You.[11]

Who can say, “I have made my heart pure; I am clean from my sin”?[12]

Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.[13]

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.[14]

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.[15]

The universality of sin is a concept that is present even in many pagan religions, which confirms that humankind has an intuitive understanding of God’s moral law, and of man’s sinful condition. Throughout the ages, religions made sacrifices because they believed they had displeased their gods.

Rufus M. Jones writes:

That is human nature. That feeling is deep-rooted in man wherever he is found. He is conscious that sin separates and he feels that something costly and precious is required to close the chasm. Sacrifice is one of the deepest and most permanent facts of the budding spiritual life. Its origin is far back in history. The tattered papyrus, the fragment of baked clay, the pictorial inscription of the most primitive sort, all bear witness to this immemorial custom. It is as old as smiling or weeping, as hard to trace to a beginning as loving or hating. It is bound up with man’s sense of guilt, and was born when conscience was born.[16]

Louis Berkhof wrote:

The heathen religions testify to the universal consciousness of sin and of the need of reconciliation with a Supreme Being. There is a general feeling that the gods are offended and must be propitiated in some way. There is a universal voice of conscience, testifying to the fact that man falls short of the ideal and stands condemned in the sight of some higher Power. Altars reeking with the blood of sacrifices, often the sacrifices of dear children, repeated confessions of wrongdoing, and prayers for deliverance from evil—all point to the consciousness of sin.[17]
Where Did Sin Originate?

Before God created the universe, sin didn’t exist, as only God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—existed. It is clear from Scripture that God is holy and that He doesn’t abide evil and doesn’t sin. Therefore, sin would not have been present before God created the angels.

When God created moral beings, angels and humans, He created them with free will. He created them with the ability to make moral choices, and in doing so, made it possible for them to choose to do good and right. However, giving them free will also allowed for the possibility for them to choose to do wrong. Their freewill choice to disobey God is where sin originated. God did not cause the moral beings He created to sin. However, they freely chose to disobey His commands and expressed will, and thus to sin. (More on this below.)

God is not the author of sin. He is holy; He separates Himself from sin. He doesn’t commit sin, He does no wickedness or wrong, and He doesn’t tempt people to do evil. Evil is the absence of good. It’s not a physical thing that is created. Evil is, in a sense, the absence of God, just as darkness is the absence of light. God couldn’t create evil, as if He did, He would be acting against His nature and character, which God does not do, and in fact cannot do. Let’s take a brief look at how the Bible expresses God’s holiness and righteousness and His outlook on sin:

The Rock, His work is perfect, for all His ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is He.[18]

The Lord is upright; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.[19]

Far be it from God that He should do wickedness, and from the Almighty that He should do wrong.[20]

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and He Himself tempts no one.[21]

In the King James Version of the Bible there is a verse which says, I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.[22] This translation can be seen as meaning that God created moral evil. While the Hebrew noun ra, translated as evil, can mean moral evil, it has other meanings as well, such as disaster or calamity, which aren’t moral evils. Most modern translations don’t use the word evil in this verse, but rather disaster or calamity. The ESV renders the verse this way:

I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord, who does all these things.

God hates sin and it is an abomination to Him.

These are the things that you shall do: Speak the truth to one another; render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace; do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath, for all these things I hate, declares the Lord.[23]

There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to Him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.[24]

For all who do such things, all who act dishonestly, are an abomination to the Lord your God.[25]

The Lord tests the righteous, but His soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.[26]

While God didn’t create or cause sin, He did create a universe with creatures that have free will, which meant that His free-will creatures could choose to do wrong. In His omniscience and foreknowledge He knew this would happen, and in His love and mercy He made the way to reconcile humankind to Himself.

Theologian Jack Cottrell states:

If there were only rocks and trees and animals, “right and wrong” would still not be applicable. But with the creation of angels and men, who have the unique capacity consciously to choose to act either within or against the will of God, right and wrong suddenly become meaningful concepts, since there now exists the potential for the reality of moral evil or sin.[27]



Before the first humans sinned, sin was present in the spiritual or angelic world. Angels were created as immaterial beings without physical bodies. They are created moral beings with free will and the ability to choose to do right or wrong, as evidenced by the fact that at some point they were faced with a moral choice in which some angels chose wrongly and fell away from God while others chose to remain true to God. Not much is said in Scripture about the fall of the angels, as to when it happened or what the sin was, though it is commonly understood to be pride. In any case, some of the angels sinned and are thus separated from God. They are now referred to as fallen angels and their leader as the Devil, or Satan.

God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment …[28]

The angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, He has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day.[29]

Then He will say to those on His left, “Depart from Me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”[30]

The next article will discuss sin’s entrance into the world of humanity.



[1] Rufus M. Jones, The Double Search—Studies in Atonement and Prayer (Philadelphia, PA: John C. Winston Co., 1906), 60–61.


[2] J. Rodman Williams, Renewal Theology, Systematic Theology from a Charismatic Perspective, Vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996), 222.


[3] John Theodore Mueller, Christian Dogmatics, A Handbook of Doctrinal Theology for Pastors, Teachers, and Laymen (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1934), 212.


[4] Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids, MI: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 490.


[5] Romans 2:14–15.


[6] Exodus 20:13–17.


[7] J. I. Packer, Concise Theology, chapter Conscience (Carol Stream, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, 1993), 96.


[8] Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids, MI: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 122.


[9] Romans 3:19.


[10] Isaiah 53:6.


[11] Psalm 143:2.


[12] Proverbs 20:9.


[13] Ecclesiastes 7:20.


[14] 1 John 1:8.


[15] Romans 3:23.


[16] Rufus M. Jones, The Double Search—Studies in Atonement and Prayer (Philadelphia, PA: John C. Winston Co., 1906), 66–67.


[17] Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1996), 239.


[18] Deuteronomy 32:4.


[19] Psalm 92:15.


[20] Job 34:10.


[21] James 1:13.


[22] Isaiah 45:7.


[23] Zechariah 8:16–17.


[24] Proverbs 6:16–19.


[25] Deuteronomy 25:16.


[26] Psalm 11:5.


[27] Jack Cottrell, What the Bible Says About God the Redeemer (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2000), 249.


[28] 2 Peter 2:4.


[29] Jude 6.


[30] Matthew 25:41.


Copyright © 2012 The Family International.

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Selling War to the Public – An Interview with James Corbett

via GlobalResearch.ca

Interview with James Corbett of The Corbett Report pertaining to war propaganda, the ongoing crisis in Syria and the role of what he describes as “the real alternative media”. The real alternative media is independent and grassroots, and is not funded by the NGOs or foundations. Devon DB begs the question: How can people break free from the current system of oppression and media disinformation?

* * *

Devon DB: What is your opinion of the ongoing crisis in Syria?

James Corbett: The crisis in Syria can only be understood through the lens of what the mainstream Western media is leaving out of their reporting, namely the ongoing, on-the-record support of outside actors in arming, equipping, and training the so-called “opposition” that is currently waging a ground war against the Syrian government.

This help is coming in the form of equipment and tactical involvement from the US State Department and the CIA, arms and supplies from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, logistical support and operational bases in Turkey, and armed militants associated with Al Qaeda and other Wahabbi Sunni terror organizations from Libya, Iraq, and elsewhere. In this context, the constant demands of Clinton and other Western representatives for Russia to “stop arming Assad” can be seen as the hypocritical and deeply dishonest position that it is.

In fact, the entire conflict can only be understood when it is seen not as the spontaneous outgrowth of a popular internal resistance, as portrayed by the West, but as a foreign-funded and armed terrorist insurgency whose open terror campaign of car bombings, ethnic cleansing and other war crimes are consistently praised as heroic by the new “humanitarian interventionists” of the neoliberal imperialist set. Given what has taken place in Libya in recent days, those gun-ho interventionists who are currently praising the “Syrian freedom fighters” would be well-served to contemplate who it is they are helping to bring to power in Damascus.

Devon DB: Many in the alternative media are focusing on the actions of the rebels, while, some would say, ignoring the actions of the Assad regime. This usually results in one being accused of being a regime supporter. Why do you think that the focus is so much on the rebels rather than on the regime and how would you respond to such accusations as being a regime supporter?

James Corbett: Selling war to the public has always involved portraying the issue as a clear-cut case of black and white, good and evil. Once the issue is framed in that way, anyone who opposes the war can be portrayed as a supporter of evil. In every instance, the case for peace is effectively taken off the table by arguing that “if you’re not for the war, you’re supporting X,” where X is the boogeyman du jour.

This has transitioned easily from the Bush era “axis of evil” and “war on terror” to the Obama era of “humanitarian intervention.” The rhetoric and reasoning are virtually identical, but they have been transposed into a liberal-friendly context. This thinking necessarily begs the question of who gets to decide who to “help” and what groups will take over in the aftermath. I do not support Assad any more than I supported Gaddafi or Assad. But neither do I support Mugabe, or the Al Khalifa dynasty in Bahrain, or the House of Saud, or Netanyahu, or any of the other leaders of repressive regimes. Why is one leader demonized and the other feted? The answer is obvious.

So the question is whether refusing to support the bombing and military invasion of a foreign country is morally equivalent to supporting that government’s leader. This comes down to the question of moral responsibility. As a Canadian citizen in Japan I have absolutely no control over what happens in Syria. I do have a say over what the Canadian government does, what actions it takes, and what its military does. When it lends its support to the bombardment of Libya, I become implicated in the deaths of those civilians who were killed in those strikes. So it is up to us to stop the violence, bloodshed and power grabs made by our leaders under the guise of “humanitarian intervention” as it is up to the people of Syria to deal with the Assad government however they can. This is the nature of moral responsibility.

Devon DB: In the alternative media, we have read and heard time and again that the situation is Syria could lead to “a World War 3 scenario.” Do you actually think that this is possible?

James Corbett: If NATO were to roll into Damascus tomorrow with guns blazing, there would be military repercussions. Russia has face to save in the Syria situation as well as strategic interests to protect in the country, so it would not sit idly by while the country is taken over by a foreign military. This is precisely why there has been no direct military intervention by any outside military, nor is there likely to be barring some international outrage like a false flag event.

More worrying, perhaps, is the relentless, years-long campaign by Israel to drum up support for a military strike on Iran. Such an event is very much on the table, very much a possibility, and would almost inevitably draw Russia, China, and other military powers into armed conflict with the NATO powers, which very well could lead to a third world war scenario.

Devon DB: Switching gears now, how would you define alternative media and what do you think its purpose is?

James Corbett: There are two types of alternative media. There is the establishment alternative media and the real alternative media. The establishment alternative media is usually funded (at least partially) by the big name foundations and NGOs with ties back to the usual cast of behind-the-scenes oligarchs. They will present differing views from the mainstream media, and often offer more balanced, thoughtful and contextual reports to their audience. When it comes to key paradigmatic issues like the necessity of R2P or the responsibility of Al Qaeda for 9/11, however, they will circle the wagons and defend the system.

The real alternative media is independent and grassroots, and is not funded by the NGOs or foundations. As a citizen journalist movement, it cannot be defined by any particular ideology or viewpoint; it is a representative of the population at large. Given this media landscape, it is tempting to portray the mainstream and establishment alternative media as inherently bad and the real alternative media as inherently good, but this is too simplistic.

The establishment media occasionally does good work and often reports true facts (with heavy amounts of spin and lies by omission). The establishment alternative media contains some of the best critiques of the prevailing mainstream opinion, even if those critiques are careful never to cross certain lines. The real alternative media is completely unmuzzled, but it is also unfiltered. There will be brilliant examples of truly independent reporting and analysis, and there will be dreadful examples of unreasoned speculation. No one medium is inherently good, and it is up to all of us to do the (sometimes laborious) work of piecing together the truth from a myriad of sources, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, good points and blind spots.

Devon DB: What role would you say the Corbett Report plays in the overall alternative media scene?

James Corbett: The Corbett Report is nothing more nor less than my own attempt to fill in the context that is being left out of much of the so-called debate in the mainstream and establishment alternative media. Initially spurred on by the dreadful lack of contextualization of the events of 9/11 in the media, I have branched out my own investigation into economic, social, geopolitical, scientific and philosophical matters. Through my tendency to link back all of my factual statements to source documents, I hope to be in the process of creating a resource that will be valuable for those who are seeking to come to a better understanding of the world at large.

Devon DB: Why do you think more and more people seem to be turning to the alternative media?


James Corbett: The internet has surpassed newspapers and is the process of eclipsing television as the main source for news and information for most people. This means necessarily that more people are turning to the types of alternative media outlets that can only be found on the web to keep them informed about the world. There are a number of technological and social factors that are playing into this transformation, but the number one issue has to be the public’s growing awareness of the information controls that exist in the traditional media. With the internet, people are suddenly able to become their own editors, deciding what stories are important, what sources are reliable, and what pieces of information are worth pursuing.
Why would anyone relinquish the power that comes from this very liberating experience of the world of information back into the hands of a few corporations run by the same few rich, well-connected men who have a vested interest in keeping the current order the way it is? And now that social media and blogging are making the tools for creating media platforms accessible by nearly everyone on the planet, the very idea that “news” is something that is organized by some centralized company in New York or London or Tokyo is being overthrown. The end of the old media paradigm is already here, the newspaper, magazine and tv companies just don’t know it yet.

Devon DB: In your podcasts and radio shows, you have used the term “global enslavement grid” or variations of it. What exactly do you mean by that term?

James Corbett: The global enslavement grid is an interlocking system of economic, social, political and psychological controls that have been put in place to direct society toward a planned future global government structure. Although it has existed in some form or other for centuries (and, presumably, millennia), its modern form can be traced back to the British eugenicists of the late 19th century and the Fabian socialists of the early 20th century. One can trace a line stretching from Francis Galton to Paul Ehrlich, going through such figures as H.G. Wells, Julian Huxley, Walter Lippmann, B.F. Skinner and Bertrand Russell, amongst others, who were all obsessed with the problem of how to create a well-ordered society through scientific methods. To one extent or another, they all wrestled with the question of society and how it is to be governed, as well as the possibility of using scientific methods to control the lower strata of society for the benefit of a ruling elite.

We see this coming to fruition in the creation of the modern surveillance society, where the centuries-old idea of the panopticon is being implemented at a societal level, and in the modern environmental movement, which has produced in many the conviction that humanity itself is a cancer and that the control (and eventual eradication) of humans is in itself a good thing. The history of the development of this enslavement grid and the ways that it operates is too large to encapsulate in short form like this, and it’s difficult to do justice to an idea this expansive in so few words. Articulating the enslavement grid has been one of the primary goals of my website, which has so far produced thousands of hours of media and will hopefully be able to produce many thousands more, exploring this idea and its development, as well as fruitful forms of resistance for those who are opposed to this agenda.

Devon DB: How do you think people can unplug from this matrix that has been created by the elites and is fed to us on a daily basis?

James Corbett: The most important thing people can do (and what I have come to believe is the only thing that people can do) is to realize that the power to change society truly rests with you. We tend to shunt off the big questions about “how to change the world” to the political arena, where we can support this or that political movement or put our hopes in this or that political candidate. This is part of the global enslavement grid itself. By constantly focusing on what is outside of us and waiting for a savior to come and put society back in order, we are ceding our power over our own lives to the very corporate-military-banking-governmental superstructure that is creating the global dictatorship that we are seeking to resist. Worse yet, we continue to support that very structure in the most straightforward way possible: by buying their products, shopping at their stores, banking at their banks, and voting for their politicians. How can we possibly presume to have any effect on changing the current course of society when we are still supporting the very corporations, businesses, governments and institutions that are behind it with our time, money, and energy on a day to day basis?

The only solution is to begin to create the alternative society that we want to live in. That means beginning the long, hard process of decoupling ourselves from the corporate/retail/banking system that we are born into and transitioning into a local, independent economy that bypasses that corporate structure altogether. There are thousands of ways to do this: growing your own food, buying what you need at local markets and independent retailers, participating in local alternative currency systems, supporting independent alternative media and detaching ourselves from the technology that is increasingly embedding us in this matrix. It is not an easy process, and in all likelihood it is a generational project. But it will not begin unless we take those first steps.

James Corbett is an independent journalist based in Japan. He is the producer of The Corbett Report. He is also producer and film director for Global Research TV.

Devon DB is a 20 year old independent writer and researcher. He is studying political science at Fairleigh Dickinson University. He can be contacted at devondb[at]mail[dot]com.

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I Love to Speak to You!

By M. Fontaine

Download Audio (5.66MB)

Here is a beautiful message of encouragement regarding hearing from the Lord in prophecy, which has good promises we all can claim. The Lord clearly says here that it really doesn’t matter how we feel—whether we’re “good” enough or “spiritual” enough—all we have to do is ask Him for the faith to receive His answers, and He will give them. We have to do our part, but when it comes down to it, the Lord is the one who has to do the miracle. “Faithful is He that calleth you, who also will do it!”1

The Enemy would love to use condemnation to stop us from clearly receiving the Lord’s messages, or having faith in them once we receive them, by trying to make us feel that because we’re such a mess, we must not be very clear channels either. The Lord knows that we’re a mess—and He still allows us to hear from Him! So don’t let the Enemy stop you through his ploy of condemnation. Open up and receive the loving words Jesus has for you. Prophecy is His gift of love to you, to make your life easier and more complete!

Jesus says:

It doesn’t matter how you feel or how you don’t feel, or what you think when you sit down to pray and hear from Me in prophecy—because I can and will override all of your ways completely if you will just ask Me to.

If you feel discouraged and as if you can’t do it, that you can’t be desperate enough, you can’t be good enough to receive something as wonderful as My messages from heaven—all you have to do is ask Me to override those feelings and replace them with a gift of faith.

You don’t have to have great faith; you just need the simple faith of a little child. Just ask Me for the faith of a child who reaches up and receives her Father’s gifts. She doesn’t think about it and analyze the message, because she has childlike faith and trusts that her Father knows what He’s doing and He knows what’s best, and all she has to do is trust.

If you’re ever tempted to feel discouraged that you’re not spiritual enough, or good enough to receive My wonderful, life-changing words of prophecy, remember that I have often chosen the weak things of this world, the despised things, and the people whom most others look down on in scorn and disbelief to accomplish My will.2 I like to use little people, even the underdogs that no one else wants, but who have a burning love for Me and are willing to do whatever I ask of them.

I love to use men or women who don’t think much of themselves and are little in their own eyes, so that I can pour through them and give My wonderful life-giving words through them. I delight to use you, and sometimes it’s even when you feel the least usable and the most incapable that I use you the most, because that’s when you’re the most desperate for Me to do it through you.

So don’t worry if you feel incapable. It’s good to stay humble and be desperate when you sit down to pray, because then you are open to My Spirit, My anointing, and My help.

This feeling of weakness can be a strength—that feeling of being incapable, that scary feeling that you can’t do it, that awesome feeling that it’s too big for you, too much, too great, that you’re too small and incapable. If that feeling keeps you desperate and dependent on Me, then it becomes a strength to you.

So don’t despise the weakness, the insecurity, and the feeling of being incapable. Don’t let the Enemy discourage you.

Whenever the Enemy tempts you to feel discouraged, that you’re not doing good enough, you’re not receiving good messages or clear messages from Me, or that it’s too hard and takes too long—just remember that if something discourages you from hearing from Me, that’s not My voice speaking to you.3

If you are tempted to feel that it’s too hard and it takes too long to hear from Me, remember that’s not true and that it doesn’t matter how long it takes. It’s not a competition. You can’t listen to the voice of discouragement, or to anything negative when it comes to prophecy and hearing from Me. I say you can hear from Me, and I will continue to help you each time you ask to receive from Me. I will speak and I will pour into you.

You must have believing faith, faith that trusts and believes and receives, no matter how hard it might seem, no matter how long it takes, no matter how you feel at the time, no matter what you think about yourself or the message I’m giving you. You have to set all of that aside, and reach up and receive.

If you’re obeying, listening, and doing your best to stay in tune, to stay close to Me and to keep your heart right with Me, you have nothing to worry about and nothing to fear. Just keep close to Me and trust Me to do everything else.

Opening up your channel to Me is often a test of faith in many ways, and sometimes it’s a struggle or difficult, because you’re receiving My words from heaven—you’re receiving life and light and spirit—so the Enemy fights it and he fights you to try to hinder you and stop your faith. But even that can be good, because it keeps you humble, and that keeps you close to Me and dependent upon Me. So it all works together for good and for My glory.

I promise that as you obey, as you manifest faith, as you stay prayerful and desperate and close to Me, I will always give you My words.



Originally published April 1998. Updated and republished September 2012.
Read by Bethany Kelly.


1 1 Thessalonians 5:24.

2 1 Corinthians 1:27–29.

3 John 8:44.

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Life is Irreducibly Complex

As we learn more about biological life, it becomes increasingly apparent that its similarity to complex machines is startlingly strong. Yet, because science has been redefined to exclude the possibility of a designer, we are left without any plausible explanation of how life developed.

Michael Behe is a biochemistry professor at Lehigh University who wonderfully illustrates the similarity between mechanical machines and biological life in his book, Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution. According to Dr. Behe, even at the smallest biochemical level, life is made up of irreducibly complex machines. Although these machines are made of proteins instead of metal, their complexity is proof that they could only have been produced by an incomprehensibly intelligent designer.

The perfect example of an irreducibly complex machine is the simple mouse trap. This machine consists of at least five parts: the platform, the spring, the hammer, the catch, and the hold-down latch bar. The absence of any one of these components will turn the machine into a piece of useless junk. Furthermore, each of the components has to be designed to a specific size and positioned in a specific place in order for the mouse trap to function. Thus, the simple mousetrap is irreducibly complex … it will not function unless all five pieces are in place. It is this interdependence of the individual parts which makes it so obvious that the simple mousetrap has a designer.

Biological life is also made from irreducibly complex structures, even at the smallest molecular level. For instance, there are millions of organisms, including human bodies, which use a structure called a cilium to either swim or move things around within a creature. Cilia are hair-like structures attached to cells which beat like a whip in order to move foreign particles out of our lungs. Sperm also use cilia to swim. Because these structures are so biologically important and so widespread throughout the animal kingdom, Dr. Behe estimates that TEN THOUSAND technical papers have been published on various aspects of cilia.

Like the mouse trap, cilia require several components in order to operate. In the case of a mousetrap, the components are specifically sized pieces of metal and wood. In the case of cilia, they are specifically shaped proteins. The absolute minimum number of components needed for a cilium to operate are three: proteins forming the hair-like fibers (the rotor), proteins linking the adjacent fibers so that they do not fly apart (links), and proteins which contract to cause its whipping motion (the motor). Without all three of these components - the structure would not function. Thus, cilia are irreducibly complex machines. In reality, cilia contain hundreds of different proteins and all are required for its operation. But even these three specific proteins could never have formed by chance mutations. All three are specifically designed to function together and if any one as missing, the cilia could not operate. Thus, the cilia would become a useless drag line hindering the motion of the organism rather than aiding its survival.

In Dr. Behe’s words, “The amount of scientific research which has been done... leads many people to assume that even if they don’t know how cilia evolved, somebody must know. But the search of professional literature proves them wrong. Nobody knows.”

Nobody knows where cilia came from because cilia are irreducibly complex and can never be explained without a supernatural designer. Yet most biochemists are trained to ignore this possibility when examining biological features. If the correct answer has been eliminated; is it any wonder that ten thousand papers can be written on cilia and not one can explain their origin?

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The forgotten massacre: “In a free society some are guilty, but all are responsible.”

Robert Fisk, The Independent, 15 September 2012
The memories remain, of course. But—like the muck piled on the garbage tip amid the concrete hovels—the stench of injustice still pervades the camps where 1,700 Palestinians were butchered 30 years ago next week. No-one was tried and sentenced for a slaughter, which even an Israeli writer at the time compared to the killing of Yugoslavs by Nazi sympathisers in the Second World War. Sabra and Chatila are a memorial to criminals who evaded responsibility, who got away with it.

Khaled Abu Noor was in his teens, a would-be militiaman who had left the camp for the mountains before Israel’s Phalangist allies entered Sabra and Chatila. Did this give him a guilty conscience, that he was not there to fight the rapists and murderers? “What we all feel today is depression,” he said. “We demanded justice, international trials—but there was nothing. Not a single person was held responsible. No-one was put before justice. And so we had to suffer in the 1986 camps war (at the hands of Shia Lebanese) and so the Israelis could slaughter so many Palestinians in the 2008-9 Gaza war. If there had been trials for what happened here 30 years ago, the Gaza killings would not have happened.”

He has a point, of course. While presidents and prime ministers have lined up in Manhattan to mourn the dead of the 2001 international crimes against humanity at the World Trade Centre, not a single Western leader has dared to visit the dank and grubby Sabra and Chatila mass graves, shaded by a few scruffy trees and faded photographs of the dead. Nor, let it be said—in 30 years—has a single Arab leader bothered to visit the last resting place of at least 600 of the 1,700 victims. Arab potentates bleed in their hearts for the Palestinians but an airfare to Beirut might be a bit much these days—and which of them would want to offend the Israelis or the Americans?

It is an irony—but an important one, nonetheless—that the only nation to hold a serious official enquiry into the massacre, albeit flawed, was Israel. The Israeli army sent the killers into the camps and then watched—and did nothing—while the atrocity took place. A certain Israeli Lieutenant Avi Grabowsky gave the most telling evidence of this. The Kahan Commission held the then defence minister Ariel Sharon personally responsible, since he sent the ruthless anti-Palestinian Phalangists into the camps to “flush out terrorists”—“terrorists” who turned out to be as non-existent as Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction 21 years later.

Sharon lost his job but later became prime minister, until broken by a stroke which he survived—but which took from him even the power of speech. Elie Hobeika, the Lebanese Christian militia leader who led his murderers into the camp—after Sharon had told the Phalange that Palestinians had just assassinated their leader, Bashir Gemayel—was murdered years later in east Beirut. His enemies claimed the Syrians killed him, his friends blamed the Israelis; Hobeika, who had “gone across” to the Syrians, had just announced he would “tell all” about the Sabra and Chatila atrocity at a Belgian court, which wished to try Sharon.

Of course, those of us who entered the camps on the third and final day of the massacre—18 September, 1982—have our own memories. I recall the old man in pyjamas lying on his back on the main street with his innocent walking stick beside him, the two women and a baby shot next to a dead horse, the private house in which I sheltered from the killers with my colleague Loren Jenkins of The Washington Post—only to find a dead young woman lying in the courtyard beside us. Some of the women had been raped before their killing. The armies of flies, the smell of decomposition. These things one remembers.

Abu Maher is 65—like Khaled Abu Noor, his family originally fled their homes in Safad in present-day Israel—and stayed in the camp throughout the massacre, at first disbelieving the women and children who urged him to run from his home. “A woman neighbour started screaming and I looked out and saw her shot dead and her daughter tried to run away and the killers chased her, saying “Kill her, kill her, don’t let her go!” She shouted to me and I could do nothing. But she escaped.”

Repeated trips back to the camp, year after year, have built up a narrative of astonishing detail. Investigations by Karsten Tveit of Norwegian radio and myself proved that many men, seen by Abu Maher being marched away alive after the initial massacre, were later handed by the Israelis back to the Phalangist killers—who held them prisoner for days in eastern Beirut and then, when they could not swap them for Christian hostages, executed them at mass graves.

And the arguments in favour of forgetfulness have been cruelly deployed. Why remember a few hundred Palestinians slaughtered when 25,000 have been killed in Syria in 19 months?

Supporters of Israel and critics of the Muslim world have written to me in the last couple of years, abusing me for referring repeatedly to the Sabra and Chatila massacre, as if my own eye-witness account of this atrocity has—like a war criminal—a statute of limitations. Given these reports of mine (compared to my accounts of Turkish oppression) one reader has written to me that “I would conclude that, in this case (Sabra and Chatila), you have an anti-Israeli bias. This is based solely on the disproportionate number of references you make to this atrocity…”

But can one make too many? Dr Bayan al-Hout, widow of the PLO’s former ambassador to Beirut, has written the most authoritative and detailed account of the Sabra and Chatila war crimes—for that is what they were—and concludes that in the years that followed, people feared to recall the event. “Then international groups started talking and enquiring. We must remember that all of us are responsible for what happened. And the victims are still scarred by these events—even those who are unborn will be scarred—and they need love.” In the conclusion to her book, Dr al-Hout asks some difficult—indeed, dangerous—questions: “Were the perpetrators the only ones responsible? Were the people who committed the crimes the only criminals? Were even those who issued the orders solely responsible? Who in truth is responsible?”

In other words, doesn’t Lebanon bear responsibility with the Phalangist Lebanese, Israel with the Israeli army, the West with its Israeli ally, the Arabs with their American ally? Dr al-Hout ends her investigation with a quotation from Rabbi Abraham Heschel who raged against the Vietnam war. “In a free society,” the Rabbi said, “some are guilty, but all are responsible.”

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Remembering 9/11: Extraordinary Stories From the Sidelines

Paul de Vries, Christian Post, Sep. 11, 2012
September 11, 2001 seems like yesterday. So much of what transpired then and in the days immediately following remain absolutely vivid in my mind. As that 9/11 Tuesday played out so painfully, and the scope of its tragedy was felt even more in immediate days thereafter. I faced frequent flash-backs to previous tragedies I had experienced—along with replayings of Scripture selections safely stored in my heart…and persistent prayers. Lord Jesus Christ, what is happening? How can I feel and affirm Your presence in this horrific tragedy? Please help me understand and reach out to the real needs of the people around me. Please, God, help me to receive and share your amazing grace, effectually, now.

My wife Vicki and I were on the way to our offices from a near suburb—hers for business, mine for teaching. The commuter train conductor made an announcement about the attacks, and then turned his radio on loudly for all in our train car to hear. Others joined from other cars. Vicki got off to catch the next train back home. I continued into Manhattan to be available, to see how I might help brothers and sisters, strangers and associates. And Vicki and I were both deeply concerned for the safety of our son Tor (Paul Victor) whose gifted-geek computer consulting office was close to the WTC (World Trade Center).

Getting to the office was a challenge. Out of concern for possible terrorists in the train tunnels, the conductors would not bring the commuter train closer than 125th Street. I quickly found a bus across town to Broadway, but no buses were going south. If there were terrorists on the ground, the city does not want to assist their movement.

A taxicab comes soon, and I ask to be dropped off at a place two blocks from my office. The eerie 9/11 streets zip by the cab windows, and the smoke rises from lower Manhattan. I pay the cabbie and enter the raw world of NYC streets and sidewalks, now densely-populated with pensive people.

Immediately, I see a tall, muscular, handsome African-American man in business attire, standing frozen by himself in the swirl of people on the sidewalk on Broadway, weeping uncontrollably. He and I firmly, silently hug. Minutes transpire; they seem forever. And there are no words.

“Can I help you, my brother?” I then gently inquire. “Yes! please,” he exclaims, his voice cracking. He recounts to me that he was supposed to be at work on the 86th floor by 8:30, but his 12-year-old disobedient daughter had made him very late. Always this daughter had been a nearly perfect “angel,” but that morning she had been a total pain in the anatomy! She could not find the dress she “had to wear,” and then could not find the right shoes to go with the dress. And then she remembered that she had more homework to finish and she could not bear go to school without the completed assignment. He had been yelling at her all the while, and then scolding her all the way down the street as he walked her to school. Now, what to do? He is now safe only because his “angel” had thrown him way off schedule. Does God work through “disobedient” angels? Together we briefly thank the Lord Jesus Christ for his daughter and her divine “disobedience” that morning. Then, at my suggestion, he literally runs through the crowded sidewalks back toward his daughter’s school to apologize to her and thank her for saving his life.

I run too—to my office two blocks away. The safety of our son is weighing heavily on my mind—as well as the welfare of my team, colleagues, students and friends. I guess that the office—a Grand Central Station in its own right—is the best place for me to reach out to others, and for them to reach me—by phone call or by paying a visit. Sure enough, as I unlock the door, the telephone rings. It is our son!

Tor had to be in the WTC that Tuesday, 9/11, and elsewhere on Monday, but at 3:00 AM Monday morning he had heard a literal voice from the Lord telling him to switch his appointments for the two days. He had seriously doubted, but obeyed, nevertheless. He did his business in the WTC on Monday, 9/10, and was many miles away on the morning of 9/11. We talk for a while. When we hang up, I shout some grateful praises to the Lord for His voice and His grace. Faithfully, we have taught our children to hear and to obey the Lord’s voice—not knowing that it could save their lives!

Soon I learn that earlier in that tragic morning a personal friend, a godly man—an air-conditioning-heating engineer—had scheduled an expert team meeting at 8:30 AM in a room high in one of the WTC towers, to plan air-quality improvements. He and the other engineers were coming from other buildings. However, at 7:15 he had an inexplicable “horrible feeling” about the meeting, and he called everyone to postpone it for another day.

As many as 30,000 people who “should have been” in the WTC that morning did not come—detained by a whole host of unusual factors.

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The March of Folly

By Uri Avnery, Antiwar.com, September 9, 2012
Nothing could be scarier than the thought that this duo—Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak—is in a position to start a war, the dimensions and outcome of which are incalculable.

It’s scary not only because of their ideological fixations and mental outlook, but also because of the level of their intelligence.

The last month gave us a small sample. By itself it was but a passing episode. But as an illustration of their decision-making abilities, it was frightening enough.

The routine conference of the Movement of Non-Aligned Nations was to take place in Tehran. One hundred twenty states promised to attend, many of them represented by their presidents or prime ministers.

This was bad news for the Israeli government, which has devoted much of its energies during the last three years to the strenuous effort to isolate Iran—while Iran was devoted to a no less strenuous effort to isolate Israel.

If the location of the conference was not bad enough, the United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, announced that he would attend, too. And as if this was still not bad enough, the new president of Egypt, Mohamed Mursi, also promised to come.

Netanyahu was faced with a problem: how to react?

If a wise expert had been consulted, he might have asked: Why react at all?

The Non-Aligned Movement is an empty shell. It was created (or “founded”) 51 years ago, at the height of the Cold War, by Nehru of India, Tito of Yugoslavia, Sukarno of Indonesia, and Abd-al-Nasser of Egypt. One hundred twenty nations joined. They wanted to steer a course between the American and the Soviet blocs.

Since then, circumstances have changed completely. The Soviets have disappeared, and the US is also not what it was. Tito, Nehru, Nasser, and Sukarno are all dead. The Non-Aligned have no real function anymore. But it is much easier to set up an international organization than to disband it. Its secretariat provides jobs, its conferences provide photo opportunities, and world leaders like to travel and schmooze.

If Netanyahu had kept quiet, chances are that the world media would have ignored the nonevent altogether. CNN and al-Jazeera might have devoted a full three minutes to it, out of courtesy, and that would have been that.

But for Netanyahu, keeping quiet is not an option. So he did something exceedingly foolish: he told Ban Ki-moon not to go to Tehran. More precisely, he ordered him not to go.

The aforementioned wise expert—if he existed—would have told Netanyahu “Don’t!” The Non-Aligned make up more than 60% of the U.N.’s membership. Ban wants to be re-elected in due course, and he is not going to insult 120 voters, much as you wouldn’t want to insult 80 members of the Knesset. His predecessors have attended all former conferences. He cannot refuse now—especially not after you publicly ordered him around.

Then there was Mursi. What to do about him?

If another wise expert, this time on Egypt, had been asked, he would have given much the same advice: let it be.

Egypt wants to resume its role as the leader of the Arab world and as an actor on the international stage. The new president, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, certainly would not want to be seen giving in to Israeli pressure.

So, as the Hebrew saying goes, better to swallow a frog—even two frogs—than to do something foolish.

But Netanyahu couldn’t possibly follow such advice. It would be contrary to his nature. So he and his assistants proclaimed loudly—very loudly—that the 120 attending countries are supporting Iran’s effort to annihilate Israel, and that Ban and Mursi are promoting a second Holocaust.

Instead of isolating Iran, Netanyahu helped Iran isolate Israel.

The more so as both Ban and Mursi used the Tehran stage to castigate the Iranian leadership and its Syrian allies. Ban condemned Ahmadinejad’s denial of the Holocaust as well as his proclaimed hopes for the disappearance of the “Zionist entity.” Mursi went even further and castigated the murderous Syrian regime, Iran’s main ally.

(This speech was broadcast live on Iranian television. The translator evoked general admiration for his presence of mind. Whenever Mursi said in Arabic “Syria,” the translator said in Farsi “Bahrain.”)

This whole episode is important only insofar as it illustrates the incredible folly of Netanyahu and his close advisers (all of them handpicked by his wife, Sarah, easily the most unpopular person in the country). They seem to be cut off from the real world and to live in an imagined world of their own.

In this imaginary world, Israel is the center of the universe, and Netanyahu can give orders to the leaders of the nations, from Barack Obama and Angela Merkel to Mohamed Mursi and Ban Ki-moon.

Well, we are not the center of the world. We have a lot of influence, owing in part to our history. We are a regional power, much beyond our actual size. But to be really effective, we need allies, moral standing, and the support of international public opinion, just like everybody else. Without this, Netanyahu’s pet project, to secure for himself a place in the history books by attacking Iran, cannot be carried out.

I know that many eyebrows were raised when I categorically stated that neither Israel nor the U.S. would attack Iran. It seemed that I was risking my reputation—such as it is—while Netanyahu and Barak were preparing for the inevitable bombing run. When talk about the impending attack reached a crescendo, my few well-wishers were sincerely worried.

However, during the last few days, there has been an almost imperceptible change of tone here. Netanyahu declared that the “family of nations” must lay down a “red line” and timetable for stopping Iran’s nuclear arms effort.

Translated into simple Hebrew: there will be no Israeli attack, unless approved by the U.S. Such approval is impossible before the coming U.S. elections. It is highly unlikely afterward, too, for the reasons I tried to set out. Geographical, military, political, and economic circumstances make it impossible. Diplomacy is called for. A compromise based on mutual interests and respect may be the best outcome.

An Israeli commentator has made the interesting suggestion that the president of the United States—after the elections—personally travel to Tehran and reach out to the Iranian people. That is no more improbable than Richard Nixon’s historic visit to China. I would add the suggestion that while he is at it, the president come to Jerusalem, too, to seal the compromise.

A year and a half ago, I also dared to suggest that the Arab Spring would be good for Israel.

At the time, it was a common assumption in Israel, and throughout the West, that Arab democracy would lead to a surge of political Islam, and that this would present a mortal danger to Israel. The first part of the assumption was right, the second was wrong.

The obscurantist demonization of Islam can be dangerously misleading. The painting of Islam as a murderous, inherently anti-Semitic religion can lead to destructive consequences. Fortunately, the dire forecasts are being disproved daily.

In the homeland of the Arab Awakening, Tunisia, a moderate Islamic regime has taken root. In Libya, where commentators foresaw chaos and permanent civil war between the tribes, chances for stability are growing.

And most importantly, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is behaving with exemplary caution. Six thousand years of Egyptian wisdom is having a moderating effect on the Brothers, including Brother Mursi. In the few weeks of his rule, he has already demonstrated a remarkable ability for compromising with divergent interests—with the secular liberals and the army command in his own country, with the U.S., even with Israel. He is now engaged in an effort to settle things with the Sinai Bedouins, addressing their (justified) grievances and calling a halt to military action.

It is, of course, much too early to tell, but I believe that a rejuvenated Arab world, in which moderate Islamic forces play an important role (as they do in Turkey), may form the environment for Israeli-Arab peace. If we desire peace.

For this to happen, we must break out of Netanyahu’s imaginary world and return to the real world, the exciting, changing, challenging world of the 21st century.

Otherwise, we will just add another sad chapter to the late Barbara Tuchman’s brilliant book, The March of Folly.

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New Rules

By Thomas L. Friedman, NY Times, September 8, 2012
I just arrived in Shanghai, but I’m thinking about Estonia and wondering about something Presidents Clinton and Obama have been saying.

Wired magazine reported last week that public schools in Estonia are establishing a program for teaching first graders—and kids in all other grades—how to do computer programming. Wired said that the curriculum was created “because of the difficulty Estonian companies face in hiring programmers. Estonia has a burgeoning tech industry thanks in part to the success of Skype, which was developed in Estonia in 2003.”

The news from Estonia prompted The Guardian newspaper of London to publish an online poll asking its readers: “Children aged 7 to 16 are being given the opportunity to learn how to code in schools in Estonia, should U.K. school children be taught programming as part of their school day?” It’s fascinating to read about all this while visiting Shanghai, whose public school system in 2010 beat the rest of the world in math, science and reading in the global PISA exam of 15-year-olds. Will the Chinese respond by teaching programming to preschoolers?

All of this made me think Obama should stop using the phrase—first minted by Bill Clinton in 1992—that if you just “work hard and play by the rules” you should expect that the American system will deliver you a decent life and a chance for your children to have a better one. That mantra really resonates with me and, I am sure, with many voters. There is just one problem: It’s out of date.

The truth is, if you want a decent job that will lead to a decent life today you have to work harder, regularly reinvent yourself, obtain at least some form of postsecondary education, make sure that you’re engaged in lifelong learning and play by the rules.

Why? Because when Clinton first employed his phrase in 1992, the Internet was just emerging, virtually no one had e-mail and the cold war was just ending. In other words, we were still living in a closed system, a world of walls, which were just starting to come down. It was a world before Nafta and the full merger of globalization and the information technology revolution, a world in which unions and blue-collar manufacturing were still relatively strong, and where America could still write a lot of the rules that people played by.

That world is gone. It is now a more open system. Technology and globalization are wiping out lower-skilled jobs faster, while steadily raising the skill level required for new jobs. More than ever now, lifelong learning is the key to getting into, and staying in, the middle class.

There is a quote attributed to the futurist Alvin Toffler that captures this new reality: In the future “illiteracy will not be defined by those who cannot read and write, but by those who cannot learn and relearn.” Any form of standing still is deadly.

I covered the Republican convention, and I was impressed in watching my Times colleagues at how much their jobs have changed. Here’s what a reporter does in a typical day: report, file for the Web edition, file for The International Herald Tribune, tweet, update for the Web edition, report more, track other people’s tweets, do a Web-video spot and then write the story for the print paper. You want to be a Times reporter today? That’s your day. You have to work harder and smarter and develop new skills faster.

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Study: Most Churchgoers Do Not Read Bible on Daily Basis

By Michael Gryboski , Christian Post, September 7, 2012
A recently released study by a Christian research organization shows that most churchgoers do not read or study the Bible on a daily basis.

The findings of the Transformational Discipleship Assessment released by LifeWay Research noted that 19 percent of respondents report reading or studying the Bible outside of church “every day.”

By contrast, 36 percent of respondents said that they either engage the Bible “once a week,” “once a month,” or “a few times a month.” Eighteen percent reported rarely or never reading or studying the Bible outside of worship.

Scott McConnell, director of LifeWay Research, told The Christian Post that he felt attributes from the modern American culture influenced the responses.

“Regular Bible engagement is both personal and requires discipline. Neither are popular in Western culture today,” said McConnell. “Too many churchgoers want the benefits of salvation without investing in personally knowing Christ and the abundant life He offers.”

“Bible engagement encompasses more than just Bible reading. It measures the extent to which individuals interact with the truth of Scripture and allow it to permeate their thinking and influence their actions,” said McConnell.

“There is a widespread desire among churchgoers to please Jesus, but much less interested in daily wrestling with what pleases Jesus. Instead of Christ being preeminent in the lives of every churchgoer, He is often only the preamble to lives lived apart from biblical truth.”

Other findings in the study included 90 percent of respondents agreeing with the statement “I desire to please and honor Jesus in all I do” and 59 percent agreeing with the statement “Throughout the day I find myself thinking about biblical truths.”

While the study noted the small percentage of regular Bible engagement from respondents, it also pinpointed six actions that “positively impact” the level of Bible engagement a churchgoer partakes in.

These actions were confessing wrongdoings to God, believing in Jesus as the only way to heaven, following God with an awareness that it “may be costly,” praying about the spiritual statuses of acquaintances who are not Christian, reading a book on spiritual growth, and being mentored by a “more spiritually mature Christian.”

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