One More Soul to Save

http://anchor.tfionline.com/post/one-more-soul-save/

A compilation

Audio length: 9:33
Download Audio (8.7MB)

[Jesus] said unto them, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”—Mark 16:151

*

Whatever we do, we must not treat the Great Commission like it’s the Great Suggestion.—Charles R. Swindoll

*

My father was a minister for over fifty years, serving mostly in small, rural churches. He was a simple preacher, but he was a man with a mission. His favorite activity was taking teams of volunteers overseas to build church buildings for small congregations. In his lifetime, Dad built over 150 churches around the world.

In 1999, my father died of cancer. In the final week of his life the disease kept him awake in a semi-conscious state nearly 24 hours a day. As he dreamed, he’d talk out loud about what he was dreaming. … He relived one church building project after another.

One night near the end … Dad suddenly became very active and tried to get out of bed. Of course, he was too weak, and my wife insisted he lay back down. But he persisted in trying to get out of bed, so finally my wife asked him, “Jimmy, what are you trying to do?” He replied, “Got to save one more for Jesus! Got to save one more for Jesus! Got to save one more for Jesus!” He began to repeat that phrase over and over again.

During the next hour, he said the phrase probably one hundred times. “Got to save one more for Jesus!” As I sat by his bed with tears flowing down my cheeks, I bowed my head to thank God for my dad’s faith. At that moment Dad reached out and placed his frail hand on my head and said, as if commissioning me, “Save one more for Jesus! Save one more for Jesus!”

I intend for that to be the theme of the rest of my life. I invite you to consider it as a focus of your life, too, because nothing will make a greater difference for eternity. … [God] wants his lost children found! Nothing matters more to God; the Cross proves that. I pray that you will always be on the lookout to reach “one more for Jesus” so that when you stand before God one day, you can say, “Mission accomplished!”—Rick Warren2

*

The preeminent requisite for any missionary must be the same driving passion which motivated the apostle Paul and all the apostles and all the martyrs and every great man or woman of God—in fact‚ that irresistible compassion which should motivate every child of God in everything you do, everything you say‚ everywhere you go, with everybody‚ and which that great fanatical apostle summed up in these few famous and ringing words which have cried out from the heart of every true Christian in every true good deed he has ever done‚ and for which indeed he is willing to die: “The love of Christ constraineth us!”3

“For God so lovedthe world that He gave His only begotten Son,”4 and “God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”5“Hereby perceive we the love of God: because He laid down His life for us‚ and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”6 “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”7

If you go in God’s love, you cannot help but win them, as so many of you already have. You have already found that God’s love is the answer to everything. It saves souls, forgives sin, satisfies hearts, purifies minds, redeems bodies, wins friends, and makes life worth living. It’s the only truth, the only way, and the only peace.

The only way to win the world is with the love of Jesus. We’ll keep on winning if we keep on loving them with His love. Love never fails! Let’s win the world with His love! Long live love!—David Brandt Berg

*

Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.—Acts 1:88

*

[Jesus’] plan called for action, and how He expressed it predicted its success. He didn’t say “you might be my witnesses,” or “you could be my witnesses,” or even “you should be my witnesses.” He said “you will be my witnesses.”―Charles R. Swindoll

*

Jesus Christ told His followers they should be His witnesses to “the ends of the earth”9and to “go and make disciples of all nations,”10 which is the essence of winning souls. As our Father in heaven does not want anyone to perish,11 all Christians should be eager to heed this call and have a passion for winning souls. …

But how can we gain a passion for spreading this good news and winning others to Christ in these difficult days? … It starts by having Jesus Christ front and center in our own lives. Indeed, our passion for winning souls will increase as our passion for Christ Himself and our walk with Him becomes stronger. Two of the best ways to strengthen our Christian walk are to read His Word daily and to pray continually. When we fill our hearts and minds with Christ, we can’t help but have a passion for sharing Him with others.
The most enthusiastic laborers are those who have a heart that is on fire for Christ, and this should actually be easy when we consider the magnitude of what our sinless Savior did for us at Calvary. …[This] should motivate us to win as many people to Christ as possible, especially when we consider the brevity of life that the apostle James aptly calls “a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.”12 Once we cross the eternal horizon, there is no going back, and the time for winning souls will be over. Thus, not only is the harvest great and the workers few, but, on top of this, our time is very limited.

In these challenging times we certainly don’t have to look far to see many in despair, and yet even in the midst of this chaos, Christians can find solace in God’s Word. If a Christian finds himself in one of life’s trials, for example, he knows our sovereign Lord either put him there or is allowing him to be there. Either way, the Christian can make sense of this turmoil by realizing God has a purpose for our trial, for we know that “in all things God works for the good of those who love Him.”13 Further, if life occasionally doesn’t make sense to us, that’s okay, for we know to trust in the Lord with all our hearts and to not rely on our understanding of a situation.14 Enduring life’s hardships that inevitably come our way is a lot easier when we know that God is in control.

Our lost brothers and sisters can find this same comfort when they put their faith in Christ. However, as Paul explained to the Romans: “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.’”15 The peace of God, which transcends all understanding, and which guards our hearts during these difficult times,16 can guard theirs too, once they let Him in.

There can be no better calling than working on behalf of the One who died so that we may live. Jesus said “you are my friends if you do what I command,”17 and His command was that we obey Him and that we love each other as He loved us. Clearly, then, our love for Him is best exemplified when we passionately and tirelessly work to share His love with others.—From gotquestions.org18

Published on Anchor April 2015. Read by Jon Marc.



1 KJV.


2 The Purpose Driven Life (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2002).


3 2 Corinthians 5:14.


4 John 3:16.


5 Romans 5:8.


6 1 John 3:16.


7 John 15:13.


8 KJV.


9 Acts 1:8.


10 Matthew 28:19.


11 2 Peter 3:9.


12 James 4:14.


13 Romans 8:28.


14 Proverbs 3:5–6.


15 Romans 10:14–15.


16 Philippians 4:7.


17 John 15:14.


18 www.gotquestions.org/winning-souls.html.

Read More

Physicist George Ellis Knocks Physicists for Knocking Philosophy, Falsification, Free Will

Critical views of science in the news Cross-Check Home

the views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

Biologist Rupert Sheldrake, whom I interviewed in my last post, wasn’t the only fascinating scientist I hung out with recently at Howthelightgetsin, a festival hosted by the Institute of Arts & Ideas. I also befriended George F. R. Ellis, the physicist-mathematician-cosmologist, an authority on the Big Bang and other cosmic mysteries. Ellis and I hit it off initially because we share some—how shall I put it?—concerns about the direction of physics, but I soon discovered that his interests range far beyond physics. He has published papers and books not only on physics and cosmology (including the 1973 classic The Large-Scale Structure of Space-Time, co-authored with Stephen Hawking) but also on philosophy, complexity theory, neuroscience, education and even low-income housing. (See his website, and his terrific 2011 critique of multiverse theories in Scientific American.) A native of South Africa, Ellis is professor emeritus at the University of Cape Town, where he taught for decades, and has also held positions at Cambridge, the University of Texas, the Fermi Institute and other institutions around the globe. I admire Ellis’s social activism as well as his scientific work. He was an early critic of apartheid, and in 1999 Nelson Mandela awarded him the Order of the Star of South Africa. Ellis has a big brain and a big heart.



"You cannot do physics or cosmology without an assumed philosophical basis," says George Ellis. Photo: David Monniaux, Wikimedia Commons.

Horgan: At the conference where we met, How the lights gets in, you were in a session called “The end of experiment.” What was that about?

Ellis: Well this was just echoing what you have already said: many of the possible high-energy physics experiments and astronomy observations relevant to cosmology are now in essence nearly complete. Physics experiments are approaching the highest energies it will ever be possible to test by any collider experiment, both for financial and technical reasons. We can’t build a collider bigger than the surface of the Earth. Thus our ability to test high energy physics – and hence structures on the smallest physical scales – is approaching its limits. Astronomical observations at all wavelengths are now probing the most distant cosmological events that will ever be “seeable” by any kinds of radiation whatever, because of visual horizons for each form of radiation.

It’s rather like the situation as regards exploring the Earth: once upon a time we had only fragmentary knowledge of what is there. Then we obtained a global picture of the Earth’s surface, including detailed satellite images of the entire land mass. Once you have seen it all, you have seen it all; apart from finer and finer details, there is nothing more to find. You might respond, But we can’t see to the bottom of the oceans. However, we do indeed now have quite good maps of the ocean floor too, through various sounding techniques. This is similar to the way we have seen right back to the last scattering surface in the early universe at a redshift of 1200 (the analogue of seeing the entire surface of the Earth from space) with satellites such as COBE, WMAP, and Planck, and also (indirectly) to the time of emission of gravitational waves by Bicep2 (the analogue of seeing to the bottom of the ocean). We’ll sort out that controversy in the next couple of years.

So what we can see at the largest and smallest scales is approaching what will ever be possible, except for refining the details.

But I emphasize that this comment does not apply to complex systems. Complexity is almost unbounded – microbiology, biology, the brain will give us work to do for many centuries more, what we may find may be very unexpected. That might also apply to the foundations of quantum physics, and its relation to complexity. But – barring something very unforeseen – the possible tests of the very large and the very small are coming towards the limits of whatever will be possible.

Yes I know this kind of thing has been said before. That was before we had explored the entire visible universe at all possible wavelengths. I concede that observations relevant to structure formation in the universe – galaxies, stars, planets – have a good while to go, they are in essence verging to the side of studying complexity, and still have life in them yet, they are very interesting studies.

Horgan: Lawrence Krauss, in A Universe from Nothing, claims that physics has basically solved the mystery of why there is something rather than nothing. Do you agree?

Ellis: Certainly not. He is presenting untested speculative theories of how things came into existence out of a pre-existing complex of entities, including variational principles, quantum field theory, specific symmetry groups, a bubbling vacuum, all the components of the standard model of particle physics, and so on. He does not explain in what way these entities could have pre-existed the coming into being of the universe, why they should have existed at all, or why they should have had the form they did. And he gives no experimental or observational process whereby we could test these vivid speculations of the supposed universe-generation mechanism. How indeed can you test what existed before the universe existed? You can’t.

Thus what he is presenting is not tested science. It’s a philosophical speculation, which he apparently believes is so compelling he does not have to give any specification of evidence that would confirm it is true. Well, you can’t get any evidence about what existed before space and time came into being. Above all he believes that these mathematically based speculations solve thousand year old philosophical conundrums, without seriously engaging those philosophical issues. The belief that all of reality can be fully comprehended in terms of physics and the equations of physics is a fantasy. As pointed out so well by Eddington in his Gifford lectures, they are partial and incomplete representations of physical, biological, psychological, and social reality.

And above all Krauss does not address why the laws of physics exist, why they have the form they have, or in what kind of manifestation they existed before the universe existed (which he must believe if he believes they brought the universe into existence). Who or what dreamt up symmetry principles, Lagrangians, specific symmetry groups, gauge theories, and so on? He does not begin to answer these questions.

It’s very ironic when he says philosophy is bunk and then himself engages in this kind of attempt at philosophy. It seems that science education should include some basic modules on Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hume, and the other great philosophers, as well as writings of more recent philosophers such as Tim Maudlin and David Albert.

Horgan: Are you, or were you ever, a believer in a final theory of physics?

Ellis: I certainly have believed in it as a possibility. However the price of having to use higher-dimensional theories is in my view a considerable drawback and to be avoided if possible; it is certainly unproven to be the way Nature is. Rather it may be that fundamental physics in the end involves two different intermeshed theories: a Grand Unified Theory (GUT) and unimodular Loop Quantum Gravity, with no hidden dimensions and no string theory landscape. The unification will be in terms of broad approaches underlying physical theories (Lagrangians, variational principles, physical symmetries, etc.) but not necessarily one overriding theory that encompasses all fundamental physics in a unified form.

Indeed it is in my view unlikely there is a unified theory of all fundamental forces including gravity, because Einstein taught us that gravity is *not*, at a foundational level, in fact a force – rather it is an effective result of spacetime curvature. Yes of course there are various effective theories of gravity where it is seen as a force, such as Newton’s theory and representing it as a spin 2 graviton, but their existence does not determine what the underlying deep theory of gravitation is. My feeling is that it will be a theory based on a discrete view of space-time with a conformal structure for the gravity sector, probably based in principles of holonomy, interacting with a unified GUT theory for the matter sector. That is not a unified final theory of physics as envisaged by string theorists. Such a theory may not exist.

Horgan: Are you a fan of multiverse theories? String theory? The anthropic principle?

No (may be true but unproveable, much too much untestable speculation about existence of infinities of entities, ill defined and untestable probability measures), no (too much speculative introduction of very complex unseeable entities, treats gravity just like any other force), yes (however one responds to it, it’s a real question that deserves consideration). Fine tuning of fundamental physics parameters is required in order that we can exist. Examining this issue has led to many very interesting studies.

Horgan: Physicist Sean Carroll has argued that falsifiability is overrated as a criterion for judging whether theories should be taken seriously. Do you agree?

Ellis: This is a major step backwards to before the evidence-based scientific revolution initiated by Galileo and Newton. The basic idea is that our speculative theories, extrapolating into the unknown and into untestable areas from well-tested areas of physics, are so good they have to be true. History proves that is the path to delusion: just because you have a good theory does not prove it is true. The other defence is that there is no other game in town. But there may not be any such game.

Scientists should strongly resist such an attack on the very foundations of its own success. Luckily it is a very small subset of scientists who are making this proposal.

Horgan: Krauss, Stephen Hawking and Neil deGrasse Tyson have been bashing philosophy as a waste of time. Do you agree?

Ellis: If they really believe this they should stop indulging in low-grade philosophy in their own writings. You cannot do physics or cosmology without an assumed philosophical basis. You can choose not to think about that basis: it will still be there as an unexamined foundation of what you do. The fact you are unwilling to examine the philosophical foundations of what you do does not mean those foundations are not there; it just means they are unexamined.

Actually philosophical speculations have led to a great deal of good science. Einstein’s musings on Mach’s principle played a key role in developing general relativity. Einstein’s debate with Bohr and the EPR paper have led to a great of deal of good physics testing the foundations of quantum physics. My own examination of the Copernican principle in cosmology has led to exploration of some great observational tests of spatial homogeneity that have turned an untested philosophical assumption into a testable – and indeed tested – scientific hypothesis. That’ s good science.

Ellis: You are a Christian, more specifically a Quaker. Does your faith have any effect on your scientific views, or vice versa?

It may affect to some degree the topics I choose to tackle, but it cannot affect the science itself, which has its own logic that must be followed wherever it leads without fear or favour, within the domain of application of the relevant theories.

My philosophical and religious views must of course take present-day science seriously, but in doing so (a) I distinguish very clearly between what is tested or testable science and what is not, (b) I make strenuous efforts to consider what aspects of reality can be comprehended by a strict scientific approach, and what lie outside the limits of mathematically based efforts to encapsulate aspects of the nature of what exists.

Many key aspects of life (such as ethics: what is good and what is bad, and aesthetics: what is beautiful and what is ugly) lie outside the domain of scientific inquiry (science can tell you what kind of circumstances will lead to the extinction of polar bears, or indeed of humanity; it has nothing whatever to say about whether this would be good or bad, that is not a scientific question).

Attempts to explain values in terms of neuroscience or evolutionary theory in fact have nothing whatever to say about what is good or bad. That is a philosophical or religious question (scientists trying to explain ethics from these kinds of approaches always surreptitiously introduce some unexamined concept of what is a good life by the back door). And they cannot for example tell you, from a scientific basis, what should be done about Israel or Syria today. That effort would be a category mistake.

Horgan: Is your social activism–for example, you past efforts against apartheid–related in any way to your scientific work?

Not directly. It is based in concerns to do with human values and ethics that lie outside the scope of science per se.

Horgan: Are you concerned that today so much research—especially in the U.S.—is funded by the military?

This is not an issue that has been of specific concern to me – but it could become so,particularly as regards brain research.

Horgan: In some of your writings, you warn against excessive determinism in physics, and science. Could you summarize your concerns?

Many scientists are strong reductionists who believe that physics alone determines outcomes in the real world, This is demonstrably untrue – for example the computer on which I am writing this could not possibly have come into being through the agency of physics alone.

The issue is that these scientists are focusing on some strands in the web of causation that actually exist, and ignoring others that are demonstrably there – such as ideas in our minds, or algorithms embodied in computer programs. These demonstrably act in a top-down way to cause physical effects in the real world. All these processes and actual outcomes are contextually dependent, and this allows the effectiveness of processes such as adaptive selection that are the key to the emergence of genuine complexity.

As I stated above, mathematical equations only represent part of reality, and should not be confused with reality. A specific related issue: there is a group of people out there writing papers based on the idea that physics is a computational process. But a physical law is not an algorithm. So who chooses the computational strategy and the algorithms that realise a specific physical law? (Finite elements perhaps?) What language is it written in? (Does Nature use Java or C++? What machine code is used?) Where is the CPU? What is used for memory, and in what way are read and write commands executed? Additionally if it’s a computation, how does Nature avoid the halting problem? It’s all a very bad analogy that does not work.

Horgan: Einstein, in the following quote, seemed to doubt free will: “If the moon, in the act of completing its eternal way around the Earth, were gifted with self-consciousness, it would feel thoroughly convinced that it was traveling its way of its own accord…. So would a Being, endowed with higher insight and more perfect intelligence, watching man and his doings, smile about man’s illusion that he was acting according to his own free will.” Do you believe in free will?

Ellis: Yes. Einstein is perpetuating the belief that all causation is bottom up. This simply is not the case, as I can demonstrate with many examples from sociology, neuroscience, physiology, epigenetics, engineering, and physics. Furthermore if Einstein did not have free will in some meaningful sense, then he could not have been responsible for the theory of relativity – it would have been a product of lower level processes but not of an intelligent mind choosing between possible options.

I find it very hard to believe this to be the case – indeed it does not seem to make any sense. Physicists should pay attention to Aristotle’s four forms of causation – if they have the free will to decide what they are doing. If they don’t, then why waste time talking to them? They are then not responsible for what they say.

Horgan: If you were the King of Physics, responsible for prioritizing and funding research, what would be your first decision?

Ellis: Condensed matter physics and quantum optics are where I’d concentrate first – it is where relatively modest investment is producing fabulous experiments and testable theories. The relation of physics to biology, medicine, and neuroscience is a fantastic area that should be strongly developed.

Yes of course I’d like to see astronomy and high-energy physics continued as far as possible, but the price has to be reasonable. Projects like Bicep2 give great returns, and gravitational wave astronomy is the last frontier and so must be explored, as also the many great observational cosmology projects under way at present. Megabucks for ever-greater colliders will need solid justification.

About the Author: Every week, hockey-playing science writer John Horgan takes a puckish, provocative look at breaking science. A teacher at Stevens Institute of Technology, Horgan is the author of four books, including The End of Science (Addison Wesley, 1996) and The End of War (McSweeney's, 2012). Follow on Twitter @Horganism.

Read More

Dr. George Ellis on God, ethics, Jesus and active peaceful-resistance!

http://www.onbeing.org/program/science-and-hope/transcript/1158#main_content

From an interview with Dr. George Ellis

Letter from David Cristie

My conversation with George Ellis was recorded in June 2004 after he won the Templeton prize. We spoke before a live audience at WHYY in Philadelphia. Ellis also responded to questions from the audience. Speaking of Faith's founding producer, Bill Buzenberg, moderated that exchange.

BILL BUZENBERG: Why is the kenotic ethic inherent in the structure of the universe? Where does it come from?

DR. ELLIS: OK. Let me immediately say that there is no scientific proof of this kind of statement. This is a, like everything else to do with religion, this is a faith statement, and I can't prove it's right, but I can give you arguments that it's right. Where does it come from? At one level, the answer comes from the nature of God. It's what is evident for us by all the major religious traditions. And you mentioned this, but I really want to emphasize this, and Sir John Templeton has written about this. This — what just Sir John Templeton calls agape love, unconditional love. It is in all the major religious traditions.

And I, particularly, from my own experience, was talking about this in Berkeley a while ago, at the Science and Spiritual Quest. And I finished talking, and a man rushed up to me with great excitement. He's said, 'Fantastic talk. I really enjoyed that.' He says, 'You spoke like a Muslim.' Yes, he.

MS. TIPPETT: OK.

DR. ELLIS: And he was the director of the Muslim Centre in London. And I think that's really important to understand in the present day, that the true deep understanding of the Muslim faith incorporates this idea. I, in turn, in London, was at — in New York, was at the State of the World meeting, and I heard Professor Jonathan Sacks, the chief rabbi of Great Britain, talking about this. And he is an absolutely marvelous person. He talked in exactly the same kind of way. So I had fun going up to him afterwards. I said, 'Professor Sacks, you talk like a Quaker,' and he looked at me, and he said, 'I will choose to take that as a compliment.' And the evidence that it is something more than just what some people invent is the fact that it is discovered independently by all the great religious traditions.

MS. TIPPETT: So this is the nature of God, this way of being.

DR. ELLIS: Yes.

MS. TIPPETT: This kenosis, this ethic. And it's embedded in the universe as an expression of — an expression of that is embedded in the universe.

DR. ELLIS: This is why I introduced this thing about mathematics. We haven't got a clue in what way mathematics is embedded there, but it is there in some platonic space waiting to be discovered. We actually haven't got a clue how the laws of physics are embedded in the universe. We know they're there. We know they're effective. We don't know how they are embedded.

MS. TIPPETT: Mm-hmm. OK.

DR. ELLIS: So, it's important to understand that we don't understand those, either. In the same way I envisage ethics as being a universal thing, which is applicable. It is there because of the nature of God. It is something we discover and don't invent. That's why I made that point about mathematics. And it is discovered to be the same by all these religious traditions. I'm confident of the following: If we were to one day make contact with people in Alpha Centauri…

MS. TIPPETT: Those are people in other galaxies, life in other…

DR. ELLIS: Yeah.

MS. TIPPETT: Yes.

DR. ELLIS: …we would start talking with them about mathematics, because we are confident that they will have the same understanding of mathematics as we do. If we got on to talk to them about ethics, I'm confident we would find that they, also, had discovered kenotic ethics in the nature of the universe.

MS. TIPPETT:Welcome back to Speaking of Faith, public radio's conversation about religion, meaning, ethics, and ideas. I'm Krista Tippett. Today, "Science and Hope," with Templeton Prize-winning cosmologist George Ellis.

As a cosmologist, George Ellis has explored the nature of space and time, including such questions as whether the universe had a beginning. He's also interested in how human behavior affects the physical universe. He believes that the peaceful end of apartheid in his native South Africa was an event that, in his words, "defied the calculus of rationality."

Through his social activism in South Africa, his Quaker faith, and his scientific research, Ellis has concluded that there are deep ethical truths, an ethical compass built into the physical universe. He calls it a kenotic ethic, referring to a New Testament Greek word describing the ethic of Jesus. At the extreme end, kenosis implies sacrificing one's life. In daily life, Ellis says, it is the basic work of relationship and community of balancing self-interest with the good of others."

MR. BUZENBERG: Given your path of peaceful resistance, do you have any advice for those in conflict in our schools, our boardrooms, and the military? Is there a path of thought to use as we evaluate confrontational situations in everyday life?

DR. ELLIS: That's, well, something I have seen in other places, I really want to say here. I think our biggest enemy in all of this is Hollywood. If you turn on the television, within 10 minutes and, absolutely, always, without exception, you will find the cinema TV is teaching people to — the way to solve problems is to kill people. And that is a message which is broadcast to the black people in the townships in my country, sitting there. This is the role model which is offered to them. And what we've got to do is try to make available the alternative models where children learn, from the smallest ages 'til they're adults, that there are other ways to solve this, that there are peaceful solutions, there are ways in which you sit down and try and talk with people. You don't pull out a gun and shoot them, which is what Hollywood is teaching people daily, 24 hours a day. And I really think that is one of the major problems we have at this time. I'm not sure what one does about that.

MS. TIPPETT: Do you know of projects or, you know what — do you have something in mind, how do we create these models, these other kinds of images?

DR. ELLIS: Well, one of the projects I'm involved with in Cape Town is the Quaker Peace Centre, and we run a school's education program. They use a spectrum. And it's a simple spectrum. It is kind of conflict resolution techniques — getting to use mediation, all that kind of sort of stuff. But I think it's really important to try to take it further. The self-sacrifice is the far end, the really difficult end. But the part, which everybody can reach, which is difficult, but it can be reached, is the issue of forgiveness and the realization of the damage that resentments cause. The fact that you can let go of resentments and forgive and transform the situation by doing that, there is a very interesting phrase that comes in that. You cannot change the facts of the past, but you can change the meaning of the past by re-evaluating it. And I think it is possible and easy in schools to teach — relatively easy — the sort of the simple skills of conflict resolution, listening to the other, and trying to be in their sandals, all that kind of sort of stuff. I think it is possible at the school level to go through to try and to teach people about forgiveness. I think the far end is more difficult.

MS. TIPPETT: Quaker cosmologist, George Ellis, responding to audience questions during a live interview in Philadelphia. I'm Krista Tippett and this is Speaking of Faithfrom American Public Media. Today, "Science and Hope." We're exploring how scientific and religious ideas converge in George Ellis's thought. He's been speaking about the deep universal ethic of kenosis, or self-giving, which he believes is built into the cosmos. A member of the audience asked how this ethic might be applied in a situation like the current U.S. involvement in Iraq.

DR. ELLIS: I want to take just a little bit of time about this because this is very important. Let me first step back to an example of the historical kenosis, which was crucially important. It's the difference between the end of the First World War and the end of the Second World War. The end of the First World War was the Treaty of Versailles, which was a vengeful treaty in which there was absolutely no kenosis. It sets up a situation in which vengeance was enacted on the German people, and one can argue whether or not that was a just thing to do. But it puts situations in place which let Hitler gain his power, and it put the German people in a place which guaranteed that the Second World War would take place. And that is shown in many of the studies of the beginning of the Second World War. The lesson was learned. And at the end of the Second World War, although the leaders were held to account, and some of them executed, the population at large of Germany was not treated in the same way as the end of the First World War. Instead, there was the martial plan, which was a giving to the German people who had cause this immense destruction. And it is that, which wouldn't place the basis of peace in Europe for the next 50 years. And I think that is a really practical example of the kind of thing I'm talking about. Now, I'm going to read something, which I told you I would read about.

MS. TIPPETT: Right.

DR. ELLIS: In relation to Iraq, I want to read to you — when I got the prize, I got a lot of e-mails, and some of it was very interesting. This is from a man called David Christie. He says as follows: "In 1967, I was a young officer in a Scottish battalion engaged in peacekeeping duties in Aden town and what is now Yemen. The situation was similar to Iraq, with people being killed every day. As always, those who suffered the most were the innocent local people. Not only were we tough, but we had the power to pretty well destroy the whole town had we wished." This is the British Army. "But we had a commanding officer who understood how to make peace, and he led us to do something very unusual: not to react when we were attacked. Only if we were a 100 percent certain that a particular person had thrown a grenade or fired a shot at us were we allowed to fire. During our tour of duty, we had 102 grenades thrown at us. And in response, the battalion fired with a grand total of two shots, killing one grenade-thrower.

"The cost to us was over 100 of our own men wounded and, surely by the grace of God, only one killed. When they threw rocks at us, we stood fast. When they threw grenades, we hit the deck and after the explosions, we got to our feet and stood fast. We did not react in anger or indiscriminately. This was not the anticipated reaction. Slowly, very slowly, the local people began to trust us and made it clear to the local terrorists that they were not welcome in their area. At one stage, neighboring battalions were having a torrid time with attacks. We were playing soccer with the locals. We had, in fact, brought peace to the area at the cost of our own blood. How had this been achieved? Principally, because we were led by a man, who, every soldier in the battalion knew would die for him if required. Each soldier in turn came to be prepared to sacrifice himself for such a man. Many people may sneer that we were merely obeying orders. But this was not the case. Our commanding officer was more highly regarded by his soldiers than the general, one might almost say, loved. So gradually, the heart of the peacemaker began to grow in the men and determination to succeed, whatever the cost. Probably, most of the soldiers, like myself, only realized years afterwards what had been achieved."

That is kenosis in action. In a strange situation, an army armed to the teeth but acting in a way in which they were sacrificing because they were wounded, and they didn't take revenge unless they were 100 percent certain what they were doing.

Read More

УЗНИК

http://anchor.tfionline.com/ru/post/uznik/

Филлип Линч

Узник диктовал письмо одним из самых дорогих своих друзей, находящихся за сотни километров от него в другой стране. Он рассказал им, что сидит в кандалах, скорее всего, прикованный к своему тюремщику, как делали в те времена. По иронии судьбы, раньше он сидел в тюрьме в том городе, где жили его друзья.[[Деяния, 16:12–40]]В тот раз его избили и посадили, как выяснилось, незаконно в самую строгую тюрьму города. Его назвали атеистом[[Атеизм был одним из преступлений, приписываемых первым христианам, потому что они отвергали существование других богов кроме единого Бога.]] и смутьяном, он был известен властям по всей империи, и они рады были бросать его в тюрьму при любой возможности.

Так было не всегда. Было время, когда он преданно стоял на страже закона. Ему официально поручили возглавить народный патруль, который жестоко расправлялся с еретиками, и взрослыми, и детьми.[[Деяния, 9:1,2]] Он дорожил этой задачей. Но это было давно. Теперь он оказался по другую сторону баррикад, и его бывшие коллеги участвовали в его наказании и заточении.

Апостол Павел знал, что решается его судьба. Его либо казнят, либо освободят – третьего не дано. Он уже давно сидел под домашним арестом, но теперь у него были новые, особо жестокие, тюремщики-преторианцы.[[См. Филиппийцам, 1:13,14.]] В любом случае, жернова римского правосудия вращались крайне медленно. Его друзья в Филиппах волновались о нём и посылали ему деньги на жизнь. Некоторые из них были старыми легионерами и знали, как работает римская система, насколько она жестока и несправедлива. Поэтому Павел писал, чтобы утешить их и напомнить, что всё в Божьих руках.

Похоже, он очень любил филиппийцев. Он писал им с нежностью и ободрением, напоминал им думать и верить в хорошее. Если пришло его время умереть, то он отправится к Господу. А если его освободят, это тоже будет хорошо, потому что тогда он снова сможет приехать к ним в гости. Он сказал, что ему трудно выбрать, что лучше.[[См. Филиппийцам, 1:22.]] Он всё предоставил в руки Бога и взамен получил необъяснимый покой. Его слова бессмертны и находят отклик в сердцах всех верующих.

Радуйтесь всегда в Господе; и ещё говорю: радуйтесь. Кротость ваша да будет известна всем человекам. Господь близко.

Не заботьтесь ни о чём, но всегда в молитве и прошении с благодарением открывайте свои желания пред Богом, и мир Божий, который превыше всякого ума, соблюдёт сердца ваши и помышления ваши во Христе Иисусе.

Наконец, братия мои, что только истинно, что честно, что справедливо, что чисто, что любезно, что достославно, что только добродетель и похвала, о том помышляйте. Чему вы научились, что приняли и слышали и видели во мне, то исполняйте, – и Бог мира будет с вами.



Послание к Филиппийцам, 4:4–9

Read More

Retired Japanese Fighter Pilot Sees an Old Danger on the Horizon

By Martin Fackler, NY Times, April 3, 2015

NAGANO, Japan—Kaname Harada was once a feared samurai of the sky, shooting down 19 Allied aircraft as a pilot of Japan’s legendary Zero fighter plane during World War II. Now 98 years old and in failing health, the former ace is on what he calls his final mission: using his wartime experiences to warn Japan against ever going to war again.

This has become a timely issue in Japan, as the conservative prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has called for revising Japan’s pacifist Constitution. On a recent afternoon in this alpine city near his home, Mr. Harada was invited to address a ballroom filled with some 200 tax accountants and their business clients.

After slowly ascending the stage with the help of his daughter, he stopped to hang up hand-drawn war maps and a sepia-toned photo of himself as a young pilot in a leather flight suit glaring fearlessly into the camera.

It was the same face that now turned to look at the audience, creased by age, and somehow softer and wiser. His body was so frail that his suit hung loose like a sail, but he spoke with a loud voice of surprising vigor.

“Nothing is as terrifying as war,” he began, before spending the next 90 minutes recounting his role in battles, from Japan’s early triumph at Pearl Harbor to its disastrous reversals at Midway and Guadalcanal. “I want to tell you my experiences in war so that younger generations don’t have to go through the same horrors that I did.”

It is a warning that Mr. Harada fears his countrymen may soon no longer be able to hear. There are only a dwindling number of Japanese left who fought in the war, which in Asia began when Imperial Japan invaded northeastern China in 1931, and claimed tens of millions of lives over the following 14 years.

In an interview after his speech, Mr. Harada described himself as “the last Zero fighter,” or at least the last pilot still alive who flew during that aircraft’s glory days early in the war with the United States. He recounted how in dogfights, he flew close enough to his opponents to see the terror on their faces as he sent them crashing to their deaths.

“I fought the war from the cockpit of a Zero, and can still remember the faces of those I killed,” said Mr. Harada, who said he was able to meet and befriend some of his foes who survived the war. “They were fathers and sons, too. I didn’t hate them or even know them.”

“That is how war robs you of your humanity,” he added, “by putting you in a situation where you must either kill perfect strangers or be killed by them.”

Mr. Harada said that as he and other aging veterans pass from the scene, Japan will lose more than just their war stories. He said it was his generation’s bitter experiences, and resulting aversion to war, that have kept Japan firmly on a pacifist path since 1945.

While he tries to avoid wading into politics, he let slip a jab at Japan’s current leaders, who he said seem a bit too eager to discard Japan’s renunciation of war, and too forgetful of what an accomplishment its long postwar period of peace really has been.

“These politicians were born after the war, and so they don’t understand it must be avoided at all costs,” he said. He sat on a tatami mat in his living room, which is decorated with pictures of aircraft and an aluminum fragment from the Zero in which he was shot down in 1942. “In this respect, they are like our prewar leaders.”

Similar concerns are shared by many Japanese, as the nation approaches the 70th anniversary of the war’s end. Warnings about the passing of the war generation have been voiced all the way up to Crown Prince Naruhito, 55, who in February urged his nation to “correctly pass down tragic experiences and history to the generations who have no direct knowledge of the war, at a time memories of the war are about to fade.”

Such worries have made Mr. Harada a highly sought-after public speaker. He said he has spoken dozens of times in recent years, though he has had to cut back since collapsing from exhaustion in a bathroom after a talk last year. Despite a recent diagnosis of throat cancer, he speaks with a passionate conviction that left some in the Nagano audience brushing away tears.

“I am 54, and I have never heard what happened in the war,” said Takashi Katsuyama, a hair salon owner, who like many in the audience said he was not taught about the war in school. “Japan needs to hear these real-life experiences now more than ever.”

Mr. Harada’s talk was filled with vivid descriptions of an era when Imperial Japan briefly ruled the skies over the Pacific. During the Battle of Midway in 1942, he said, he shot down five United States torpedo planes in a single morning while defending the Japanese fleet. He described how he was able to throw off the aim of the American tail gunners by tilting his aircraft to make it drift almost imperceptibly to one side as he closed in for the kill.

He also described his defeats. He said he had to ditch his plane in the sea after Japan lost all four aircraft carriers it sent to Midway, the battle that turned the tide of the war in favor of the United States. Four months later, he was shot down over the island of Guadalcanal. He survived when his plane crashed upside down in the jungle, but his arm was so badly mangled that he never fought again. He spent the rest of the war training pilots back in Japan.

After Japan surrendered, he said, he hid from what he feared would be vengeful American occupiers. He worked for a time on a dairy farm, but found himself plagued by nightmares that made it tough to sleep. In his dreams, he said, he kept seeing the faces of the terrified American pilots he had shot down.

“I realized the war had turned me into a killer of men,” he said, “and that was not the kind of person I wanted to be.”

He said the nightmares finally ended when he found a new calling by opening a kindergarten in Nagano in 1965. He said he was able to alleviate the pangs of guilt by dedicating himself to teaching young children the value of peace. While he has now retired, he said he still visits the school every day he can to see the children’s smiling faces.

He said it took many more years before he could finally talk about the war itself. The turning point came during the Persian Gulf war in 1991, when he was appalled to overhear young Japanese describe the bombing as if it were a harmless video game. He said he resolved to speak out.

He has been talking about his war experiences ever since.

“Until I die, I will tell about what I saw,” Mr. Harada concluded his speech to the accountants’ group. “Never forgetting is the best way to protect our children and our children’s children from the horrors of war.”

Read More

The Russian Navy is on the verge of collapse

David Axe, War Is Boring, April 1, 2015

The Kremlin has announced that Russia will hugely boost its naval operations in 2015.

But that’s an empty promise—or threat, if you will. In fact, the Russian fleet is on the edge of a precipitous decline in ship numbers and combat power, owing to huge industrial shortfalls that have been decades in the making.

“As for missions of Russian naval ships, there will be 50 percent more of them than in 2013,” Gen. Valery Gerasimov, chief of the Russian general staff, told a TV audience in December.

But Gerasimov’s vow belies a bleak future for the Russian navy. Even if the fleet is busier in 2015 than it was in 2013, in coming years it will have fewer and fewer ships to be busy with—and those that remain will be progressively smaller and weaker than rival vessels.

Today the Russian navy possesses around 270 warships including surface combatants, amphibious ships, submarines, and auxiliaries.

On paper, that is. But that count includes many ships that are inactive and in poor material condition plus scores of small patrol vessels with very limited combat capability.

Of the 270 ships, just 125 or so are in a working state. And of those 125, only around 45 are oceangoing surface warships or submarines that are in good shape and deployable.

All the above figures come from Dr. Dmitry Gorenburg of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University.

By comparison, the U.S. Navy possesses some 290 warships. Pretty much all of them are well-maintained, deployable, oceangoing vessels.

All the same, a force of almost 50 large warships is no insignificant thing, and outguns the fleets of all but the most powerful countries. The problem, according to Gorenburg, is that today’s Russian navy is old … and won’t last much longer.

“The Russian navy is still primarily a Soviet legacy force,” Gorenburg writes. “There are relatively few new warships in service at present and the ones that have been commissioned in recent years are all relatively small. In terms of large surface units, the navy only operates what it was able to save during the years when it received virtually no funding.”

Many, if not most, of the Soviet-vintage ships will decommission in the next few years as they became too old to sail safely and economically.

Under President Vladimir Putin’s regime, the Kremlin has laid plans to rebuild the fleet. But that’s easier said than done when the vessels most badly in need of replacement are also the most difficult to build—heavy cruisers, powerful destroyers, and Admiral Kuznetsov, Russia’s sole aircraft carrier, which is barely seaworthy after nearly three decades in service.

“Russia’s shipbuilding industry is not in good shape,” Gorenburg explains. He estimates that the industry could build somewhere between half and 70 percent of the vessels Moscow wants by 2020. “The earliest that Russia could build a new aircraft carrier is 2027, while new destroyers are still on drawing board, with the first unlikely to be commissioned for 10 years.”

And it doesn’t help that Russia has invaded and alienated Ukraine, which built Admiral Kuznetsov and until recently supplied Russian shipyards with many of the heavy components they need to complete new warships.

Moscow tried to inject new hardware and expertise into its rusting shipbuilding industry by acquiring two new Mistral-class amphibious assault ships from France—and also licensing the design for possible continued construction of the class in Russian yards.

But Paris suspended the deal last year after Russian troops annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region and also infiltrated eastern Ukraine to aid pro-Russian separatists.

Russia’s shipyards are still capable of building small corvettes and other uncomplicated coastal patrol vessels. And that’s shaping the fleet’s operations.

“Whereas the Soviet navy focused on building ships designed to take on carrier groups,” Gorenburg concludes, “the new Russian navy will be primarily focused on defending against smaller adversaries closer to home.”

So the Russian fleet’s 50-percent-more-hectic 2015 could be one of its last busy years for a good long time—at least in any meaningful sense of the word “busy.” More and more, Moscow’s navy will have to stay home.

Meanwhile, the U.S. and Chinese navies continue to grow and modernize. The American fleet is working hard to expand to around 306 large ships by the 2020s. And Washington is already deploying more of its vessels overseas.

Read More

Alabama man off death row after 28 years to jailers: You will answer to God

AP, April 4, 2015

Anthony Ray Hinton, 58, spent half his life on Alabama’s death row, sentenced to die for two 1985 murders that for decades he insisted he did not commit.

Over 28 years, the outside world changed while Hinton spent his days largely in a 5ft by 8ft prison cell. Children grew up. His mother died. His hair turned gray. Inmates he knew were escorted off to the electric chair or the lethal-injection gurney.

He was set free on Friday after new ballistics tests contradicted the only evidence—an analysis of crime-scene bullets—that connected Hinton to the slayings.

As he left the jail, Hinton said he would pray for the victims’ families as he has done for the past 30 years. They have suffered a “miscarriage of justice” as well, he said. He had less kind words for those involved in his conviction.

“When you think you are high and mighty and you are above the law, you don’t have to answer to nobody. But I got news for them, everybody who played a part in sending me to death row, you will answer to God,” Hinton said.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Hinton is the 152nd person exonerated from death row since 1973 and the sixth in Alabama.

“They had every intention of executing me for something I didn’t do,” Hinton said outside the Jefferson County jail in Birmingham.

Friends and family members rushed to embrace Hinton after his lawyers escorted him outside of the jail on Good Friday morning. His sisters wiped tears, saying “Thank you, Lord,” as they wrapped their arms around their brother.

Equal Justice Initiative director Bryan Stevenson, who waged a 16-year fight for Hinton’s release, said while the day was joyous, the case was tragic.

“Not only did he lose his life, he lived a life in solitary confinement on death row, condemned in a five-by-eight cell where the state was trying to kill him every day,” Stevenson said.

Hinton was convicted of killing two fast-food-restaurant workers—John Davidson and Thomas Wayne Vason—during separate 1985 robberies at Mrs Winner’s and Captain D’s restaurants in Birmingham. Investigators became interested in him after a survivor at a third restaurant robbery picked Hinton out of a photo lineup.

The only evidence linking him to the slayings were bullets that state experts then said had markings that matched a .38-caliber revolver that belonged to Hinton’s mother. There were no fingerprints or eyewitness testimony.

Stevenson said a defense analysis during appeal showed that bullets did not match the gun. He then tried in vain for years to persuade the state of Alabama to re-examine the evidence.

A breakthrough came last year when he won a new trial after the US supreme court ruled Hinton’s trial counsel “constitutionally deficient”. His defense lawyer wrongly thought he had only $1,000 to hire a ballistics expert to rebut the state’s case. The only expert willing to take the job at that price—a one-eyed civil engineer with little ballistics training who admitted he had trouble operating the microscope—was obliterated on cross-examination.

The Jefferson County district attorney’s office on Wednesday moved to drop the case after their forensics experts were unable to match crime-scene bullets to the gun.

Stevenson called Hinton’s conviction a “case study” in what is wrong with the American justice system.

“We have a system that treats you better if you are rich and guilty then if you are poor and innocent and this case proves it. We have a system that is compromised by racial bias and this case proves it. We have a system that doesn’t do the right thing when the right thing is apparent,” Stevenson said.

“Prosecutors should have done this testing years ago.”

Hinton planned to put flowers on his mother’s grave. After that comes the adjustment to the modern world after spending nearly half of his life in solitary confinement.

“The world is a very different place than what it was 30 years ago,” Stevenson said. “There was no Internet. There was no email. I gave him an iPhone this morning. He’s completely mystified by that.”

Read More

Sovereign Man - Simon Black

April 6, 2015
Santiago, Chile

Last week, the government of China closed the enrollment window to join its new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) as a 'founding member'.

The AIIB, if you haven’t heard of this yet, is designed to essentially displace the Western-controlled IMF and World Bank.

And prior to last Tuesday’s deadline, dozens of nations around the world from New Zealand to Denmark signed up to join.

Even staunch US allies like the United Kingdom and Israel agreed to be part of AIIB.

This is a huge coup for China, and probably the most obvious sign yet that the global financial system is in for a giant reset.

Under the weight of nearly incalculable debt and liabilities, the United States is in terminal decline as the dominant superpower.

From Ancient Rome to the British Empire, this has happened many other times in history.

This time is not different. And everyone else in the world seems to get it. . . except for the US government.

They act as if the financial universe will revolve around America forever—that they can print money, indebt future generations, and wage war as much as they want without consequence.

But they’re completely blind.

Practically the entire world is lining up against them to form a brand new financial system that is no longer controlled by the US government.

In an editorial published in the Financial Times, former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers summed it up plainly saying that this “may be remembered as the moment the United States lost its role as the underwriter of the global economic system.”

The consequences of this shift away from a US-controlled financial system cannot be understated.

No more endless spending. No more solving problems with more debt and more money printing.

Suddenly it will be time for painful decisions in the US—like slashing Social Security benefits, drastically scaling back the military, and selectively defaulting on the debt.

Make no mistake, this transition is going to be bumpy.

China may already be the largest economy in the world by many measurements. But the Chinese economy is in for some serious strain over the coming months and years as its massive credit bubble bursts.

So in addition to America’s fiscal and monetary challenges, the world is going to have to suffer through a potential Chinese crisis as well.

But this does not affect the long-term story. Remember, nothing goes up or down in a straight line.

On its road to becoming the global superpower in the 20th century, the United States suffered its own series of deep economic setbacks—from the Panic of 1907 to the Great Depression, and several recessions in between.

China’s path will likely be similar.

This is one of the most important trends of our time. And it’s happening right in front of our eyes.

The world is rapidly throwing off US financial domination. The global financial system is starting to reset. Global financial and political dominance is shifting.

As with any great change, there are going to be people who get completely wiped out—primarily, people who didn’t see the change coming or chose to ignore the trend.

The flip side of this is that, for anyone with the intellectual courage and independence of mind to be paying attention, this is a time of extraordinary opportunity.

Some of the wealthiest people in Europe were minted in just a few years during the Weimar hyperinflation of the 1920s.

And some of the greatest fortunes in the world (some of which still exist today) were made in the early days of the United States as the country rose to dominance.

That’s ultimately the opportunity we have today. We can’t do anything about the trend. It’s happening.

What we can control is how we react to it: ignore it at our own peril, or seize the opportunities that come from it.

Until tomorrow,

Simon Black
Founder, SovereignMan.com

https://iman.infusionsoft.com/app/linkClick/20445/fd876c28ef5f2a48/195254081/7d9844428426d231

Read More

Nuclear deal: From Iran's pulpits, a sign Rouhani has support from on high

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2015/0403/Nuclear-deal-From-Iran-s-pulpits-a-sign-Rouhani-has-support-from-on-high?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium

Iran's foreign minister returned home Friday to a hero's welcome. More importantly, perhaps, prayer leaders signaled support from the supreme leader for the deal.

By Scott Peterson, Staff writer APRIL 3, 2015

Ebrahim Noroozi/APView Caption

LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND — Returning to a hero’s welcome in Tehran after clinching a framework nuclear deal with world powers, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif stood up through the sunroof of his car upon arrival Friday at the airport, waving as supporters chanted “Long Live Zarif!”

While some Iranians took to the streets to wave flags and celebrate as the agreement was announced Thursday night – jubilant at the prospect of sanctions being lifted, and of Iran’s isolation easing – it was the message from Friday prayer pulpits that should give Mr. Zarif particular satisfaction.

They indicated that Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei supported Zarif and his team, even though many hardliners – and at times, apparently Mr. Khamenei himself – have been critical of the nuclear talks.

Recommended: How much do you know about Iran? Take our quiz to find out.

The Tehran Friday prayer leader, Ayatollah Emami Kashani, said the nuclear deal – which lays out the parameters for curbing Iran’s nuclear program, in exchange for sanctions relief – was a “victory for the Islamic Republic.”

“To be fair, the negotiating team is modest and wise and have followed the supreme leader’s advice on heroic flexibility,” said Mr. Kashani. “We much congratulate the president and Mr. Zarif.”

That was rare praise indeed, for the negotiating team and for relatively moderate President Hassan Rouhani, who have come under constant attack from conservative political opponents.

New era of cooperation

On Friday Mr. Rouhani, in a national address, hailed the framework agreement as heralding a new era of “cooperation with the world.” He said Iran would continue to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, while vowing that Iran would stand by its commitments made in the negotiations.

"Some think we have no option except to fight the world or to surrender. But there is a third way, too. We have to have cooperation with the world," he said, according to the Associated Press.

The messages from the Friday prayer leaders are coordinated nationwide with Khamenei’s office.

“This shows the pressure coming from the top to disarm these hardliners who come up with strong words [against a deal],” says a veteran analyst in Tehran who asked not to be named.

“Friday prayers are a strong bastion of conservatives and hardliners – and all these nice words coming from there, of course it’s not unrelated to the leader’s views,” says the analyst. “Nobody dares to go against what he endorses. Hardliners of course keep saying what they say, but they’ll have a harder time to oppose what’s happening.”

Hardliners say Iran caved to West

Indeed, some Iranians oppose making any compromise with Western powers, especially on the nuclear issue, which they see as Iran caving into Western demands.

“We gave up a saddled horse, and in return we just received one with torn pieces of a bridle,” said the editor of the hard-line Kayhan newspaper, Hossein Shariatmadari.

Esmail Kowsari, a conservative member of parliament from Tehran and member of the national security committee, complained that “the negotiating team has showed slackness in the negotiations, and what was supposed to be achieved has not been achieved, and the results are not acceptable.”

Despite those complaints, some Iranians have rejoiced in the fact that Prime Minister of Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel – a regional foe for decades – has opposed the deal so vehemently. Mr. Netanyahu said Friday the deal would threaten Israel’s existence.

“Many supporters of the deal point to this fact,” says the analyst. “They say we should be congratulating Zarif for causing such an unprecedented division between Israel and America, and the reactions coming from Israel – all the fury and anger – just shows we are on the right track.”

Relief on social media

Iranians took widely to social media to express relief and support for the deal.

One cartoon circulating showed President Barack Obama and Rouhani in a warm embrace, both holding their fingers in victory signs and encircled by white doves of peace. Another showed Zarif leap-frogging over Obama.

Someone joked on Viber, the phone messaging app, that the deal would not yet effect Iran’s strict dress code: “Ladies! The agreement was about nuclear issues … do not leave the house with shorts and sleeveless tops!”

Sobhan Hassanvand, a journalist with the reformist Shargh newspaper, used a Persian proverb to describe the sense of a miracle having been performed in Lausanne: “An idiot throws a stone into a well, a thousand sages cannot bring it out,” he tweeted. “But Zarif did it…”

Read More

ABOVE ALL - THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST

Read More