On any threat to the Holy Places, I for one am happy to seek and take the word of their Franciscan Custos.
Note Michael Novak's appeal to Reinhold Niebuhr, a rare insight into the influence on neoconservatism of neo-orthodoxy, a mid-twentieth century movement to salvage the traditional vocabulary of Protestant theology even while surrendering to every liberal, secularising assault. As among Lutherans and Calvinists on the Continent, and as in the Anglican, Scottish Presbyterian and historic Nonconformist bodies in Britain, so also in the related "mainline" churches in the United States, neo-orthodoxy successfully sold itself as a vindication of popular orthodoxy. But it is actually ruinous of such faith, as is evident from, among much else, "mainline" churchgoers' support for neoconservatives.
Of course Iran is not going to bomb Jerusalem. Or anywhere else, for that matter. If anything, with his reserved seats for Assyrians and Armenians, with his opposition to the foreign forces of genocide against the indigenous Christians of Iraq, with his support for General Aoun's allies against the threat to the most Christian country in the Middle East, with his ties to Syria, and indeed with his comfortable Jewish community which would be forbidden to live in Saudi Arabia but enjoys guaranteed parliamentary representation in Iran, Ahmadinejad has more than a little of Cyrus the Great about him.
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You are a March 8 Alliance man, then?
ReplyDeleteIf anything. It was set up in opposition to one of those silly colour-coded "revolutions". The largest party in it is the Free Patriotic Movement of General Aoun. El Marada is even more staunchly Maronite than that. The Melkites of Skiff are also on board. As are the Christian Democrats of the Solidarity Party. And as is the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, with its deeply sound views on the Armenian genocide and on Nagorno-Karabakh. Even Amal was co-founded by the Melkite Archbishop of Beirut.
ReplyDeleteOn the other, neocon-backed side is the Phalange, within an Alliance in which the Sunni supremacists of the Future Movement, who want to abolish the reserved representation for the Lebanese outposts of Christendom, have only one fewer seat that everyone else put together. As in Bosnia, or Kosovo, or Chechnya, or Saudi Arabia, or Xinjiang, so also in Lebanon: it is clear who the neocons' real allies are.
Don't forget their friend Abdulmalik Rigi of Jundullah. No wonder there is no Shia party in the March 14 Alliance and no wonder Iran supports the March 8 Alliance.
ReplyDeleteQuite so. Maronites, Melkites and Armenians in Lebanon know who their friends are and who their friends are not, as surely as do Armenians, Assyrians and Jews in Iran.
ReplyDeleteMichael Novak is acting as a scaremonger here. There is no credible evidence that Iran is going to launch a nuclear attack on Israel or any other country for that matter. As far as I know, Iran/Persia has not attacked another country in centuries and simply repeating the claim that the Iranian government (as distasteful as it may be in some respects) is run by insane people does not cut it. The neoconservatives have a terrible track record on these sorts of things. I mean, where are the Iraqi WMDs? I guess their answer would be Syria, another country that arguably treats its Christians as well or better than Israel does.
ReplyDelete