Monday, March 12, 2012
The Spymaster: Meir Dagan on Iran's threat
(CBS News) Meir Dagan has been described as "hard-charging" and "stops at nothing." For more than eight years, Dagan made full use of those qualities as chief of Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency, where he focused on keeping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. When that job ended, Dagan did something unheard of for an ex-Mossad chief: he spoke out publicly, voicing opposition to Israel launching preemptive airstrikes against Iran's nuclear facilities anytime soon. Dagan believes the Iranian regime is a rational one and even its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - who has called for Israel to be annihilated - acts in a somewhat rational way when it comes to Iran's nuclear ambitions. Lesley Stahl reports.
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The following script is from "The Spymaster Speaks" which aired on March 11, 2012. Lesley Stahl is the correspondent. Shachar Bar-On, producer.
When President Obama met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this past week, the subject was how, when and if to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, Netanyahu saying Israel can't afford to wait much longer; Mr. Obama arguing there's still time to let sanctions and diplomacy do the job. And he said some top intelligence officials in Israel side with him.
Actually, you'll hear from one of them tonight: Meir Dagan, former chief of the Mossad, Israel's equivalent of the CIA. It's unheard of for someone who held such a high-classified position to speak out publicly, but he told us he felt compelled to talk, because he is so opposed to a preemptive Israeli strike against Iran anytime soon.
Dagan headed the Mossad for nearly a decade until last year. His primary, if not his only mission was to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb. And he says there is time to wait, perhaps as long as three years.
Lesley Stahl: You have said publicly that bombing Iran now is the stupidest idea you've ever heard. That's a direct quote.
Dagan: An attack on Iran before you are exploring all other approaches is not the right way how to do it.
Stahl: The dispute seems to come down, though, to whether you are at the end of everything that you can try or whether you have a lot of time left to try other things, which seems to be your position.
Dagan: I never said it's a lot of time but I think that-
Stahl: Well, more time.
Dagan: More time.
For nearly a decade buying more time was his job. The Iranians say Dagan dispatched assassins, faulty equipment and computer viruses to sabotage their nuclear program. All the while, he was poring over the most secret dossiers about the Iranian regime, gaining insights and a surprising appreciation.
Dagan: The regime in Iran is a very rational regime.
Stahl: Do you think Ahmadinejad is rational?
Dagan: The answer is yes. Not exactly our rationale, but I think that he is rational.
Stahl: Do you think they're rational enough that they are capable of backing down from this?
Dagan: No doubt that the Iranian regime is maybe not exactly rational based on what I call Western-thinking, but no doubt they are considering all the implications of their actions.
Stahl: Other people think they're not going to really stop until they have this capability.
Dagan: They will have to pay dearly and all the consequences for it. And I think the Iranians, in this point in time, are going very careful in the project. They are not running in it.
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Saturday, March 10, 2012
Arpaio investigation: Obama might be Kenyan
Among the records missing for Barack Obama that would be available for an ordinary president are passport records, school records such as those from Punahou, Occidental, Columbia and Harvard, Harvard Law Review writings, scholarly articles for the University of Chicago, state bar association records from Illinois, Illinois state senate records, the marriage and divorce documents for his mother, his adoption records and others.
Now it has been revealed that the Cold Case Posse assembled by Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Maricopa County, Ariz., cannot confirm yet that Obama was not born in Kenya and brought to the United States as a days-old infant for his birth to be registered in Hawaii.
The reason? Missing records.
Speculation has held that Obama actually was born in Kenya, and as the son of an American woman and Kenyan father, probably would not have been considered under any circumstances to be a “natural born citizen” of America, as the Constitution demands for presidents.
It’s been revealed that the Kenyan government actually investigated that possibility earlier, without conclusive results.
Now Arpaio’s team, which was assembled to work on a volunteer basis after hundreds of constituents expressed fear that Obama was having his name put on the 2012 election ballot in Arizona using a fraudulent document, has reported that it checked to determine whether a young mother arrived in the United States from Kenya in the days after Obama’s reported Aug. 4, 1961, birth date.
The investigation report said that the records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service cards, which were filled out by passengers of that era arriving on international flights originating outside of the United States, cannot be found.
The investigation sought the records from part of the month of August 1961, and took a researcher to the National Archives in Washington, D.C., where other records of that time and from that time frame are stored.
NOTE: In case you missed the news conference of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s “Cold Case Posse,” you can view it here.
It is the records from the week of Obama’s birth that cannot be tracked, investigators confirm.
The Arpaio report said the hunt for airline passenger flight manifests for 1961 for foreign flights landing in Honolulu was an attempt to see if Obama’s mother returned at that time.
“The idea was that if Barack Obama had been born in Kenya, or any other location outside the United States, there should be a passenger record of the airline flight on which she, a new mother, returned to Hawaii with her newly born infant son,” the report said.
But “to date, investigators have not been able to locate the relevant airline passenger flight manifests for 1961.”
What was found were records of cards the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service required all passengers – including both U.S. citizens and foreign citizens – to fill out and file with passport control when arriving in Honolulu from a foreign city of origin.
The report said, “Microfilm records of INS cards for passengers arriving in New York on foreign files in 1961 have been found in the National Archives only recently; consequently these records have not yet been examined. Microfilm records of INS cards for passengers arriving in Honolulu on foreign files originating around the Pacific rim in 1961 have been examined at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.”
The microfilms that were found for the time period include “NARA Record Group A3573, Reel 184, INA records from July 28, 1961 through Aug. 7, 1961″ and “NARA Record Group A3573, Reel 185, INA records from Aug. 8, 1961 through Aug. 12, 1961.”
However, “Remarkably, all INS records for the week of Obama’s birth, Aug. 1 – Aug. 7, 1961, were missing from the end of Reel 184 and were not discovered anywhere on Reel 185, or any other microfilm reel in the record group,” the report said.
“The National Archives confirmed in a letter written on National Archives stationary that the INS records for foreign flights arriving in Hawaii during the week of Obama’s birth were missing, not only on the microfilm reels examined, but also in the primary database itself,” the report said.
That leaves open the door that Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was, as others have reported, visiting her husband’s family in Kenya shortly before the birth. Airlines at that time likely would not have allowed a woman expecting to give birth any day to board an extended international flight, thus creating the circumstances for Obama’s birth in Kenya.
WND reported earlier that internal Kenyan government documents reveal Obama’s step-grandmother was interviewed by agents of the National Security Intelligence Service about reports she said Obama was born in the East African nation.
As WND reported that while there’s no proof to date placing Obama’s mother in Kenya for the birth, a disputed taped telephone conversation in which step-grandmother Sarah Hussein Obama purportedly claimed he was born in the coastal city of Mombasa became an Internet sensation after its submission in a lawsuit challenging the president’s eligibility.
Philip J. Berg, a former Pennsylvania deputy attorney general, included a transcript of the taped Oct. 16, 2008, telephone interview and sworn affidavits in a filing with the U.S. Supreme Court after lower courts dismissed as frivolous his Aug. 21, 2008, complaint alleging Obama was born in Mombasa.
Critics challenge statements on the telephone call, which was conducted through an interpreter. But two members of the Obamas’ Luo tribe who are fluent in the local Luo dialect, Swahili and English, have told WND that after carefully listening to the tape they believe she declared Barack Obama Jr. was born in Kenya and that she was present at the birth.
Kenya’s NSIS later investigated those statements, according to official government letters. WND also confirmed two letters purportedly written by Kenya’s immigration secretary during the 2008 U.S. presidential election campaign stated that officials in Nairobi could not find evidence Obama was born in Kenya. But the official said the government had “information” that relevant birth records may have been removed or were missing.
An “interim report” by the NSIS issued in September 2008 “concludes that a birth certificate in the name of Barack Hussein Obama may have been issued” in Kenya “but to confirm this would require a further thorough joint investigation” by the NSIS and Kenya’s Central Intelligence Department, or CID.
The report said that none of several investigations by various officers has been conclusive and that some leads require further investigation “because it appears some powerful forces as it were are hell bent in defeating this investigation.”
The government reported some hospital records appeared to be missing.
Further, a 2009 internal NSIS report (page 1 and page 2) said conflicting stories suggest the “the Obama family is trying to hide something but are not doing a very good job of it.”
The report said, “We have also investigated Mama Sarah to find out if she is speaking the truth but she had come out as vague and incongruent. In one interview with Mama Sarah Obama our officers recorded that Mama Sarah says she cannot remember if she attended the birth of Barack Obama or visited his parents at the Coast Provincial General Hospital around the official birthday of Barack Obama. But she confessed to have had part of her family there at around the same time. Some of her brothers were already working in Mombasa. In a second interview done much later, she says that she is sure Barack Obama was born in Mombasa because she was visiting her family there when he was born, and they were called to the CPGH (Coast Provincial General Hospital) where she met Barack Obama’s mother for the first time.”
The report said she later was hostile and gave conflicting testimony about the issue.
The NSIS also reported that there were multiple alterations and insertions in the hospital records, suggesting that someone was trying “keep off track any investigations into this case.”
There also was official correspondence involving Emmanuel Kisombe, the permanent secretary in the Ministry for Immigration and Registration of Persons, who in July 2008 told the U.S. ambassador about the possibility that Obama was born in their country.
He suggested an investigation. He wrote, “We have instructions from the Head of Civil Service and Secretary to the Cabinet carrying out directions of the Cabinet sub-committee on Security and Foreign Relations to investigate and report on efficacy of reports that Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic Party aspirant in the United States could be Kenyan-born.”
He cited “numerous intelligence reports that [Obama] might have been born in Mombasa at the Lady Grigg Maternity Wing of the Coast Provincial Hospital.”
Harvard-educated Dr. Jerome Corsi, who has written several books about Obama, wrote a year ago about the theories involving a Kenyan birth for Obama.
He cited the documentation that the Immigration and Naturalization Service suspected the marriage between Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, and Barack Obama Sr. to be a sham.
And there is the fact that within weeks of the birth, Dunham moved to Seattle to take night classes at the University of Washington.
Because of the absence of information, the reasons for some of those events remain unclear. But he noted in a column, “That Ann Dunham did not return to Honolulu until after Obama Sr. left in September 1962 to begin his graduate studies at Harvard suggests the possibility an estrangement between the conception of the baby and the birth had eliminated or eroded whatever bond might have existed between the two.
“Perhaps Ann hoped that she could persuade senior members of the Obama family in Kenya that she was a well-chosen daughter-in-law and her son was a desirable grandson,” he continued. “With her leftist ideological vision and the many comments she made to friends after arriving in Seattle with her infant son, Ann Dunham may well have harbored the hope of becoming the Eva Peron of Kenya.
“If Ann Dunham had been successful in persuading Obama Sr. and his family in Africa to accept her, she might have ended up in the desirable position of being the U.S.-born wife of a U.S.-educated Kenyan husband, who faced bright political prospects after he returned to Kenya with an advanced graduate degree obtained from a prestigious U.S. university,” his analysis said. “With the last six months of her pregnancy missing in her documentable chronology, it’s possible she was not in Hawaii during that time. Air travel from Honolulu was becoming increasingly more accessible to the average person by 1961.”
He said, “That Ann Dunham was rejected both by the Obama family in Kenya and by Obama Sr. in Honolulu also provides an explanation for her precipitous decision to leave Honolulu as quickly after the baby’s birth as possible. Hope followed by rejection would then define the emotions that explain Dunham’s behavior during her 1961 pregnancy.”
He said, “Moreover, if the baby was born in Kenya, the actual date of birth might have been earlier than Aug. 4, 1961. Very possibly, the grandparents decided to register the baby’s birth with the Hawaii Department of Health when they knew their daughter was returning to Honolulu from Africa.
“That Ann Dunham as an 18-year-old took an infant baby to Seattle by herself to rent an apartment and begin night courses would make more sense if the baby had been born in Kenya earlier than Aug. 4, 1961, the date of birth consistently advanced in the official Obama nativity story.”
The Cold Case Posse dismissed so-called evidence of two newspaper announcements in Honolulu citing Obama’s birth, explaining that those same announcements also listed foreign infants as Hawaii-born, as well as listing 3-year-olds as newborns.
Under Chapter 57 of the 1955 Revised Law of the Territory of Hawaii, a family in 1961 could report a birth as Hawaiian with merely the word of a family member or witness.
That there was reason for members of his family to claim a Hawaiian birth was documented by the state of Hawaii. In a 1955 paper by Robert Bennett, the chief of the Bureau of Health Statistics of the Hawaii Department of Health, he explained the vital records system he was then implementing for the Hawaiian Islands, which soon would be a state.
In an article entitled “Vital Records in Hawaii,” published in the Hawaii Medical Journal, Vol. 15, No. 2, November-December 1955, Bennett and his co-author, George Tokuyama, chief of the Registration and Records Section, wrote:
“The requirement of a birth certificate throughout the country to show citizenship, during World War II, gave a great impetus to the completeness of registration. This and other factors have made a birth certificate the principal document an American citizen uses to prove legal facts about himself. Almost every parent knows that a baby must be registered soon after birth, not only to meet requirements of the law, but to protect the child later in life.”
There also have been conflicting reports from Obama family members about which Hawaii hospital was his birth location, and neither has been able to provide any documentation confirming it.
There also have been discrepancies reported in the image of Obama’s birth certificate that the White House purported was “proof positive” of a Hawaiian birth, including an out-of-sequence number.
Further, research has revealed that on his INS paperwork filled out the same month Barack Obama Jr. was born, Barack Obama, Sr. incorrectly lists his wife’s name as “Ann S. Dunham” instead of “Stanley Ann Dunham,” and he neglected to mention that he had any children.
Obama Sr. also listed his address at 1482 Alencastre St. in Honolulu, a bachelor apartment he never shared with his wife or child.
And passport documents released for Barack Obama Jr.’s mother by the State Department on July 29, 2010, did not include any birth certificate documentation for him, despite one hand-written memo to the file claiming he was born in Honolulu.
China, U.S. Chase Air-to-Air Cyberweapon
By David A. Fulghum davef@aviationweek.com
The U.S. Air Force is developing network weapons to attack aircraft.
Electronic warfare specialists know the technology is already a double-edged sword, however. The Chinese, a senior service official says, are already working hard on, and in some cases fielding, similar systems to attack high-value aircraft used for early warning, electronic surveillance, command and control, and intelligence.
The Air Force is pursuing “cyber-methods to defeat aircraft,” Gen. Norton Schwartz, the service’s chief of staff, told attendees at the 2012 Credit Suisse and McAleese Associates Defense Programs conference in Washington March 8. But Lt. Gen. Herbert Carlisle, the deputy chief of staff for operations, says the same threat to U.S. aircraft already is “out there.”
Ashton Carter, deputy secretary of defense, is pushing both offensive and defensive network-attack skills and technology. “I’m not remotely satisfied” with the Pentagon’s cyber-capabilities, Carter says.
“The Russians and the Chinese have designed specific electronic warfare platforms to go after all our high-value assets,” Carlisle says. “Electronic attack can be the method of penetrating a system to implant viruses. You’ve got to find a way into the workings of that [target] system, and generally that’s through some sort of emitted signal.”
The Chinese have electronic attack means — both ground-based and aircraft-mounted — specifically designed to attack E-3 AWACS, E-8 Joint Stars and P-8 maritime patrol aircraft, he says.
Schwartz revealed no other details, but several years ago the service tested the “Suter” system, which used a data stream filled with algorithms to invade an integrated air defense (IAD) system through its antennas. The data-stream, generated by an EC-130 Compass Call electronic-attack aircraft, was able to capture the enemy network’s radar pictures, take over the network as system administrator and tap into dispersed missile launchers through their wireless communication links. Changes to or effects on the output of the enemy IAD system were monitored by an RC-135 Rivet Joint signals-intelligence aircraft.
A fielded version of the system was used by Compass Call aircraft in Iraq and Afghanistan to tap into wireless telephone systems used to control improvised explosive devices. However, the EC-130 is a large, slow aircraft that does not fly at high altitudes, making it vulnerable to anti-aircraft guns and missile fire. So the task has become engineering a network invasion device small enough to fit into a stealthy aircraft — manned or unmanned, strike or reconnaissance — that can penetrate to a useful tactical range to attack enemy electronics and networks.
New U.S. aircraft like the F-22, F-35, EA-18G and F/A-18E/F now carry new, long-range, active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars that are being considered as part of an electronic-attack/network-invasion capability. However, different versions of the AESA arrays are being tailored to better fit the cyber/electronic attack mission. Some will go on unmanned designs like Boeing’s Champ cruise missile, Raytheon’s MALD-J jamming missile and a line of Mk.-82 bomb shapes to carry out the electronic attack role. Other designs will be tailored for the Suter-like, network-invasion task.
Ironically, the AESA arrays that make the new radars and electronic attack systems so formidable in range and power output also are major targets themselves for electronic attack. “From a cyber [attack] standpoint, AESA has introduced new vulnerabilities,” a veteran electronic attack specialist says. “They have a continual wide field of view that can be exploited.”
Such new weaponry would be a boon to the Air Force if it were thrown into a campaign against Syria. “Syria has a much more demanding air defense environment” than Libya, for example, Schwartz says. “We’re watching Syria closely” as well as other places where governments are showing “erratic behavior,” he says.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Greek default priced at 1 trillion euros, bondholders say
By Alex Chambers and Steve Slater / Reuters
LONDON - A disorderly Greek default would cause more than a trillion euros ($1.3 US trillion) of damage to the euro zone and could leave Italy and Spain dependent on outside help to stop contagion spreading, the main bondholders group has said.
Greek private creditors have until Thursday night to say whether they will participate in a bond swap that is part of a bailout deal to help it manage its finances and meet a debt repayment on March 20.
Investors will lose almost three-quarters of the value of their debt in the exchange. Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos told Reuters on Monday it was the best deal they would get and those who did not sign up would still be forced to take losses.
Analysts said the Institute of International Finance document, marked “IIF Staff Note: Confidential,” may have been designed to alarm investors into participating in the exchange.
“There are some very important and damaging ramifications that would result from a disorderly default on Greek government debt,” the IIF said in the Feb. 18 document obtained by Reuters.
“It is difficult to add all these contingent liabilities up with any degree of precision, although it is hard to see how they would not exceed 1 trillion euros.”
If Greece misses the March 20 payment without a deal in place, this would be seen as a disorderly default and could be taken as a sign that politicians have lost control of the euro. Investors might then target other weak euro zone countries.
Spain and Italy might require 350 billion euros in outside support to contain the fallout, the IIF said, while the cost of helping Ireland and Portugal could total 380 billion euros over five years.
If the deal fell apart, the European Central Bank would suffer substantial losses because its estimated 177 billion euros exposure to Greece is over 200 percent of its capital base, the IIF said.
The bank lobby group, which helped negotiate the swap on behalf of creditors, also said bank recapitalisation costs could easily hit 160 billion euros if no swap is agreed.
It could threaten the euro and would be a catastrophe for Greek living standards.
“Social strains (in Greece) would intensify as the economy reeled and unemployment surged from an elevated level already in excess of 20 percent,” the report said.
“When combined with the strong likelihood that a disorderly Greek default would lead to the hurried exit of Greece from the euro area, this financial shock to the ECB could raise significant stability issues about the monetary union.”
JITTERS
A dozen major Greek bondholders, all on the IIF steering committee that helped draw up the deal, said on Monday they would support the swap. They hold about one-fifth of the 206 billion euros of bonds in circulation.
The remaining investors are under pressure to sign up.
Greece wants a take-up of 90 percent or more and if it falls below that but exceeds 75 percent it is expected to use collective action clauses (CACs) to force losses on those who do not volunteer.
Below that level, the deal could be off, potentially plunging the euro zone back into crisis.
The Greek finance ministry denied speculation that it was planning to extend the deadline on the offer, highlighting the jittery mood just two days before final decisions are due.
“Obviously the report is written on a worst case basis to try and encourage participation in the exchange,” said Gary Jenkins, analyst at Swordfish Research.
“The most likely outcome may well be that Greece passes its 75 percent target and then uses CACs to ensnare the remainder.”
Greece needs to reach that target to ensure it makes the budget savings agreed under its 130 billion euros bailout deal.
Venizelos has said he would not hesitate to activate the CACs. His deputy called them a “weapon” to help the exchange.
Using the CACs would probably trigger payouts on bond insurance contracts (CDS) and would also increase the chance of hedge funds or other bondholders pursuing legal action.
Complicating the process is the fact that 177 billion euros of the bonds fall under Greek law, and the remainder under English law.
The deadline for acceptances is 2000 GMT on Thursday, although the foreign law bondholders must hold approval meetings March 27-29 so they would settle at a later date.
The Church of Sex
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| Pastor Mark Driscoll |
Warning: The following column contains sexually explicit language.
There’s a new form of Christianity sweeping the U.S. Its main focus: sex.
Don’t be surprised. We already have a Christian denomination catering to every other worldview, comfort zone and obsession, so why not sex? As I said in “The Marketing of Evil”:
“No matter what kind of person you are, a form of Christianity has evolved just for you. There’s a politically liberal Christianity and a politically conservative Christianity. There’s an acutely activist Christianity and an utterly apolitical Christianity, a Christianity that holds up a high standard of ethical behavior and service, and a Christianity for which both personal ethics and good works are irrelevant. There’s a raucous, intensely emotional Christianity drenched in high-voltage music, and there’s a quiet, contemplative Christianity. There’s a loving Christianity and a hateful, racist Christianity, a Christianity that honors Jews as God’s chosen people and a Christianity that maligns Jews as Satan’s children.”
So, it was just a matter of time before we got a version of Christianity for people obsessed with sex.
And while there is a surprising number of preachers, teachers and Christian websites today whose main focus is sex, the most prominent is Mark Driscoll, founding pastor of the wildly popular Seattle mega-church Mars Hill Church. According to Mars Hill’s website, Driscoll’s mostly youthful flock has grown from a handful of people in a home Bible study to over 19,000 people meeting across 14 locations in four states.
“One of the world’s most-downloaded and quoted pastors,” says Driscoll’s official bio, “his audience – fans and critics alike – spans the theological and cultural left and right. He was also named one of the ’25 Most Influential Pastors of the Past 25 Years’ by Preaching magazine, and his sermons are consistently No. 1 on iTunes each week for Religion & Spirituality with over 10 million of downloads each year.”
By the way, as runner-up for top mega-church pastor in “The Church of Sex,” I’d nominate Ed Young, senior pastor of Dallas-based Fellowship Church, who recently staged “a 24-hour bed-in with his wife atop his church,” a stunt designed to publicize his just-released New York Times best-seller, “Sexperiment: 7 Days to Lasting Intimacy With Your Spouse.”
But back to Driscoll: I have nothing personal against this popular, hip, tough-talking young pastor in blue jeans, and I totally understand the appeal of his blunt, masculine, passionate style – a refreshing respite from all the stuffy, pretentious and cowardly pastors out there.
However, let’s just state the obvious: Mark Driscoll is utterly obsessed with sex.
He tells, for instance, the following story of one female member of his congregation who – and I quote – “brought her husband to Christ” by giving him oral sex, in accord with Driscoll’s specific pastoral advice to her. Here’s how Driscoll, during a Nov. 18, 2007, sermon in Edinburgh, Scotland, described this particular husband’s “conversion”:
She [the wife] says, “I’ve never performed oral sex on my husband. I’ve refused to.” I said, “You need to go home and tell your husband that you’ve met Jesus and you’ve been studying the Bible, and that you’re convicted of a terrible sin in your life. And then you need to drop his trousers, and you need to serve your husband. And when he asks why, say, ‘Because I’m a repentant woman. God has changed my heart and I’m supposed to be a biblical wife.’” She says, “Really?” I said, “Yeah. First Peter 3 says if your husband is an unbeliever to serve him with deeds of kindness.” [Laughter from audience] How many men would agree, that is a deed of kindness. He doesn’t want tracts. Those won’t do anything. What we’re talking about here could really help.
Really, people? Is this what we now stoop to in our efforts to make the magnificent Christian faith – the moral foundation of Western civilization – more appealing to a rudderless, confused and sex-drenched generation? Is this what now passes for pastoral counseling and preaching the Bible? I call it abuse and exploitation. I would even call it blasphemy (“… tell your husband that you’ve met Jesus … And then you need to drop his trousers …”).
Driscoll was “preaching” the Song of Solomon, which he has said repeatedly is his favorite part of the Bible and about which he preaches often. It’s also a major focus of “Real Marriage,” his brand-new No. 1 New York Times best-seller – which is mostly about sex – co-authored with his wife, Grace.
For Driscoll, the Song of Solomon amounts to a soft-porn sex manual, which inspires him to admonish women – those who aspire to be “biblical wives” – to awaken their husbands each morning by sexually servicing them in the same way the aforementioned wife “converted” her husband “to Christ.” (Actually, I’m not really too sure she converted him to a deep Christian faith, but no doubt he was converted into an enthusiastic member of Driscoll’s fast-growing church.)
To his credit, Driscoll condemns fornication, adultery and homosexuality. But for married folks, Driscoll – citing his chief inspiration Solomon, who had 700 wives – promotes sex toys, imaginary sexual role-playing, cybersex, what used to be called “sodomy” (both oral and anal) and wives becoming strippers for their husbands.
In fact, the wives-should-become-strippers teaching is not only in the Bible, gushes the enthusiastic Driscoll, it’s in his favorite part of the Holy Scriptures.
“This is my favorite chapter in the whole Bible!” Driscoll exclaimed during the same 2007 sermon. “I believe in the resurrection of Jesus. It’s great too. But this is an amazing chapter of the Bible: [Song of Solomon] Chapter 6 verse 13. It’s awesome. It’s awesome. … Now, what do you think the dance of mah haneim is? It’s an ancient strip tease. Stripping is biblical. You’re welcome. [Laughter from audience] It’s biblical.”
I am not a Bible scholar, far from it. But it’s fair to say the Song of Solomon (or Song of Songs) – a short love poem of only eight chapters – is probably the most controversial book in the Bible. It is never quoted in the New Testament. Because of its often erotic language, “ancient Jews and Christians alike rejected its literal interpretation and allegorized it,” explains the editor’s note in my King James Bible: “For the Jews, it referred to God’s dealings with his bride, Israel. The early Christians saw it as representing the relationship between Christ and His bride, the Church.” This spiritual interpretation pretty much held sway for the first 19 centuries after Christ.
But in modern times, of course, we like to think we understand such things much better than those ignorant, superstitious, early Christians who knew Jesus and the apostles. Kind of like the way today’s judges see things in the U.S. Constitution – gay marriage, abortion, banishing the Ten Commandments from courthouses – that jurists in all previous generations somehow missed.
In any event, however you interpret the Song of Solomon, it’s undeniable that weird and sometimes disastrous things happen when you base your worldview and ministry on one or two allegorical and controversial scripture passages. I mean, check out this YouTube video of a room full of “Christian worshipers” ecstatically handling multiple poisonous snakes. That’s right, there are some churches, mostly in the Southeastern U.S., that believe handling venomous snakes and drinking poison are an important biblical test and proof of their faith. Why? Because in the Gospel according to Mark, Jesus said: “And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover” (Mark 16:17-18).
Common sense tells us – however we interpret Jesus’ actual meaning – that He didn’t intend for the faithful to “tempt God” by drinking strychnine and strutting around on stage with rattlers and cottonmouths, practices that every year result in one or more deaths being reported from these churches. But to proponents of snake-handling and poison-drinking, “it’s biblical.”
In the same way, common sense tells us God did not create women – including married women – to have to compulsively service the needs of oversexed, insecure, angry, egotistical men at all hours of the day and night. And women definitely shouldn’t be psychologically manipulated by authority figures into believing they are disobeying God, Jesus and the Bible if they don’t become sexual Stepford wives.
Which brings me to this question:
Why has Liberty University – a great Christian college, and one of the few schools in the nation that doesn’t infect students with a highly sexualized culture the moment they set foot on campus – agreed to bring Driscoll to its campus in Lynchburg, Va., next month to teach and preach – twice – to all the young Christian students entrusted to that school’s care?
Are the students’ parents cool with making their kids a captive audience for Driscoll’s sex-book tour? And what are the decision-makers at Liberty thinking? It’s not as though I’m the first person to point out Driscoll’s weird overemphasis on sex. The Christian blogosphere has long been fired up over Driscoll. The Baptist Press reported that a major Christian radio network, the Bott Radio Network, canceled Driscoll because of his over-sexed sermons. Even a recent Seattle TV news story about a controversy at Mars Hill Church revolves around – you’ll never guess – sex.
Or check this out: Driscoll tells his congregation he has spiritual visions – which he calls a divine “gift of discernment” – but guess what he spiritually discerns with this sixth sense? Right. As this rather creepy YouTube video reveals, Driscoll has detailed and graphic visions of sexual sins involving his flock, including (in this particular clip) molestation and adultery.
Or how about this story Driscoll told during the same sermon from which I’ve been quoting:
We were in a grocery store recently, and my wife and I were holding hands and just, you know, shopping. I said, “Why don’t you walk ahead of me for awhile.” She said, “What for?” I said, “I just want to watch your butt for a while.” She said, “Watch my butt?” I said, “Yeah, I like your butt. I like you and I like walking with you. But I’d like to watch your butt for a while, at least through the vegetable section. I want to watch your butt.” [Laughter] … Let her know.
Supporters of Mark Driscoll (including the decision-makers at Liberty University), it’s time to wake up. This is not normal. Asking your wife to walk ahead of you in public so you can ogle her rear end is not normal. Having mystical visions of parishioners in sex acts is not normal. Counseling female members of your church to bring their husbands to Jesus through sex acts – that’s not normal. Being pastor of one of the fastest-growing mega-churches in the country and announcing that, out of the entire transcendent Bible – which holds the secrets to heaven and hell and eternal happiness or eternal darkness – your favorite part is about stripping?
That’s not normal.
Modesty, moderation, self-denial, humility, patient endurance – remember that old stuff? Those are the spiritual qualities of a Christian, which are consistently extolled throughout the entire New Testament. “For to be carnally minded is death,” warns Paul; “but to be spiritually minded is life and peace” (Romans 8:6 KJV). The apostles constantly admonish believers not to get too caught up with “the lusts of the flesh.”
In “real marriage” – that is, a marriage made in heaven between sincere and spiritually seeking men and women – wives actually appreciate a little nobility, patience and self-restraint on the part of their husbands. Without the manly virtue of self-control and even a little self-denial as leaven in their relationship, women can feel trapped – like they have no choice but to become seductive sexpots to keep their husband happy. And if perchance this creates conflict within her own conscience – conflict with a part of her that is not so sensuous, but more angelic and childlike and innocent – her husband has no clue what is happening. But she suffers the conflict nevertheless, perhaps dealing with it by pleasing him more and more, in the vain hope it will relieve her conflict. It doesn’t.
Friends, one of life’s great challenges for fallen, broken beings like each of us is that we somehow, through God’s grace, eventually rise above all the various temptations and pulls of “the world” and live solely unto Him. It would really be nice if our pastors and other spiritual authorities, who claim to represent God, would exemplify and exhort us along this high road – rather than lead us in the opposite direction.
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