Mennonites stirring the stew

Duane Ruth-Heffelbower

My friend Steve Penner just posted a blog entry about the current stirrings among the members of Mennonite Church USA. The image he used was a stirring of waters. The situation is fluid, not unlike those days just before the US Civil War when Mennonites in Russia had a renewal movement that launched the Mennonite Brethren denomination. People and congregations want to find a group to relate to that fits them. The result is a constant stirring of the waters.

I see the MCUSA as a stew. There are recognizable chunks, and then there is the broth in which they all float. The stew has been simmering for a long time, and the chunks are tender, ready to fall apart if prodded.

One big difference between MCUSA and stew is that in the MCUSA new chunks are able to form. Church people want to be part of a congregation in which they can feel at home, and congregations want to be part of larger groups in which they can feel at home. It is inevitable that, over time, some people will leave their congregation and join another. It is also inevitable that some congregations will want to change their affiliation.

When MCUSA was formed the Mennonite Church and General Conference conferences in the west merged and split again to form true area conferences based on geography. We have been hanging out together as a mixture of former MC and GC churches ever since, and the former lines have blurred. In the Midwest and east there was little of this re-forming of conferences, leaving very distinct MC and GC chunks. The farther east you travel, the more MC chunks there are in proportion. MC conferences also overlap geographically with each other, and with former GC area conferences in the east.

As I have written before, former MC congregations were accustomed to authoritative leadership, while GC congregations were usually more egalitarian. The former Mennonite Church was a conference of conferences, with correspondingly powerful conference leaders, while the General Conference was a conference of congregations. GC area conferences were based on geography, and had very little authority.

Individuals who wanted power in church politics could find it in the Mennonite Church, but there was little power to be had in the General Conference above the congregational level. This resulted in very different leadership styles in the two former denominations, and there has been little effort to create a new leadership culture in the MCUSA. Older leaders continue to operate as they did before the merger. New leaders have the confusing task of trying to navigate this historical agglomeration of styles. Not being aware of the source of differences in leadership styles, there is a tendency for them to follow the older leaders with whom they resonate, regardless of their politics.

Adding to the confusion is the situation of immigrant churches and congregants. Immigrants are rarely generated by egalitarian societies, and the default position of most immigrants is to look for a strong, preferably charismatic leader. The pastors of immigrant churches generally fill this bill. This being the case, leaders of immigrant churches are attracted to the more hierarchical style of older MC leaders. The current calls for the MCUSA Executive Board to exercise “strong leadership” largely come from former MC and immigrant church leaders.

There is now an effort to form new affinity groups of MCUSA churches. It is not clear whether these groups will try to become conferences, or even denominations with some authority, or will continue as affinity groups for those of like mind. There is also talk, but no visible action, among those who are most inclusive of people on the edges of the church about forming an affinity group for those people and congregations.

People who are not comfortable with strong, hierarchical leadership favor structures which allow freedom at the local level and cooperation at the national level on those things not much in dispute. Those who prefer authoritative leadership are not very comfortable cooperating with people who don’t agree with them on everything. As others have pointed out, it is the difference between seeing the church as a centered set, or a bounded set. Former MCs tend to be more comfortable with bounded sets, where you know who is in, and who is out. Former GCs are more comfortable being focused on how we relate to the center, usually understood to be Jesus.

As MCUSA prepares for its convention this summer, figuring out how, or whether, these different preferences can be contained within a single structure is the goal. Those who care about local autonomy would not agree to create a single hierarchical church body, so the conversation is really about how willing those who favor authoritative leadership are to be connected to those who desire more autonomy.

Back at the end of the 18^th century the new United States solved this same problem by having a bicameral legislature. The House of Representatives would be apportioned based on population, and the Senate would have two members from each state. This allowed the less populous states to prevent the more populous states from running roughshod over their interests.

A new nation born out of a violent revolution was able to find a way to cooperate enough to make being together worthwhile. I would hope that a group of Mennonites could do the same.

Where Mennonite Church USA went wrong

Where Mennonite Church USA went wrong

Duane Ruth-Heffelbower October 25, 2014

Back in the 1980’s the Mennonite Church and the General Conference Mennonite Church began thinking about taking their historic cooperation to the next level. The differences between the two groups were largely historical and cultural. There wasn't much difference on theology. So the two groups decided to collaborate on a new confession of faith. I was on the board that appointed the GC delegates to the committee.

One big difference between the two groups was their view of authority within the church. MC people mostly traced their heritage to migrations during the 1700s. By the time they got around to forming what we now recognize as a denomination around 1860 they had a long history of vesting considerable authority in bishops who oversaw groups of churches.

GC people formed their denomination at about the same time, but they had just come to North America, with the bulk of their members arriving in the late 1800s. Many of these later-arriving people had left the Ukraine, while others took the same Germany to Holland route earlier MC people had taken. These people vested their authority in the local congregation, not in bishops. This resulted in the General Conference having congregations as members while the Mennonite Church had groups of churches called Conferences as members, with decision making resting with gatherings of bishops.

This difference in church polity resulted in very different ways of thinking about church. As with any immigrant group, cultural changes happened rapidly within the groups, and the culture around them was also changing as the industrial revolution began changing post-civil war North America. One result was that GC congregations dealt with culture change in a pastoral way, taking into account all the personal and local issues that led people to do things differently than they had been done. At conference meetings congregational representatives could compare notes and work at some semblance of uniformity, but no one had the right to tell a congregation it was wrong.

The Mennonite Church approached culture change differently. Bishops were much more concerned with preserving uniformity of practice, and believed that by conforming to the mores approved by the bishops an individual or congregation demonstrated true Christian humility. Congregations and individual members were expected to abide by the understandings of the persons in authority over them.

In many areas of cooperation, differing church polity did not matter. Providing disaster relief and resources for development were supported by all through Mennonite Central Committee. Insurance companies could be formed and used by all. Even joint hymnals were possible, since songs rarely touch on polity. The new Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective was successfully adopted. Things went so well that the two denominations merged. Since merging the two businesses required describing the polity of the new organization, lots of effort went into understanding differences and finding ways to work with them. In MC style, conferences had to decide whether to be part of the new entity, while in GC style, the bylaws said that everyone was in unless they said no.

As it turns out, leaders of both groups thought that in time the wisdom of their approach to church polity would prevail. That didn't happen. Former MCs craved authoritative pronouncements from the new Executive Board whenever culture shifted. They also believed that the Confession was a rule book, not an aspirational guide. GCs had been assured that the new Confession would not be used to test who was in or out. A rule book would not have been acceptable to GCs. These different understandings set the stage for trouble as the surrounding culture came to accept same-sex couples as a legitimate expression of family.

This is the sort of culture change that is difficult for many social conservatives, and most churches have a bit of social conservatism in their DNA. The process played out something like this: “Should same-sex couples be allowed in our church? Well, ok,” said many Mennonite churches, so long as they don’t flaunt their status or try to recruit our children. Can someone in a same-sex relationship be in congregational lay leadership? Well, ok, said some Mennonite churches, so long as they don’t keep rubbing our noses in their lifestyle choices. Can someone in a same-sex relationship be credentialed as a minister? “Yes,” said a few Mennonite churches. “Absolutely not,” said many churches.

This is where MCUSA finds itself now. The presenting issue is same-sex relationships in the church, but the real issue is polity. At MCUSA conventions every two years congregations and conferences send delegates who elect the Executive Board and speak to policy issues. These meetings have been firmly structured to prevent unprocessed issues from emerging at the convention, a former GC practice unacceptable to MCs.

The position being taken by mostly former MCs is that the Executive Board must discipline congregations and conferences who credential people in same-sex relationships. Former GCs are quick to point out that the Executive Board has no power to discipline anyone. Discipline is exercised by congregations, and to some extent by area conferences who actually hold ministerial credentials. If an area conference credentials a pastor and others around the country don’t like it, the only avenue available for discipline is cancelling the conference’s membership in MCUSA.

Simply put, the mistake MCUSA has made is not working deliberately at unifying members’ understanding of church polity. This has left MCUSA with poor tools to deal with culture change as it applies to same-sex relationships.

In the run-up to the MCUSA convention in July 2015 an effort is being made to correct this error, by devising a new structure. The question is whether there can be a denominational structure which allows cooperation in things on which we agree, without forcing us into the appearance of approving that on which we disagree. The immediate example is an area conference licensing a person in a same-sex relationship for ministry. Is there a structure which can allow one conference to do this while allowing other conferences to disapprove, yet remain in fellowship? At what level can we agree to disagree? How loosely must we be connected to avoid appearing to approve actions of which we disapprove? At what point is the structure so loose that it ceases to be a structure?

All this is playing out at a time when denominations, as a breed, are not doing well. Mennonites are not the only ones caught up in responding to culture change. Whether or not denominations are a useful thing is an open question, particularly for religious groups that are congregational, not hierarchical. It may be time for houses of worship to relate to others of like mind locally or regionally, while allowing non-denominational organizations like Mennonite Central Committee, educational institutions or publishing houses to do larger work on behalf of whoever wants to support them.  We are on the hunt for a Goldilocks structure: not too tight, not too loose, but just right.

Hobby Lobby and Religious Freedom | Martin Marty

Hobby Lobby and Religious Freedom | Martin Marty:

Can corporations have religious beliefs? The US Supreme Court has decided that they have first amendment rights as to freedom of speech, so why not as to religion? This is a reprise of the war tax debates of the Vietnam era, the birth control debates of the time since Vietnam and the Social Security debates of another time. Individuals who start companies and do well, incorporate but continue to operate as a sole proprietorship are understandably confused that their own idiosyncrasies don't translate well to the public arena.

The corporate form grants tax advantages and protection from personal liability. It is a gift from the government to the business community, and there are corresponding responsibilities. The most uncomfortable responsibility for entrepreneurs is having to act like a business instead of an extension of the entrepreneur's personality. Businesses have mission statements, not religious beliefs. Religious beliefs are personal, and the corporate form is inherently impersonal.

In United States v. Lee - 455 U.S. 252 (1982) an Old Order Amish carpenter and farmer hired others to work for him, but relied on the exemption for people like himself and did not withhold Social Security from their wages or pay the employer's share. The Supreme Court held, in part, that the exemption is for self-employed persons, and that to create the myriad of exemptions to accommodate everyone like Mr. Lee would be unworkable. It also held that it is not unconstitutional to burden religious belief for an overriding government purpose. The Hobby Lobby and Conestoga cases are even further from being personal. These current cases are asking to overturn 30 years of settled law and create a nightmare of exceptions to many government programs. Businesses seeking exemptions would certainly be job creators, for attorneys.

The current Supreme Court has shown just today in McCutcheon vs FEC that it is willing to overturn decades of settled law in favor of corporations. Today's case eliminates aggregate giving limits in an election cycle, extending Citizens United in favor of protecting corporate freedom of speech. Hobby Lobby and Conestoga may be the cases the 5-4 majority uses to extend first amendment protection for corporations into the realm of religious beliefs. That would not be good news for employees.

If not that, then what? Thoughts on Syria and US intervention

A group of us Mennonites was talking about Syria yesterday, and all agreed that US bombing was a bad thing. This led to the question: if not that, then what should be done? Doing nothing avoids making matters worse, but also runs the risk of letting the situation get worse. All of us have served in relief and development roles, and ought to have some ideas, it would seem.

Everyone quickly suggested helping the many refugees created by the situation in Syria, something that Mennonite Central Committee is already doing. There is a lot more to be done, and helping in this way is something all of us could happily advocate.

But what should be done about the situation that is creating the refugees? That question did not get such a ready response. If the concern is to stop creating refugees and allow those in camps to return home, the goal should be political and economic stability in Syria. The US has a history of helping to create stability by propping up dictators, and, by definition, stability is achieved when one group has the ability to exert political influence and control over all other groups. The logical way to help is to pick a side and assist them in stabilizing the country under their rule. This course of action doesn't sound very good these days, particularly in light of recent US efforts along that line in Iraq and Afghanistan. That course didn't serve the US well in Iran either, and there are many other examples.

Where various factions are killing each other, the help they want is military. Diplomacy is nice, but when the shooting is ongoing on you mostly want ammunition and heavier weapons. Fighters keep dying while diplomats talk. In a multi-faction civil war with outsiders involved, diplomacy doesn't stand much of a chance until either one of the factions shows clear signs of winning, or everyone is exhausted.  Neither of those scenarios applies in Syria just now.

A limited attack to degrade the government forces sounds simple enough, but who benefits and who is deterred? The government is fighting for its life, and if it gives up there is no sanctuary to which its leaders can safely retreat. Deterrence doesn't work in that situation, so the only useful outcome is strengthening opposition forces by degrading government forces.

The opposition is fragmented in its allegiances and goals. Islamists of the Shia faction appear to be mostly concerned with achieving hegemony in a portion of the former Syria, something they are already accomplishing in the north. Alawites need to keep the present government in power. Sunnis would like to replace the current government with their own people. And on it goes. All that unites the opposition is opposition to the regime. Its fall would signal the start of the new civil war among the surviving factions.

Back in 1941 a world power was having its interests interfered with by another world power. It chose to use a limited air strike on purely military targets to degrade the opposition’s ability to meddle in its affairs. We all know how well that worked out for Japan, at least in the short term. History does keep repeating itself if we don’t pay attention. In the meantime, I will focus my advocacy on the refugees from the Syria battleground.

Federal sentences still vary widely - fresnobee.com

AP Enterprise: Federal sentences still vary widely - National Politics - fresnobee.com:


One of the big arguments against restorative justice processes is that they result in different consequences for similarly situated people. Fairness, many think, equals equality. This is not how we operate in our own lives. We know that different people have different needs, and that to treat everyone the same is actually unfair.

I have two granddaughters nearly three years apart in age. The younger 5th grader thinks that fairness means equality, and that she should have the same rights, privileges and things that the 8th grader has. The 8th grader, looking back on her 5th grade years, thinks fairness means the younger sister having the same rules, restrictions and things she had at that age. I know that a younger sibling will have things and privileges an only child would not, simply because she is present where the older child exercises the privileges of being older.

What we want in sentencing, as in the rest of life, is equity. My reasonable needs are met, and so are yours. Our needs will vary depending on our circumstances. Restorative justice seeks to make victims as whole as possible, and to identify the needs that caused the offense in the first place. It has both a reparative and a preventative agenda.

The article on disparities in sentencing by federal judges exposes the dirty little secret that our criminal justice system does not, nor has it ever, treated people equally. Human behavior is too complex to reduce to a formula. Judges and prosecutors are always working with too little information. What sentence is appropriate given everything about the offender, the crime, and the mores of society? Actions considered heinous crimes in one era become somewhat acceptable in another. The California Penal Code used to have an offense called "the infamous crime against nature." Now the perpetrators of this crime are being given the right to marry.

Crack and powder cocaine sentencing disparities are notorious and efforts are being made to bring them into line with each other. There are many ways in which prejudice affects sentencing. Any time one person has the power to make another person do something the act is fraught with the possibility that prejudice will have too much to do with the outcome.

Restorative justice processes are less likely to be abused in this way since the outcomes are collaborations of the affected parties. If the offender doesn't agree there is no agreement. This fact alone pushes the process more towards equity. That this good result is accompanied by the risk of disparity does not bother me, since disparity is a straw man trotted out when convenient rather than something that guides daily practice. Now that we have the data to back this up it is time to get serious about restoring equity to our criminal justice process so that victims can be made whole, and the community can be protected by identifying and meeting the needs that led to the offense in the first place.


Prison realignment in California moves more prisoners from state institutions to local jails. One of the opportunities that comes along with this change is that prisoners can receive treatment services closer to home, and there can be continuity of care as they are released and re-enter the community. The state system has provided no significant rehabilitation services to the vast majority of prisoners, and what services were provided ended abruptly upon release.


Realignment is a wonderful opportunity to enhance community safety through assisted reintegration of prisoners upon their release. Unfortunately, local jails and probation departments need to gear up to receive an influx of prisoners, and that has absorbed all the money made available for the transition.


It is not too late to take advantage of the opportunity we have. Successful reintegration of prisoners into the community is the single best way to enhance community safety. We have proven over the last decades that we cannot arrest our way to safety. What we can do is make sure that offenders have a way to create a productive life for themselves after their release. We can also use the same restorative mindset to close the school to prison pipeline by offering students with difficulties the services they need to be successful. 


We have proven that mass incarceration does not work. It is time to try something that does. Restorative justice practices offer that possibility.

Start paying for war - The Washington Post

Start paying for war - The Washington Post

Buying cool new shoes with a credit card may not be all that wise, especially if you don't pay the card off every month, but at least you have the shoes while you are paying them off. Tomahawk missiles are different.The Navy stocks up on missiles over time, paying for them out of current budget. This means that a president can use Tomahawks without any impact on current spending. Replacing the inventory will be done over time, maybe even by a later administration. Sending troops, on the other hand, is like buying shoes with a credit card. By the time you have to pay the bill you already know whether buying the shoes was a good idea or not, but you have to pay even if the shoes don't fit.

The intervention in Libya takes advantage of these economic facts of life. The submarines with Tomahawks are already loitering around the Mediterranean. The missiles were paid for by one of the presidents Bush, or maybe even Reagan.Firing off 122 of the missiles has no current financial impact.

Guarding a no-fly zone does cost current dollars. The fuel and additional spare parts required by an increase in flight time come out of the current budget. Most costly of all, in current budget terms, is sending ground troops. US troops in Afghanistan cost about $1 million each per year.

Ezra Klein suggests that pay-as-you-go war would be better. If I want to fire a missile, I must first add revenue or cut some other expense to pay for it. This sounds reasonable to me. Lots of planning had to go into firing those Tomahawks at Libya. There's no reason that White House staff couldn't also be identifying the new revenue sources or cuts necessary to pay for them at the same time. To make it more true to life a president sending troops into harm's way should also budget the death benefits and medical care necessary for those who are injured and pay that amount out of current income. The military plans ahead to preposition body bags, so prepositioning the money necessary to fill them shouldn't be too difficult.

What military operation could survive having to do a cost-benefit analysis prior to engaging in it? Who would have thought that invading Afghanistan and then Iraq was a good idea if they had to pay for it up front? The National Priorities Project estimates the cost of wars since 2001 at $1.171 trillion. There are about 311 million Americans. That mans each American has paid something like $376 per year for the last ten years just for those wars. The Tax Policy Center says 47% pay no income tax, so double the amount if you are someone who does pay. This means the bill for a tax paying family of four has been $3,008 a year for the last ten years just for these wars.

Pay as you go wars would be a good way to help presidents think before they launch.

Infographic: Tax Breaks vs. Budget Cuts

Infographic: Tax Breaks vs. Budget Cuts

This chart has been making the rounds under various headings generally labeled "class warfare." It compares the cost of federal social programs at risk of being cut with some of the latest tax breaks for the wealthy. The reasonable take-away from the chart is that by eliminating these tax cuts we could pay for the social programs. The chart includes early childhood prorgams, low income housing programs, supplemental nutrition (WIC), teacher traing and after school programs, job training for unemployed and new workers, low income home energy assistance, community health centers, legal services for the poor and family planning services. The total tab for all these programs is $44 billion.

Assuming that these are all good programs that offer excellent bang for the buck, I am left with a nagging question: why are these federal government programs in the first place?

At best the federal government adds another layer of bureaucracy to the distribution of the money. At worst it demands that money be spent in ways that local people disagree with. Caring for people who are unable to care for themselves is an inherently local task. No one in Washington, DC can hand food to someone in Fresno. Unfortunately, paying for the care may well be beyond the ability of localities that need it most. Larger clusters of people need to be organized to provide assistance. This means that regional or even state-wide organizations may need to help hard hit areas. Some events, like the gulf oil spill, may even require coordination at the national level.

None of the programs in the infographic are designed to provide disaster assistance. They are for chronic problems that must be sustainably addressed at the local level. Local agencies spend much energy chasing the next federal grant and never know whether the staff will have jobs at the end of the current grant. This cycle has implications of many kinds for local organizations, none of them good for those in need.

Let the federal government work with matters that require interstate coordination, and let local people manage local needs with money that would otherwise go to federal coffers. Fresno's per capita share of the $44 billion is about $70 million. Maybe some of the money would even get to groups doing the best work, instead of the best grant writing.

Top Resources for Finding Scholarships/Fellowships in Conflict Resolution and Related Fields - Peace and Collaborative Development Network

Top Resources for Finding Scholarships/Fellowships in Conflict Resolution and Related Fields - Peace and Collaborative Development Network

Craig Zelizer has been working at education in conflict and peacemaking for a long time now. This blog post gathers together what he has learned about funding your education.

Hospira to Stop Making Lethal-Injection Drug - WSJ.com

Hospira to Stop Making Lethal-Injection Drug - WSJ.com

Say what you will about pharmaceutical companies, they get that being associated with the death penalty is a bad thing. 105 countries have abolished the death penalty by law or practice. The United States is one of the few places where one can find an active pro-death penalty group. This is a big change in the last fifty years.

There are many reasons proposed for this shift in international public opinion. Many of the reasons behind this shift can be explored at http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/. In some countries the death penalty was abolished as part of undoing a history of oppression. When a new order comes to power vestiges of the old order are swept away. Others have realized that killing people who kill people does not teach that we shouldn't kill people. In this new age of DNA evidence we are also discovering that innocent people get convicted more often than was once thought. 

The economic argument that the death penalty saves money has long been untrue in the US. Even when executions are being done it takes many years for an individual to be executed. California is spending over $100 million a year to house over 700 death row inmates in single cells. Interestingly, there are about as many people on death row in California as have ever been executed in California.

As one US Supreme Court justice famously said, "death is different." It is permanent. There is no undo button. When you add years of incarceration with a death sentence hanging over the inmate's head it is also uniquely brutal. While some would argue that the brutality is appropriate, that group keeps shrinking as a proportion of the population.

Some ask why the death penalty is a big deal to anyone, given the number of violent deaths we hear about every day, and the American penchant for military adventures. More Americans have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last 10 years than are on death row (3,291 in 2009). The difference is in the individualized premeditation of the death penalty. Soldiers are killed in war zones, but it isn't personal. Soldiers kill in war zones, but they rarely set out to kill the individuals they end up killing. The death penalty requires a long, individualized process of officially deciding to kill a particular person. That makes it more horrifying.

Isn't it time for the US to get with the trajectory of human development?

September 11, 2006

I wrote the following post on September 11, 2006. How has the world changed since then?

September 11, 2006

On September 11, 2001 at 9:00 EST I was on an airplane over the South China Sea. We landed in Singapore knowing nothing of what had happened in New York, Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon. I happened to be first off the plane and walked down a long corridor with soldiers in black uniforms standing shoulder to shoulder on both sides holding stubby machine guns. Having flown into Singapore many times, I knew something was up, but not what. it was until I turned on CNN in my hotel room. The replay of the towers falling went on and on.

The next day I was scheduled to head home to Java so went to the departure area and discovered that only one flight would leave Singapore that day, my flight to Jakarta. At every point in my journey everyone I encountered expressed sympathy. Leaving Jakarta for my home in Yogyakarta even the guards at the metal detector went out of their way to say how sorry they were. A month later, on Canadian Thanksgiving, the U.S. began bombing Afghanistan. The local authorities took over the house next door to give us 24 hour police protection.

Tomorrow is the fifth anniversary of the 9-11 events. As luck would have it, I will be on an airplane again, this time headed from California to Texas for a meeting with legislators on restorative justice. The feelings this trip engenders surprise me. The fact that causing an event on the 5^th anniversary is a terrorist dream is inescapable, but what it means to me is that I probably can’t take anything on the plane, and that is foremost in my mind. I’m thinking of wearing a t-shirt, gym shorts and flip-flops, carrying my medications in a Ziploc bag.

Airport passenger security as a safety measure is a joke, since all the low-paid workers on the ramp can easily bring in anything a terrorist wants and most checked cargo and baggage is not screened. I know I will be subjected to search in an effort to make me think the government can keep me safe. That is ridiculous. I can’t take my Swiss Army keychain knife with its 1 ½ inch blade onto the plane, but I can take my five inch stainless steel Parker pen, which is a real weapon and can do a tracheotomy in an emergency. I am no safer flying on 9-11-06 than I was on 9-11-01, but I am much inconvenienced as a political ploy. That Americans put up with this is depressing.

I have walked through the Khyber Pass gate from Pakistan into Afghanistan where no checking of cargo is done as people and trucks flow both ways. The free movement of dangerous things is part of life these days. Anyone who suggests differently is either uninformed or a liar. When I flew to California from Indonesia in December 2001 I was met at LAX by National Guardsmen toting automatic weapons. I’m sure that was a real deterrent to terrorists willing to die to wreak havoc, and that I was much less safe because of their presence.

Learning to live with IEDs

War frustrates Clovis soldier's father - fresnobee.com

On the day he buries his son killed by an IED (improvised explosive device) in Afghanistan a grieving father lashes out at a government that does not give its soldiers adequate protection from such threats. The nature of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq has made IEDs the weapon of choice for those who oppose foreign intervention. Soldiers cannot protect themselves from these threats as well as they can protect themselves from snipers since the concussive force of a bomb reaches inside armored vehicles.

The current issue of Wired magazine has an excellent article on the intricacies of IED defense http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/07/ff_roadside_bombs/. It describes in detail why efforts to protect troops from the threat may reduce the number of casualties, but can never eliminate them. Adding armor to vehicles results in bigger bombs being used. Finding ways to fool triggering mechanisms is quickly countered. Americans have to protect themselves against every method known since the bomb makers can use anything they have ever used. A single device made in a kitchen can tie up billions of dollars of hardware seeking to protect soldiers from the new innovation, even if it is never used again.

The threat of IEDs has grown enormously in Afghanistan. One result of the Wikileaks documents is that we now know the GPS coordinates and other info on every IED in the 2004-2009 period. This information has been put on an animated map available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlfQQnH6_Cc. One can easily see the increase in activity and where the activity takes place. The hockey stick graph of frequency is also easily visualized. Since 2007 around 60% of US soldiers killed in Afghanistan have been killed by an IED.

The Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center has tracked over 178,000 cases of traumatic brain injury since 2000. Of these about 5,000 were of the severe or penetrating variety that results in long-term disability. These are part of the 32,000 US troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan so far. Over 5,600 have been killed. The ratio of wounded to killed is about the same as in the Vietnam War, with one tenth the numbers so far.

Those who see their children volunteer to enter the Afghan civil war to protect the interests of the US government are rightly concerned about the threat IEDs pose. Those who survive such an attack may still have brain injuries that never heal, placing their families in the position of having to care for the disabled service member for life. Those who approve of their child's choice to enter the military may not have given thought to this risk. This risk also means that entering the military should not be seen as an individual choice. The family members who will bear the burden posed by a disabled veteran ought to have a voice in choosing to take the risk. The signature injury of the Vietnam War was amputation due to the extensive use of land mines. The signature injury of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is traumatic brain injury caused by IEDs.

Americans need to give thought to the way the continuing burdens of these wars are allocated. The Veterans Administration does provide services to wounded veterans, but a large burden is shouldered by their families without compensation. This is a hidden cost of war. Is it appropriate for families to be expected to provide ongoing care without remuneration? If war can only find support if its true costs are hidden, is it time to reconsider how the country decides whether or not to send the military outside our borders?

Ads on a blog

A short while back I agreed to let Google put ads on this blog. The idea is for them to match the blog content and so on. After a few really egregious ads I have withdrawn permission. You will still see the small text ads between posts, that being the price of admission. Thanks for your patience.

Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project: Non-Violent Aid and Advice To Terrorist Groups Illegal Says Supreme Court | Before It's News

Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project: Non-Violent Aid and Advice To Terrorist Groups Illegal Says Supreme Court

Those of us who work in the peacemaking field find ourselves working with people in conflict. Some of these people have done violent things in an effort to press their agenda. Should we refuse to work with anyone who has used violence at some time in the past? The Supreme Court says we had better refuse.

This case was brought to get an interpretation of the terms “knowingly provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization,” something that is illegal under 18 U. S. C. §2339B(a)(1). A group is given the terrorist designation by the Secretary of State. Once you are on the list US citizens are forbidden to give you material support. The Humanitarian Law Project wanted to find out whether its proposed activities would be illegal.


The group wanted to provide training in the use of international law to resolve disputes peacefully; how to petition the United Nations and other representative bodies for relief; and they wanted to engage in political advocacy on behalf of Kurds living in Turkey and Tamils living in Sri Lanka. Chief Justice Roberts writing for the 6-3 majority stated the holding of the court: "The material-support statute, §2339B, is constitutional as appliedto the particular forms of support that plaintiffs seek to provide to foreign terrorist organizations."


Robert Benjamin writing on Mediate.com wonders if this development isn't actually positive. "For the teaching and training of negotiation and mediation to be criminalized must mean the skill sets have become sufficiently recognized as potent and sufficiently effective to be a threat." I suppose that can be seen as a measure of success. When I began working in the field 25 years ago people didn't know what it was. Now it's so good it's dangerous. 


Ten years ago I was working in Indonesia with people who weren't on the side of the government, and with people who had been involved in violence of various types as that country moved from dictatorship toward democracy. The focus of the work was helping people learn to effectively use nonviolent conflict resolution techniques. We had considerable success with these efforts and many were able to find ways to work within the emerging system of governance. If those groups had been on the Secretary of State's list I would have been breaking the law.


The Supreme Court doesn't decide whether or not a law is good. It's job is to determine whether or not it is constitutional. Outlawing aid to terrorists seems like a good idea, until the law prevents aid to groups trying to leave terrorism behind. This law is too blunt an instrument for today's asymmetric threats. Congress needs to do the careful work of defining what aids terrorists to do harm and what keeps us safe by helping them find less harmful ways of working toward their goals. After all, what we call founding fathers the British called terrorists.

Men in Child Tattoo Case Reach Plea Deal - KGPE CBS47 News, Sports & Weather for the Central Valley

Men in Child Tattoo Case Reach Plea Deal - KGPE CBS47 News, Sports & Weather for the Central Valley

My prediction has come true. This report comes on the same day that the DA finds out she has to lay off 11 deputy DAs. The large amount of treasure devoted to this case does make the department look overstaffed.

Fresno men who tattooed boy not guilty of mayhem - Top Stories - fresnobee.com

Fresno men who tattooed boy not guilty of mayhem - Top Stories - fresnobee.com

Jury nullification strikes again. The boy's father had a friend tattoo a small dog paw on the child's waist. This was understood to be a sign of the Bulldog Gang. The DA decided to charge the pair with aggravated mayhem, a crime that carries the possibility of life in prison.

No matter what one thinks of gangs, tattoos or fathers who make really bad choices, life in prison for tattooing a small dog paw print in a place usually covered by clothing goes too far. Perhaps the DA was focused on getting a gang member off the streets for a long time, and missed how silly it looked to compare a small tattoo to murder.

Jury nullification is the traditional doctrine that allows juries to ignore the law when the law is either preposterous or malign. The US jury system was originally created to protect citizens from oppression by the ruling class. It worked in this case. The jury acquitted on aggravated mayhem and couldn't agree on any lesser offense. The DA can try again on the lesser offenses. My guess is that there will be a plea to something much less and that will end the matter.

It is normal for prosecutors to over charge in hopes of getting a plea to a lesser charge. The trick is not to insult a jury by charging way too high. Maybe next time.

MWR : Some shocked by Landis' guilt

Mennonite Weekly Review : Some shocked by Landis' guilt

Mennonites don't often have international sports celebrities rising from their midst, so it was exciting to have Floyd Landis, who was raised Mennonite, win the Tour de France. Like most things that seem too good to be true, this victory wasn't, and it was snatched away, mired in a doping scandal.

The story would usually end there, but Floyd played the Mennonite card. Mennonites have earned a reputation for honesty, even when it is costly. So when Floyd said he was not guilty, people rose to his defense. Now, four years and many donated dollars of defense later, he admits lying to his family and supporters. Perhaps not surprisingly he admits his guilt in emails sent to others, not by facing the people he betrayed. These emails attempt to justify his actions by implicating other athletes. These accusations will keep the story alive for a while longer. 

I have learned that when we get defensive it is usually because we have done something indefensible. Floyd has destroyed his own reputation, and he is entitled to do that. The sadder part of the story is how he dragged down a lot of good people with him. What needs to happen now?

We know from our experience with victims and offenders that there is a necessary process for restoration. The first step is a commitment to be constructive. Trying to make things right without this commitment is a good way to make things worse. One of the reasons it is difficult to work at reconciliation without help is this initial step. Someone will probably need to help you process your commitment to make sure it is not only real, but comes through in your words and behavior.

Once the commitment to be constructive is in place the offender and the offended have three steps to take. The first is to recognize the injustices experienced by each. While Floyd certainly gets to acknowledge his lying, stealing and cheating, it may also be that the people he harmed asked more of him than was reasonable. By supporting his claims of innocence in the face of strong evidence to the contrary they pushed him to continue the charade, making everything worse. When people wrong us it is normal to discover that at some time we did something to either bring it on or make it worse.

The second step, after everyone has been able to tell their story and know that it has been heard, is to figure out what needs to be done to make things right. This may be just an apology, but it can often include restitution. If I lie to you and you give me money because of the lie, I probably need to pay you back. Sometimes it is clear that both parties knew better and should share the burden. Whatever it takes, this step needs to be done well.

The third step is usually easy. All it requires is being clear about the future. How will we interact going forward? How will we avoid having the same thing happen again?

As these agreements are made and kept, trust grows. That allows reconciliation to happen over time. This model, described by Ron Claassen at length at http://peace.fresno.edu/docs/model.shtml, is the one used by Fresno's Victim Offender Reconciliation Program. I have used it for every kind of dispute.

Floyd Landis and his family, friends, former teammates and supporters have a way out. I hope they can make use of it.

Report: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Doesn’t Believe In Privacy | Epicenter�| Wired.com

Report: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Doesn’t Believe In Privacy | Epicenter�| Wired.com

I spend a lot of time on Facebook, and don't play any of the games. The organizations I webmaster for all have Facebook pages, and many of my news and information sources do too. Social media require steady upkeep, so Facebook is always open in one of my browser tabs.

The new Facebook "like" button became available to web developers earlier in April. It allows a person to click "like" on a web page rather than going to the page's Facebook site. The button then displays the photos of people who like the page. That's what the latest Facebook privacy hullabaloo is about. Well I added the button to most of my main site pages the day the feature came out. (check http://disciplinethatrestores.org for an example) By the end of the first week 50,000 companies had done the same.

Facebookers have the ability to block this feature so that they are counted as a liker on the button but their picture doesn't show. That news was spread quickly by Facebook and lots of other folks, and many did block it. I decided to block individual applications rather than doing a blanket block.

Privacy on the web is a relative thing. It takes very little effort to find most details about me via Google. Part of the reason is that I have a large web presence, but it has more to do with all the organizations I belong to making bits of their databases public. Zuckerberg is right: the privacy-on-the-web ship has sailed.

I periodically search with Google for my Social Security number, home phone, credit card numbers and other things that shouldn't be out there for a public search. So far so good--meaning that you have to pay to get some of those things. I also restrict most of my Facebook posts to friends only. Of course that doesn't prevent someone from reposting, forwarding, etc. If you don't want people to find something on the web, don't put it there.

Facebook is doing its best to integrate all things web, and they are making good progress. It has already gotten to the point that I am annoyed when someone isn't recognizably on Facebook. I like to see who called me before I return a call to a stranger. All those people with a Facebook profile photo of their cat, or a Facebook page name that isn't their real name interfere with my desire to find out about them. The same goes for my students in online classes.

I'm guessing that people who don't live like the Unabomber aren't going to have much luck keeping personal information private. I will watch what I put online to try keeping those few things that really matter safe, but I'll also keep checking my credit card statements closely. We'll see how that works out.

New Zealand Ploughshares activists win unexpected “not guilty” verdict / Waging Nonviolence

In my book The Christian and Jury Duty I discuss both John Howard Yoder's concept of revolutionary subordinationism, in which one does an unlawful action for the sake of conscience fully expecting to receive the consequences, and jury nullification, the legal doctrine by which a jury refuses to convict even though the defendant admits guilt. Both were at work in New Zealand in the case reported below.

New Zealand Ploughshares activists win unexpected “not guilty” verdict / Waging Nonviolence

These protesters performed a nonviolent direct action to call attention to New Zealand's participation in a secret electronic surveillance network. This network is one source of intelligence which makes it possible for drones to target people in their homes. Their action did not prevent the secret base from functioning, but made its existence more difficult politically.

Juries in the English common law tradition followed by New Zealand and the United States are free to acquit guilty people when they believe the law under which they are being prosecuted is wrong, or is being misused. It is an important check on the power of prosecutors to persecute.

More on flotation

The snowshoes arrived, and so did lots more snow in the mountains, so yesterday we went up to Kings Canyon National Park to see whether we had a winner or not. The road was clear, the sky was clear enough, and we got to Grant Grove with no hassles.

It took a bit of figuring out, but the snowshoes went on as designed, and we were off. We walked out into the meadow behind the restaurant onto several feet of pristine snow. The big shoes sank into the snow maybe 3 inches and worked as advertised. The binding is articulated so you use as normal a walking motion as one would expect with life rafts on your feet. My wife and I both sank into the snow about the same distance and neither of us had any trouble to speak of. The built-in crampons kept us from sliding when going up or down hills and balance was no problem.

We walked across the meadow and into the campground on the other side. I was noticing that this activity used some leg muscles that are different from my usual activities. Then we came across a snowshoe trail broken by others and found out why it's nice to go in groups. We had been breaking trail all the way across the meadow, and that is a lot more work than following a broken trail.

We quit after an hour, figuring it was best not to overdo on our first foray. It was a successful excursion. Now we are planning the next, longer trek. More snow is predicted this week. I plan to float across the top. You can see more photos at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=196550&id=656665475&l=b80217909b

Flotation

We go cross-country skiing two or three times a year, usually up in one of the national parks. It is a beautiful way to see a beautiful place and get some exercise while we are at it. The problem is that we never took lessons, so our abilities peaked about the second time we went 35 years ago.

Going up or on the flat is fine, but coming down can be scary. On steep or icy downhills I pretty much aim for something soft and plan to crash there. As I’ve gotten older all this crashing became less and less enchanting. Getting untangled and ready to go again after you fall gets harder. So we decided it might be a good idea to try snowshoeing instead. You get to go places and see things you couldn’t otherwise and get some exercise, just like skiing, without all the crashing.

Renting snowshoes to try them out was an eye-opening experience. Getting the right ones for my wife was no problem, and they worked well for her. I, on the other hand, am the size of a typical NFL offensive lineman. She needs a 21” x 8” shoe while I need a 36” x 10” one, and that wouldn’t be enough in deep powder. Our first foray was on several feet of fresh snow with much smaller rented shoes. While I didn’t sink all the way to my crotch, pulling the shoe out made it similar in effort.

Finding big snowshoes in February is tough. The few pair that stores get are gone by then and no one rents them. Looking online one finds few models that get big enough, and some of them have bindings that fit “up to a man’s size 13 boot.” I have a pair of 14s and a pair of 15s. It began to look as though the snow would melt before I had a chance to try snowshoeing with the proper equipment.

My wife persevered through the various local and online shops. We found a local shoe with the same binding as its bigger cousin and tried my most compact boots in it. Success! So now we knew we could order the right size shoe in that brand. Even that turned out to be a problem, but we found a pair and they are on their way. They were even priced at end of season closeout prices with free shipping.

Soon we will be able to try mushing through the woods. What a lot of trouble for what should be a peaceful experience! Now if they just made silent plug-in snowmobiles all would be perfect.