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Posts Tagged ‘Foreign Policy’

Joe Biden delivers a speech in Warsaw, Poland on 3/26/2022, in which he appeared to call for the removal of Vladimir Putin. Administration officials have denied this was Biden’s intent.

A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger

  • Proverbs 15:1

“For God’s sake, this man [Vladimir Putin] cannot remain in power.”

So concluded American President Joe Biden in his Saturday speech in Poland.

Let Biden’s words sink in for a moment.  Here’s the President of the United States uttering words that could reasonably be interpreted as a declaration of war on a sovereign, nuclear-armed power. 

Growing up during the cold war, I well remember the constant tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.  But for all that, I don’t ever recall hearing the sort of threat that Biden uttered in his speech on Saturday.

Biden has held political office of one sort or another for about fifty years.  As a lawyer and as a politician he, of all people, should understand the importance of choosing the right words. 

It was King Solomon who penned the words “A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.” Perhaps those words need to be tattooed on the forehead of Biden and his advisors, for they seem to have forgotten, or perhaps never learned them.

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Washington’s Crocodile Tears Over Ukraine’s Destruction” by Daniel McAdams, Ron Paul Institute, 2/25/2022

Truth and Foreign Policy” by John W. Robbins, The Trinity Review, March/April 1991

The Messianic Character of American Foreign Policy” by John W. Robbins, September/October 1990

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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken stands with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov before their meeting, in Geneva, Switzerland, January 21, 2022.
Alex Brandon | Reuters

“The great law of morality ought to have a national as well as a personal and individual application.  We should act toward other nations as we wish them to act toward us….”

  • Millard Fillmore, 1850 State of the Union Address

Biden Weighs Deploying Thousands of Troops to Eastern Europe and Baltics” is the New York Times headline that just flashed across my phone. 

In the story’s first paragraph we read,

President Biden is considering deploying several thousand U.S. troops, as well as warships and aircraft, to NATO allies in the Baltics and Eastern Europe, an expansion of American military involvement amid mounting fears of a Russian incursion into Ukraine, according to administration officials.

The situation in Ukraine, long-simmering in the background, appears to be coming to a head.  There are a number of issues contributing to the growing tensions between Russia and NATO, the most important of which is the possible inclusion of Ukraine in the NATO alliance.  Russia has made it clear that NATO expansion into Ukraine is unacceptable.  In the words of Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergey Ryabkov, “It is absolutely mandatory to make sure that Ukraine never ever becomes a member of NATO.” American Secretary of State Antony Blinken and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg have countered by stating that Russia has no say in the matter of who is allowed into NATO

What are Christians to make of this?  Is Russia right to object to Ukraine joining NATO, or are the Americans right to seek to incorporate Ukraine in the NATO alliance? Are both sides wrong?  Scripturalists, those who believe that the Bible has a systematic monopoly on truth, including truth on foreign policy, seek to answer these questions by appealing to the Word of God, the 66 books of the Bible.  What do they say?

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Ghislaine Maxwell Is Finally on Trial!” by Philip Giraldi, The Council For The National Interest, 11/30/2021

Jonathan Pollard,” Wikipedia

9/11 Suspects: Dancing Israelis,” James Corbett, The Corbett Report, 9/11/2016

Israel accused of planting mysterious spy devices near the White House,” by Daniel Lippman, Politico, 9/12/2019

Biden administration blacklists NSO Group over Pegasus spyware,” by Drew Harwell, Ellen Nakashima and Craig Timberg, The Washington Post, 11/3/2021

Who Really Owns the ‘Holy Land’?” by Robert L. Reymond, The Trinity Foundation, June-July 2006

The Religious Wars of the 21st Century” by John W. Robbins, The Trinity Foundation, August 2006

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“Ye are the salt of the earth…Ye are the light of the world.”

  • Matthew 5:13, 14

“That’s the job description of a Christian,” said my Sunday school teacher many years ago.  By this, he meant that Christians are called to be salt and light in a lost and dying world. 

Salt in the sense Jesus spoke of here meant “savory” or “flavorful.”  As John Gill put it,

This is to be understood of the disciples and apostles of Christ; who might be compared to “salt”, because of the savoury doctrines they preached; as all such are, which are agreeable to the Scriptures, and are of the evangelistic kind, which are full of Christ, serve to exalt him, and to magnify the grace of God; and are suitable to the experiences of the saints, and are according to godliness, and tend to promote it:  also because of their savoury lives and conversations; whereby they recommended, and gave sanction to the doctrines they preached, were examples to the saints, and checks upon wicked men.

In the Scriptures, “light” is often a reference to knowledge of the truth.  And that is the sense in which Jesus used it here.  Again, John Gill,

What the luminaries, the sun and moon, are in the heavens, with respect to corporal light, that the apostles were in the world with regard to spiritual light; carrying and spreading the light of the Gospel not only in Judea, but all over the world, which was in great darkness of ignorance and error; and through a divine blessing attending their ministry, many were turned from the darkness of Judaism and Gentilism, of sin and infidelity, to the marvellous light of divine grace. 

As Christians, are words out actions, even our thoughts, are to show Christ to our neighbor in a lost, dying and hopeless world. 

Doubtless, most Christians would agree with this assessment.  But how hard it can be to put into practice!

If I’m honest with myself and with you, I have to say that I don’t always do a very good job at this.  Perhaps you’re a bit like me, and look around you at the mess, the perfect babel of confusion our civilization has become and despair.  The forces of evil are overwhelming, and I cannot overcome them.  They have power, money, influence, and prestige in abundance.  What are my puny efforts in comparison to that?  And you can probably guess at some of the great discouragers I’m talking about.

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RLL 57: War in the Middle East and John Kerry in Rome
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2019 year in review

Better late than never, or so goes the old saying. I’d hoped to get this 2018 wrap up posted last week but, as usual, my ambition was greater than my reach. But late or not, it still seems good to me to take a little time and reflect on the year in blogging that was as well as to look ahead to 2019.

As always, I’d like to give a big thank you to my readers and commenters. It has been my prayer that you’ve found the work on this blog edifying in your Christian walk. We live in an age where it seems that almost everything is fake. But the words of Jesus Christ and the words of all Scripture are as real and true today as when they first were written down so long ago. It has been my endeavor to apply those words to the events of our own time, not only to help readers see the world through the lens of Scripture, but also to encourage.

Sometimes it can seem as if our problems are such that no one in any previous age ever saw their like. And yet as the Apostle Paul wrote, “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man.” Yes, it’s true that we face a world of problems, but God has not left us in darkness without hope in the world.

If there is one idea that I hope to impart to readers of this blog, it’s this: No matter how great the struggles we face in our personal lives, no matter how great the crises we face as a nation, the Word of God makes us complete and thoroughly equipped to address them. As Gordon Clark and John Robbins rightly taught, the 66 books of the Bible have a systematic monopoly on truth. Further, it is the ignorance, perhaps even knowing rejection, of this simple idea that had led the formerly Christian West to the brink of disaster.

(more…)

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