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Gmail - *Ar_Ruuh* Fw: Bismillah [IslamCity] The Rapid Spread of Islam in America - jacobthanni@gmail.com



ABDUL WAHID OSMAN BELAL

--- On Sat, 19/7/08, Ahumanb@yahoo.com wrote:

From: Ahumanb@yahoo.com
Subject: Bismillah [IslamCity] The Rapid Spread of Islam in America
To: "eGroup For Muslims Around The World"
Date: Saturday, 19 July, 2008, 6:45 PM

The Rapid Spread of Islam in America


The growing number of people turning to Islam in the last few years shows that the true answer to this question is starting to be discovered. Every day, interest in Islam is increasing throughout the world, and many people are converting after reading the Qur'an and studying the Prophet Muhammad's life. In addition, there are people who may have not started to practice Islam yet but who are very influenced by the Qur'an's moral teachings and say that the best way of life for human beings is the one described in the Qur'an.

Thirty or forty years ago, the great majority of people knew almost nothing about Islam; now, Islam has become the most talked about, written about, and researched religion in the world, as well as the religion about which the most programs have been prepared. Of course, this state of affairs has contributed to society's learning about Islam. On the one hand, those involved in such activities have expanded their knowledge about Islam; on the other hand, those to whom this information is directed may have taken the opportunity for the first time in their lives to gain knowledge about Islam. So, it is from the lack of information or wrong information that people who have had little contact with Islam are coming to this religion in droves.

This movement is quite noticeable in the United States, a country founded on religious values. When Americans speak about their country, one of the things they stress is that people from every religious background are free to live together in peace and security. This situation has given Muslims immigrants a place to practice their religion freely and to talk about their faith. As a result, the number of Muslims increases daily. In spite of this, for years Muslims have remained small in numbers and economically and politically weak.

But over the past 10 years, these economic, social, and political difficulties have begun to disappear. In some states, existing mosques are filled to overflowing and new ones have been built. Hundreds of Islamic schools, both full-time and weekend, have opened and have had to expand to meet enrollment figures. Many companies have begun to set aside rooms for their Muslim employees, many banks have begun to open departments that operate according to Islamic law, and many state institutions have begun to hire Muslims for high-level positions.

A recent issue of Christianity Today, one of America's best-known magazines, contained an article entitled "Are Christians Prepared for Muslims in the Mainstream?" It gives this account of Islam's rise in America:

Islam could be the second-largest religion in America by 2015, surpassing Judaism, according to some estimates. By other estimates, Islam has achieved that rank already.

Image
(Above) The voice of Islam rises, with 7 million muslims living in America, islam has become the country's third largest religion. It is estimated that within the next 10 years, there will be more Muslims than Jews in America.

Muslims moving to the West are changing the cultural and religious landscape. A hospital in Detroit offers Muslim patients copies of the Qur'an; Denver International Airport includes a chapel for Muslim prayers; the U.S. Senate has invited a Muslim cleric to open its session in prayer; the military has hired four Muslim chaplains; the White House sends greetings (like its Christmas cards) on Id al-Fitr, the feast that ends Ramadan; the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington D.C. sends 100 Qur'ans a month to prisons while imams (spiritual leaders) send volunteers to teach Arabic. "On Capitol Hill … weekly Muslim prayer services and forums to expose congressional staffers to Muslim viewpoints have become regular fare," notes Ira Rifkin of Religion News Service (Nov. 30, 1999), "and a bill has been introduced in Congress to issue a postage stamp commemorating Ramadan."38

These striking developments have attracted the interest of many sociologists. One of the most important names associated with this issue is Professor Dianne Eck, known for coining the name "Pluralism Project" for an enterprise in interfaith dialogue. In her book, A New Religious America, she gives an account of what she has determined about Islam's rapid rise:

As Muslims become more numerous and visible in American society, public officials have begun to shift from speaking of "churches and synagogues" to "churches, synagogues, and mosques." The annual observance of the Ramadan month of Muslim fasting now receives public notice and becomes the occasion for portraits of the Muslims next door in the Dallas Morning News or the Minneapolis Star Tribune. The fast-breaking meals called "iftar" at the close of each day have become moments of recognition. In the late 1990s there were iftar observances by Muslim staffers on Capitol Hill, in the Pentagon, and in the State Department. In 1996 the White House hosted the first observance of the celebration of Eid al-Fitr at the end of the month of Ramadan, a practice that has continued. The same year also saw the U.S. Navy commission its first Muslim chaplain, Lieutenant M. Malak Abd al-Muta' Ali Noel, and in 1998 the U.S. Navy's first mosque was opened on the Norfolk Naval Base in Virginia, where Lieutenant Noel was stationed. When 50 sailors attend Friday prayers at this facility, they signal to all of us a new era of American religious life.

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Professor Diana Eck, who has done important work with The Pluralism Project and in the field of interfaith dialogue, has attracted attention with her book A New Religious America. (Right) The Internet site of the Project.

Eck considers these developments a sign of the beginning of a new age, one in which Islam will spread quickly, not only throughout America but throughout the world.

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The last untouchable in Europe
Sean Thomas - July 28, 2008
Independent.co.uk

Sitting in her little house near Tarbes, in the French Pyrenees, Marie-Pierre Manet-Beauzac is talking about her ancestry.
For most people this would be agreeable, perhaps even pleasurable. For the 40-something mother-of-three, the story of her bloodline is marked with a unique sadness: because she belongs to an extraordinary tribe of hidden pariahs, repressed in France for a thousand years.
Marie-Pierre is a Cagot.

If the word "Cagot" means nothing to you, that is not surprising. The history of the Cagot people is obscure; some assert it has been deliberately erased. Marie certainly believes that: "To talk about the Cagots is still a bad thing in the mountains. The French are ashamed of what they did to us, the Cagots are ashamed of what they were. That is why no one, these days, will confess they are of Cagot descent."
Except, uniquely, for Marie-Pierre herself. She is probably the only person in the world willing to admit she is of Cagot blood. But it took her many years to realise what that meant. "When I first had children, I wanted to know where they came from – which means where I came from.

And so I started researching, I traced my family tree back through the generations – through many villages and towns in the Pyrenees.
"And that's when I noticed certain names and trades in my background, lots of humble carpenters, basket-makers, poor people, people who lived in the 'wrong' parts of town. Soon I realised I was a Cagot. Though many argue what that really means."
As Marie-Pierre avers, the truth about the Cagots is obscure. The people first emerge in documents around the 13th century.

By then they are already regarded as an inferior caste, the "untouchables" of western France, or northern Spain.

In medieval times the Cagots – also knows as Agotes, Gahets, Capets, Caqueux, etc – were divided from the general peasantry in several ways. They had their own urban districts: usually on the malarial side of the river. These dismal ghettoes were known as Cagoteries; traces of them can still be found in Pyrenean communities such as Campan or Hagetmau.

For hundreds of years, Cagots were treated as different and inferior. In the churches, they had to use their own doors (at least 60 Pyrenean churches still boast "Cagot" entrances); they had their own fonts; and they were given communion on the end of long wooden spoons.

Marie-Pierre adds: "When a Cagot came into a town, they had to report their presence by shaking a rattle. Just like a leper, ringing his bell."

Daily Cagot life was likewise marked by apartheid. Cagots were forbidden to enter most trades or professions. They were forced, in effect, to be the drawers of water and hewers of wood. So they made barrels for wine and coffins for the dead. They also became expert carpenters: ironically they built many of the Pyrenean churches from which they were partly excluded.

Some of the other prohibitions on the Cagots were bizarre. They were not allowed to walk barefoot, like normal peasants, which gave rise to the legend that they had webbed toes. Cagots could not use the same baths as other people. They were not allowed to touch the parapets of bridges. When they went about, they had to wear a goose's foot conspicuously pinned to their clothes.

Marie-Pierre sighs. "The Cagots weren't even allowed to eat alongside non-Cagots, nor share their dishes. Some said the Cagots were psychotic, even cannibals." As for marriage between Cagots and non-Cagots, it was almost impossible. Nonetheless, love affairs across the divide did occur – there are poignant songs from the 16th and 17th centuries lamenting these tragic misalliances.

On occasions, the bigotry was brutally enforced: in the early 18th century a prosperous Cagot in the Landes was caught using the font reserved for non-Cagots – his hand was chopped off and nailed to the church door. Another Cagot who dared to farm his fields (strictly verboten) had his feet pierced with hot iron spikes. "If there was any crime in a village," says Marie-Pierre, "the Cagot was usually blamed. Some were actually burned at the stake." Even in death, the discrimination persisted – the Cagots were buried in their own humble cemeteries; there is still one in Bentayou-Sérée, a tiny village north of Pau.

So where did the Cagots originate? And why did they suffer such bigotry?

Their provenance is opaque. That is partly because the Cagots themselves have disappeared from view. During the French Revolution, the laws against Cagots were formally abandoned – indeed many Cagots pillaged local archives and erased any record of their ancestry. After 1789, the Cagots slowly assimilated into the general populace; many may have even emigrated.

Nonetheless, there are historical accounts that afford an intriguing glimpse. Contemporary sources describe them as being short, dark and stocky. Confusingly, some others saw them as blonde and blue eyed. Francisque Michel's Histoire des races maudites (History of the cursed races, 1847), was one of the first studies. He found Cagots had "frizzy brown hair". He also found at least 10,000 Cagots still scattered across Gascony and Navarre, still suffering repression – nearly 70 years after the Cagot caste was "abolished".

Since Michel's pioneering work, various historians have tried to solve the Cagot mystery. One theory is that they were lepers, or contagious cretins. That would explain the rules against Cagots "touching" anything used by non-Cagots. However, this theory falls down on the many descriptions of the Cagots being perfectly healthy, even sturdy.
Another idea, as Marie-Pierre implies, is that the Cagots were slaves of the Goths who inundated France in the Dark Ages. From here, etymologists have deduced that "ca-got" comes from "cani Gothi" – "dogs of the Goths". But that idea fails to explain the many variants of the Cagot name, nor does it square with the geographical distribution. In fact, the Cagot name probably derives from "cack" or "caca", a term of abuse in itself.

Last year, a new theory emerged, propounded by the British writer Graham Robb in his book The Discovery of France. Robb suggests that the Cagots were originally a guild of skilled medieval woodworkers; in this light, the bigotry against them was commercial rivalry, which became fossilised and regimented over time.
So who is right? It's a confusing picture. But Marie-Pierre Manet-Beauzac, "the last Cagot in the world", has no doubts where she comes from: "I believe the Cagots are descendants of Moorish soldiers left over from the 8th century Muslim invasion of Spain and France. That's why some people called them 'Saracens'. I am quite dark, and my daughter Sylvia is the darkest in her class."
And her theory, of the Cagots being converted but still-distrusted Muslims, is supported by many French experts: because it neatly explains the religious disapproval of the Cagots. As for the geographical spread, that's probably linked to the St James pilgrim routes.
Marie-Pierre shows me a website where she is gathering information about Cagot life. She points to a list of villages associated with Les Agotes.
"Some like to say Cagots have disappeared. But this is not true. If you travel near Campan, for instance, you can still see the short, swarthy people descended from the Cagots. The 'pestiferous people'."
I ask Marie-Pierre if she will let me use a picture of Sylvia – and the rest of her children. She shakes her head. "I'm sorry but no. It is OK for me to admit where I come from. But if people knew about my children's background, it might be difficult for them."
She gazes out of the window, at the distant green Pyrenees. "In some places, the hatred lingers. Even now. The Cagots may be silent but I can still hear it."
Other vanishing peoples
The Aromanians/the Vlachs
Whilst they date back to the Roman colonisation and its people are spread across much of the Southern Balkans, their language, Aromanian, closely related to Romanian, is believed to be almost extinct. Evidence of the culture lives on; with festivals celebrated in Greece today.
The Rusyns
1.2 million Rusyns are estimated to be living in Europe with over half the population in Ukraine. Ethnically not recognized by the Ukraine due to Czechoslovakia's communist regime of the 1950's, a time when their Greek Catholic Church was also eradicated. The people are famed for their beautiful wooden churches and ethnic pride is on the rise in Slovakia where they also dwell.
The Sami
The indigenous population also known as Laps are spread across northern Sweden, Norway and Finland, the tribe have populated Scandinavia and Russia for at least 2,500 years. Strongly associated with reindeer herding which continues today, with just under 3,000 still practising in Norway. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-last-untouchable-in-europe-878705.html





Bottom of Heap:Gypsies @ http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displayStory.cfm?source=hptextfeature&story_id=11579339

Mayank Austen Soofi's blog "pakistanpaindabad.blogspot.com" in Pak text book

Malayala Manorama Indian Newspaper of Malayalam Language from eight places in Kerela

Sunday,27 July 2008 16:14 hrs IST

Indian blogger's series in Pak text book
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Islamabad: An Indian blogger's write-ups on five things Pakistanis love about their country may soon be included in a Pakistani school text book. The Oxford University Press in Karachi, which is working on a Class 11 text book, has sought Mayank Austen Soofi's permission to print the series he ran on his blog "pakistanpaindabad.blogspot.com" last year. Soofi had invited Pakistanis from all walks of life to share what they believe are the five best things about their country and to "celebrate their nation".

The book is also expected to include Soofi's picture and he is elated. "It feels good to be published in a Pakistani text book," Soofi told PTI. Oxford University Press' editor (higher education) Samuel Ray wrote to Soofi recently to seek his permission to publish the material for a low priced English text book for Class 11. "This textbook follows the 2006 National Curriculum and material in your blog covers theme on patriotism," Ray wrote. Soofi's blog ran contributions from famous and not-so-famous Pakistanis. Columnist Irfan 'Mazdak' Husain contributed his favourite fives in the "The Proud, Powerful and Pak series". "As Pakistan hits headlines around the world, the news all seems bad.

From disaster in the World Cup, to poor Bob Woolmer's death, to the recent bloodbath in Karachi, it seems that Pakistan is the source of much of the nastiness in a nasty world," Husain wrote. "But we Pakistanis have become so used to the succession of bad news that we have come to take each fresh crisis in our stride. In fact, it is this resilience in face of so much adversity (mostly self-created), that is one of the things I am most proud of."

M.Anandakrishnan: Interdisciplinary Approach to Knowledge -- An Ethical Perspective

Excerpts from the Key-note address given by Padma Shri M.Anandakrishnan, Chairman MIDS (Madras Institute of Development Studies) and IIT- Kanpur, titled, "Interdisciplinary Approach to Knowledge: An Ethical Perspective" in the Department of Christian Studies, on July 22, 2008 on the occasion of FESTSCHRIFT Release Function in honour of Prof. FELIX WILFRED.

Padma Sri Anandakrishnan

Managing Knowledge

Even as the human quest for new knowledge increases, the rate of generation of new knowledge outpaces the human ability to utilize it. The generation of new knowledge depends upon variety of factors such as the demand for it, creative capability to satisfy the demand, facility to access the existing knowledge bases, ability to make use of the associated knowledge from several disciplines and the degree of societal acceptability of the new knowledge. At the same time the use of the new knowledge in a manner that consistent with human values depends on the prevailing value system in an society and the prevailing standards of ethics.

The manner of creating and utilizing the knowledge is described by a loosely defined term called knowledge management (KM). There are several different aspects to knowledge management such as the processes, methods and techniques or the knowledge systems and related technologies or the knowledge embodied in people and organizations. It is a essentially a holistic and interdisciplinary initiative of every knowledge worker.

A society or organizations within a society consist of many individuals, terms and institutions with a variety knowledge knowledge associated with different disciplines. Effective knowledge management enables these entities to collectively and systematically create, share and apply knowledge systems to achieve their economic and social objectives. It adopts a range of approaches to identify, create, represent, and distribute knowledge.

Interdisciplinary Knowledge

All knowledge systems are intrinsically interdisciplinary. Even a knowledge system based predominantly on a single disciple often depends on other disciplines for survival. Historical evolution of species is an interdisciplinary process. Over the ages the growth of civilizations has taken place by combinations of knowledge and experiences associates with innumerable disciplines of what we now describe as science, technology, humanities, and arts and so on.

Migration and adaptation of concepts and practices from one discipline by others leads to new fields of knowledge. Ability to deal with traditional knowledge systems requires competence in more than one discipline. People familiar with two or more disciplines often detect errors in assumptions committed in one field. Solutions to many socio-economic and strategic problems require interdisciplinary approaches.


It is not possible for any one to claim to know everything about everything, or everything even in a single field. It is prudent to develop the habit of mind to seek for answers from whatever field that is convincing. Persons deeply involved in a single discipline fail to recognize the immense possibilities of borrowing the concepts from other disciplines. As a result the discipline reaches a state of stagnation and compartmentalization.


Persons capable of interdisciplinary approaches are generally inclined towards vigorous defense of freedom of thought and expression in general and specifically in academic and intellectual matters.

Knowledge Domains

In order to bridge the individual concepts and processes of multiple design disciplines, intensive cross-disciplinary communication and information exchange starting from the very early stages of design is necessary.

Interdisciplinary is not confined to cross fertilization of concepts among natural sciences or technologies only but also frequently involves social science and humanities to analyze many complex or practical problems.

The interdisciplinary spirit led to new academic initiatives such as Equity Studies, Social and Regional imbalances, Women's Studies, ethnic Studies and so on.

The narrow vision that has caused the society to pay heavy price can be illustrated by many contemporary examples of development of products and processes.

If interdisciplinary perspectives had governed these developments, the human history during the past two centuries may have been different.

It is generally recognized that ethical issues are central not only in philosophical discourse, but also in all walks of life across a wide range of professional and existential concerns ranging from beginning and end of life issues, business and corporate ethics, medical ethics, ethics in scientific research, including bio-engineering, stem cells and cloning, to ethical conduct in government, public affairs, law and the professions.The central question to be addressed , then, is how can there be a genuine ethics which safeguards human rights and liberties and enhances individual choice while connecting human choices and actions to universal norms valid for all times and places, that is norms which clearly preserve both individuality and universality.

Who can regulate?

Who gets to decide whether we control a new technology, and with what authority?

The answer to the question of who decides the legitimate uses of science is complex. No doubt that it is the democratically constituted political community, acting chiefly through its elected representatives, that is sovereign in these matters and has the authority to control the pace and scope of technological development. However they need the interdisciplinary knowledge and experience to make wise choices and must be guided by the combined efforts of science, theology, philosophy, and politics.

To understand the ethical issues surrounding genetic warfare in terms of religion a quote from Albert Einstein comes to mind: "Science with out religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

Conclusion

Many great scholars issues calls for unified knowledge systems in the face of divisive tendencies within and between the nations, races, religions, sciences and humanities. The scientists of all disciplines and technologists, managers and policy makers should embark upon doing what is possible toward integrating bodies of knowledge created by science for for creating the good society. These domains reach across many levels of complexity, from chemical physics and physical chemistry to molecular genetics, chemical ecology, and ecological genetics.... The social sciences and and humanities should not be impervious to implications of developments in the natural sciences. Hence even at the undergraduate curriculum, the students should be made aware of the relation between science and humanities, and how it is important for human welfare.

Only flow of ideas across the boundaries will provide a clear view of the world as it really is, not seen through the lens of ideologies and religious dogmas or commanded by myopic response to immediate need. History is full of instances of intolerance of free thoughts and stifling of scientific truths on account of blind faith based on dogmas of narrow disciplines.

DR. M. ANANDAKRISHNAN

1. DR. M. ANANDAKRISHNAN

Born in 1928, Dr. M. Anandakrishnan obtained his B.E in 1952 from College of Engineering, Guindy, Madras University and Ph.D in 1960 in Civil Engineering from the University of Minnesota, USA. He was the first Science Counsellor at the Embassy of India Washington, D.C. from 1974 to 1978. Later he served the United Nations (1978-1989) as the Chief of the New Technologies, and Deputy Director of the UN Centre for S&T for Development and also as the Secretary of the UN Advisory Committee on S&T for Development. On his retirement from the United Nations, Dr. Anandakrishnan took over the responsibilities as the Vice-Chancellor of Anna University (1990-96). From 1996- 2001, he served as the Vice-Chairman of the Tamil Nadu State Council for Higher Education. Concurrently he also served as the Advisor to the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu on Information Technology and e-Governance. He is now the Chairman of the High Level Committee for Review of the Undergraduate Engineering Education in India. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers, India and the National Academy of Sciences, India. He has published four books and more than one hundred papers. He is the recipient of several prestigious honours and awards including The Order of Scientific Merit from the President of Brazil (1996) and Padma Shri from the President of India (2002) and Distinguished Leadership Award from the President of the University of Minnesota (2003) and Platinum Jubilee Award from Indian Ceramics Society (2004) He is also the Chairman of the Madras Institute of Development Studies.

Modern Reformation - Articles

The Promise-Driven Life
Michael S. Horton

Excepts

Church shouldn't be a place where the old self is revived for another week, but where it is killed and buried and the new self is created in the likeness of Christ.Christians are not purpose-driven, but promise-driven. Purposes are all about law.Christ lived the purpose-driven life so that we would inherit his righteousness through faith and be promise-driven people in a purpose-driven world.Although Rick Warren's phenomenal best-seller, The Purpose-Driven Life, for example, differs from the usual pattern of self-help books by insisting that we were created for God and his glory, it offers Fifteen Principles-all of which are imperatives (commands, or rather, suggestions) that promise a life of victory for those who follow them. That, I would suggest, confuses law and gospel. And that eventually leaves resentment of God, not delight, in its wake.The fact that purposes are about law does not make them wrong. We need purposes! Nobody can live without goals. Yet purposes and goals are always something to be reached, to be achieved and be attained by us. They require tactics and strategies. All of this is fine as long as we realize that they are law, not gospel: commands and promises are both necessary, but they do different things.


Law tells us what we should do, whether we're faced with the wrath of God (full-strength law) or by the fear of not reaching our full potential (the watered-down version). God's promise, by contrast, creates true faith, which creates true works. The church father Augustine defined sin as being "curved in" on ourselves. While imperatives (including purposes) tend by themselves to make us more "curved in" on ourselves (either self-confidence or self-despair), only God's promise can drive us out of ourselves and our own programs for acceptance before ourselves, other people, and God. While the Christian life according to scripture is purpose-directed, it is promise-driven. Both of our passages-Genesis 15 and Romans 4-bring this point home powerfully.

Wrestling with the Promise (Genesis 15)

Even after his military victory and the remarkable event of being offered bread and wine with a blessing from Melchizedek, Abram's greatest problem is that he has no heir, no one to carry on the calling that God has given him. His world, as he sees it anyway, is bleak. "After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, 'Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great'" (Gen. 15:1). Abram and Sarai had been called out of the barrenness of moon-worship in the city of Ur by God's powerful Word, which created faith in the promise (12:1). There is the reward of the land of Canaan, but ultimately the whole earth ("father of many nations"), of which the land of Canaan will serve as a type. The New Testament even tells us that Abraham himself was looking through the earthly promise as a type to its heavenly reality (Heb. 11:10, 13-16).



Notice in this opening address, it is sheer promise. This covenant is not like the one that God made with Adam or with Israel, which made the promise conditional on their future obedience. It was a gift to be received, not a task to be undertaken. God simply declares, "I am your shield. Your reward shall be great." This is what ancient Near Eastern lawyers would have called a "royal grant."

Yet Abram wonders, "O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezar of Damascus? ... You have given me no son, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir" (vv. 2-3). The empirical facts of the case-what Abram sees, appear to be overwhelming evidence against the testimony of the promise. Nevertheless, God counters again with the promise, offering the innumerable stars as a sign of the teeming offspring who will come from his loins. "And [Abram] believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness" (vv. 5-6). Abram's response is not one of blind optimism or positive thinking. Abram finds himself believing.

Faith does not create; it receives. It does not make the invisible visible or the future present or hope reality. It receives that which is already given. Grace precedes faith. It is not finally accepting the goodness of the world, or my own goodness, but receiving God's goodness toward me in spite of the way things really are with me and with the world. Further, there is no way around the forensic or legal character of this Hebrew verb, "declared." It is chashav, referring to a courtroom judgment, not a process. There Abram stood, wicked and helpless, and yet at the same time-by virtue solely of the promise declared to him, received by faith, was declared righteous. Commenting on this passage, Calvin reminds us, "In all ages, Satan has laboured at nothing more assiduously than to extinguish, or to smother, the gratuitous justification of faith, which is here expressly asserted." Justification is at the core of the divine paradox: How can I have the assurance that I am accepted before God as righteous when I continue in sin? I see my life. Nevertheless, by pronouncing Abraham just, Abram is just. The promise makes it so. If we can get this right in our understanding of justification, it will radically alter every other aspect of our relationship with God.


The preaching of the promise created justifying faith and this sign and seal now confirms and ratifies it. No wonder question 62 of the Heidelberg Catechism confesses, "The Holy Spirit creates it [faith] in our hearts by the preaching of the holy gospel and confirms it by the use of the holy sacraments." Out of his confession of faith, Abram now continues his pilgrimage not on the basis of his physical vigor or Sarai's fertility, but on the sole basis of the Word (again, in anticipation of his greater Son in his temptation). We will either rely on the visible realities we see or the invisible realities we hear preached to us, but we cannot rely on both. Unbelief is unavoidable: either we will doubt the credibility of the divine word in the face of life's realities or we will doubt the credibility of this world's so-called "givens" in the face of the divine promise. Faith ignores statistics. The world says we have to save ourselves (and it), offering countless strategies of striving, while the Word slays us in our self-conceit and raises us up together with Christ. God's promise creates a new world out of darkness and void, fertile pastures of fruit-bearing trees out of the infertile soil of unbelief and ungodliness. This covenant is not a call to claim a future he can control, but to receive a future that God has spoken into being. Sarai's infertile womb is the canvas upon which God will paint a new creation. And they both get renamed. The promise gives them a new identity.
The Fulfillment of the Promise (Romans 4:13-25)

Paul is contrasting law-logic with promise-logic. The law is not the problem, but we are, and the law simply points that out. We know the law by nature; nobody has to teach at least its rudimentary principles to us (Rom. 1 and 2). When we turn to our common sense, reason, experience, or what we see in order to determine our relationship to God, it is always the law that has the last word. Law-logic is entirely appropriate for those created in God's image, designed and equipped to reflect God's righteousness in every way, but it says nothing about how law-breakers can be saved from its judgment.

In Romans 3:21-26, Paul announces that law-logic can only announce the righteousness that God is and which therefore condemns us who have failed to conform to it. Then we arrive at chapter 4. The question that throws law and promise into a sharp contrast is this: How does one obtain the inheritance of the heavenly rest? The barrier between Jew and Gentile is broken down not merely because the laws of ethnic separation are set aside but because law as a principle was never intended to be the way of inheriting the Abrahamic promise. "But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness, just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works" (vv. 5-6).
). But God is never closer to us, says Paul, than when Christ is being preached to us (v. 8). Law-logic strives for what it sees and can possess; promise-logic sits down and listens to the covenant attorney reading the last will and testament, legally enacting the bequest.

Back to chapter 4, then, where Paul uses the same phrase-"through the righteousness of faith" (v. 13) that he will use in chapter 10, where he contrasts the law-logic of our ascent ("go get it") with the promise-logic of God's descent ("God gave it to you"). So when it comes to how we are justified-that is, set right before God and made heirs of all the gifts that he has for us, Law and Promise represent antithetical means of inheritance. We know the difference between a contract ("I'll do this if you do that") and a bequest ("I hereby leave my estate to ... "). That's the difference here between employees and heirs (v. 4). Christ's active obedience is the basis and his death is the legal event that distributes the royal estate to all of his beneficiaries. God doesn't just give us more good advice and exhortation, but the most amazing news in the world: "But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness" (v. 5).

It is the law that exposes our sin and makes it utterly sinful, counting our wrongs not as "mistakes," "self-expression," "foibles," or even "not being all that we could be," but as a wicked transgression of God's explicit command. The law speaks and the old self dies. The law cannot create faith because it tells us what is to be done. It can only announce what we have not done. The promise, by contrast, tells us what has been done by someone else. That is why it brings life.


Then in verse 16 Paul says, "Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all." See the logic of the promise? Paul will add one more pearl to the string later.


It is important to recognize that God's promises are not simply a pledge of a future reality, but bring about that reality in the present. We see this clearly in the way Paul talks about the law doing certain things and the promise doing certain things. In verse 14 of our passage he says, "For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect, because the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there is no transgression." The promise (or gospel) preached creates faith, just as the law actually brought about our condemnation. The law not only warns us of God's coming wrath, it "brings about wrath," just as the judge's act of sentencing a criminal actually effects the criminal's condemnation.

Throughout Scripture we are taught that God's Word is effectual: it brings about whatever God speaks, whether in creation, providence, or redemption. God's speech is "active and living,"

The gospel doesn't just talk about a world that might come to be if we all just got our act together; it creates a new world where no capacity existed, and that is exactly the language that Paul uses in verses 17 to 22. God creates death and life by speaking.

This is why Paul returns again to the example of Abraham and Sarah as the construction site of a new creation, produced by the promise. Here is the logic: "For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all of his descendants," both Jew and Gentile (v 16). He adds, "As it is written, 'I have made you the father of many nations'-in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist" (v. 17). Just as God spoke the world into existence without any contribution from the creation itself, God speaks a new world of salvation into being. And just as Abraham is declared righteous by this proclamation then and there, Paul observes, he was declared then and there "father of many nations" despite all appearances to the contrary. "Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become 'the father of many nations,' according to what was said, 'So numerous shall your descendants be'" (v. 18). God's saying makes it so. Salvation comes, then, not by doing certain things but by hearing certain things and embracing them by faith, which is itself created by the Spirit through the preaching of the promise. Not all parts of the Word give life, as Paul says later in chapter 7 (v. 10): "And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death." If Paul were not a transgressor, the law would pronounce him just, but as it is, it can only bring death. The promise, by contrast, brings life-out of nothing.

This is the scandal of justification: How can God declare us righteous if we are not inherently righteous? Isn't this a legal fiction? Doesn't it make God a liar? But that's like saying God cannot say, "Let there be light" unless there is a sun to give it. God himself creates the conditions necessary for the existence of his work. When he says, "Let there be light!", the sun exists. When he says, "Let this ungodly person be righteous," "this barren woman be pregnant," "this faithless person embrace my Word," it is so. When we really understand justification, we really understand how God works with us in every aspect of our lives before him.


Relinquishing hope in the ordinary powers of human nature, he was given genuine hope in God for the first time. The future was now God's future, not his own. He didn't have to work it all out, plot and plan, scheme to bring about the inheritance (as he had done before). Thus, because of the power of the promise, not his own goals or resolve, Abraham could turn his eyes away from "his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah's womb" (Rom. 4:19). "He did not waver," again, not because of any inherent virtue of his faith, but because he "was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform" (v. 21). In other words, it was because of the object of faith, not the act of faith itself that Abraham could stand firm.


As anticipated above, Paul adds here another pearl in the chain of the promise-logic: If the inheritance comes by faith in the promise and not in the works of the law, then faith gives all "glory to God" (v. 20). Faith gives no glory to self, even to our act of faith. It is directed entirely to God and his promise. Faith is strong only to the extent that the promise is strong. Abraham knew that God could perform what he had promised. "And therefore 'it was accounted to him for righteousness'" (v. 22).


Faith is defiance. Abraham's faith defied every possibility that he saw, in favor of the "impossible" word that he heard. This is why "faith comes by hearing ... that is, the word of faith which we preach" (Rom. 10:17). To trust in God is to distrust every other promise-maker. The world makes a lot of promises: "Try this product and you'll be ...." Constantly buying into new fads or makeovers as so many fig leaves to hide the seriousness of our condition, we hand ourselves over to marketers who persuade us that we can attain salvation, however we define that. Even the church can become a place where people get the idea that they exist merely to usher in the kingdom by serving on committees and being involved in a thousand programs. We have a lot of purposes, a lot of goals-some of them noble. Desperate to save ourselves and our kids from everything but the wrath of God, we fail to realize that, however watered down, these are all nothing but law rather than promise. Eventually, we will become burned out on good advice. What we need is good news.

Dr. Binayak Sen

tag: Binyak Sen

Dr. Binayak Sen has been the General Secretary of the Chhattisgarh PUCL and Vice-President of the National PUCL wwhen he was imprisoned by the Chhatisgarh Police at Bilaspur on May 14, 2007. He was involved in
activities in defense of the rights and liberties of tribal people in Chhattisgarh.He was doing research to develop an alternative health system responsive to the needs of the poor.


Binayak Sen, a distinguised student of the CMC Vellore, graduated in Medicine and later acquiring an M.D. in Paediatrics. From 1976 to 1978, he was a faculty member at the Centre for Social Medicine and Community Health at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He left his academic appointment to work in a community based rural health centre in Hoshangabad district of M.P. focusing on problems of tuberculosis. During the late seventies, he became an active member of the Medico Friend Circle, a national organization of health professionals working towards an alternative health system responsive to the needs of the poor. This involvement continues till today.

Binayak worked with mine workers in Dalli Rajahara towards addressing their health needs, helping them set up and manage their own Shaheed Hospital. When this hospital no longer required his leadership, Binayak moved to a mission hospital in Tilda where he worked in Paediatrics and Community Health. After the death of Shankar Guha Niyogi with whom he was closely associated, Binayak moved to Raipur. From 1991, he has worked in developing relevant models of primary health care in Chhattisgarh. He was a member of the state advisory committee to initiate the community based health worker programme across Chhattisgarh, now well known as the Mitanin programme. He also gives his services to a weekly clinic in a tribal community in Dhamtari district. He continues to provide health care to the children of the marginalised, especially the migrant labourers. In recognition of his work, the Christian Medical College, Vellore conferred on him the Paul Harrison Award in 2004, which is the highest award given to an alumnus for distinguished service in rural areas. He continues to be an inspiration to successive generations of students and faculty.

Binayak has been active and effective in defending the liberties of the disadvantaged, especially through the Peoples’ Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL). He has served as the General Secretary of the State PUCL Committee for the past five years and as Vice President of the National Committee for the last three years. As General Secretary of the Chhattisgarh PUCL, he helped organize fact finding campaigns into human rights violations in the state including custody deaths, fake encounters, hunger deaths, dysentery epidemics and malnutrition. In recent times he has worked intensively to bring large scale oppression and malgovernance within the so called Salwa Judoom in Dantewara to national and international attention.

Petition to Release Dr. Binayk Sen

Release of Dr. Binayak Sen, Vice President National PUCL, from imprisonment

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To: Honourable President of India

Honourable
Prime Minister of India

President
National Human Rights Commission

Honourable
Governor, Chhattisgarh

Subject: Safety and liberty of Dr. Binayak Sen, General Secretary of the Chhattisgarh PUCL and Vice-President of the National PUCL who has been imprisoned.

Respected Sirs,

This letter is to request your good offices on behalf of a very respected and beloved old student of Christian Medical College, Vellore who has been imprisoned this afternoon (May 14, 2007) at Bilaspur for activities in defense of the rights and liberties of tribal people in Chhattisgarh.

His name is Binayak Sen. He had a distinguished academic career in Vellore, graduating in Medicine and later acquiring an M.D. in Paediatrics. From 1976 to 1978, he was a faculty member at the Centre for Social Medicine and Community Health at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He left his academic appointment to work in a community based rural health centre in Hoshangabad district of M.P. focusing on problems of tuberculosis. During the late seventies, he became an active member of the Medico Friend Circle, a national organization of health professionals working towards an alternative health system responsive to the needs of the poor. This involvement continues till today.

Binayak worked with mine workers in Dalli Rajahara towards addressing their health needs, helping them set up and manage their own Shaheed Hospital. When this hospital no longer required his leadership, Binayak moved to a mission hospital in Tilda where he worked in Paediatrics and Community Health. After the death of Shankar Guha Niyogi with whom he was closely associated, Binayak moved to Raipur. From 1991, he has worked in developing relevant models of primary health care in Chhattisgarh. He was a member of the state advisory committee to initiate the community based health worker programme across Chhattisgarh, now well known as the Mitanin programme. He also gives his services to a weekly clinic in a tribal community in Dhamtari district. He continues to provide health care to the children of the marginalised, especially the migrant labourers. In recognition of his work, the Christian Medical College, Vellore conferred on him the Paul Harrison Award in 2004, which is the highest award given to an alumnus for distinguished service in rural areas. He continues to be an inspiration to successive generations of students and faculty.

Binayak has been active and effective in defending the liberties of the disadvantaged, especially through the Peoples’ Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL). He has served as the General Secretary of the State PUCL Committee for the past five years and as Vice President of the National Committee for the last three years. As General Secretary of the Chhattisgarh PUCL, he helped organize fact finding campaigns into human rights violations in the state including custody deaths, fake encounters, hunger deaths, dysentery epidemics and malnutrition. In recent times he has worked intensively to bring large scale oppression and malgovernance within the so called Salwa Judoom in Dantewara to national and international attention.

One of the individuals being defended by the PUCL in Chattisgarh is Mr. Piyush Guha, presently in police custody. This in turn has led to threats and allegations against Binayak. He is being accused of absconding and of channeling illicit communications. We are anxious for the safety and well being of this beloved and respected student of ours.

We request you to employ your good offices to ensure that Dr. Binayak Sen is not subjected to mistreatment, continued unlawful imprisonment or worse. The instruments of the government failed to save the life of his mentor Niyogi. It will be a grievous failure if they do not now ensure the safety and dignity of Binayak Sen.

Respectfully submitted by,

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

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The Release of Dr. Binayak Sen, Vice President National PUCL, from imprisonment Petition to Honourable President of India was created by and written by Anand Zachariah (zachariah@cmcvellore.ac.in). This petition is hosted here at www.PetitionOnline.com as a public service. There is no endorsement of this petition, express or implied, by Artifice, Inc. or our sponsors. For technical support please use our simple Petition Help form.

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