One of the things I have been emphasizing in my responses to N.T. Wright on the Third World is the importance of recognizing the complexity of the problem — calls for jubilee mercy in struggling nations are all very well, but suppose it is not like helping a guy with some bruises to the nearest …
Spit Spot
As many of you probably know, in the most recent issue of First Things, N.T. Wright wrote a pretty styptic response to Richard John Neuhaus’ review of his book Surprised By Hope. And then Neuhaus responded to that, more or less along the same lines. There are a number of things in that exchange that …
Invade Burma?
If the ethics taught to us in the parable of the Good Samaritan transfer from the individual level to the global level, without any significant adjustments, then certain things follow. If my obligation to give a guy a sandwich transfers without adjustment to our obligation to give food to an entire nation, then other obligations …
Tennis Shoe It Out of Here
When someone proposes good deeds on a grand scale, one of the assumptions that goes into it is the idea that, if implemented, nothing can go wrong. Since nothing can go wrong, then we never have to worry about who bears the costs if it goes wrong. Since we never have to worry about who …
Plunderers and Plunderees
Another important aspect of Third World debt forgiveness is one I have alluded to several times, but we have not yet developed it. And that concerns this subject — who is it, exactly, that is doing the forgiving, and on whose behalf is it being done? And on what authority? The money that was loaned …
There It Is
In my interactions with Bishop Wright on the matter of Third World debt, I have a couple times had the sensation of having been here before. Somehow. Tonight it happened again, and so I picked up a mental thread and pulled on it. This is what came of that. This is how Dorothy Sayers began …
They Come in Crates of Twenty-Four
What might seem like the simplest problem in the world — just forgive the debts, man, how hard can it be? — turns out to have massive complications. These complications are not offered as an argument for doing nothing, but rather as an argument for taking the time to get it right. There are a …
Kudzu in Idaho
In his book The Millennium Myth, N.T. Wright acknowledges that debt forgiveness willy nilly is not the way to go. “Some will warn [like DW] that debt cancellation without political change will be a gift to the tyrants and bullies, not to the poor and weak. Steps will have to be taken to make sure …
Call It Straight
Just a quick follow up on a comment left in an earlier thread. We have names for things, and we need to make sure we use them. As the Church extends kindness to the widow and orphan — using tithes and offerings — we call this pure and undefiled religion. It is the vocation of …
A Big International Galoot
I write as a critic of American empire, not an opponent of it, if you catch my drift. America is doing what large, hegemonic powers have pretty much always done when in this position, and this behavior is not exceptionally vile, as the leftist screechers would have us believe, and it is not especially virtuous, …