Tuesday, August 6, 2024

Part I

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Tropical Storm Debby Is a ‘Once Every Thousand Years’ Storm? "Acts of God" and the Remnants of Theological Language in a Secular Age

Weather’s an amazing thing. Not only is it true that it can be different as you look at the globe on one side of the Earth as compared to the other, it can be very different within a very short amount of space, a very short amount of distance. And so much of America today was basking in a warm late summer day while parts of Florida and southern coastal Georgia were struggling with an unprecedented amount of rain. All of this came, of course, because of the development just in the last few days of a tropical depression that became a tropical storm, that became a hurricane, a category one hurricane, named Debby that hit the Big Bend of Florida just in the last 24 hours and has now progressed slowly across the northern reach of the Florida Peninsula, reaching the Jacksonville area and now moving all so slowly into not only Southern Georgia, but also parts beyond.

The storm, still has its name Debby, is no longer a hurricane. It’s been downgraded to a tropical storm, pretty quickly may be downgraded to a tropical depression once again. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t pose a great danger, because we are looking at warnings of 10, 20, and, as of late last night, up to 30 inches of rain. That’s because even as we think about hurricanes primarily in terms of the wind, the storm, and if you are living on the coast, the dreaded tidal surge, the reality is that a storm like Debby poses its greatest danger not so much from the tidal surge and not so much from the wind, but by the fact that the larger atmospheric conditions are causing the storm to move very, very slowly, and that means all that moisture is being dumped in a concentrated area.

Even as you had the mayor of Savannah talking about an unprecedented, once every thousand-year storm, more on that in just a moment, the reality is that political and emergency leaders are having to use all kinds of language to try to convince people that they need to move out of the way of the storm, especially if they’re in low-lying or in coastal areas under greatest threat.

But, as I mentioned, those comments made by the mayor of Savannah, we understand exactly why he made them. National authorities, weather authorities, emergency authorities spoke to the mayor clearly and told him, “You need to warn people to get out of the way of the storm, to make preparations for the storm. If they are in low areas, they’re going to need to get out of those areas,” because if indeed we’re talking about 20 to 30 inches of rain, as you look at how that actually works out in the areas most affected, it can turn out to be feet of water, and not only that, deadly moving water.

But it was interesting to hear the mayor try to warn his people by describing the storm as a once every thousand-year storm. Now is that true? Is a storm like this in coastal Georgia, the area of his primary concern, is that a storm that actually takes place once every 1,000 years? Well, here’s an obvious fact for us to think about. Nobody knows. As a matter of fact, nobody’s been keeping records or anything close to even, well, just a little more than a fraction of those 1,000 years.

When it comes to hurricanes, as are experienced in the Atlantic and primarily, of course, in the Western Atlantic, on the American shore and also Central and South America, the reality is that Europeans didn’t even know of these storms until the age of exploration. And so, we’re really talking about the 15th century at the very earliest, and for the most part we’re talking about the 16th and 17th and 18th centuries, for the reality of these storms to become well-known to Europeans.

But when someone says this is a once every thousand-year storm, they’re using the kind of language that comes with statistics, actuarial numbers, the kind of language that is used actually by insurance companies. In this case, it’s being used to warn people to get out of the way. It is simply not knowable as to whether a storm like this would happen in a place like coastal Georgia only once every 1,000 years. The reality is that’s the kind of language that is intended to assess relative risk, there the insurance companies come in, and it is also a mechanism of just warning people you need to get out of the way.

Also, as you’re looking at this, you realize that the insurance business, and a lot of it is just based on numbers, relative risk and all the rest, it also has some very interesting language, and this bleeds over into the legal community. When you think about the fact that many policies still have a clause about acts of God, in a secular age, they’re not actually connecting causality here to God. It means something outside of human control, a residue, which reminds us, by the way, of the fact that the only explanation for the world available throughout most of western history was the existence not only of a God, but specifically the God of the Bible.

Something else we need to keep in mind is that what we do know is unprecedented in human history, is the technology, especially coming from satellites and all the modern digital technology available not just to the government but to you on your smartphone. What is unprecedented is our ability to see these storms form, to use mathematical and meteorological models about how the storms are likely to develop, even where they’re likely to go, and to be able to track them the way that you can track it, as I said, right now on an ordinary smartphone. That is new.

But it reminds us that even as we think about acts of God, and we as Christians understand, it is indeed the Creator God of the universe who is sovereign over all of these processes all the time, even as, in a secular age, that language comes out once again storm-by-storm to remind us that you are not going to be able to get rid of causality when it comes to assessing these risks.

The other thing is we need to understand that in the Bible itself, there are all kinds of references to storms. I think right now one of the most interesting things we could observe is that if you look at the Bible, much of the paganism in the Bible is actually about gods of storms. And so, polytheism, and here I’m generalizing to the entire ancient world with all of its idolatries, in particular what is known as the ancient Near Eastern world, and specifically in the Scripture we think of Canaan and the Canaanites, the Babylonians, and others in the area.

But thinking of the Canaanites in particular, Baal was a god, the male deity at the very top of the stack of male deities in the Canaanite pantheon, and it was Baal, the god to whom so many sacrifices were made, so many horrifying deeds were done in terms of idolatrous worship, but Baal was understood to speak from the storm. He was understood to be a god of power and also a god of potency and fertility. But, most importantly, as we’re thinking about the hurricane or the tropical storm, it was understood that Baal would speak in the storm.

I just want to remind you that the one true God, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the one true God, is sovereign over all the cosmos, over all of his creation, and that means sovereign over every event, including every storm.

But I want to remind you of 1 Kings 19, because even as the prophet Elijah was told to listen to the voice of God, the voice of God did not speak like the voice of an idol. It was not in the wind, it was not in a storm that Elijah heard the word of God. It was rather the voice of God heard in a still small voice, all together clearly divine revelation, spoken audibly, intelligibly, understandably to Elijah.

With all of that as background, as we pray, we pray for those in the path of the storm, understanding the very real dangers that it poses, and hoping that those who can get out of the way, will.

Part II

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Why Would Israel Assassinate the Leaders of Its Enemies? Deterrence and Israel’s Great Challenge

But next, as we’re thinking about storms, we need to recognize that it’s not just meteorological storms that should have our attention, but also political storms, national security storms, and that’s exactly what Israel is facing. We need to take a turn here and look at Israel’s predicament, particularly as it’s facing renewed threats from Iran and its proxies, most importantly, Hezbollah and Hamas. Even as rockets have been fired by Hezbollah from Lebanon into Israel, the reality is that Israel is now bracing itself for what is expected to be a major attack from Iran, and that’s coming with a background. It’s also coming with American involvement.

The Biden administration and the Pentagon have been moving major American defense assets, including American carriers and F-35 attack planes into the eastern part of the Mediterranean, just in light of the renewed threats from Iran against Israel. Why the threats? Why now?

Well, first of all, let’s just look at the most urgent and immediate issue, and this has to do with the fact that Israel, in defending itself, has assassinated three major terrorist leaders. Now no one is contesting the fact that they were terrorists and, frankly, that they represented legitimate military targets. It is also important to say that Israel’s taken responsibility for two, but not all three of these deaths, two Hamas and one Hezbollah leader.

Most importantly, the political leader of Hamas was killed as he was attending the inaugural ceremonies for the new president of Iran and he was killed in Tehran, a major setback for Hamas. Very important victory if indeed Israel was behind it, as the United States and its allies are certain Israel was. Iran has blamed Israel and Iran has also pledged a major military retaliation against Israel.

That’s where the situation that began most urgently back in October the 7th, with Hamas attacking Israel from the Gaza Strip and then the war in Gaza of Israel against Hamas, it now threatens to become a larger theater war, and it indeed does threaten, in some sense, to become a conflagration that could pull in the entire Middle East.

And even as Iran, and this is very important, this is a major failure of the Biden administration in terms of Iran’s nuclear ambitions and the very fact that the Biden administration reversed some policies undertaken by previous administrations to try to limit Iran, the reality is that Israel understands that its predicament is clear, it cannot survive. It faces an existential threat if it allows itself to be attacked as Hamas and Hezbollah have been attacking Israel, and for a nation such as Iran to be able to use proxies to threaten its very existence.

Here’s where we need to understand something. When we are looking at the threat that Iran poses to Israel, it is on both sides understood to be an existential threat. Now what does that mean? It means it’s a threat to the very existence of Israel. Israel understands that Iran will not rest until Israel is wiped off the face of the earth. How do they know that? How do we know that? It is because Iranian leaders, in particular in the Shiite regime that came to power in the late 1970s in Iran, they have said so out loud, and their ambitions are very, very clear. Israel understands that Iran wills its non-existence.

Now remember that the most urgent issue tying Israel and Iran at this moment–remember, there was even an exchange of hostilities just a matter of months ago. But the most urgent, relevant contemporary issue was the assassination of the political leader of Hamas not only in Tehran, that embarrassed Iran enough, but as in Iran, they were observing the inauguration of Iran’s new president. And so, this was a humiliation to Iran, and Iran has pledged that it will retaliate. That retaliation could be very deadly. It could also, as we said, start a major regional war, the end of which is hard actually to contemplate.

Why would Israel do this? I think it’s really important for us to understand that when Americans ask that question, or when European nations asked that question, it is from a context of the fact that neither the United States nor Israel is worried every day about an existential military threat. There are huge threats that are posed against Israel and a raid against Europe, but that’s very different than what Israel experiences. Israel is surrounded by those who will its non-existence.

Christopher Caldwell recently drew attention to Israel’s reality when he wrote, “Israel, with its 9.5 million people, 7 million of them Jews, is the size of New Jersey. The Muslim Middle East surrounding it has half a billion people and is largely hostile. Any war that pitted the former squarely against the latter would be almost by definition a war for Israel’s survival. Yet it has never really come to that.”

Now Christopher Caldwell is writing about the existential threat that Israel faces every single day, and he’s writing to explain why Israel responds to threats differently than the United States would respond. He is also just dealing with the reality of the challenge. But he points out that Israel has never faced an absolutely united Muslim opposition. That’s the great danger. That’s exactly what Iran wants to bring about.

The numbers again come back to the fact that Israel has 9.5 million people, 7 million of them Jews. Meanwhile, the Muslim Middle East has half a billion people. So we are really talking about what can only be described as a dramatic mismatch of numbers, population power, but also of territory.

Part III

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Israel’s Existential Threats Have Changed its Politics: A Lot of Liberal Arguments Disappear After a Savage Attack

Now as we’re observing all of this, as I believe Christians should be very, very concerned for Israel and Israel’s survival in the midst of all of this, as Americans look at this, understanding Israel is a key ally, I think it’s important for us looking at what Christopher Caldwell described as this predicament, less than 10 million people as compared to a half billion people, many of whom will the non-existence of Israel. I think it’s important to look also at how foreign policy experts explain how Israel has to think about this.

Dalia Dassa Kaye, writing just this week for Foreign Affairs, reminds us that for its existence, from the beginning, Israel has had to depend upon a theory of and a threat of deterrence as a way of protecting itself and protecting the existence of Israel in a very hostile world. Now what kind of deterrence? Well, the deterrence comes down to this.

If Israel says we will respond to a threat to us with equal force, that’s not going to be enough. Israel has to respond with a far greater force. Because Israel is so outnumbered, its territory is so vulnerable, its situation strategically is also very vulnerable. The reality is that Israel has to prove by its behavior, you attack us, we give you 10 times more. You threaten us, we will respond in ways that are massive in deterrence and retaliation. You threaten our existence and we will make life for you nearly impossible.

That explains how Israel has survived as long as it has, as a very small nation, vastly outmanned, vastly outgunned if you look at the totality of the Muslim world there in the Middle East. Why it has survived, it is because it carries a very big stick. As this article in Foreign Affairs points out and its history will affirm, Israel has to.

Now this article, a very insightful piece in Foreign Affairs, also makes clear that Israel thought its deterrence level was working pretty well until October 7th, 2023. The attack by Hamas, deadly as it was, shocking as it was, surprising as it turned out to be, even with much vaunted military intelligence and Israel picking up some warning signs, the reality is that Israel found out the hard way, devastatingly, that its deterrence posture was nowhere as strong as Israel thought it was.

Now here’s something else. When it comes to American politics, and here the Biden administration, quite frankly, has not been as stalwart in support of Israel as it should be, and there are domestic developments here in the United States that partly explain that, especially in the Democratic Party and its base. The reality is that October 7 was a huge wake-up call for Israel, but it was also a surprise to the United States. That doesn’t mean it was completely a surprise in terms of an intelligence failure. It means that the way it happened, and the deadly effect of that attack indicated that Israel really was exposed to vulnerabilities that its current so-called defense posture did not check.

Now here’s something else we need to keep in mind. This was a wake-up call for Israel, but in reality it was also a wake-up call for the United States and our allies. It’s also important for us to understand that as much as I believe the United States owes Israel incredibly strong support, understanding its plight, committed to it as an ally, it is also in the self-interest of the United States of America that we understand that the forces who would will the non-existence of Israel would also will the non-existence of the United States.

Again, we ask the question, how do we know that? It is because when it comes to Iran, they have told us that. Remember that going all the way back to the late-1970s, Iran’s Shiite Islamic leadership has responded to the United States by calling the United States “the Great Satan.”

But before leaving Israel, even as we’re very concerned for Israel as it faces this threat from Iran, and we’re going to be tracking the headlines with you, I think it’s important for us to recognize that Christopher Caldwell makes another observation that I think is extremely relevant to our understanding of the worldview issues at stake here, because as he writes in his article, he writes that Israel is becoming “the most right-wing, advanced society on the planet”.

What he writes about is the political transformation of Israel in terms of these existential threats. So as you go back to Israel’s early history, very secular early leadership for Israel, in a party that was openly socialist and later called itself the Labor Party, in the political transformations that have happened in more recent decades in Israel, the Labor Party, which was really representative of the founders of Israel, is now down to four seats in Israel’s parliament known as the Knesset.

So what’s the worldview issue here? The worldview issue is pretty simple. When you live in a dangerous world, and Israel lives in an incredibly dangerous world, and when you are attacked as Israel was attacked, guess what? An awful lot of political issues that had been front-page news instantly vaporize. When the nation’s very existence is at stake, it turns out there’s a call for patriotism that goes far beyond flag-waving.

In another moving reference, Christopher Caldwell points out that there are Israeli grandmothers who pray for their grandsons to be admitted, even as their grandsons are just, say, toddlers, that they’ll eventually be admitted to elite Israeli defense units, the very way that American grandmothers pray that their grandsons will get into Harvard or Yale. I think that makes a very, very important point.

Harvard and Yale can afford a world of illusion, a world of comfort, a world they assume is a world of safety, a world in which it’s safe to be quite liberal. But when you are on the battlefield with the very existence of your country at stake and life on the line, things look very, very different. We’ll be watching the situation there in the Middle East and we’ll be back as events unfold.

Part IV

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Presidential Election Realities Come Into Focus—And There Are Massive Worldview Issues at Stake

Well, as we know, events are unfolding here in the United States. It was announced by the Harris campaign that the vice president’s campaign would announce sometime Tuesday morning, that is to say this morning, the vice president’s choice for a running mate. Now even last night and into the early hours, it’s very clear that speculation is down to two possibilities. Interestingly, both of them are governors. That will be Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota.

Walz will be the more interesting choice in terms of the personality. Shapiro, as it turns out, might be the more interesting choice in terms of worldview. And that takes us to Israel and that’s the reason why I brought it up, because by the time some of you are listening to this, you’re probably going to know who the vice presidential choice is. But right now, thinking about Josh Shapiro, it’s important to understand that many in the Democratic Party’s progressive wing than the left of the party have been pushing against Josh Shapiro precisely because he is a stalwart supporter of Israel, at least in the Democratic Party a very strong supporter of Israel and, quite frankly, the enemies of Israel.

I think it’s important to say we are talking about, at least in some precincts, a pretty unvarnished form of anti-Semitism. We are looking at a posture against Israel and for the Palestinian cause that is reshaping the Democratic Party for sure and, frankly, we all need to recognize, threatens to rewrite the landscape of American politics in general.

This is one of the reasons why Israel is very concerned right now. It’s because not only are these changes happening, A, in the Democratic Party, they’re also happening, B, disproportionately among young adults. And so, it’s both generational and partisan, and that spells big danger for Israel ahead.

But it also points to big danger for the United States because, again, I come back to the fact that the United States and Israel face common enemies and we face a common predicament. Quite honestly, it’s one of the reasons why I wanted to mention some of these developments in Israel, because as we look at young adults in Israel, they’re involved in a war and they understand it. You look at some of the young adults in the United States, they’re holding protest signs about things they don’t even understand.

So, yes, and we’ll talk about this once the decision is announced. We will talk about the choice of the vice presidential nominee for the Democratic Party. Of course, this comes after last night when the vice president claimed by means of their voice vote the Democratic Party put together, she claimed the nomination and she is clearly charging ahead.

Now as we’re going to be watching the campaign unfold, we’re going to be looking at developments today, we understand also that this is pointed towards media domination, and there’s no way we can avoid talking about it. It’s a lead story. It’s very important.

But here’s where we also need to recognize it is part of the campaign strategy and it is a part of the media strategy to keep talking about Kamala Harris in very positive terms, to keep talking about the Democratic ticket in extremely positive terms. It’s going to take an enormous pushback in order, for instance, in terms of the Shapiro issue to make very clear if Josh Shapiro is not chosen, why he wasn’t chosen, and what that means to the Democratic Party.

So there are big worldview issues on the table, there always are, but rarely do we have a situation like this where so many big issues are lined up one by one as if they’re jetliners in a line waiting for final approach to the runway. We can see the lights in the distance, we know the planes are coming, and all of them are important. And, as Christians understand, all of them come laden with worldview considerations.

As we think of the days ahead, there are massive issues looming that would include President Biden’s call for what he considers the reform of the US Supreme Court. It would include the Olympics, and any number of controversies, fascinating controversies, we are going to talk about related to the Olympics. It may well be the best way to do that is to wait until the end of the games and put that entire circus together in one consideration.

On the sexuality and gender front in the United States, massive developments that are simply not getting the attention they need because of the pressing issue of so many other headlines, some of those I think should reshape the presidential race. That doesn’t mean they will, but at least we’re going to make sure we talk about them on The Briefing.