This article caught my eye. First off because it seems important and needed, for not only for the world's wealthy home owners and car owners to have insurance, but for poor people to have some sort of climate insurance that would help them survive the devastation of their livelihood that could result from severe weather changes, short term or long term.

But as I thought about this further, it occurs to me that this is not a very proven idea yet. Like most businesses, insurance works on profit. No insurance company will stay in business if they pay out more in claims than they collect in premiums.

So to be profitable, an insurance plan would need to charge more from the world's poor than it is ever going to pay out in the event of claims.

This is both impractical (the world's poorest people don't have discretionary money to spend on climate insurance, if they would be buying it themselves) and could also borderline unethical.

So the idea seems good, but how to pull this off in a way that is ethical and realistic? The article admits, "ideas to insure the poor [are] still in their infancy."

If Matthew 25 gave more examples... "I was at risk of global climate change, and you bought me an insurance policy." (?) 

Hunger - pain or weakness caused by insufficient food.

Billions of people, about half of the world's people, feel the very definition of hunger every day, that sinking feeling in the pit of their stomachs.

Gluttony - excessive eating and drinking.

Thanksgiving - an attitude of gratefullness; an American holiday celebrating harvets, abundance, and expressing gratitude to God.

But Thanksgiving is also a day when the strange opposites of hunger and gluttony coexist in our society.

How many times have you heard someone groan and say, "Ooooohhh, I think I ate too much turkey..."  It's easy to do when there are so many dishes and everything tastes wonderful. Close friends and family are sharing a special occasion.

But gluttony, even just for a few hours on a Thursday, does not need to be part of our expression of gratitude and celebration. It can be tamed by a measure of self control.

Hunger, on the other hand, is not tamed quite so simply by self control. It is a hugely complex, systemic problem in our world, and worthy of the participation of every individual, every leader, every business, every church, every government, every neighbor, to fight it.

Even within the United States, one of the wealthiest nations in the world, millions of people go without enough food and nutrition each day, about a tenth of our population. The expert social scientists have a new term for this... "a lack of food security." But the people who experience it will tell you that "hunger" is the best word for it.

I don't have anything particularly in favor of or against capitalism, but its core DNA is competition and the seeking of self gain rather than generosity and communal distribution of resources to meet needs of others, as with the description in Acts of the first-generation followers of Jesus.

So capitalism, at its foundation, does not work against hunger or poverty. Capitalism does not address something in which there is no economic profit. Capitalism does not have its roots in scripture. It's not benign or innocent. (But neither is it necessarily the cause of poverty.)

This is worth thinking carefully and dialoging about, for every person who claims to follow Jesus but lives in the reality of a capitalist society. And then beyond dialog, there may be actions of obedience that God calls us to, which are not a natural part of our market economy landscape.

I'll admit that capitalism and free markets are arguably as good as or better than any alternatives our world has tried in the past couple hundred years. But a thing like hunger won't get addressed unless we go out of our way to address it.

Jesus says in Matthew 25 that when we feed the hungry (and when we don't) he takes it personally.

Finally, beyond physical hunger there's spiritual hunger.

This Thanksgiving as you celebrate, remember, and express your gratitude -- do remember the physically hungry with your prayers and hands and wallet and lifestyle; but also ask God to make you ever more hungry.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
- Matthew 5:6

AKA "The Gulf Between The West and Islam."

A very interesting article here from bbcnews.com:
twenty prominent world leaders gathered to examine the reasons for the growing gulf between the Muslim world and the West -- the "increasing polarization" between these entities.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan requested recommendations from those who gathered for a concrete action plan.

The intent was to distill the myths from the realities in the complex, strained dynamics between these entities.

In spite of seeming so at times, the "West" and Islam are not polar opposites.

There are millions of Muslims in America and millions throughout Europe. And not all of these are former Muslims who have become hopelessly corrupted infidels. Many of them are people who continue to practice their Muslim faith within the United States or Europe. Their Islamic faith likely does take on some changes, just as it likely does adapt into most cultures in which Islam is found.

Some of these Muslims in the West, to be sure, are nominal Muslims who identify with the Islamic faith but do not conform their lives to it as the central guiding principle. They may associate with Islam out of duty, fear, obligation, expectation, or by default; but not necessarily out of conviction or passion or true faith.

This is the same for millions of Muslims deep in the heart of the so-called Islamic world. Not all are devout practicing Muslims, from the heart. When you pray for God to touch the hearts of Muslims, keep this in mind! And remember too that large numbers of nominal followers can be found in all major religions including Christianity.

The Lord doesn’t see things the way people see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.
- I Samuel 16:7

Why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say? I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice... (the parable of wise and foolish builders follows...)
- Luke 6:46-49

The gulf, or divide, that has grown between the West and the Islamic World is a gulf of understanding, trust, and peaceful coexistance.

One participant at this gathering, from Indonesia, argued that this divide is not religious or cultural but political.

I'm not an expert but I would argue that probably this divide is actually all of the above, including religious and cultural, and I strongly doubt that it is only or primarily political.

I would suggest that there is a fourth dynamic which widens the divide, that of ignorance on both sides. Take two individuals at the far extremes of this gap, and put them in a context where they can enter into relationship. You know, one buys some bread from the other's bakery. Or they break bread and eat hummus together and talk about food and weariness and hope and disappointment and aspiration and love and desire and family.

Or imagine them in two adjacent hospital beds with life-threatening conditions, and see how their estrangement fades away. Mortality is a common language.

They'll find out they have more in common than they thought. Almost everything that is part of the human condition, in common. And not so much disparity at all. The disparity is hyped, and easily accentuated when people are not in direct relationship. Yeah, some of it's political, some is cultural, some is religious. But most of the divide is based on ignorance of how similar the people on the "other side" are to me, and how well we could get along if we only had avenues for basic relationship.

We were, after all, created by the same God in the same image of the same God.

Christians are hardly different from rest of the human race except that we believe in the sacrifice and forgiveness of Jesus and our reconciliation to God through him. Christians should be the leading examples of empathy, which overcomes divides like this one.

Empathy is the essense of God's incarnation. If we can't empathize -- get into someone else's shoes -- we can't understand the miracle of the incarnation of God.

God who can do all things sure knows how to empathize. By becoming flesh, God in Christ demonstrated not only the ability but the reality of empathy with God's own creation. God walked among us, taking on the limitations, pain, suffering, hunger, thirst, and longings of the human condition.

That is a miracle! It's a miracle to which I hope one day every Muslim will open his or her heart. It's worthy of consideration. It's right there in the Torah and the Injil, two parts of God's written revelation which all Muslims should study along with Christians.

This is a place where Christians in the West need to take a leadership role within their own communities, in sincere humility. This is an opportunity to disavow the rhetoric that widens the gulf, and instead endorse speech and attitudes and actions which lead to building bridges. Words and actions of love toward Muslims.

Rightly or wrongly, some might expect a blog entry with this title to eventually say, "Every Christian should vote Republican." Because that's what we've heard before.

But I can't go there quite so simply as some, when I read the Bible and try to apply all the principles we find there about citizenship in God's kingdom, as I consider how I should cast my informed and responsible vote as a simultaneous citizen of an earthly democratic nation.

God, the Father of Jesus Christ, and the cohort of the Holy Spirit, and the Son himself -- it would be ludicrous to suggest that any of them are Republicans or Democrats. I suspect that they SO do not care that much for our partisan politics.

(So I guess the triune members of the Godhead would be Independents. Often lacking a strong candidate on the ballot.)

We give God a huge demotion if we suggest that God fits on the platform of any earthly political party. What would God be doing wrapped up in one of these temporal little human institutions? Well not to worry, because unless I'm wrong, God is focused mainly on other things.

If we want to know God's heart and mind on current social and political issues in our world, the Bible does have a wealth of clues. But if we go looking for bits to endorse this or that prior persuasion, it's not, in my opinion, how God intended for us to glean truth from God's revelation.

On one hand I don't care much for politics, yet somehow in my middle-age following of Jesus I increasingly feel like I should care more about politics, because its concentration of power affects so many lives in ways that God does care about.

Political parties as we know them in this country are such flawed human conduits of power and social oversight. They are full of selfish sinful human beings like the rest of us. One difference is they are steered by people who like power a lot more than the average citizen. Yikes.

The struggle is to care about and advocate for all the issues that matter to God in God's own word, while using our limited time and energy efficiently in ways that have some eternal significance. I'm not always convinced American politics is worth any large chunk of our energy, given other good things on which to spend our energy as we follow Jesus.

I hope these few bits of advice are universal and fair, not favoring any particular party, candidate, or choices.

Five things to vote FOR:

Vote for quality leadership ability. I know, we Americans don't often have amazingly great choices for quality leaders on the ballot. I honestly can't remember the last time. You don't vote for the leadership you wish you had, you vote for the leadership you have (to choose from). Study the scriptures for the characteristics that make a good leader. Look for those things (and opposite     qualities) in the candidates. Note, the best qualities of good leaders are often at odds with the tactics that secure higher positions of political power in the U.S.A. Don't automatically equate someone's political success with good leadership.

Vote for character, wisdom, and integrity. This is a difficult one, because in these days of dirty campaigns, accusations and rumors leave us uncertain if anyone running for office is blameless. And the answer is no, of course none of them are blameless. But there is still room for measuring character, wisdom, and integrity of a person based on who they are, what they've accomplished in the past, and how they've conducted themselves when they've made mistakes or fallen short. How they function under pressure, adversity, or even failure is an indicator of their future leadership.

Vote for principles -- and not just one or two of them! Vote for people who will do something constructive about the complete needs of whole people, which Jesus taught us all to advocate for. Vote for problem-solvers who have a track record of accomplishing the most important things and not getting side railed by things that don't matter so much.

Vote for substance. Vote for someone who offers an agenda you agree with overall, if they also offer a credible plan to achieve that agenda. If they spend lots of time criticizing past or present leaders, and making vague statements like "we need a new direction" without explaining that new direction, there may be more speechwriting than substance there. Think twice and look for other choices.

Vote your conscience. But be careful! What you think is your conscience might at times amount to someone else's narrow claims about what all Christians should vote for. I regret to say it but this has happened plenty, in American elections: political leaders claiming to be on God's side while pursuing policies that contradict Jesus' most fundamental teachings and example.

Five things to NOT vote for:

Don't vote out of fear. If you hear messages of fear ("vote for me or else you'll get my opponent") coming from candidates, look elsewhere for some substance.

Don't vote for political parties, they'll let you down. Maybe that's easier for me to say, because I'm not aligned with any particular American polical party -- some people are, and I'll almost grant that maybe that's OK for Christians to do. Maybe not. (I mean, look at the 2 main parties' platforms! Neither in synch with the Christian faith on the whole.) But neither party consistently produces the best candidate in any given race, nor a platform that is consistently compatible with a Christ-friendly agenda. I encourage you to vote for the best leader, regardless of their party.

Don't vote narrowly on one or two issues. Please. If you're a follower of Jesus, you'll realize there are a LOT more than one or two issues that matter a lot to God. The Bible is full of examples. The gospels are full of Jesus' teaching about what our priorities should be, and they go far beyond the weight that is narrowly assigned to abortion or gay rights or stem cells. The gospels contain teachings that directly address many dozen other contemporary and hugely critical issues in American politics and society.

Don't vote for someone else's favorite, even someone you respect. Do your own research. Is someone a good choice or a bad choice? Why? Know your own reasons for voting for the candidate you choose. Study but don't trust comparison charts of this vs. that candidate. They are designed and printed by people and groups with their own agenda, and they are not objective.

Don't take lip service at face value. Some candidates will make verbal claims about this or that religious or philosophical alignment. The proof is in the pudding. Remember that this is politics, and the ugliness of the game is that many, probably most candidates will do and say things that aren't entirely from their heart, simply to win the vote of certain groups.

Lastly, because slander is sinful, this might be a good enough reason to NOT vote for someone whose campaign uses slander against other candidates. It might even help them change their behavior if you take 2 minutes to call or email their campaign office, and tell them why they lost your vote. Slander is an unacceptable way to campaign for political office.

You can read any of the gospels in a couple hours. Do it, and then think about which of the candidates you might vote for is most closely aligned with the values that Jesus taught and modeled. (I'm painfully aware that a politician saying s/he is a Christian has virtually no bearing on how closely aligned s/he is with Jesus' values. The lip service thing I mentioned above. As a Christian, I have a certain degree of anger about this. I will remain calm. )

That's my two cents worth. May God be gracious enough to bless the governments and leaders of this earth, flawed as they may be, including ours. May God guide our choosing, and give wisdom and strength to those we do choose to lead us.