Weekly World Watch 1-7 August: UK and US - Iran, Israel, Elam and Media

 The intention of the WWW is to offer brief Biblical perspectives without going into detail.

The UK and US have blamed Iran for an attack on an Israeli-linked oil tanker in which two crew members, including a British national, were killed. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab accused Iran of carrying out a "deliberate, targeted" assault which constituted "a clear violation of international law". US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said he was considering "next steps" with the UK and other allies, with "an appropriate response... forthcoming". Meanwhile, the head of the British armed forces, General Sir Nick Carter, held discussions with his Israeli counterpart on Sunday. The government held a Cobra emergency meeting at the level of officials over the weekend in a sign of the serious focus on the tanker attack and how to respond, Sky News understands.
The attack occurred last Thursday when the MV Mercer Street was off Oman's Coast in the Arabian Sea. 

This week both the UK and US have also blamed Iran for the attack and have vowed to take action against Iran because the drone killed a British national. However there is some reticence on escalating the crisis with Iran as both the US and UK want to revive the nuclear deal. Experts believe that the UK might favour a more covert response such as a cyber attack against Iran’s drone capabilities. The Bible says that Elam and Media (areas of modern Iran) will rise up and besiege. We are also told this burden is connected with a desert by the sea. The sea therefore is the Persian Gulf and this is where many of these attacks occur.

Israel will no longer allow Iran to continue its aggression with impunity, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett warned on a visit to the IDF Northern Command on Tuesday. “Iran already knows the price that we exact when someone threatens our security,” he said. “The Iranians need to understand that it is impossible to sit peacefully in Tehran and from there ignite the entire Middle East. That is over.” The prime minister spoke of Israeli efforts to bring the international community to its side against Iran, including sharing the intelligence information showing Iran was the perpetrator, but said that “we also know how to act alone.” Bennett also criticized the European Union for sending Enrique Mora, the EU coordinator for the Iran nuclear talks and deputy secretary-general of the EU’s foreign ministry, to attend the inauguration this week of Iran’s incoming-President Ebrahim Raisi.

Israel is extremely concerned about what Iran might do next as the new hardline president of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, takes control and is sworn in this week. “Raisi is the most extreme Iranian president of them all, and the competition is tough,” Israel’s prime minister Bennett said. “I call on the EU: One cannot talk about human rights and simultaneously honour a murderer, a hangman, who has eliminated hundreds of opponents of the regime.” The new Iranian president has been nicknamed “the Butcher of Tehran” because of the former judge’s role in the execution of thousands of Iranian dissidents. The Bible says that although Israel’s immediate enemies (backed by Iran) will be destroyed in the initial inner ring war – Iran itself survives to join with Russia in the outer ring war that invades Israel. That army is destroyed by God with hail and fire.

Message of Pope Francis I for the 48th World Communications Day

Communication at the Service of an Authentic Culture of Encounter

[Sunday, 1 June 2014]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today we are living in a world which is growing ever “smaller” and where, as a result, it would seem to be easier for all of us to be neighbours. Developments in travel and communications technology are bringing us closer together and making us more connected, even as globalization makes us increasingly interdependent. Nonetheless, divisions, which are sometimes quite deep, continue to exist within our human family. On the global level we see a scandalous gap between the opulence of the wealthy and the utter destitution of the poor. Often we need only walk the streets of a city to see the contrast between people living on the street and the brilliant lights of the store windows. We have become so accustomed to these things that they no longer unsettle us. Our world suffers from many forms of exclusion, marginalization and poverty, to say nothing of conflicts born of a combination of economic, political, ideological, and, sadly, even religious motives.

In a world like this, media can help us to feel closer to one another, creating a sense of the unity of the human family which can in turn inspire solidarity and serious efforts to ensure a more dignified life for all. Good communication helps us to grow closer, to know one another better, and ultimately, to grow in unity. The walls which divide us can be broken down only if we are prepared to listen and learn from one another. We need to resolve our differences through forms of dialogue which help us grow in understanding and mutual respect. A culture of encounter demands that we be ready not only to give, but also to receive. Media can help us greatly in this, especially nowadays, when the networks of human communication have made unprecedented advances. The internet, in particular, offers immense possibilities for encounter and solidarity. This is something truly good, a gift from God.

This is not to say that certain problems do not exist. The speed with which information is communicated exceeds our capacity for reflection and judgement, and this does not make for more balanced and proper forms of self-expression. The variety of opinions being aired can be seen as helpful, but it also enables people to barricade themselves behind sources of information which only confirm their own wishes and ideas, or political and economic interests. The world of communications can help us either to expand our knowledge or to lose our bearings. The desire for digital connectivity can have the effect of isolating us from our neighbours, from those closest to us. We should not overlook the fact that those who for whatever reason lack access to social media run the risk of being left behind.

While these drawbacks are real, they do not justify rejecting social media; rather, they remind us that communication is ultimately a human rather than technological achievement. What is it, then, that helps us, in the digital environment, to grow in humanity and mutual understanding? We need, for example, to recover a certain sense of deliberateness and calm. This calls for time and the ability to be silent and to listen. We need also to be patient if we want to understand those who are different from us. People only express themselves fully when they are not merely tolerated, but know that they are truly accepted. If we are genuinely attentive in listening to others, we will learn to look at the world with different eyes and come to appreciate the richness of human experience as manifested in different cultures and traditions. We will also learn to appreciate more fully the important values inspired by Christianity, such as the vision of the human person, the nature of marriage and the family, the proper distinction between the religious and political spheres, the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity, and many others.

La parabola del Buon Samaritano Messina Chiesa della Medaglia Miracolosa Casa di Ospitalità Collereale (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

How, then, can communication be at the service of an authentic culture of encounter? What does it mean for us, as disciples of the Lord, to encounter others in the light of the Gospel? In spite of our own limitations and sinfulness, how do we draw truly close to one another? These questions are summed up in what a scribe – a communicator – once asked Jesus: “And who is my neighbour?” (Lk 10:29). This question can help us to see communication in terms of “neighbourliness”. We might paraphrase the question in this way: How can we be “neighbourly” in our use of the communications media and in the new environment created by digital technology? I find an answer in the parable of the Good Samaritan, which is also a parable about communication. Those who communicate, in effect, become neighbours. The Good Samaritan not only draws nearer to the man he finds half dead on the side of the road; he takes responsibility for him. Jesus shifts our understanding: it is not just about seeing the other as someone like myself, but of the ability to make myself like the other. Communication is really about realizing that we are all human beings, children of God. I like seeing this power of communication as “neighbourliness”.

Whenever communication is primarily aimed at promoting consumption or manipulating others, we are dealing with a form of violent aggression like that suffered by the man in the parable, who was beaten by robbers and left abandoned on the road. The Levite and the priest do not regard him as a neighbour, but as a stranger to be kept at a distance. In those days, it was rules of ritual purity which conditioned their response. Nowadays there is a danger that certain media so condition our responses that we fail to see our real neighbour.

It is not enough to be passersby on the digital highways, simply “connected”; connections need to grow into true encounters. We cannot live apart, closed in on ourselves. We need to love and to be loved. We need tenderness. Media strategies do not ensure beauty, goodness and truth in communication. The world of media also has to be concerned with humanity, it too is called to show tenderness. The digital world can be an environment rich in humanity; a network not of wires but of people. The impartiality of media is merely an appearance; only those who go out of themselves in their communication can become a true point of reference for others. Personal engagement is the basis of the trustworthiness of a communicator. Christian witness, thanks to the internet, can thereby reach the peripheries of human existence.

As I have frequently observed, if a choice has to be made between a bruised Church which goes out to the streets and a Church suffering from self-absorption, I certainly prefer the first. Those “streets” are the world where people live and where they can be reached, both effectively and affectively. The digital highway is one of them, a street teeming with people who are often hurting, men and women looking for salvation or hope. By means of the internet, the Christian message can reach “to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Keeping the doors of our churches open also means keeping them open in the digital environment so that people, whatever their situation in life, can enter, and so that the Gospel can go out to reach everyone. We are called to show that the Church is the home of all. Are we capable of communicating the image of such a Church? Communication is a means of expressing the missionary vocation of the entire Church; today the social networks are one way to experience this call to discover the beauty of faith, the beauty of encountering Christ. In the area of communications too, we need a Church capable of bringing warmth and of stirring hearts.

Effective Christian witness is not about bombarding people with religious messages, but about our willingness to be available to others “by patiently and respectfully engaging their questions and their doubts as they advance in their search for the truth and the meaning of human existence” (BENEDICT XVI, Message for the 47th World Communications Day, 2013). We need but recall the story of the disciples on the way to Emmaus. We have to be able to dialogue with the men and women of today, to understand their expectations, doubts and hopes, and to bring them the Gospel, Jesus Christ himself, God incarnate, who died and rose to free us from sin and death. We are challenged to be people of depth, attentive to what is happening around us and spiritually alert. To dialogue means to believe that the “other” has something worthwhile to say, and to entertain his or her point of view and perspective. Engaging in dialogue does not mean renouncing our own ideas and traditions, but the claim that they alone are valid or absolute.

May the image of the Good Samaritan who tended to the wounds of the injured man by pouring oil and wine over them be our inspiration. Let our communication be a balm which relieves pain and a fine wine which gladdens hearts. May the light we bring to others not be the result of cosmetics or special effects, but rather of our being loving and merciful “neighbours” to those wounded and left on the side of the road. Let us boldly become citizens of the digital world. The Church needs to be concerned for, and present in, the world of communication, in order to dialogue with people today and to help them encounter Christ. She needs to be a Church at the side of others, capable of accompanying everyone along the way. The revolution taking place in communications media and in information technologies represents a great and thrilling challenge; may we respond to that challenge with fresh energy and imagination as we seek to share with others the beauty of God.

From the Vatican, 24 January 2014, the Memorial of Saint Francis de Sales.

FRANCIS

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Hoe de Satan vandaag rond toert

In de Laatste Dagen, de tijd die zou komen wanneer Jezus zal gaan terugkomen zou de 'duivel' welig tieren en zouden de mensen vele afgoden aanbidden.
In Feeling, Vogue, Apple, heiligen en God wil ik er graag op wijzen hoe gelijdelijk aan de laatste jaren nieuwe goden de wereld aan het veroveren zijn. De mensen geraken verkocht aan dat gene wat zij zo graag consumeren en bij datgene wat de media en reclame hen opdringen. Niemand wil nog onderdoen voor  een ander en liefst wil men kunnen pronken met het allerlaatste nieuwste snufje.

De mensen worden meer en meer in beslag genomen door al de gadgets en zogenaamde socialising programs die hen het gevoel willen geven om er bij te horen. Zo is er het over-populair geworden Facebook, dat nu wel haar aanhang bij jongeren begint te verliezen door dat het niet meer exclusief is. Plaxo die eerder op de markt was, LinkedIn, C-Link, Youtube en vele andere platvormen willen de mensen samen met elkaar laten communiceren, gedachten, fotos en filmpjes delen. Dat is wel mooi, maar er zijn mensen die er volledig door opgeslorpt geraken, de tijd uit het oog verliezen of erger nog tijd van hun werkgever gebruiken om op zulke sites actief te zijn.
Op die sites porren ze elkaar en gaan sommige mensen ook lekker tegen elkaar in, op bepaalde sites zelfs met de grofste woorden. Niemand lijkt zich nog voor iets of iemand te storen. Ook hoe men zich open en bloot wil geven voor de gehele wereld lijkt alle normen te buiten te gaan.
Ook over verhoudingen spreekt men alsof het vreemd gaan een normaalste zaak van de wereld is. In de Standaard las ik zelfs een artikel waar een vrouwelijke psychiater beweerde dat alle mannen (sic) wel eens in hun leven naar de hoeren gaan of zijn geweest.
In kranten en tijdschriften wordt de vrije houding van de mensen over hun verhouding tegenover elkaar en tegenover de dingen rondom hen bevestigd. Veel bedrog, niet houden aan regels of wetten wordt als toegelaten en als gewoonste zaak van de wereld voorgesteld. Waarom zou men zijn eigen ding niet mogen doen?
En zo verspreidt zich het kwaad. De wil om de "eigen wil" te doen en geen rekenschap te moeten geven aan een ander of aan God en gebod.
Dat is het Kwaad waar er sprake van is betreft het Einde der Tijden. Die Satan of Duivel is de mens zijn eigen lust en wens om te verzaken aan de geboden van de Heer. Uiteindelijk worden veel mensen satan, dit is tegenstrevers van God.

Als Christenen moeten wij opletten dat wij niet in de ban van die mensen geraken en worden meegesleurd door die 'duivels', zodat de duivel niet in ons kan komen.

Media geen werk van Satan, een duivelse engel

Alles wat op de televisie of op de radio komt is door mensenhanden gemaakt. Het zijn geen hemelse krachten die dit doen en ons van uit de ruimte opzadelen met die vreemde gedachten. Neen het is de mens zelf die de signalen door de ether stuurt en maakt dat die verwrongen gedachten tot in andermans huiskamer komt. Zo wel de instignator, de uitzender als de ontvanger zijn verantwoordelijk voor wat zij door hun hersenen laten doordringen en hoe zij dat verwerken. Ook de tevredenheidsfactor is een eigenheid waarvoor de mens zelf verantwoordelijk is. Het is namelijk de perceptie hoe hij wil omgaan met dingen dat gaat maken of zij aanvaardbaar zijn of verwerpelijk of hem zullen bevredigen of teleurstellen.
Indien Satan onze geesten in verstrooiing breng, waarom is niemand zich daar bewust van, of kunnen wij er geen tekenen van zien. Van ons eigen denken, onze hersenactiviteit, ons welvoelen, kan allemaal wetenschappelijk, elektronisch en technisch bewijs gevonden worden. Zelfs de aureolen rond mensen kan men helemaal vast stellen. Maar nergens ziet men die andere wezens of hebben mensen besef van invloeden buiten hen af. Alhoewel men bij Voodoo kunsten wel kan afvragen hoe men anderen zo kan beïnvloeden?? Maar daar is het ook weer een mens die naalden of dergelijke in popjes gaat steken. Ook wet men van onze hersenactiviteit dat onze elektronische golven tot ver buiten onze lichaamscontoeren kan treden en opgevangen worden door anderen. (Dat vraagt dan wel een kennen van die persoon /bijvoorbeeld echtgenoten onder elkaar die communiceren zonder te spreken/ of ernstige concentratie). Deze krachten komen echter van het eigen lichaam en niet van een ander wezen.

Vloedgolf van verziekt entertainement

Vloedgolf van verziekt entertainment

‘Sinds de boekdrukkunst hebben we nog nooit zo'n snelle ontwikkeling gezien op het gebied van de media als de laatste jaren.' Die uitspraak van A. Luijk van Mediawijzer stond onlangs in het Reformatorisch Dagblad te lezen. Volgens Luijk komen de nieuwe mediaverleidingen als een ‘tsunami over ons heen'. Een rake constatering. Het toenemende mediageweld stelt ouders en opvoeders voor een grote uitdaging.

In de omgang met media kan een radicale aanpak soelaas bieden. Als de televisie je bij God vandaan houdt, waarom zet je hem dan niet gewoon bij het grofvuil? In het Evangelie spreekt Christus op een soortgelijke manier over verleidingen. ‘Brengt je oog je op de verkeerde weg, ruk het dan uit en werp het weg' (Matteüs 18:9). Ook Augustinus koos voor de radicale aanpak om niet in zonde te vallen. Voor zijn bekering leidde hij een seksueel losbandig leven. Wanneer hij na zijn bekering een ‘oude vlam' tegenkwam, zette hij het eenvoudigweg op een lopen. Wanneer zo'n vrouw dan vroeg waarom Augustinus wegrende, schreeuwde hij: ‘Ik ben mijzelf niet meer!'

Vrome praatjes

Toch is deze aanpak niet altijd afdoende. We kunnen niet altijd wegrennen. Hoe ga je bijvoorbeeld om met internet en tijdschriften? Terecht wijst A. Luijk op het belang van een goede dialoog. Ouders en opvoeders moeten het gesprek aangaan met jongeren. Spreek open over de verleidingen en de vernietigende kracht van bepaalde media-uitingen. Jongeren hebben geen behoefte aan vrome praatjes, maar aan eerlijkheid.

Het is geen schande om je daarbij kwetsbaar op te stellen en je eigen zwakheid te benoemen. Nergens zegt de Bijbel dat we ons als geestelijke krachtpatsers moeten voordoen. Juist niet. ‘In mijn zwakheid ben ik sterk', schrijft Paulus (2 Korinthe 12:10). Overwinning op zonde ligt niet in eigen kracht, maar alleen in totale overgave aan Christus. De uitdaging voor ouders en opvoeders is om die boodschap eerlijk en overtuigend te communiceren.

Bron: www.habakuk.nu