And doing calmly what we ought to do,

MOSCOW - Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev criticized the United States, and President Bush in particular, on Friday (July 27, 2007) for sowing disorder across the world by seeking to build an empire.

Joseph Hough, president of Union Theological Seminary in New York City, 

has given memorable interviews recently (January 2002) on National Public 

Radio and in The New York Times, sounding a provocative and timely 

call to come to grips with the reality of religious pluralism in our world.

Don't say: "How could we have known?"  William Galston told us so.  Just two weeks following President George W. Bush's pronouncement of his new preemption strategy, The Washington Post published Galston's fateful opinion "Why a First Strike Will Surely Backfire." 

Contrary to the profound advice of Galston and others, the Bush administration and much of the American public and our leadership rushed headlong into a unilaterial war of choice against Iraq, thinking "cakewalk" and "liberation," and expecting "bouquets of flowers" and the grateful appreciation of the Iraqi people.  We were confident - "America knows best!"

It's not just Bush - the Democrats complied, and citizens failed to care.

The Democratic Party failed in the only task that an opposition party has, which is to oppose; not for the sake of obstinacy, but for the sake of making the governing party prove its case. During the rush to war, the Democrats asked few hard questions. They rarely said "show me." Instead, they held the door open so the bulls could run around inside the china shop. They were afraid the Train of Trumped Up Patriotism would leave them at the station of Electoral Defeat, so they bought first-class tickets and jumped aboard.

There are Christians, using the book of Revelation as their guide, who have seized on fear generated by the bombing of the twin towers, the continued killing in Israel and Palestine, the war in Afghanistan, the Iraqi war, and the continuing threat of terrorism to intensify speculation that these events are foretold in the Book of Revelation.  That in turn means that God is acting to bring the world to the End Times. 

Second, there is another way of reading the book of Revelation that sees God acting quite differently to sustain our faith and hope in these days, days which for many of us are not the beginning of the end.