Our world is a mess

Cor what a whopper! Robert Fisk's The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East has not only an infeasibly long title but weighs in at 1368 pages of not very large print.


So why read this book by the Independent's Middle East correspondant? Well quite simply because you won't find a more comprehensive single volume overview of the region that covers the last century.


Like any author dealing with this subject Fisk takes a particular view - one that would probably generally be labelled "left wing". Lots of reviewers have said that he is "anti-Israeli".



But Fisk is no apologist for anybody. In fact, if there is any lesson to be learned from the history of the Middle East in the last hundred (and more!) years it is that no nation, and very few individuals, can be considered righteous.


The western allies with their imperialism, line drawing on maps, thirst for oil, taste for democracy when it suits us (and it definitely doesn't in Saudi Arabia amongst other places) and rank hipocrisy come in for particular condemnation.


The Arab states are not spared for their torture of their own citizens, support for armed action in other countries and total lack of regard for the well bign of their nations.


And Israel is criticised too. Perhaps more extensively than the Palestinians. But I have to say that the overall impression that Fisk gives is that Israel and the Palestinians are as bad as each other (a view I have long subscribed to myself) but that Israel - a wealthy democracy with the support of the world's most powerful state - has even less excuse for wickedness than the Arabs.


Fisk and his newspaper ardently opposed the war in Iraq and, it must be said, most of the subsequent history of that sorry nation has unfolded more or less as they predicted. In my view this is not to say that the war was wrong - but that the reasons given for it were certainly not the reasons why it was right!


Interestingly the television yesterday was splashed with pictures of George W Bush calling for an end to the Israeli "occupation" of Palestinain land that has been going on since 1967. Having read Fisk's book it seems that such seemingly mild language is actually pretty strong words from an American president - we can hope that they are heeded.


What lessons shold we learn from this book and the history it contains? There are, no doubt, many. But it seems to me that several stand out...


1 We are all tempted to use the tragedies of our past as justification for our own wickedness in the present - a sin that besets both Israeli and Arab in the Middle East.


2 The lifestyles of the Western world and, especially, our constand demand for oil which expresses itself as a regular whinging at work, home and church as a complaint about the price of petrol, has profound consequences for millions of people and even costs some their lives. We must beware of thinking that our consumption has no consequences.


3 The constant desire of all parties for "justice" will only ever result in an ever increasing spiral of bloodletting, revenge and war. Only mercy and grace can finally solve the problems of the middle east - and these will not be found anywhere but in the person of Jesus Christ.

Real Faces

Ravi Zacharias is one of the most engaging Christian thinkers in the western world today and a staunch defender of trhe reasonableness of the Christian faith.

The Real Face of Atheism divides neatly into two parts. In Part I Zacharias engages in what Francis Schaeffer used to call "taking the roof off" - that is he takes the philosophy of the atheist and pushes it to its logical conclusion. He looks at the implications of saying we live in a closed and, essentially, arbitrary universe for our thinking about morality, meaning and death. The result is a damning indictment of the meaningless and essential unliveability of an atheist world view.

The book skillfully exposes the deception of those who want to remove any sense of meaning in the world that necessitates the existence of God and yet retain some sort of concept of purpose, joy, love or goodness - when they have denied the existence of evil, destiny and final judgment.

In Part II Zacharias goes on to show how the Christian faith, rightly understood, provides the most coherent and livable world view for people who, like almsot eveyr person on the planet, wish to retain a world that has meaning, grandeur, moral responsibility, love, faithfulness and justice.

He does this largely using the canons and concepts of philosophy rather than establishing the teaching of the Scriptures in these areas. This is completely understandable as he is trying to show that Christianity stacks up philosophically as a coherent world view. However it could (wrongly I think) give the impression that Zacharias believes the Bible itself does not cover these issues.

The book is at its best when engaging with the philosophical sleights of hand used by atheists and demonstrating how sown within this disturbing philosophy are the seeds of its own incoherence and ultimate destruction.

Zacharias is clearly extremely well informed and his sources are wide ranging and comprehensive. He draws mostly from writers who would be well known names but has clearly engaged with their work at a deep level.

This book is ideal for the Christian who meets thoughtful atheists in their regular work - especially for those who work or study in universities perhaps - but also to give away to thoughtful atheists as a change from their regular diet of Hitchins, Dawkins and Dennett!

Dear o dear

I've been neglecting the blogosphere recently. Partly because term time is mental... but mostly because my reading for the last several months has been Robert Fisk's magnum opus "The Great was for Civilisation". But I'm nearly at the end of it now and have lots of musings to post on it - and some other stuff. See you soon....