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1. Many Christian pundits willing to say war is unjust, but few talking about troop increase
Call it an escalation, call it a temporary surge, call it whatever you want, but it seems clear that there's a new approach—in Jim Wallis's rhetoric on the Iraq War. "The war in Iraq was unjust; to continue it now is criminal," he writes in his latest online column. "There is no winning in Iraq. This was a war that should have never been fought—or won. It can't be won, and the truth is that there are no good solutions now—that's how unjust wars often turn out. … [W]e have already failed in Iraq." Wallis did not directly state that Bush should be charged with a crime.

Kudos to Wallis for being one of the few religious leaders directly addressing Bush's plan to send 20,000 additional troops to Iraq. Over at Newsweek/The Washington Post's On Faith blog, Richard Mouw Miroslav Volf, and others are calling the Iraq war unjust, but are not talking about the troop increase. (In fairness, they weren't really asked about it. The question was: "President Bush is preparing this week to send more troops to Baghdad. Do you believe there is such a thing as a 'just war'? Is the Iraq war 'just'?")

Associated Baptist Press asked several past supporters of the Iraq war whether they still support it. Charles Colson and Richard Land declined to respond directly, but Daniel Heimbach, professor of Christian ethics at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, was willing to say the war "was and continues to be, in retrospect, justified or justifiable" on the basis on enforcing the terms of Iraq's 1991 surrender. Heimbach didn't directly address the troop increase, but offered this calculus: "If it gets to the point that continuing to fight is costing more than whatever is at stake in winning the fight, then you should stop. Now, I for myself don't think that we're at that point. I think that we're making significant progress. While you shouldn't be engaging in a war lightly without counting the costs, neither should you quickly, after investing so much in terms of life and property, say, 'I'm just getting tired; let's get out.'"

2. Christians praise execution order
While Christian leaders were largely critical of the execution of Saddam Hussein, Nigeria's Christian leaders are chief cheerleaders for the execution of Emeka Ezeuko, a pastor who calls himself Reverend King. Back in July, the general overseer of the Christian Praying Assembly doused seven of his parishioners with gasoline and set them ablaze, making allusions to the flames of hell and his parishioners' "burning with lust." (Ezeuko claimed he had nothing to do with the incident; the judge cited "overwhelming evidence placing him at the scene.") The heads of the Methodist Church of Nigeria and the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria both praised Ezeuko's sentence: Death by hanging. "The law has taken its rightful course," says PFN's Bishop Joseph Ojo. "It shows that the Nigerian judiciary can be trusted. Nigeria would soon come out of the woods."

3. Weblog was kidding
"By all means, let's start having our governmental leaders weigh in by proxy on denominational disputes. Why aren't Clinton and Carter leading the debate on whether Southern Baptists should speak in tongues?"
—Weblog, Jan. 4.

"Former presidents Carter and Clinton call for 'A New Baptist Covenant.'"
—Baptist Press, Jan. 10.

I didn't know this was in the works. Hmm. … By all means, let's start giving big pay raises to the guy who runs the CT Weblog. Why aren't Christian millionaires leading the way on writing checks to Christianity Today to support this effort?

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January (Web-only) 2007, Vol. 51