CRN.Info and Analysis

[The following is an article by Brant Hansen, reprinted here with his permission.  I would venture to say there there are some lessons within for all of us.   Really.]

Alan, in his book, points out that Al-Qaeda is almost impossible to stop.  This is, in large part, due to the way its message works, and the way the work gets carried out.  And he’s absolutely right.

So, in the service of national defense, I propose the following, in order to effectively neutralize the movement.  Let’s get Al-Qaeda to…

1)  Complexify the message

Right now, it’s so simple, it can pass from one to the next, and be easily grasped by the uneducated, the young — everyone.  This is dangerous, because it’s highly contagious, and people on the street feel capable of enlisting others in the cause.

2)  Construct a less “flat”, more hierarchical structure

Currently, small, underground groups can move nimbly and autonomously, complicating efforts to thwart them.  A more regimented, stratified approach, where some members are left thinking, “I can’t know enough to do anything” would bring the movement to a halt.

3)  Foster “expert” culture, and barriers to entry to the expert class

Promote the idea that the message is not only highly complex, but only some can truly understand it.  Construct extensive barriers to entry to the presumed expert class.  Promote idea that cells lacking a certified member of expert class, it is not equipped to be activated.

4) Focus on knowledge, rather than doing

Complexification and expert-class development will make cells spend immense amounts of time studying the work, even debating theories of the work, rather than doing it.  Better yet…

5) Equate STUDYING the work with the work itself

The cells are called to ACT, of course.  But if we can convince operatives that the work, itself, is in trying to understand the complexity of the work?  They’ll be effectively neutered.  We need to get them to spend large amounts of time in study, gathering to study, believing they don’t know enough, hiring new experts to teach them again and again, and attending teaching events.

They’ll actually believe they’re doing their work when they attend events held by experts.  This will render the cell, and the whole movement, harmless!  Convince them that the most radicalized, militant among them are merely called to bring other non-activated members to the cell events.

6) Sabotage cell multiplication

VERY important!  Cells that operate under simple principles, with motivated operatives, devoted to multiplication?  Very, very dangerous, fast-growing, and pop-culture endangering.  We must stop this in its tracks, and this is done in multiple ways:

A)  Foster egos and small-time celebrity.  By convincing operatives to set up individual fiefdoms, fewer autonomous cells will be activated.  Rather, the emphasis will be on building larger individual cells with numerous unactivated members.

B)  Make the basic structure highly difficult to replicate.  Al-Qaeda cells currently are, by necessity, simply-structured and easily replicated.  Propagate idea that for cells to begin, planning, experts and capital must be simultaneously accumulated.  Expert motivational speakers will be necessary, plus paid staff with highly specific training and talents.  Operatives will see massively “successful” large cells, and attempt to duplicate them, with very limited success because of the huge inputs required.  This will greatly inhibit growth.

C)  Convince philosophically-aligned, but non-active, members to choose from among most entertaining, high quality, cells that offer services for them. Not only will this engender a harmless, internal focus, it will require IMMENSE amounts of resources and energy.

7) Make operatives really, really busy.

Replace simple, animating mission with lengthy lists, charts, and programs for cell maintanance.  Convince them that this institutional maintenance is, actually, the mission, itself.

This will leave them will no actual time for conducting actual mission.

8)  Get Al-Qaeda to seek governmental approval.

Offer tax incentives if necessary.  The larger cells, requiring large edifices, will also require tremendous amounts of capital.  This will also allow a measure of control, to threaten the cell’s tax status, thereby threatening funds for internal programs, when necessary.

Better:  They’ll consider actual operational cells that exist without this governmental approval to be, themselves, invalid!

9)  Co-opt Al-Qaeda with the larger culture.

Once members are convinced that cell maintenance and study are actually their “mission”, the rest of their lives can be harmlessly integrated with the culture at large.  They’ll be indistinguishable from non-members, and, because of their new understanding of “mission”, effectively equivalent to non-members.

10)  Convince members to wear Al-Qaeda t-shirts with funny sayings and stuff.

Mission accomplished.

It’ll work to thwart an evil message.  It even works with the good ones.

Todd has submitted this article, with some excellet questions, as part of our conversation here. Thank you, Todd!

When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the LORD, the priests in their vestments and with trumpets, and the Levites (the sons of Asaph) with cymbals, took their places to praise the LORD, as prescribed by David king of Israel. With praise and thanksgiving they sang to the LORD :

“He is good;
his love to Israel endures forever.”

And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid. But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy. No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away. — Ezra 3:10-13

I’ve read these verses before with my young, selfish and proud eyes, applauding the younger Israelites for being forward-thinking and not satisfied with looking back or longing for yesterday. These “others” shouted for joy at the sight of the new temple - the new incarnation of their relationship with God - and looked to the future for what God was going to do in their midst. These “others” weren’t around in the days of the older temple, they didn’t see the glory of the former, they only knew the excitement of the present and the possibility of the future. The “others” were right while the old priests and Levites were wrong.

While I still have young, selfish and proud eyes, today I’m reading the verse in a different light. I still applaud the “others” for their progressive view, but I’m softening my stance toward the older individuals in attendance. What if these priests and Levites are mourning not because of the “inferiority” of the present, but because of the road the Israelites had taken to arrive at the present situation? What if they’re weeping not because they want to go back, but as an admission of their failure to be God’s people as God commanded?

What if discernment blogs and ministries took this approach to their criticism of today’s church? What if rather than condemn the new on the mere fact that it is new, they critiqued the new in light of their (the Church’s) failure live the way God commanded?

For example, today’s seeker sensitive churches are certainly sacrificing some reverence for relevance, but today’s seeker sensitive movement is nothing more than an attempt to meet people where they are. The reason it has moved so far from the traditional, “orthodox” way of doing church is because the traditional, “orthodox” method refused to even take a step toward people, instead requiring the non-believers to make the first steps. If discernment ministries would weep over the fact that today’s incarnation is flawed because of the Church’s past failures, I believe their criticism would be infinitely more beneficial to the Church at large.

Greetings! Below is another guest article penned by Henry (Rick) Frueh. Thank you again, Rick!

Jn.1:16 - And of His fulness have all we received grace for grace.

The common and general definition that has been used to satisfy and sometimes placate the masses is that grace is “unmerited favor”. Although in a surface and most shallow sense that description does touch the absolute fringe of the gift of grace but in so many ways it misleads and falls painfully short of even challenging the heart to allow the Spirit to bring us deeper than just a toe testing understanding of God’s amazing grace. Let us dissect these two words and see if they pass the Biblical smell test when gazing at grace, while embracing a desire to honor God with our description because in the final analysis only the revelation of the Spirit can even give us a glimpse, everything else is nothing more than cerebral gymnastics usually designed to bring convenient closure so we can add it to our theological dictionary.

Unmerited. That seems so humble and yet it abandons the core of who we really are. It appears so antiseptic as the word attempts to remove all our good works as the reason for God’s gift of grace, but again this word fails to filet our inner man and lay wide open for public inspection and, yes, humiliation about the depravity and absolute rebellious nature of every single cell of our being. We not only refused to make any attempt to gain God’s favor but we made every single possible attempt to discredit Him and our very driving purpose was to blaspheme His Lordship and His Holiness openly and finally and daily declare ourselves as “god” of our own existence. We were His declared enemy and our lives were a magnificent expression of our hate and disgust toward our Loving Creator. So the word “unmerited” is a comfortable effort that only tells half of the story, the more pleasant side that we can more easily embrace and teach.

Let me share a disturbing illustration that I hope will rearrange the theological furniture of our hearts and force us to re-examine the very nature of God’s grace. In the country of Uganda there is a civil war, we don’t hear much about it in America because they don’t have oil and they also are not white (sorry but let’s be honest). One of the uniquenesses of this war is that the rebels capture and kidnap children and teach them to maim and kill their enemies. They equip some with razors and the children, some as young as 6, are trained and forced to cut off ears, lips, and other parts of people’s bodies or else they themselves will be killed. Now this forces millions of children in Uganda to hide and constantly move in groups to avoid being captured. It is common for a group of one thousand children from age 3 to age 16 to huddle overnight in an abandoned building only to rise before daylight and move again in a relentless effort to escape the ruthless rebels. Not a story but a reality.

Let say you wanted to help the children and so you organized a group to go over to Uganda. You collected food and clothing and you took money with which to build strong buildings to protect these children. So you went and helped feed and clothe and protect these children and with that you felt good. Now these children did not deserve your help based upon anything they had done before but due to your sense of compassion you desired to help them. They had received unmerited favor from your hand.

Now as you got off the plane you immediately saw what these rebels had done. People all over were horribly maimed and there were mass graveyards marking their victims, and they presently were still engaged in enslaving children to carry out their violent acts. So you unloaded the cargo with all the materials that you had brought to help and minister, and instead of the helpless children you took them to the rebels and gave them to those killers and child abusers. All the Africans watched in confounded horror and unbelief as they saw these rebels being showered with these wonderful gifts. No one could explain it. Why? Because, brothers and sisters, they were witnessing an earthly representation of the grace of God. And the spiritual reality of the grace of God is impossible to fully understand in the natural and when it is reflected in such an illustration as this, we finally are awakened to the fact that we have been fooled into believing a shallow and self serving understanding of the glory of God’s grace.

Favor. Let us examine what that word means when it comes from God Himself. We sometimes get this idea that God’s favor is something akin to letting someone butt in line ahead of you or waving a car to pull out in front of you. Or we think it correlates to giving someone a promotion who really doesn’t deserve it. It is those carnal understandings that rob us of the glorious and eternal nature of God’s favor of which there are an infinite number of components. Just a dust particle of God’s favor would be beyond what anyone could fully absorb or comprehend, but God has not given us a dust particle of His favor. Open the ears of your understanding, you will not be able to completely fathom the truth of this, but God has given us His complete and perfect favor that contains no limits and holds no restraints either in blessing or time. One more step, please, because God has actually bestowed upon us all of His available favor which of course is eternally infinite. Now you must remove your shoes for this final step crosses the threshold of unimaginable glory. God has granted unto us….the same favor….that He has shown….His own Son.

You can breathe now. My poor mind and my poorer pen can never do justice to that revelation, but as a theological woodpecker I can only peck and peck at it attempting to go further into God’s heart all the while realizing that this side of heaven I will only see small chips that in themselves leave me broken and spilled out before Him Who is the Author and Finisher of all of it. And one day I will know even as I am known which is a colossal act of favor in itself, and on that day I will see Him from Whose face the heavens have fled away. And as I, in my new favored body, fall to my knees in immobilized worship, I will then fully realize what grace actually was.

What will we do, what can we do, when we come to terms with the fullness of the truths we now believe in part but then fully face to face? How will we feel and act when the grace that we so lightly defined on earth now reverberates throughout heaven and to the glory of God and we alone, we alone, have been the recipients? As I write this I am beginning to weep as I am overwhelmed at the prospect of seeing the Author of this grace and being granted the eternal privilege of glorifying Him who purchased it all for me. I am at the end of words, if you are a believing follower of the Risen Incarnation of Grace then you will understand.