The Extent of the Kingdom - What Quality of Life Ought We to Expect? Opening Paragraph

That the kingdom is at hand is not such a revolutionary idea. What is revolutionary is to find the means to actually enter into the kingdom in this life. When one person says the kingdom is immediately available, “the kingdom is at hand”, he means something quite different than someone else proclaiming the same message. One has a high expectation of a new and beautiful quality of life, while the other expects merely an assurance of heaven and only a future deliverance.  Yet, still another believes something in between these two options. The question is whether or not the coming of the kingdom in our life can have a truly revolutionary effect. Can we be free of all self interest and hoarding to such an extent that we live a simple and generous life, a life of daily faith in the provision of the Father? Is the life of communion with God, a life set free by grace and love, available? Is this the life of the few or is this blessed life available to all the followers of Jesus, the single, the married, the young and the old? Can our temperaments be tamed? Can we live without concern for the opinions of others, undisturbed by their judgments and slanders and threats? Can we love our enemies, our enemy-neighbors, even in the midst of the conflict? If we picture the highest ideal, a  life fully delivered from the human predicament, and then believe for something even greater, are we describing the kingdom that is available in heaven or the kingdom that is available on earth? To what extent is the kingdom available to us in this life? This is the question. How we answer this question defines the nature of our faith? How we understand the extent of the kingdom that is available in this life determines the trajectory of our life, our expectations, our approach to the faith. 

Discipleship 101 - An Outline (Part 1)

Over the past month or so, I have been meditating on the theology and principles that make up a kingdom approach to discipleship. It is the church’s primary job to deliver a kingdom quality of life, a truly happy and heavenly quality of life, to those who have put their faith in Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, the path into the kingdom is rarely, if ever, mapped out in the church’s ministry program. As I wrote earlier, Dallas Willard says, “I know of no current denomination or local congregation that has a concrete plan and practice for teaching people to ‘do all that I commanded you’”. In other words, Willard knows of no church that has a discipleship program that leads people into the kingdom. This is a bold claim but it has been my experience as well. 

The quality of life which Jesus offers, as those who have tasted it know, is significantly distinct from the quality of life one can attain apart from the Gospel. When the power of the Kingdom comes upon us we have a significantly higher quality of life in terms of righteousness, peace and joy. I am not saying that the believer abides in this place continually or even consistently, but as one learns and grows, we can learn how to pull ourselves out of our forgetfulness and revive the presence and power of God in our lives. 

What follows is a very brief outline of, first, a kingdom theology and, subsequently, a kingdom approach to discipleship. My intension, though I rarely am able to follow through on my original intentions, is to write multiple posts on each postulate, hypothesis, and principle using this post as a basic outline. At some point, I will write a post with the remainder of the outline of the principles that give the believer a more complete understanding of the teachings of Jesus. So, in fact, what I hope to accomplish is a somewhat complete mapping of a discipleship process. These principles have been of great spiritual value to me and to others who I have had the privilege of walking with as friends and co-workers in the kingdom.

I will outline this path using terminology that works for me. The terminology may or may not be best, but, certainly, that is not the point. It is our practices that make any approach to the faith actually work especially when we define “working” as bringing to people the promised kingdom quality of life. So here we go: 

Postulate 1: Jesus is the Christ

In the Old Testament, God promises His failing people that He will send a Christ who will usher in a new covenant. This new covenant will not be like the old covenant which they could not follow. Instead, this new covenant will empower the people of God to obey his ways. The believer will be given a new heart, a tender heart. No longer will one person say to another “Do you know the Lord?” for every one will have an intimate and conscious awareness of God. This experiential knowledge of God will enable the people of God to obey God and, ultimately, this new covenant will enable the people of God to become the morally beautiful people that God has envisioned for His people. They will become a light on a hill and a city that cannot be hidden. Faith for the fulfillment of these promises, in our lives and in our churches, is what it means to believe that Jesus is the Christ. 

Postulate 2: Since Jesus is the Christ, by definition, the kingdom of heaven is within our reach. 

The kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven is best described as a truly happy and heavenly quality of life. This kingdom quality of life is the quality of life available in heaven. This heavenly quality of life is available today through faith in Jesus Christ. The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. This quality of life is available because the best part of heaven, God Himself, is available to us today. The kingdom is the answer to every evil that plagues humanity. The human plight, the dread of human existence, the existential angst of human experience, finds its resolution not in our death, but in the death of Jesus on our behalf. We have access to a significantly superior quality of life because Jesus, the Christ, has died and is alive, and His kingdom is immediately present to those who repent and believe this Good News. 

Hypothesis 1: We enter the kingdom quality of life by putting into practice the teachings of Jesus. 

This is the basis of all discipleship. Jesus’ call to His disciple in the bible and to His disciples today is “follow me”. To believe that Jesus is the Christ and that we are to enter the kingdom through faith in Jesus means that we are to follow Jesus and he will lead us into this kingdom quality of life. All the centuries of confusion regarding faith and works is solved when we begin with a theology of the kingdom and the promise of an altogether superior quality of life. Faith is to follow Jesus into the kingdom. Because the kingdom is the solution to our present living, to have faith in Jesus is to believe that through the grace of God we can behave and live differently today. To experience victory in life, we must follow Jesus’ program and teachings. This truly happy and heavenly quality of life is founded entirely on faith in Jesus’ teachings and His modeling of who God, the Father, is. Therefore, as we will see, following Jesus begins and is immersed in an understanding of the love and grace of God. We learn to immerse every aspect of our lives with this love as we learn to follow Jesus into a life of infinite forgiveness, fearless faith, and unconditionally love. 

Hypothesis 2: The source of power which enables the believe to walk in the kingdom quality of life, that is in righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, is conscious contact with God. 

The bible teaches us that the joy of the lord is our strength. We are morally strong when we are joyful. We can only have a morally powerful joy when we are in living from the presence of God. The power to be meek when we are tempted to be angry is the real knowledge of God and ourselves as His child. We can trust Him because our affections and emotions have been transformed through our life in the presence of God. No other path gives us the moral strength to be generous and loving and gentle and calm. There is only one thing needful and that is a close walk with God. 

Hypothesis 3: Conscious contact with God is maintained through an orientation of absolute surrender with respect to the teachings of Jesus. This is the life of repentance.

The path to conscious contact with God is repentance. The key to maintaining the witness of the Spirit that we are children and therefore heirs is repentance from the heart. This absolute surrender is not merely an orientation in prayer but a commitment to follow through with obedience. This life of repentance requires a life of rigorous honesty and the cultivation of a tender heart. The life requires the work of the Holy Spirit, humility before the Word of God, and intimate, authentic community with other followers of this path of discipleship. Jesus taught us that the kingdom of God suffers violence and violent men take it by force. This zeal requires a life of rigorous honesty and confession. This life of rigorous honesty is the narrow road that, in reality, few are willing to follow in order to experience the kingdom life in this life. 

Principle 1: The first teaching of Jesus, a teaching which must remain an element of every Christian practice, is that without the provision of God’s power and grace  we are spiritually poor. All the resources we need to attain to this kingdom quality of life are a gift of His grace. This grace is needed moment by moment if we to experience righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. 

Jesus taught and lived and told parables about the grace of a loving Father. Jesus began His teaching life by saying, “Blessed are the spiritually bankrupt, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. We are all without the ability to take one step toward God apart from His provision. He pardons, and He enables. All the theology of Paul is to be understood as an exposition of the teachings of Jesus. Jesus taught us through His words, His religious symbols, His life and ultimately in His death and resurrection that we need God’s grace and loving power toward us who believe. Baptism, the Lord’s supper, the parables, and the life and death of Jesus are all elements of the story of the Father’s provision for His children. Of all the teachings of Jesus, grace must remain front and center. Without being immersed in grace, we will fail to live a beautiful life. Of all the practices we need to learn receiving forgiveness and grace is first and foremost. As disciples, receiving grace from God needs to be a well worn path. 

This kingdom life is attainable and God intends for us to understand how to follow Jesus into a truly happy and heavenly quality of life. Principles and theology help us to develop a daily cycle and an approach to life and prayer that we can learn and live. 

Israel and Covenants - Just Saying

Man...I need to write more. So many issues to clarify...For example, I think Obama is being gracious with Israel by saying peace should be based on the 1967 (pre-war) borders with land swaps. Yet, evangelicals sound like kooks thinking that this is a deal with the devil. This is a theological issue with implications to the role of the Kingdom and the OT law etc. Some smart guy needs to use this moment as a launching point for a big theological dissertation on covenants.....not that it would do any good!!! As for me I gotta go to work and then Lacrosse with James then a banquet with David, then a daddy date night with Mercy and Lily...I'm swamped.

Christ, Our Leader and Term Limits on Pastors

I have learned a great lesson in life that in organizations you have to provide practical value to the person in power. We can approach relationships this way in the church too. It works, in the church like the world, because in most churches a man is in power and it is not so hard to bless him. 

Wouldn’t it be nice if instead in the church, Jesus was in power, and these power games were not played. A great way to make this a reality is to have term limits on pastors. The goal is to have the word and the Lord rule the church. A person has gifting and input into the life of the church but not power and leadership. All leadership is in Jesus and all power and authority is in Jesus. A great way to assure this is to follow the model of how the United States does it. In the United States, we have a constitution and term limits on presidents. These term limits are in place to assure the rule of principle over the rule of man. So this being true, I think the best model for the church is shared leadership and no leader should remain in leadership for more than say about 8-10 years in the same church. 

Matthew 5:43-48 - Pray for Those who Persecute You

The teachings of Jesus are so very practical. Matt 5:43-48 defines for us what spiritual maturity looks like. 

 Matt 5:43"You have heard that it was said, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.'

 44"But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,

 45so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

 46"For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

 47"If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?

 48"Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Jesus is calling us to love our enemies. This teaches us to give and serve and bless those who are not giving and serving and blessing us. The actions of these people, our adversaries, make us less secure and less at peace, and, yet, we are to assist and to help secure their peace and well-being. Secondly, we are to pray for those who persecute us. For me, this command has proven to be ultra-practical. This command tells us that if another person is harming our reputation, we are to act to bless their reputation. So if, for example, a person at work goes to our boss and maligns us, we, the Christian, are to resolve in our heart, through prayer, to only say positive things about this person. This act of surrender is the way of peace. We surrender to God’s will and resolve to speak highly of everyone. We are to never speak ill of anyone. This is our goal and here in lies the path to conscious contact with God. 

peace, brad

Discipleship 101: The Church as a Disciple-Making Community

“Who are you discipling?” “Who is discipling you?” “What method do you use?” and specifically “what method of prayer do you teach?”

How we and the members of our church community answer these four questions reveals quite succinctly the health of the discipleship program in our churches and the intentionality of our lives as followers of Jesus. Often when preaching in churches, when I ask these questions, my point is simply to reveal to the church that they do not have a discipleship process at all. People look bewildered. “Who am I discipling? Ahhh...??...no one I guess. I have never looked at it that way.” “What method do I use? We don’t use methods. What is he talking about? And who does he think he is anyway?” “What method of prayer do we teach. What??? We aren’t buddhist. What is he talking about?” 

So I ask you, the reader, “Who are you discipling?” “Who is discipling you?” “What method do you use?” and “What method of prayer do you teach people?” 

The fact that most christians cannot answer these questions in detail nor carry on a discussion about what methods of discipleship work and do not work reveals to us that we have a crisis in discipleship in the church of the master discipler, Jesus Christ. Dallas Willard in the book “The Great Omission” speaking on the topic of the great commission concludes by saying, “I know of no current denomination or local congregation that has a concrete plan and practice for teaching people to ‘do all that I commanded you’” (72-73). Dallas Willard, after mentoring pastors and preaching in conferences around the world for his entire life, came to the conclusion that not one congregation has a definitive discipleship plan that attempts to fulfill the great commission to “make disciples of all people teaching them to obey everything I commanded you”. It has taken maybe centuries to get to this place of total abandonment of our calling. This maybe a harsh observation but I contend, and with Dallas Willard as my witness I am utterly convinced, that the church is in crisis with respect to the process of discipleship. 

Jesus often used economic analogies to make his point clearer. The economic system of the day was almost exclusively farming. For example, to bring clarity and urgency to His followers, Jesus told parables that depict His followers as farm workers working for a farm owner. The owner, Jesus taught us, expects a profit from his farm. When the farm owner returns, he will say to us “show me the money”. 

I have spent my career in the aerospace industry, so let me make a more modern economic analogy using airplanes. Picture a incredibly complex organization like an airplane manufacturer. The organization has literally 1000s of engineers and 100,000 employees. The process of designing and building an airplane takes years. When everything comes together the plane is sold to a customer and the plane does one thing very well: it flies. Imagine that this incredible endeavor produced a product that was perfect in every way except for one detail. The planes could not fly. Picture the first test flight. ABC manufacturer produces a plane, but it cannot fly. Imagine the press conference. The CEO steps up to the microphone and says, “ We do not consider this to be a problem. Our airplane is beautiful. It seating is state of the art. Every seat has its own private entertainment system. The interior sound levels are unrivaled. We have come to the conclusion that flight is not possible and therefore not to be a primary characteristic of airplanes nor a realistic goal for the airplane manufacturer.” This illustration describes the current state of the church. We are a disciple-making community and yet we do not know how to make disciples nor do we see this as a terribly urgent problem. 

There's Gotta Be a Million

There’s gotta be a million. Maybe a few 100 thousand 

that are feeling like me

We are losing our jobs. 

Some ass hole thinks he knows how to make this shit float

we are the scape goats

About a few hundred thousand 

know the way I feel

There has gotta be a million

We read about the billions

Money makin money 

Usury's a crime

Some boy with a spread sheet and a fountain pen 

Just shipped my life to India

And his son is getting married and the party is in full swing

I wish I was married into money and I wish my parents were still alive

Maybe me and the kids could move in 

with them 

Cause there has gotta be a million

My Christian Friend - A Positive Testimony

originally posted here: Deep Thoughts

Let me begin by saying that Joe is a good friend of mine. I admire his capacity to have a  solidly evangelical friend like myself. He is truly a great friend, but this post is about another friend of mine, Dan. I was going to write a post that covered three of my best friends but I realize that in the world of blogging most folk do not have the time to read a lengthy post, so I decided to limit this to one friend instead of three. 

I met Dan in 1999. He is the pastor of a local church in Bellflower, CA. Nineteen years ago he came to Bellflower from Michigan for a job interview at our church. He said to the council, “if you want someone to cater to the current culture of the church. You are looking at the wrong man. My vision is to build a multi-ethnic church that displays in a tangible way God’s love for all people and be a symbol in this city of community in the midst of diversity.” Nineteen years later, Dan has made good on his promise. 

If you know anything about organizations, resisting the status quo and attempting to implement change on principle without regard to politics is a difficult and courageous act. Men and women who take this path are heroes. These people are those who suffer real loses and endure real hardship and real heartache for the sake of their principles. In light of recent American history, building bridges between cultures and amongst diverse people is the great task of our generation. Men and women like Dan developed vision for this work to build beautiful community in their youth in the 1970’s, and some, like Dan, had the wisdom, patience, and conviction to bring their vision to fruition. 

I would not betray Dan’s friendship, but I know he has shed countless tears as his passions and convictions have been misunderstood through the years. Being an agent of change is lonely work, but it is worth the difficult times in light of the internal witness that you are on the right side of history. Just last year,I remember at an all nations service representatives from over 20 nations from the congregation stood up on stage and spoke a word of blessing over the congregation in their native tongue. 

Personally, my friend Dan has been a source of comfort for me in some of my deepest trials. He has believed in me when it seems like only my wife and my very closest friends stood by me. Even greater, my friend has let me encourage him and stand by him in his times of need. Though in many ways, Dan is my superior, he has humbled himself and been a peer to me and shared the journey, as a friend. 

I am not saying that only Christians can be friends like Dan is to me or that only Christians labor to make the world a better place, but throughout the world many, many Christians labor to build beautiful communities and those of us who participate in these communities find ourselves deeply indebted to the witness to ‘all that is good’ that these communities communicate to ourselves and our families. All of us, likewise, owe a debt of gratitude to the men and women that labor to build the institutional church in order that this witness will abide for future generations. 

peace, brad

Capitalism and The Export of American Culture

Being a card caring member of the evangelical church, I often hear the rant that America "has changed so much in the last so many years". The sense is that our cultural values have changed from innocence and honesty to selfishness and sexual promiscuity. It would be a good study to determine to what extent this perception is true, but, for now, let's assume that things have changed culturally. Why is this so?

The reason for this I believe is obvious. Capitalism caters to our appetites. Couple this basic fact with the rise of media in the home and in all our culture, and you end up with a culture that is immersed in images that cater to immediate gratification and our lowest selves. So, if you judge the culture by media and teenager fascination with all that is celebrated in the media, you will inevitably believe that the culture has radically changed.

Pop media is a tool of what sells, and what sells will always point to the least common denominator. I think it is best to realize that this "for the masses" approach is the way markets work. For a company to be BIG, it has to sell to all of us and appeal to what we all have in common. We all have in common our appetites and our weaknesses with respect to our appetites. Therefore, privately owned, profit driven media will necessarily and always target shallow and emotion driven content. Media has to be big to effect us all. Therefore, what effects us all will always be shallow and sexualized. That is just the way a profit driven media works. 

Think about it. When I was a kid, we used the term "sell out". To sell out meant to go pop. To go pop means to change your content to sex. Competition has driven a rush to the bottom. Think about talk radio. The more black and white the discussion the higher the ratings. To succeed, a person has to be dumb enough to preach passion without nuance. Nuance and analysis doesn't sell. 

So the moral to the story is that pop culture is simply a reflection of our appetites. What has changed is the volume of media not us. This process has been evolving for a long, long time. We haven't changed but the capitalist market has become a greater part of the cultural noise. 

The solutions are simple. We need to fast from pop culture and media in the home. We all need to take back the home from the market place. We need to teach our children that what you see on TV and in pop culture by definition represents only what is the least common denominator of our nature. If we desire to have dignity and to stand above the crowd by being honorable men and women, we must become distinct from pop culture. We need to simply realize that all that media is the market not our identity. We are people not merely consumers. 

enough for now,

peace, brad

Prep for Tonight's Libya Speech

Perils and Opportunities for Obama in Libya They seem to agree with my post from yesterday. The only twist is a bit more on the perils for this intervention for Obama. The word on the street is that if the intervention is short and successful Obama wins but if it is long or unsucessful then real bad. Sucess is determiend entirely by the democratic bona fides of the Libyan oppostion.

R2P - The Responsibility to Protect and Its Intentional Misunderstanding in US Media and Politics

The Dilemma of Humanitarian Intervention - Council on Foreign Relations

UN Security Council Resolution 1973 was based on the doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect. The genesis of this doctrine was the Rwandan genocide of 1994. Security Council Resolution 1973 is, it appears, a good use of the doctrine and represents a use of military force that is not essentially an act of war. It is this unusual circumstance that has caused confusion, intentional or otherwise, in the US political scene this week.

A few points can be made to clarify the situation:

1. The use of R2P is intended to save civilians from gross human rights violations and violence. Certainly, Ghadafi has proven that he is acting violently against his own people. The world has called his rule illegitimate due to his recent response to protests in Libya. The scope of "protection" of the citizenry through a no fly zone is intended to be very limited. To the military establishment and the media, the military action is depicted as both confusing and in danger of scope creep, but if the Resolution is followed and its use of the R2P approach then much is clarified and the limited scope is protected. My advise is that the administration be clear and uses the threat of a Rwandan type situation as the reason that we are willing use force and also to use very limited force in implementing the no-fly zone. The scope is limited yet we may stay "in the area" so that we are available if the Libyan regime attempts again to slaughter its citizens.

2. We need to beware of supporting protestors who do not appear to have much democracy credentials. Of course, none of us know the make up of the Libyan opposition. Talk is of tribalism more than ideological credibility. It is precisely the backing revolutions and opposition groups who do not have a strong resume with respect to democracy that has resulted in so many long term problems for both American interests and our reputation. This is the reason we cannot give wholesale support of the protestors. Without strong pro-democracy credentials, we have no idea how the end game will play out.

3. We need to explain this approach in the context of the other rebellions in the Middle East. Yemen, Syria, Bahrain, etc. We must balance each situation with respect to the prospects for humanitarian catastrophe and the long run promotion of indigenous democracy in the Middle East.

Hugs From Libyans - Libya Policy Politics

Hugs From Libyans

I so wanna be Nichlas Kristof when I grow up. Kristof's article so clarifies the politics and scuttlebutt in Washington. I am of the opinion that all this chest pounding about the Libyan intervention is just that - chest pounding. The options in Libya are very limited and the mission was clearly limited to implementing a no fly zone. These limitations mean that the end game is intentionally unclear. Congress knows this and as always is playing on people's passions and ignorance. The populus does not have the time to think this through. Therefore, to intentionally play with people's passions and gut feelings about war and patriotism is irresponsible. We have played this perfectly, and it only seems responsible to applaud our nations wisdom.

The fact is we are saving the lives of Libyan civilians.

Rural Poverty Report - 2011

Global food prices have sky rocketed since the 2008 global financial crisis. As a result 100 million people have been driven into poverty. Read the World Poverty report of 2011 to learn more.

World Poverty Report 2011

IFAD Website - International Fund for Agricultural Development

Rural Poverty Portal

Libya Status - Rebels Lose Key Battle of Ras Lanuf and The Arab League Votes for No Fly Zone

Arab League Backs No-Fly Zone Over Libya

This situation in Libya seems to be going from bad to worse. The rebels are quickly losing strength as they retreat from towns and as the Gadhafi's troops move further east.

Meanwhile, the Arab League voted to impose a no fly zone but will not be taking any military action. This seems to be a move forward but it still seems dire for the rebels. I could not imagine the fear these men are facing having rebelled against a diabolical dictator and now to be looking at defeat. It just shows how brave these men are. Lord have mercy on them and come to their aid. Maybe the UN will act more militarily. We can only hope.

Al Jazeera staffer killed in Libya

Al Jazeera staffer killed in Libya

This is the kind of work that needs to be heard by the public at large. Objective reporting and journalism must be a stable institution in any society that calls itself free and open. Obviously, the Libyan regime does not want openness and truth. The promotion of democracy and freedom demands the support, in any way possible, of those who expose the suffering and civil rights violations of the autocrats of the world.

A Blow to Fundamentalist Paranoia - Free Speech Wins in Snyder vs Phelps et al

As much as I deplore the speech of the Westboro Baptists, I nonetheless defend their right to free speech.
What I like about this decision most is that it puts to rest the paranoia that Christian speech in America is being or moving toward being censored.

The court is as conservative as it has ever been and our free speech is safe as ever.

Democracy and Al-Qaeda

This audio is worth a good listen. This report supports the proposition that the demonstrators in Egypt and elsewhere undermine Al-Qaeda's narrative of the Arab struggle. Al-Qaeda's use of violence and rhetoric that only violence can over throw autocrats has been an utter failure, and, instead, moderate students did what the terrorists could not due. Now, the heros of the middle east are not the radicals but the moderates.

Listen here:

Why Is China Nervous - Is a Good Economy Enough

Room for Debate - NYTimes.com

This article begins for me an investigation into the various positions American policy makers have had in recent memory with respect to Democracy Promotion. Here, is a debate about whether China should be nervous. Does a good economy protect an autocratic regime from revolt? If yes, can America promote stability by just promoting economic growth or is democracy the best path to stability? Of course this is an extremely complex discussion and therefore, time to put our thinking caps on as we enter a new era of reflection on democracy promotion and ultimately what America's role and policy should be.
peace,

Al Qaeda and The Fall of Terrorism Through Non-violent Democracy Movements

Al Qaeda Finds Itself at a Crossroads

This new reality in the middle east deserves in-depth academic and journalistic analysis, but, at first glance, it appears the fall of terrorism is at hand. This reality which we have fought so hard and spent so much money to achieve is likely to happen at the hand of indigenous democracy movements.

Democracy gives people a means other than violence to air grievances and promote their own self-interest. Of course, disappointment is bound to follow and some democratically elected leaders could become strong men and refuse to leave power. The end game and stability is a long way off.

What excites me as well is how this just might prove, once and for all, that radical Islam was just a flash in the pan. Time to find another bogeyman.

Libyan Professionals and Intellectuals Ruling 80% of Libya and Controlling 80% of Libyan Oil Fields

The future is looking more democratic and stable in Libya as the NY Times reports:

They said the city was now under the control of a committee of prominent citizens — doctors, lawyers, judges, engineers and the like — who were organizing its public services and continued defense. “We are really suffering for 42 years, and people are asking here for the same things as other people of the world — they want the real democracy,” said Ahmed el-Hadi Remeh, an engineer standing in the square.

Libyan propaganda proves false as this article reports