How to Increase the Odds against Yourself

How to Increase the Odds against Yourself
JUDGES 7: 1-25

Two weeks ago a man tried to blow up a plane going from Amsterdam to Detroit, and one week ago when I came back from London to Los Angeles after Christmas, it took two hours to board the plane rather than the usual half hour because of the extra security arrangements that had led to. The United States and European powers are involved in a battle with forces that have their center in Afghanistan and Pakistan but are spread around the world, and we are expending huge amounts of resources trying to win this battle. It seems we have no choice but to do so, even if we fail and the attempt bankrupts us. At the same time, we decline to intervene militarily in some other contexts, such as Sudan, not because the moral issue is very different but because we recognize the limit to what we can realistically reckon to achieve. Christians talk about whether wars are just, but decisions about war are made on the basis of whether they are practical (though that is one of the criteria for deciding whether a war is just)...