Universalism, Again

I note this week how last week we touched upon the idea that universalism can be a source of harm. My friend Mark was prompted to dispel the confusion as to what that monk meant when he said the Church ban on birth control must remain universal. This was after I'd asked the Dominican whether he equated a Third World baby who starves to death with a healthy infant born in the West that grows up to live a happy life.

When the monk responded the question implied the lives had unequal value, Mark eloquently explained that meant "from God's viewpoint, any child who dies in infancy is no less valued a life, and a soul," than anyone (including Pol Pot or Mother Teresa, who we both agreed performed great service in alleviating suffering but who I offered (along with Christopher Hitchens, the acerbic Brit journalist) that since she worked for an institution that upholds the ban on birth control, she is at least implicitly at fault for the suffering).

Am I saying the baby in Africa should never have been born? I don't think the prevention of conception equates with the death of an existant human life, but Mark is right to urge caution since, "it's a short step and ice-slick slope to genetic manipulation of pregnancies and a modern Aryanism."

I note this week an article in Politco entitled, "Pols Sidestep Debate Over Armenian Genocide." The author forecasts prospects for Congressional resolutions that finally label 92-year old atrocities as genocide. The International Association of Genocide Scholars writes, "under cover of World War I, the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire began a systematic genocice of Armenian citizens - an unarmed Christian minority population. More than a million Armenians were exterminated through direct killing, starvation, torture and forced death marches." The Turkish government places the death toll at 'only,' 200,000 and counters they "occurred during an armed revolt by Armenian rebels who opposed being relocated by the Ottoman government."

Our country doesn't deny the deaths at the higher number but also doesn't name them genocidal for geo-political reasons today. Perhaps this is similar, as written a week ago, to the way the Catholic Church introduces new teachings; as a tacit admission a correction is needed, but which can't officially be put right. I know of one fella, though, in 1939, who said, "I have put my death-head formations in place with the command relentlessly and without compassion to send into death many women and children of Polish origin and language. Only thus can we gain the living space that we need. Who after all is today speaking about the destruction of the Armenians?" Say, Adolph, in 2007, we still are.

Tommorrow, in Dale City, Virginia, at Hylton Chapel (no longer employed for public school baccalaureates since management wouldn't countenance the recitation of non-sectarian prayers out of respect for non-Christian graduates), the Archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola, is scheduled to install Martin Minns as bishop of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America. In an address to the Nigerian nation in 2006, Akinola said, "The Church affirms our committment to the total rejection of the evil of homosexuality which is a perversion of human dignity and encourages the National Assembly to ratify the Bill prohibiting the legality of homosexuality since it is incongruent with the teachings of the Bible, Quaran, and the basic African tradtional values." The Justice Minister, Bayo Ojo, helpfully added, "the law would also ban any form of protest to press for rights or recognition."

Minns spun for American audiences that, "Akinola was characterized as "an advocate of jailing gays. This is not true." A blogger from the Truro parish Minns left for the Nigerian promotion, wrote, "What part of does not support jailing gays do you not understand," attributing the 'smear,' as a 'rumor,' spread by a "British gay activist lobby group." She also stretches an already tenuous credibility beyond its limits by claiming negative posts about Akinola cause poverty.

After all else is stripped away, post-Tec secession vote, these items particularly urk: (1) out of all the Anglicans, in all the world, to lead them -- why choose Akinola; (2) since the patient readers of this blog know very well by now I believe folks must stand by their convictions, and depart, if needs be, on principle - yet why did the people who voted to leave, stay, and the people who voted to stay, leave; (3) that Virginia Anglicans are fond of saying America is in dire need of an infusion of external values.

I've noticed before there are African constructs eminently worthy of emulation such as the retired Archbishop Tutu's Truth and Reconciliation Commission established after apartheid, not for vengence, but so the truth revealed, and the example of Christian forbearance and forgiveness, might change the world to prevent such injustice from happening again. The corruption evident in the recent flawed Nigerian presidential election, however, and the anti-gay legislation, and the executions of political dissidents, like Ken Sara-Wiwa in 1995, are not so welcome imports.

In his book, "Crimes against Humanity," Geoffrey Robertson hails progress in the field of human rights dating from the Nuremberg trials to the present, except for one major hitch: how some Asian and African nations claim these ideals conflict with their culture and their right to conduct their own interal affairs without interfence. I noted several weeks ago the writer of a Nigeran newspaper editorial reckoned if Nigerians knew their signature on international anti-genocide treaties included protections for gays and lesbians, they wouldn't have signed.

In one regard, I have no qualms about universalism: "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." When I attended a fundamentalist church, I was uncomfortable with a pervasive anti-Americanism exhorted from the pulpit and in parish hall talk. Perhaps that's the space (in the Hylton Chapel parish hall no less) where Virginian and African Anglicanism, fueled by a Christian exclusivity taken to extremes, comfortably meet and supersede the natural inherent tolerances and revered traditions of democracy and liberty.

While Akinola affirmed positive programs in that nation-wide speech, for education, crime reduction, child trafficking abolition, and finanical aid for pensioners, it was only towards gays and lesbians that he advocated negative sanctions, as if they weren't deserving of the common human decency accorded to all other citizenry.

He stressed "the Church recognizes that the law of the land is sacrosanct and inviolable," as applied, for example, to limits on immunity for corrupt public officials on trial. Examine that more closely and apply the intention to the ant-gay legislation: if you aspire to live under the rule of law, and create statutes that enshrine persecution, the institutionalized discrimination and persecution of an ostracized minority, is a lawful duty.

Robertson writes of how this problem was addressed in the UN Charter that, "recites as it's rationale that contempt for human rights results in 'barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind,' and so 'human rights,' should be protected by the rule of law." He even adds the first draft was originally written, 'everyone has a right to life, liberty and security of person, except in cases as prescribed by law,' until the authors remembered how many people had been killed in Germany under the rule of law.

Minns, the Truro blogger, and the Virginia Anglicans who say nothing has changed in their parishes after the vote, are complicit and implicit apologists for Akinola, just as there were apologists in Britain and America for Germany, prior to World War II, who said they had it on their own personal authority, straight from the horse's mouth, that German leaders really didn't mean what they said in public. That must account for their joy and excitement, absence any qualms, let alone outrage, moving into Saturday's enthronement of Minns by Akinola, otherwise, it's incomprehensible.

It's hard to pin down the hoary old shibboleth of univeralsim. It's slippery, it's firm. It's good, it's not so good. It was grand this past weekend at the parish retreat, at Shrinemont, the beautiful Diocesan refresement center in the Shenandoah's. This is a universalism of serentiy. Nothing much of importance ever changes: the home-style menu's, the porch settin,' the walk up to the Cross where you can see three states from the tower.

Several parishes share the same weekend so Sunday services in the open-air cathedral follow upon each other. As we waited our turn, we softly sang Sweet, Sweet Spirit outside, along with the preceding church, already worshipping inside. We put our arms around each other's shoulders, swayed, and shed some tears. This universalsim comes on the winds of a gentle breeze you hear sweeping across the land from miles away; the Holy Spirit arrives and revives.

One fella said maybe in the years to come, when the still raw animosity fades, perhaps all the old parish family can come together again at Shrinemont. We'll see. Perhaps, reconciliation is possible after the new Anglicans inevitably conclude as did those British apologists after the War, 'that they backed the wrong horse.' Until then, I prefer to say to them now, the same thing I said every night to the homeless when I tucked them in for the night at the shelter, "how can I miss you, if you never leave?"