I note this week a letter from a fella we'll call "E." Mostly, he lives in a tent in the woods with other like-minded men and women. As is their wont, E and his set, from time to time, obtain accomodations, as a consequence of certain misdeameanors, lasting from a few days to several months, in the local hoosegow. It is over-crowded, and reservations for what's enviously called '3 hots and a cot,' are hard to get, especially around the holidays. Many's the time I drove a guest, desirous of such luxury, to the police station, to turn himself in on an outstanding warrant, only to be told there's no room at the inn.
When E's on the street, he boasts of higher education, yet doesn't exhibit much drive nor purpose (he must have come across Maslow's 'hierarchy of needs,' since the theory's endlessly trotted out for show as proof of his learning -- perhaps he picked it up in group therapy or through a parole officer - but it stuck for future use in attempts to manipulate conversations with authority figures like shelter managers and social workers). Otherwise, he lives the lifestyle of the average tent-dwelling consumer: fights, feuds, alcohol; a chaotic riotous existence.
When E's incarcerated, all that changes. He writes of the glory of God, how he's found the Lord, and of One Way. My responses suggest when he's next released, he not return to his more or less vacant tent, but join a community where he might perform works so that others may be influenced to live a less harmful life. Upon release, conversely, he resumes his pagan forest revels, until re-arrested, and born again, for the duration of his next sentence.
The phenonmenon is not unknown. The most notorious criminal recidivists of our community, are conspicuous Bible-thumpers, carrying Scripture everywhere within waterproof covers, while reciting verse from memory. Indeed, if they manage to achieve advanced adulthood (age 45 in our neck of the woods), it's likely we'll provide a large-print edition so they may better read The Word in a tent at night by the light of a flickering Coleman one-burner propane gas lamp.
Why is it that E functions behind bars yet can not when free? It brings to mind, once again, the journey of John Henry Newman. As a young Evangelical, he expounded the doctrine of sola scriptura, the Spiritual Authority of the Bible alone. As a Roman Catholic convert, since he longer believed the laity competent to discern Scripture, he wrote of the Bible as a subordinate appendage to an authoritarian Church.
E does not expound upon Scripture a great deal when he's free; he finds worldy freedom more alluring. He only achieves a spiritual freedom when bodily confined. Do we likewise require Authority in our less illict lives where jail does not provide the same desirable accomodation; should Church figuratively and necessarily perform the same function for us as prison does for E?
At many classes in seminary, there's a clique of vocal doctrinal hardliners. I wondered how they'd function as priests when confronted by a parishioner with a serious personal problem. While attending those classes, I also taught a suicide hot-line seminar. When a prospective listener announced she'd refer all callers to Jesus, she wasn't recommended for hire.
At that time of my life, a friend had bulemia. In my way of trying to help, (not surprising to those who know me), I wrote her a report on the subject. While researching the topic, I combed the seminary library for materials. I found one small book, outdated, of not much use.
As I've researched on-line, since then, on similar subjects, I've been likewise frustrated. If I search, on the keywords 'pastoral ministry' for example, I hit peripheral topics, such as advertisements for the minister's pre-written sermons handbook, or multitudinous listings for non-demonimnational churches with the word 'community,' in their name -- like Dunwiddie Restored Light and Harvest Community Church.
In the shelter business, it's not unusual to attend a meeting of one hundred professionals, as the only male. Reading of Jane Aadams, and her work at Hull House, I noticed she'd been criticized by the feminists of her day for suggesting that it was a natural function of women to operate such places. In pondering that, it led to searching under keywords 'feminist theology' instead of pastoral ministry.
I hit upon Rosemary Radford Ruether, described as a feminist theologian, by the on-line Boston Collaborative Encyclopedia of Western Theology. She was quoted, "This Jesus is an iconoclastic prophet who proclaims the reversal of the social order, a reversal which does not simply introduce new inequalities, but which aims at a new reality in which hiearchy and dominance are overcome as principles of social relations. Jesus speaks a liberating word which disupts the patriarchal structuring of society with its entrenched relations of hiearchy, dominance and opression; in this sense, Jesus can be understood as the kenosis (relinquishment) of partriarchy."
In response to a letter I'd written on our Church troubles, published in the local rag, in November, a correspondent responded he "does not admit that the Episcopal Church began departing from scriptural authority and doctrine years before gay bishop Gene Robinson's consecration in 2003, which ignited the separation action." It's not a far stretch of the imagination to consider he may be referring to the ordination of women.
Meryl Streep was quoted recently in the last of three excellent special 40th anniversary issues of Rolling Stone, "next to climate, the changing status of women in the last hundred years is the most destabilizing thing that's happened on earth. It's precipitated so many seismic changes and reactions in cultures. I think you can lay all the fundamentalism that's been rearing its ugly head in the world at the feet of that change. It's better for Western women, but that idea, that women have rights, hasn't permeated much of the world, even today. The forces that don't want to consider it are going down hard."
The saddest news story I note this week is that its now believed, upon new discoveries, all the graves of Czar Nicholas II and his entire family have been accounted for. I don't know why that story has always carried such poignance - in the middle of the night, this former royal, his wife, and children, seemingly naieve and innocent concerning their dread fate, were rousted from their beds, and so cruelly executed by the Communists. Perhaps it's the stark juxtaposition of a family in the path of an onrushing inhuman doctrinal Authority, so utterly swept away and destroyed, that is so mournfully disturbing.
In G.W. Bromiley's "Thomas Cranmer, Theologian," I read in my devotions this morning as to how Cranmer and Luther agreed, "There are two kinds of faith. The one is a dead belief, which accepts the facts and doctrines of the Christian faith, but does not have the inward trust in Christ, or live out the Gospel in daily obedience. The other includes an acceptance of the facts and doctrine of Christianity, but it also involves a sure trust and confidence in God's merciful promises, which necessarily expresses itself in life and conduct. It is only the latter faith, the true, lively, and Christian faith of the second homily, which avails for justification."
This circles round to "E." His outward expression of faith is conditioned upon confinement in an authoritarian environment. Is that what's behind those who march under the rigid banner of Spiritual Authority? Are they like E in that the expression of their faith must be conditioned within a hiearchy endowed with the image of patriarchical authority? Is that what makes the existence of women or a Gene Robinson as a new kind of authority figure so threatening?
I must admit during my time at shelter, I was intermittingly disappointed that guests never altered their lifestyle despite of what we thought of as providing a good Christian example. We did not establish an environment emphasizing Authority. We strove, rather, to create a family-like community, to which people might respond in love. In recognizing that you can't save another person through works - only the gift of God's grave can accomplish that -- is not the intentional willingness to love, uncoerced by Authority, despite a lack of immediate returns, the central act of faith, parish and family? If a gift, radiating steadfast hope and redemption, is not freely given or willingly received, it's as hollow as a faith that only comes alive when it's imprisoned.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Thursday, November 22, 2007
The Saluda Homecoming
I note this week I've taken a shine to baking cookies. When the green landscape transforms to the bleak gray suffusion of a Virginia countryside winter, left to my own devices, it's soft oatmeal raisin, not plumbing the depths of theology or politics, that comforts the soul.
Basic training requires slamming open a tube against the counter to free a squidgy slab of dough(?); then slice and bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 9 minutes. Feeling, at times, more confident, I graduate to: blending one egg, one tbsp water, 3 tbsp canola oil and mix; then bake on a greased pan for 14 minutes. Brimming, other times, with the sure to be proven false pride of past success, I download a 'scratch,' that requires mysterious bottles of strange elixers called vanilla extract and powdered nutmeg that stand in rows amongst armies of fragrant spices like a regiment of red-helmeted soliders guarding a female skirmish line in the wife's territorial cupboard.
Is this whimsy or practicing to be old? Lennon's, 'Watching the Wheels lyrics, 'surely you're not happy now you no longer play the game,' keeps playing in my mind. I've also taken to dusting, vaccuuming, swiffing, perhaps obeying the triggered concept of nesting: as you age, you organize, or forget everything. That could be it, or maybe not.
Whenever we're driving at night, the glow of lights within the passing houses make me wish I was home. I don't think I'm alone in this growing awareness. I note an article in the local rag on how mixed-use development is thriving; where a new town is built from scratch, resembling best what we idealize about small town life. My favorite ball park, Camden Yards, the archetype for stadiums erected in the last decade, is built new, to resemble old.
The local hardware store still carries the original name, but sells only crafts, instead of the black and white speckled notebooks and text book covers with university seals, like Dartmouth and Brown, that I miss. Whenever the choirmaster at church entertains requests for long forgotten hymns, I always ask for 'Church in the Wildwood,' even though I never attended the 'little brown church in the vale.'
I note a report in the NY Times that the 'Latin Mass Draws Interest After Easing of Restrictions.' One woman is quoted, "I have no memory of the Latin Mass from my childhood, but for me it's so refreshing to see him facing the east, the Tabnernacle, focusing on Christ." Is her non-existant memory of a Latin Mass the same as my non-historical nostalgia for a Church in the Wildwood?
The day I actually attended a Latin Mass, the ancient stone church was damp, dark and cold. The priest faced forward so all that could be seen was a shadowy black presence. I couldn't hear anything as I suppose he prayed quietly in Latin. Was this, indeed, the same kind of experience attending the little brown church in the vale? Rather than a communal ritual experience, there's no corporate existence in the Latin Mass of a beloved community; each parishioner "looked instead to their missals or prayed on their own."
One windbag in the Times bellowed the all too wearying diatribe that "the Mass was like this for 1,500 years, and it was changed by subcommittee in the 1960's; when you can change the liturgy, you can change anything." So, you stand for an hour in a damp dark space; no clue as to what's happenning; no connection with another human being; yet you've made your point. This spiritual equivalent of a civic 'bowling alone,' leaves me as cold as a church built of stone. I'd rather bake cookies every Sunday than ever attend another Latin Mass.
A letter writer to our local rag, making another sort of point, wrote he'd never make a donation to the shelter, since as he was driving by, he observed children wearing new shoes. In despair, after reading it, I re-examined the file of papers that held essays composed by children who'd stayed there. One child wrote, the hardest thing wasn't that her father had abandoned the family, that they'd lost everything and were living in their car. The hardest thing, by far, was when they'd moved into the shelter, she'd had to give her dog away.
On the day after Thanksgiving, Connie and I are driving down east to tag the last of seven affiliated libraries within our rural system. Every time we drive onto the peninsula called the Northern Neck, we end the journey at land's end, in a tiny place called Saluda, just as when I write, I always end the literary journey at what will count at life's end: compassion was more important than making points.
It doesn't make a lot of sense to drive fifty miles. It won't accomplish much to call on seven librairies. The Saluda Homecoming only seems like the right place to be for no good reason at all. Sometimes life doesn't need to make a point. It's just about baking oat meal raisin cookies in a warm kitchen on a cold winter's day. It's about connecting with another human being, reclaiming meaning in life, even if it's part of what looks like an otherwise pointless journey.
Basic training requires slamming open a tube against the counter to free a squidgy slab of dough(?); then slice and bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 9 minutes. Feeling, at times, more confident, I graduate to: blending one egg, one tbsp water, 3 tbsp canola oil and mix; then bake on a greased pan for 14 minutes. Brimming, other times, with the sure to be proven false pride of past success, I download a 'scratch,' that requires mysterious bottles of strange elixers called vanilla extract and powdered nutmeg that stand in rows amongst armies of fragrant spices like a regiment of red-helmeted soliders guarding a female skirmish line in the wife's territorial cupboard.
Is this whimsy or practicing to be old? Lennon's, 'Watching the Wheels lyrics, 'surely you're not happy now you no longer play the game,' keeps playing in my mind. I've also taken to dusting, vaccuuming, swiffing, perhaps obeying the triggered concept of nesting: as you age, you organize, or forget everything. That could be it, or maybe not.
Whenever we're driving at night, the glow of lights within the passing houses make me wish I was home. I don't think I'm alone in this growing awareness. I note an article in the local rag on how mixed-use development is thriving; where a new town is built from scratch, resembling best what we idealize about small town life. My favorite ball park, Camden Yards, the archetype for stadiums erected in the last decade, is built new, to resemble old.
The local hardware store still carries the original name, but sells only crafts, instead of the black and white speckled notebooks and text book covers with university seals, like Dartmouth and Brown, that I miss. Whenever the choirmaster at church entertains requests for long forgotten hymns, I always ask for 'Church in the Wildwood,' even though I never attended the 'little brown church in the vale.'
I note a report in the NY Times that the 'Latin Mass Draws Interest After Easing of Restrictions.' One woman is quoted, "I have no memory of the Latin Mass from my childhood, but for me it's so refreshing to see him facing the east, the Tabnernacle, focusing on Christ." Is her non-existant memory of a Latin Mass the same as my non-historical nostalgia for a Church in the Wildwood?
The day I actually attended a Latin Mass, the ancient stone church was damp, dark and cold. The priest faced forward so all that could be seen was a shadowy black presence. I couldn't hear anything as I suppose he prayed quietly in Latin. Was this, indeed, the same kind of experience attending the little brown church in the vale? Rather than a communal ritual experience, there's no corporate existence in the Latin Mass of a beloved community; each parishioner "looked instead to their missals or prayed on their own."
One windbag in the Times bellowed the all too wearying diatribe that "the Mass was like this for 1,500 years, and it was changed by subcommittee in the 1960's; when you can change the liturgy, you can change anything." So, you stand for an hour in a damp dark space; no clue as to what's happenning; no connection with another human being; yet you've made your point. This spiritual equivalent of a civic 'bowling alone,' leaves me as cold as a church built of stone. I'd rather bake cookies every Sunday than ever attend another Latin Mass.
A letter writer to our local rag, making another sort of point, wrote he'd never make a donation to the shelter, since as he was driving by, he observed children wearing new shoes. In despair, after reading it, I re-examined the file of papers that held essays composed by children who'd stayed there. One child wrote, the hardest thing wasn't that her father had abandoned the family, that they'd lost everything and were living in their car. The hardest thing, by far, was when they'd moved into the shelter, she'd had to give her dog away.
On the day after Thanksgiving, Connie and I are driving down east to tag the last of seven affiliated libraries within our rural system. Every time we drive onto the peninsula called the Northern Neck, we end the journey at land's end, in a tiny place called Saluda, just as when I write, I always end the literary journey at what will count at life's end: compassion was more important than making points.
It doesn't make a lot of sense to drive fifty miles. It won't accomplish much to call on seven librairies. The Saluda Homecoming only seems like the right place to be for no good reason at all. Sometimes life doesn't need to make a point. It's just about baking oat meal raisin cookies in a warm kitchen on a cold winter's day. It's about connecting with another human being, reclaiming meaning in life, even if it's part of what looks like an otherwise pointless journey.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Tradition
I note this week an editorial printed in the local rag the day before Veterans Day that was certain to greatly disturb the waters. The writer posited that those who'd attended Woodstock were morally superior to those, like John McCain, who'd served in Viet Nam.
I don't buy into any argument that advocates a moral superiority of any person or group over any other. Notions of that sort were quashed after my time managing the homeless shelter. As we've discussed many times before, short of allying yourself with 'ism's carrying the potential or actuality for genocide, most situations aren't so easy to classify in terms of a morally superior good or non-circumstantial evil.
Though it was surpisingly bold and intentionally provocative (if not a bit tactless) for the paper to publish the piece on the day before the holiday), it certainly had stir-the-pot impact, enticing the usual rabid attack dog suspects to launch the wearying Goebellian tactics practiced by despots and muttonheads throughout the ages.
Painting with a wide brush of stereotypically based ridicule is the easy way here, to quote, "How can he say that those who participated in the perverted debauchery of Woodstock...," and "drug-induced escapism is not morally superior," and on and on. Then there are those, unlike me, who find it very easy to identify good and evil through elminating all the gray inbetween, such as, "You can't have it both ways. Either America is a country to be proud of...or it should be allowed to be destroyed by left-wing liberals who believe nothing is worth dying for," ending, obligatoriliy, of course, with a dig at a Clinton, doesn't matter which one.
Life negates the absence of gray. The deepest tendencies I hold are to what would be defined, minimally as liberal, and maximally, as far left, by the attack dogs above. Recognizing that, I served in the Navy, on the principle that in order to legitimately hold such views, it was necessary to participate within the civic framework constructed to protect the right to express them.
As far as countering the ridicule, events like Woodstock, were much more than a party-binge. As a barometer of the times, contrast the message and accompanying peaceful behavior observed in 1969 to the violent alcoholically fueled flames of mindless rage-driven riot at the 30th anniversary concert.
A non-consistently debauched, rather mysterious, group appeared in 1966 San Francisco called the Diggers, who engineered 'street happenings,' such as planting a 12 X 12 yellow square at the intersection of Haight and Ashbury Streets, urging people to look through so they could experience street theater through their own frame of reference. They opened a store where everything was free, including the contents of a cashbox labelled 'free money,' guarded by a sign that read, "No Stealing."
The Digger's goal was to portray American lives as if they were constructed by actors in a play, of which, alternative endings were possible - one theological current, leading to the idea that a person could be 'born again.' This is not 'drug-induced,' escapism - indeed, there were many in San Francisco, at the time, and elsewhere, that subscribed to the idea that drugs could only take you so far, and as Tom Wolfe wrote, it was time to pass the acid test and graduate, with new insights gained, moving on to a higher ground.
The Diggers didn't appear out of thin air. In another tumultuous time, 17th century England, the original band arose, along with other 'Dissenters,' fighting with their very lives for a religious liberty, denied not only to Roman Catholics, but to anyone not ultimately subscribing to the commonwealth of Puritanism established by Oliver Cromwell. They desired a Jeffersonian, Peter Maurin/Catholic Worker agrarian communal society, based on the book of ACTS, that proposed a society much as envisioned later by the 20th century Diggers of the same name and trans-cultural ideology.
It's interesting to note when Cromwell was fighting for power, he was very tolerant and ecumenical in enlisting those who served his cause; but once, power was secured, dissent was eliminated. Is there any movement, ever in time, that doesn't produce this effect; where it isn't like The Who song, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
This is what we've been studying in Adult Sunday School as we examine the lives of the prophets - the great irony, of which Walter Brueggemann writes: when Israel was at the height of it's Solomonaic empire and power, it was most like, for the common people, living back in the pre-Exodus time of Pharaoh, from which God delivered His chosen ones. Can the fresh promise of any organizational exodus survive for long without the stultifying imposition of a new bureaucratic self-vested army of organizers who necessarily construct and protect, but, within the process, destroy the original freedom that gave birth to new ideas? In other words, to place it in the San Francisco context of the day, do anarchic child-like hippies always require the services of an authoritarian father like Bill Graham to stage the concerts?
Out of all historical context, the promise of America and Christianity is that within the framework of country and religion, an alternative vision continuously beckons away from the power of status quo and co-optive consumption to something new without destroying the steady yet yielding platform upon which it stands, pointing inevitably further to the shining city on the distant hill of America in the morning, and even beyond, over yonder, to the idyllic land of heavenly milk and honey.
Veterans day is not only about honoring the past; I have no doubt that those who died must have desired a better future worthy of a sacrifice of the magnitude they made. If not, then each death diminishes without raising us to the higher ground of the promised land; those places of which the Woodstockian dreamers sing their songs.
I don't buy into any argument that advocates a moral superiority of any person or group over any other. Notions of that sort were quashed after my time managing the homeless shelter. As we've discussed many times before, short of allying yourself with 'ism's carrying the potential or actuality for genocide, most situations aren't so easy to classify in terms of a morally superior good or non-circumstantial evil.
Though it was surpisingly bold and intentionally provocative (if not a bit tactless) for the paper to publish the piece on the day before the holiday), it certainly had stir-the-pot impact, enticing the usual rabid attack dog suspects to launch the wearying Goebellian tactics practiced by despots and muttonheads throughout the ages.
Painting with a wide brush of stereotypically based ridicule is the easy way here, to quote, "How can he say that those who participated in the perverted debauchery of Woodstock...," and "drug-induced escapism is not morally superior," and on and on. Then there are those, unlike me, who find it very easy to identify good and evil through elminating all the gray inbetween, such as, "You can't have it both ways. Either America is a country to be proud of...or it should be allowed to be destroyed by left-wing liberals who believe nothing is worth dying for," ending, obligatoriliy, of course, with a dig at a Clinton, doesn't matter which one.
Life negates the absence of gray. The deepest tendencies I hold are to what would be defined, minimally as liberal, and maximally, as far left, by the attack dogs above. Recognizing that, I served in the Navy, on the principle that in order to legitimately hold such views, it was necessary to participate within the civic framework constructed to protect the right to express them.
As far as countering the ridicule, events like Woodstock, were much more than a party-binge. As a barometer of the times, contrast the message and accompanying peaceful behavior observed in 1969 to the violent alcoholically fueled flames of mindless rage-driven riot at the 30th anniversary concert.
A non-consistently debauched, rather mysterious, group appeared in 1966 San Francisco called the Diggers, who engineered 'street happenings,' such as planting a 12 X 12 yellow square at the intersection of Haight and Ashbury Streets, urging people to look through so they could experience street theater through their own frame of reference. They opened a store where everything was free, including the contents of a cashbox labelled 'free money,' guarded by a sign that read, "No Stealing."
The Digger's goal was to portray American lives as if they were constructed by actors in a play, of which, alternative endings were possible - one theological current, leading to the idea that a person could be 'born again.' This is not 'drug-induced,' escapism - indeed, there were many in San Francisco, at the time, and elsewhere, that subscribed to the idea that drugs could only take you so far, and as Tom Wolfe wrote, it was time to pass the acid test and graduate, with new insights gained, moving on to a higher ground.
The Diggers didn't appear out of thin air. In another tumultuous time, 17th century England, the original band arose, along with other 'Dissenters,' fighting with their very lives for a religious liberty, denied not only to Roman Catholics, but to anyone not ultimately subscribing to the commonwealth of Puritanism established by Oliver Cromwell. They desired a Jeffersonian, Peter Maurin/Catholic Worker agrarian communal society, based on the book of ACTS, that proposed a society much as envisioned later by the 20th century Diggers of the same name and trans-cultural ideology.
It's interesting to note when Cromwell was fighting for power, he was very tolerant and ecumenical in enlisting those who served his cause; but once, power was secured, dissent was eliminated. Is there any movement, ever in time, that doesn't produce this effect; where it isn't like The Who song, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
This is what we've been studying in Adult Sunday School as we examine the lives of the prophets - the great irony, of which Walter Brueggemann writes: when Israel was at the height of it's Solomonaic empire and power, it was most like, for the common people, living back in the pre-Exodus time of Pharaoh, from which God delivered His chosen ones. Can the fresh promise of any organizational exodus survive for long without the stultifying imposition of a new bureaucratic self-vested army of organizers who necessarily construct and protect, but, within the process, destroy the original freedom that gave birth to new ideas? In other words, to place it in the San Francisco context of the day, do anarchic child-like hippies always require the services of an authoritarian father like Bill Graham to stage the concerts?
Out of all historical context, the promise of America and Christianity is that within the framework of country and religion, an alternative vision continuously beckons away from the power of status quo and co-optive consumption to something new without destroying the steady yet yielding platform upon which it stands, pointing inevitably further to the shining city on the distant hill of America in the morning, and even beyond, over yonder, to the idyllic land of heavenly milk and honey.
Veterans day is not only about honoring the past; I have no doubt that those who died must have desired a better future worthy of a sacrifice of the magnitude they made. If not, then each death diminishes without raising us to the higher ground of the promised land; those places of which the Woodstockian dreamers sing their songs.
Friday, November 9, 2007
Editorializing
I note this week, with Thanksgiving only two weeks away, a cornucopia of recent editorials, articles and quotes, in the 'comment-upon-later-file,' some of which, are to be very thankful for, others, not so much.
Last recently, during the week of October 12th, an editorial in the local rag marked the golden anniversary of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged." The editorialist wrote, Rand became "a guru to millions with a novel that doubles as a guide to a new morality, one in which self-interest becomes not only the rational standard for a successful society, but a moral imperative."
Yesterday, reading the beloved Catholic Worker for October-November, which arrived this week, blessing the very mailbox itself (am I tipping my hand?), I noted the ususal comings and goings at Peter Maurin Farm, appended this time by: "There are always new people-it seems a miracle-just when we need them. We will disappoint some, our failures are more apparent than our successes. But others will see here the germ of that new society within the shell of the old in which it wil be easier to be good, formed upon an idea so old that it looks new, that is the gentle personalism of traditional Christianity."
Our story thus far: a Randian atheistic morality of self-interest versus the Maurian gentle personalism of an idealized Christianity.
Editorialist, Michael Gerson, extolling the late Governor of Pennsylvania: "Bob Casey called an absolute pro-choice position the cult of the imperial self - a belief that violated his sense of fairness and justice, rooted in the Catholic faith. And he set out to build a consistent culture of life, which included the poor, the elderly, and the handicapped. This kind of agenda could have a powerful appeal to many evangelicals, who are looking for a broader model of public engagement - a larger vision of social justice - than the Relgious Right has provided."
Speaking of evangelicals, editorialist Michael McManus, noted how Richard Cizik, VP of the National Association of Evangelicals, led the NAE, against much fundamentalist opposition, to publish a broader than usual position paper, 'An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility.' He quoted Cizik: "What evangelicals can do is help people come through a huge intellectual shift on every level. We as Americans will have to change the ways we think if we are to win on such issues as climate and poverty."
Page II: Does the second matched set of editorials establish a plausible big tent between extremes of Randian economic self-interest and Maurian communal personalism, in which some of us who read this blog may comfortably fit?
Onward, literary soldiers, to storm the next twin battlements perched on the editorial horizon -
The Anglican Communion Official Website presents a report from the Church of Nigeria entitled, problematically, The Listening Process: "The Western idea of human rights is subservient to the service of the common good. The so called 'right' to homosexual orientation threatens the order of society because the continuation of the race is threatened by gay practice. In Nigeria, the Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act of 2006 is passing through the legislature. It bans same sex unions, all homosexual acts and the formation of any gay groups. The Standing Committee of the Church of Nigeria has twice commended the act in their Message to the Nation."
We end our battlefield tour with a contrasting interview to the press release above. The question: I think it's hard to classify anybody, really, if you look at their whole spectrum of opinions, but for the most part how would you label yourself politically? The reply: I think what they would call me is a bleeding-heart liberal, because I love the environment, I love the animals, I want to help old people, I want to help kids. I want to help all the ones who can't help themselves."
The interviewee is a magnificent athelete who's inspired millions to strive towards physical fitness by continuing to play well beyond the ages of most, if not all, the other professionals within her sport (and the rest of us who had to give up softball at 40). She's involved in a faithful and monogamous relationship; nary a hint of any sort of scandal during a very long career. Who is it? Martina Navratilova.
To sum the cornucopia file review: 1) Randian atheistic self-interest; 2) Maurian Christian personalism; 3) Caseyian big tent; 4) Cizikian big tent; 5) Akinolistic religous and legislative exclusionism; 6) Navratilovian liberalism.
If we play the match game, could Akinoliisticism find any other match than allied with an amoral self-interest (though there is still a dark corner within Cizikianism where Akinolisticism finds a home as well). There is no possible match between Navratilovianism with Akinolisticism. Navatilovianism can not be excluded, likewise, from co-existence with Maurianism or Caseyianism. If Navratilovianism yet finds a match in Cizikianism (they already jibe on climate and poverty as you can see), the final score is 4 to 2, it's game, set and match, and the Spotsyltuckian will host a big tent revival in which to celebrate and praise God.
In some editorials, like Gerson's above, Dr. Martin Luther King is portrayed as an icon as to how Christians can influence politics. If you would venture to describe him so, you omit the language of his brilliant Letter from a Birmingham Jail. He wrote when religion serves to upgrade humanity, it is just, but when its employed to degrade humanity, it is unjust. You can make a case with great certainty, citing all we've discussed here today, that what Dr. King sacrificed his life to achieve, would find little in common with Randianism, and no match at all with Akinolisticism.
Dostoyevsky wrote out of all revoluntionary groups in 19th century Russia, anarchist, communist, socialist, etc., Christian socialists were by far the most dangerous due to their unshakable, yet humble, self-assurance that their utopian vision would some day result in the Kingdom of God on earth. If Dr. King was just embarking on his struggle for Civil Rights, in opposition to a Biblically-justified segregation, he'd not only ignite the wrath of atheistic Randians, but a far more dangerous and wealthy media-savvy Randian fundamentalist zealotry, that'd stop at nothing to preserve the economic self-interests of their authoritarian-minded cultural status quo.
The Latina I wrote of last week did not win election to the Board of Supervisors within a frenzied County atmosphere of anti-immigrant hysteria. Her campaign bore similarities to early civil rights marches. Reflecting upon that, friend Mark and I debated the nature of prejudice and apathy in suburbia. As far as prejudice goes, it may be most like what the famed Supreme Court justice once said about pornography: I know it when I see it.
Of the 'ism's cited in this week's blog, Akinolisticism is the only one where I have no qualms plainly describing it as an inherently evil theology that masks its prejudice and degrades humanity - of such a nature and degree that Mark and I draw instinctively away. Rather than point the way to a society where its easier for humanity to be good, it creates all the familiar conditions to bring out the worst, as other like exclusionary movements that carried the potential for genocide, did throughout the 20th century. It finds no match in our churches, families, or lives. I pray one day it finds no match anywhere.
Last recently, during the week of October 12th, an editorial in the local rag marked the golden anniversary of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged." The editorialist wrote, Rand became "a guru to millions with a novel that doubles as a guide to a new morality, one in which self-interest becomes not only the rational standard for a successful society, but a moral imperative."
Yesterday, reading the beloved Catholic Worker for October-November, which arrived this week, blessing the very mailbox itself (am I tipping my hand?), I noted the ususal comings and goings at Peter Maurin Farm, appended this time by: "There are always new people-it seems a miracle-just when we need them. We will disappoint some, our failures are more apparent than our successes. But others will see here the germ of that new society within the shell of the old in which it wil be easier to be good, formed upon an idea so old that it looks new, that is the gentle personalism of traditional Christianity."
Our story thus far: a Randian atheistic morality of self-interest versus the Maurian gentle personalism of an idealized Christianity.
Editorialist, Michael Gerson, extolling the late Governor of Pennsylvania: "Bob Casey called an absolute pro-choice position the cult of the imperial self - a belief that violated his sense of fairness and justice, rooted in the Catholic faith. And he set out to build a consistent culture of life, which included the poor, the elderly, and the handicapped. This kind of agenda could have a powerful appeal to many evangelicals, who are looking for a broader model of public engagement - a larger vision of social justice - than the Relgious Right has provided."
Speaking of evangelicals, editorialist Michael McManus, noted how Richard Cizik, VP of the National Association of Evangelicals, led the NAE, against much fundamentalist opposition, to publish a broader than usual position paper, 'An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility.' He quoted Cizik: "What evangelicals can do is help people come through a huge intellectual shift on every level. We as Americans will have to change the ways we think if we are to win on such issues as climate and poverty."
Page II: Does the second matched set of editorials establish a plausible big tent between extremes of Randian economic self-interest and Maurian communal personalism, in which some of us who read this blog may comfortably fit?
Onward, literary soldiers, to storm the next twin battlements perched on the editorial horizon -
The Anglican Communion Official Website presents a report from the Church of Nigeria entitled, problematically, The Listening Process: "The Western idea of human rights is subservient to the service of the common good. The so called 'right' to homosexual orientation threatens the order of society because the continuation of the race is threatened by gay practice. In Nigeria, the Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act of 2006 is passing through the legislature. It bans same sex unions, all homosexual acts and the formation of any gay groups. The Standing Committee of the Church of Nigeria has twice commended the act in their Message to the Nation."
We end our battlefield tour with a contrasting interview to the press release above. The question: I think it's hard to classify anybody, really, if you look at their whole spectrum of opinions, but for the most part how would you label yourself politically? The reply: I think what they would call me is a bleeding-heart liberal, because I love the environment, I love the animals, I want to help old people, I want to help kids. I want to help all the ones who can't help themselves."
The interviewee is a magnificent athelete who's inspired millions to strive towards physical fitness by continuing to play well beyond the ages of most, if not all, the other professionals within her sport (and the rest of us who had to give up softball at 40). She's involved in a faithful and monogamous relationship; nary a hint of any sort of scandal during a very long career. Who is it? Martina Navratilova.
To sum the cornucopia file review: 1) Randian atheistic self-interest; 2) Maurian Christian personalism; 3) Caseyian big tent; 4) Cizikian big tent; 5) Akinolistic religous and legislative exclusionism; 6) Navratilovian liberalism.
If we play the match game, could Akinoliisticism find any other match than allied with an amoral self-interest (though there is still a dark corner within Cizikianism where Akinolisticism finds a home as well). There is no possible match between Navratilovianism with Akinolisticism. Navatilovianism can not be excluded, likewise, from co-existence with Maurianism or Caseyianism. If Navratilovianism yet finds a match in Cizikianism (they already jibe on climate and poverty as you can see), the final score is 4 to 2, it's game, set and match, and the Spotsyltuckian will host a big tent revival in which to celebrate and praise God.
In some editorials, like Gerson's above, Dr. Martin Luther King is portrayed as an icon as to how Christians can influence politics. If you would venture to describe him so, you omit the language of his brilliant Letter from a Birmingham Jail. He wrote when religion serves to upgrade humanity, it is just, but when its employed to degrade humanity, it is unjust. You can make a case with great certainty, citing all we've discussed here today, that what Dr. King sacrificed his life to achieve, would find little in common with Randianism, and no match at all with Akinolisticism.
Dostoyevsky wrote out of all revoluntionary groups in 19th century Russia, anarchist, communist, socialist, etc., Christian socialists were by far the most dangerous due to their unshakable, yet humble, self-assurance that their utopian vision would some day result in the Kingdom of God on earth. If Dr. King was just embarking on his struggle for Civil Rights, in opposition to a Biblically-justified segregation, he'd not only ignite the wrath of atheistic Randians, but a far more dangerous and wealthy media-savvy Randian fundamentalist zealotry, that'd stop at nothing to preserve the economic self-interests of their authoritarian-minded cultural status quo.
The Latina I wrote of last week did not win election to the Board of Supervisors within a frenzied County atmosphere of anti-immigrant hysteria. Her campaign bore similarities to early civil rights marches. Reflecting upon that, friend Mark and I debated the nature of prejudice and apathy in suburbia. As far as prejudice goes, it may be most like what the famed Supreme Court justice once said about pornography: I know it when I see it.
Of the 'ism's cited in this week's blog, Akinolisticism is the only one where I have no qualms plainly describing it as an inherently evil theology that masks its prejudice and degrades humanity - of such a nature and degree that Mark and I draw instinctively away. Rather than point the way to a society where its easier for humanity to be good, it creates all the familiar conditions to bring out the worst, as other like exclusionary movements that carried the potential for genocide, did throughout the 20th century. It finds no match in our churches, families, or lives. I pray one day it finds no match anywhere.
Friday, November 2, 2007
Take a Bite out of Hate
I note this week a friend is running for office in a county that's just passed strong anti-immigrant legislation. Originally from El Salvador, she's been in the US for decades. She's risen from custodial work to professional advocacy. A few years ago I witnessed an inspirational rally she organized on Capitol Hill to raise awareness and funds to fight breast cancer. Why did she decide to run? When this accomplished American citizen, by choice rather than birth, drove around the town where she's lived for years, without incident, with her daughter by her side, other drivers, frenzied imbeciles stirred up either by the anti-immigrant legislation debate, the sight of her Latina appearance, her quaint Kerry for President bumper stickers, or the combination of all three, shouted curses and insults.
I note another story this week in the New York Post where a swastika was painted on the door of a Jewish professor at Columbia University which may have been a result of his opposition to the visit on campus by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
In contrast, I read a letter from a lawyer who works at the Rutherford Institute, as well as an article by its founder, John Whitehead, who both argue against the passage of hate crimes legislation by citing the rights of religious people "to take positions and to express them in politics or anywhere else."
The Institute argues, for example, in the case of Matthew Shepherd, that since the murderers are in jail as a result of laws against killing already on the books, there's no need for hate crimes legislation. As I've surfed cable channels recently, I've watched several televangelists exhort their number one priority at this time is halting the passage of hate crimes legislation.
I'll grant murder is a heinous crime despite the reason and there are severe penalties already on the books for this extreme form of violence. Let's return, however, to the crime of the swastika on the door. In that case, do you think it sufficient to charge the perpetrator with vandalism alone? Would that not miss the point of the crime and deleterious example of its prosecution and punishment?
Back in the county where my friend is running for election, there's been a concurrent hate crime that may or may not be related in these ferentic days of politician-driven anger. A noose was tied to a tree in the yard of an African-American family. If the perpetrator is caught and tried, what charge other than a hate crime, could there be? Indeed, perhaps the local police may also have pondered whether there's a penalty for the crime since they've chosen to dismiss the deed as a teenage prank.
Examining the Rutherford article further, I came across, "Despite some differences in theology, the Framers generally agreed that just laws were God-given, absolute and revealed to human beings through Scripture (such as the Ten Commandments), nature and conscience." Further on, he writes, in comparison, "Secularists generally claim human happiness as the sole measure by which to make moral, and thus religious, judgments."
Let's deal with the sly secularist slur first. A quick look-up in the first two dictionaries I reached provided these definitions for secularism: (1) one who is concerned with the interests and welfare of humans; (2) affirms our ability and responsibility to lead meaningful, ethical, lives capable of adding to the greater good of humanity.
Happiness in itself isn't mentioned, let alone, in the not so subtle selfish way Whitehead portrays. It's as if he doesn't recognize humanitarian ethics at all outside of a religious context; therefore if hate crimes legislation, a secular and ethical matter, contrasts with what he discerns as a superior religious mandate, it follows in his logic and advocacy that some violations of civil and human rights are acceptable, protected and incorporated within the freedoms guaranteed to the majority unless otherwise defined in another way as a strictly criminal violation. Hate crimes, defined by self-appointed Constitutional protectionists like Whitehead are not only victimless crimes, despite the emotional toil taken by the Jewish professor and African-American family, they're perpetratorless crimes too, since no offense has been committed; only the non-physical First Amendment came truly under assault.
Concerning the Framers, most historians describe them as Deists rather than religious absolutists. In general, according to Wikipedia, "Deism is a religious philosophy and movement that derives the existence and nature of God from reason and personal experience, in contrast to theism which relies on revelation in sacred scriptures or the testimony of other people. Deists typically tend to assert that God does not interfere with human life and the laws of the universe."
I've wondered from time to time, if I might be one. Deists are defined negatively and positively. The four constructive elements are: (1) God exists and created the Universe; (2) God wants human beings to behave morally; (3) Human beings have souls that survive death; that is, there is an afterlife; (4) In the afterlife, God will reward moral behavior and punish immoral behavior. So far, so good, I could be a Deist, just like Jefferson, Franklin and Washington.
The four negative elements are: (1) Rejection of all religions based on books that claim to contain the revealed word of God; (2) Rejection of reports of miracles, prophecies and religious "mysteries;" (3) Rejection of the Genesis account of creation and the doctrine of original sin, along with all similar beliefs; (4) Rejection of Judaism, Christianity, Islam and other religious beliefs. Uh Oh. As far as negative elements 1, 2, 3 and 4: No, no, no and no. I reckon I'm not a Deist, after all.
So, what am I? Hard to describe, really. If I had a dollar for everyone that's called me "unique," in the past month, I'd be a wealthy man. When that friend who's running for office told me she intended to hold a solidarity press conference with other minority candidates, I asked, "what about minority group's x, y and z?" She said, "who are you, Noah?" Might that mean I'm an-Ark-ist?
I'm more concerned about civil and human rights for minorities than the unrestricted rights of a majority unconcerned about the consequences of their speech and actions. I love to intellectually engage Scripture and commentaries of every translation and discernment, imagine who might have wrote it, and why; what it meant in its original context, and what ancient and modern interpretators claim it means today. I don't envision a small God carrying a clipboard of rules, like a referee; I locate a divine God of immanence in my heart, the grandeur of nature, and, especially, within the scope of the reason and intelligence with which I've been blessed that allows me to contemplate truth, beauty and a just world. I pray; most prayers have been answered by a God Who listens and responds. I'm at my very best in church, amongst people, who through their example, elevate my behavior so that I understand consequences for good and bad behavior, and make more good conduct choices than bad as a result. I know it's the vilest of sins to create a hell on earth for anyone, like my friend the candidate, the Jewish professor, and that African-American family, despite any other intentions, and that the attainment and enshrinement of dignity, human rights and justice, for all, here and now, is the way of faith, redemption and salvation for humanity. Rather than religious absolutism, I believe this is what the Framers had in mind for the position of an exclusive religion within a pluralistic republic: after all, they were Episcopalians.
Why is it so 'unique,' to believe these things? As written in the materials I've read in preparation to teach the upcoming Sunday school class on the Prophets, it's much easier to describe evil, as they did, then to prophecize what God's Kingdom on earth might resemble. Indeed, that's the most elusive concept of all. I'm all for hate crimes legislation. It's a matter of responsibility over rights; a choice necessary in order to supersede the unchecked rights of a majority inaccurately portrayed as the threatened entity rather than the actual victim.
I note another story this week in the New York Post where a swastika was painted on the door of a Jewish professor at Columbia University which may have been a result of his opposition to the visit on campus by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
In contrast, I read a letter from a lawyer who works at the Rutherford Institute, as well as an article by its founder, John Whitehead, who both argue against the passage of hate crimes legislation by citing the rights of religious people "to take positions and to express them in politics or anywhere else."
The Institute argues, for example, in the case of Matthew Shepherd, that since the murderers are in jail as a result of laws against killing already on the books, there's no need for hate crimes legislation. As I've surfed cable channels recently, I've watched several televangelists exhort their number one priority at this time is halting the passage of hate crimes legislation.
I'll grant murder is a heinous crime despite the reason and there are severe penalties already on the books for this extreme form of violence. Let's return, however, to the crime of the swastika on the door. In that case, do you think it sufficient to charge the perpetrator with vandalism alone? Would that not miss the point of the crime and deleterious example of its prosecution and punishment?
Back in the county where my friend is running for election, there's been a concurrent hate crime that may or may not be related in these ferentic days of politician-driven anger. A noose was tied to a tree in the yard of an African-American family. If the perpetrator is caught and tried, what charge other than a hate crime, could there be? Indeed, perhaps the local police may also have pondered whether there's a penalty for the crime since they've chosen to dismiss the deed as a teenage prank.
Examining the Rutherford article further, I came across, "Despite some differences in theology, the Framers generally agreed that just laws were God-given, absolute and revealed to human beings through Scripture (such as the Ten Commandments), nature and conscience." Further on, he writes, in comparison, "Secularists generally claim human happiness as the sole measure by which to make moral, and thus religious, judgments."
Let's deal with the sly secularist slur first. A quick look-up in the first two dictionaries I reached provided these definitions for secularism: (1) one who is concerned with the interests and welfare of humans; (2) affirms our ability and responsibility to lead meaningful, ethical, lives capable of adding to the greater good of humanity.
Happiness in itself isn't mentioned, let alone, in the not so subtle selfish way Whitehead portrays. It's as if he doesn't recognize humanitarian ethics at all outside of a religious context; therefore if hate crimes legislation, a secular and ethical matter, contrasts with what he discerns as a superior religious mandate, it follows in his logic and advocacy that some violations of civil and human rights are acceptable, protected and incorporated within the freedoms guaranteed to the majority unless otherwise defined in another way as a strictly criminal violation. Hate crimes, defined by self-appointed Constitutional protectionists like Whitehead are not only victimless crimes, despite the emotional toil taken by the Jewish professor and African-American family, they're perpetratorless crimes too, since no offense has been committed; only the non-physical First Amendment came truly under assault.
Concerning the Framers, most historians describe them as Deists rather than religious absolutists. In general, according to Wikipedia, "Deism is a religious philosophy and movement that derives the existence and nature of God from reason and personal experience, in contrast to theism which relies on revelation in sacred scriptures or the testimony of other people. Deists typically tend to assert that God does not interfere with human life and the laws of the universe."
I've wondered from time to time, if I might be one. Deists are defined negatively and positively. The four constructive elements are: (1) God exists and created the Universe; (2) God wants human beings to behave morally; (3) Human beings have souls that survive death; that is, there is an afterlife; (4) In the afterlife, God will reward moral behavior and punish immoral behavior. So far, so good, I could be a Deist, just like Jefferson, Franklin and Washington.
The four negative elements are: (1) Rejection of all religions based on books that claim to contain the revealed word of God; (2) Rejection of reports of miracles, prophecies and religious "mysteries;" (3) Rejection of the Genesis account of creation and the doctrine of original sin, along with all similar beliefs; (4) Rejection of Judaism, Christianity, Islam and other religious beliefs. Uh Oh. As far as negative elements 1, 2, 3 and 4: No, no, no and no. I reckon I'm not a Deist, after all.
So, what am I? Hard to describe, really. If I had a dollar for everyone that's called me "unique," in the past month, I'd be a wealthy man. When that friend who's running for office told me she intended to hold a solidarity press conference with other minority candidates, I asked, "what about minority group's x, y and z?" She said, "who are you, Noah?" Might that mean I'm an-Ark-ist?
I'm more concerned about civil and human rights for minorities than the unrestricted rights of a majority unconcerned about the consequences of their speech and actions. I love to intellectually engage Scripture and commentaries of every translation and discernment, imagine who might have wrote it, and why; what it meant in its original context, and what ancient and modern interpretators claim it means today. I don't envision a small God carrying a clipboard of rules, like a referee; I locate a divine God of immanence in my heart, the grandeur of nature, and, especially, within the scope of the reason and intelligence with which I've been blessed that allows me to contemplate truth, beauty and a just world. I pray; most prayers have been answered by a God Who listens and responds. I'm at my very best in church, amongst people, who through their example, elevate my behavior so that I understand consequences for good and bad behavior, and make more good conduct choices than bad as a result. I know it's the vilest of sins to create a hell on earth for anyone, like my friend the candidate, the Jewish professor, and that African-American family, despite any other intentions, and that the attainment and enshrinement of dignity, human rights and justice, for all, here and now, is the way of faith, redemption and salvation for humanity. Rather than religious absolutism, I believe this is what the Framers had in mind for the position of an exclusive religion within a pluralistic republic: after all, they were Episcopalians.
Why is it so 'unique,' to believe these things? As written in the materials I've read in preparation to teach the upcoming Sunday school class on the Prophets, it's much easier to describe evil, as they did, then to prophecize what God's Kingdom on earth might resemble. Indeed, that's the most elusive concept of all. I'm all for hate crimes legislation. It's a matter of responsibility over rights; a choice necessary in order to supersede the unchecked rights of a majority inaccurately portrayed as the threatened entity rather than the actual victim.
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