December 1, 2012

The role of religion in the election

What role did religion play in the recent political campaign. It seemed far less important than we might have expected. Given the significant slice of the population made up of evangelical Christians, we have been left to wonder what happened to the social issues they had continually raised. While they played a heavy-handed part in the devastating Republican primaries, they all but disappeared in the general campaign. If they were mentioned in the debates or the ads, I missed it. Mitt Romney’s lurch to the center during the last weeks, all but seem to abandon his far right religious constituency. Or did it? My guess is he rightly assumed that their support was already secure, and that the center provided the only fertile electoral ground. But why didn’t the Christian right scream in pain at their abandonment? What happened to their religious fervor?

Until recently, one of our major fears was that these right-wing religionists would take over the GOP. Barry Goldwater once remarked,
“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can‘t and won’t compromise. I know. I’ve tried to deal with them.”

So what happened? One theory is that their power had already passed its “use-by” date.” The evangelicals were already a diminishing contingent in American culture. Billy Graham and Pat Robertson were passé. Jerry Falwell had gone to his reward. The moral majority and its successors were no more. While all that may be true, in the red states,as well as in much of the rest of the county, very conservative Christians still constituted a significant population.

Nevertheless their substantial numbers never left Romney. Why? I believe there is a reason for the silence. I find the clue in the candidacy of a committed Mormon. If most evangelical Christians had formerly been sure of anything, it was that Mormonism was a heresy—probably a non-Christian cult. Five years ago Amy Sullivan, editor of the of the Washington Monthly, wrote,
“Moderate Republicans aren't the ones who could derail a Romney (2008)candidacy. His obstacle is the evangelical base--a voting bloc that now makes up 30 percent of the Republican electorate. It is hard to overestimate the importance of evangelicalism in the modern Republican Party, and it is nearly impossible to overemphasize the problem evangelicals have with Mormonism. Evangelicals don't have the same vague anti-LDS prejudice that some other Americans do. For them it's a doctrinal thing, based on very specific theological disputes. Romney's journalistic boosters either don't understand these doctrinal issues or try to sidestep them. But ignoring them won't make them go away. To evangelicals, Mormonism isn't just another religion. It’s a cult.”

There is no indication that Mitt was abandoned by the evangelicals for doctrinal reasons. They hung with him in spite of his “cultic” identity. Here is my conclusion. For most evangelicals, religion may only be a screen behind which they hide. Their real commitment is to a radically conservative social philosophy. Religion may serve that purpose, but when push comes to shove, right-wing politics trumps religious fervor.

One sees behind this pious screen a substantial dose of racism, classism, xenophobia, nationalism, a trust in guns and their accompanying violence—and a series of other convictions buried in right-wing causes. None of these things naturally flow from the Christian affirmation. These hard right sociological concerns, not Christian faith, may be at the core of the identity of many Christian fundamentalists. So what they knew to be a cultic candidate was simply put aside because he and his Party represented far more important commitments. Religion didn’t really matter.

How conservative Christianity managed to migrate from doctrine to right-wing social theory still puzzles me. But that is a subject for a future post.

November 26, 2012

Hope!

In the Christian calendar, the four Sundays prior to Christmas are celebrated as “Advent.” The word means, coming into place”, or “anticipation.” While each of the Sundays has its own theme, the basic concern of this traditional season is “hope.” Hope is distinguished from optimism, which denotes only a happy attitude no matter what is happening.

Hope is what the slaves held onto when they sang, “Sweet low sweet chariot, comin for to carry me home”—meaning the underground railroad. Their hope was that another group of Christians, basically in the north, were not like their masters who also claimed to be followers of Jesus. That hope held them together until freedom finally came. Hope is the conviction that written into the substance of things is that energy which drives all of creation up through the hard realities. It is not just that things will be all right, but that there is written into the heart of all things an impulse for what is noble. It is what gave life meaning to Anne Frank who wrote, “Despite all that has happened, I still believed in the goodness of people.”

At the funeral of his brother, the great atheistic lecturer Robert Ingersoll said, “hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.” Christians believe that there is that positive impulse which relates everything to everything else, and that there is a benevolent will in all of us—theist and atheist alike—and in all creation. It is that which causes us to reach into the future and being back into the present what we hope for. It is what the prophet Micah said when he held that the day would come when warriors would “beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.“ An early Christian held that there were only three things that held life together---“faith, hope and love.” Whatever your basic convictions are, for me these are enough to hold onto no matter what.

November 12, 2012

What are "Biblical Values"?

Now that the election is over, most of us on DU having worked hard to secure the victory, we can step back and look critically at just what happened—for good and ill. Among the ill is the following.

Billy Graham is a respected evangelical who has helped millions of people turn their lives around. He, however, has gotten into trouble with a proclivity to seek the ear of powerful political figures. His support of Nixon was disastrous for him and for authentic religion. He has also suffered from a constricted notion of Christian ethics, which he has reduced to sexual concerns. The Sunday before the recent election, full-page Graham endorsements appeared in newspapers around the country in which he made both mistakes. They were clearly in support of Romney and aimed at encouraging voters to get behind a variety of fundamentalist candidates. It would be interesting to discover just who put this aged man up to it.

Graham’s point was that voters should support those candidates who hold what he called “Biblical values.” He, or whoever wrote the ad, went on to define that term. It had to do with two sexual issues, abortion and gay marriage.

So how do the Scriptures deal with those matters? The only thing the Bible says about abortion is a formula describing how to produce one! (Numbers chapter 5) As for marriage only being between one man and one woman, the Bible is replete with polygamous references. Solomon, for one, had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines.

The Bible is clear that sexual acts in which the powerful dominate the weak—such as grown men sexually abusing little boys, or men abusing women—is immoral. But there is nothing in all the Bible which condemns relationships based on love between two persons of the same sex. After a long intimate relationship, David says of his friend Jonathan, “your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.” (2 Samuel 1:26)

The notion that morality is just about sex is a misreading of the basic thrust of the biblical imperative.

Caring for the poor—that’s a Biblical value.
Feeding the hungry—that’s a Biblical value.
Welcoming the stranger—that’s a Biblical value.
Taking in the left out—that’s a Biblical value.
Forgiving one’s enemies—that’s a Biblical value.
Making Peace—that’s a Biblical value.
Insuring justice for the oppressed—that’s a Biblical value.
Leveling the economic playing field—that’s a Biblical value.
Freeing prisoners—that’s a Biblical value.
Sharing resources—that’s a Biblical value.
Caring for the earth—that’s a Biblical value.
Faithful relationships—that’s a Biblical value.
Joyful sexuality—that’s a Biblical value.
Living healthy lives—that’s a Biblical value.
Offering tribute to Caesar and to God—that’s a Biblical value.
And much more.

To reduce Biblical morality to certain sexual matters is a serious distortion of what historically religions have held to be important. The larger notion of what makes for faithful living is detailed throughout the Biblical witness. There is no better statement than the way Jesus identified the substance of the commandments. Love God and love one another. It is even more explicit in his first sermon, as he outlined the nature of his ministry.

“The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has send me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free and to proclaim that this is the hour God has chosen.”
(Luke 4:18-19)

Religion at its best is always joined by the non-religious who have similar notions of what is right and good. This ethic is written in the hearts and minds of all those who seek the common good—religious and non-religious alike. For all the good Billy Graham might have done, he and fundamentalists like him have missed what value-based life is all about. And the ethical heart of the Bible provides a sound basis for faithful value-based living.

October 21, 2012

I haven't posted or replied for a while.

For the next weeks my attention is rivited in doing what I can to avert a tragedy.
What is at stake? The right of gays to marry. The Justices to be selected in the coming years.The protection of the environment, Social Security, Medicare and Medicare-- and a couple dozen other things. That is where all my time and energy is going. The substance of my religion demands that I put these issues first. You may have other motives. This is mine. Several thousand a week read my column. Whether they make any difference I cannot judge. But I will do what I can. If you care to read what I write, here is my column for next week.


POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS IN THIS ELECTION WHICH WILL AFFECT OUR GREAT-GRANDCHILDREN. (10/24)

For a month I have been suggesting the kind of nation and world we want for our great-grandchildren. In the first two columns I suggested a sustainable environment, and a safe peaceful international community. The next column summarized responses to my original question. Then there surfaced the notion that a generative society is one in which there are communities of people who have each other’s backs.

These issues are not just polite matters of discussion. They reveal what a living community might envision as its fundamental goals. Here lie political implications critically important in the coming election. The questions can be clearly put. What kind of social order do we want in the United States, and how will the results of the election make a difference? Will the effect of global warning, which threatens the survival of the planet, be a major concern? Will we live in a less dangerous world, or will the reinstigation of a deadly nuclear arms race dominate both nations and their economies? Will universal health care become a more likely outcome? Will the current trickle-down economic philosophy yield to a more utilitarian perspective—what is the greatest good for the greatest number? Will we increasingly become safe-guarders of our brothers and our sisters?

The core issue is whether we are increasingly a society whose major focus is a persistent individualism in which the economic struggle to the top dwarfs all other social postures, or a social order in which we are all in this together as we seek the common good? Is American society destined to revert to no more than a collection of entrepreneurs who may occupy the same space as the rest of us, but are only committed to the self? Or are we a band of common partners protecting each other’s backs?

Perhaps we must dig through all the political rhetoric, the clever 30 second ads, the hundreds of millions poured into negative depictions, the stump speeches and debate performances to discover how our votes will influence the direction the nation will take.

When you sift through all the rhetoric, it is increasingly clear that if the Republican candidates do not use Ayn Rand’s point of view as a textbook, they and their party are committed to the substance of her philosophy. No better example can be found than Mitt Romney’s leadership of Bain Capital. These equity firms have one simple objective. It is not to create jobs. It is to find ways for the very rich to become even richer. It is also clear that tax cuts for the super rich are not geared to encourage small businessmen and women to hire more workers, but to facilitate the gushing up of America’s wealth. The pledge to do away with Obamacare is not based on a concern for the national deficit, but on a clear objection to anything approaching universal health insurance. The plan to turn Medicare into a voucher system is not to improve coverage, but to throw millions of people who will hit retirement in ten years to the wolves of the stock-market and the voracious appetites of the insurance industry. Gutting Medicaid, and seriously reducing funds for research and development are not proposed to save money, but to inhibit the government from moving the nation ahead. Telling students who need education loans to get them from their parents, is just cruel.

Those who hold that this election will decide the direction of the nation for decades to come are not just throwing out another political slogan. They are rather pointing to a crossroads in the nation’s journey.

While many have strong objections to some of Obama’s policies—the drone war for instance—giving in to the temptation to sit this one out is irresponsible. Not to vote is to vote without considering the alternative! All politics and politicians are flawed. But the best hope for America is the continuation of a society in which we have each other’s backs.
Charles Bayer
[email protected]





Sewew you when the election is over.

October 1, 2012

Why is there evil and suffering?

The basic philosophical question is “why is there something and not nothing?”
The basic theological question is, “why is there evil, and how is God implicated?”
The dilemma goes like this:
If God is good he would will to stop evil.
If God is powerful he would be able to stop evil.
Evil exist, and therefore God is either not good or not powerful.

Theologians and many others have struggled unsuccessfully with that issue for centuries.
Some of the inadequate or partial answers:
Human ignorance.
Human sin.
Human freewill—as God stepped back
The fall of Adam. (“I have sinned,” said Adam originally.)
Human failure to prevent suffering (allowing people to starve by a failure to share food).
God is testing us to make us stronger.
God is the author of evil as well as good.
There is no evil outside our inaccurate perception.
All things will eventually turn out for good.
We continually violate God natural laws.

And there are others

The difficulty with all these answers lies in the notion that God is a big, powerful person who lives somewhere in the sky and controls what goes on here like a puppeteer who manipulates the strings of his dolls. We even refer to God as “he.” Perhaps God is not a super man, a grand King or a benevolent parent. What if God is that energy which enlivens all that is, which lures creation on, and is the creative power, which simply enlivens all creation? This does not suggest a pantheism in which God is the creation itself, but a panentheism in which God is within all creation as its source of energy. Thus God suffers with us—as a fellow sufferer. In Christian theology, that is the meaning of the cross. God therefore not only wills to overcome suffering and evil, but also is at work within everything to refine all of life. Thus all things are in a continual state of evolution, and the energy behind evolution is the evidence of God with us.

Modern theology is rapidly getting rid of this sky wizard notion of God, and increasingly seeing God as Doing and not Being. God is best understood as a verb, not a noun. Religion becomes, therefore, our human participation in all the creative processes of life, not a belief in someone up there.

If we are to have an intelligent conversation about science, we had better come to terms with the amazing new insights of modern scientists. If we are going to have an intelligent conversation about religion we had better come to terms with the amazing new insights of modern theologians. If the only thing I know about science comes from the dark ages, my ignorance would immediately be obvious.

September 24, 2012

"You will know them by their friuts"

Here are a few things I know about first hand and are not simply speculative or made up.

Question: A family faces hard times. The mother is a part-time house cleaner who earns less than minimum wage. The father hasn’t had a job for a year. In almost every community in the United States where can they go for some help for groceries?

Answer: Groups of churches have banded together to provide food supplies. In the community where I live, churches care for several hundred families every week. Most of the food is collected weekly from congregations. Nothing is sold.

Question: Children in scores of families are ashamed to go to school because they have no decent clothes. Where are clothes outlets where they can be cared for?

Answer: In every community I know anything about, churches or a collection of churches provide good clothing that is given away to anyone in need.

Question: Skid Rows across the nation are the homes for thousands of the forgotten. Where can these desperate people find a safe place to sleep?

Answer: in most of these communities the Salvation Army—a religious organization—as well as other church sponsored bodies offer places to escape the tyranny of the streets. In most cases there is no religious test and no compulsory church service.

Question: In blighted neighborhoods poor people are at the mercy of slumlords. Who offers the legal services necessary for them to secure their rights?

Answer: In the city I know best the poverty law center provides attorneys ready to advocate for the defenseless. This center was begun by a devout Catholic woman, herself an attorney.

Question: Where can the nobodies in our city find basic medical care?

Answer: The same organization that offers legal help now is staffed by a score of newly licensed MDs who want to work with the poor but cannot afford to do so because of medical school debts. This religious organization pays their educational expenses and offers placements in a series of clinics in the toughest parts of the city.

Question: What is the most effective organization working to free young men and women from the gangs?

Answer: It is called “Home Boy Industries” which was begun and is still led by a catholic priest.

This just a small sample of what is happening all across the country.
If we judge people by what they do, perhaps we need to celebrate and thank these and a multitude of other religious groups for their dedication. None of these groups use what they do for recruitment or doctrinal sales-pitches, but just because their faith demands compassionate action.

I don’t know what the non-religious do, but I would be wide-open to celebrating a similar list.

September 15, 2012

Religion--just like the rest of life, rests on things that cannot be "proved.

There are many things whose existence can be taken into a laboratory and “proved.”
There are other things that cannot be thusly “proved,” and therefore are said by some not to exist. And yet we all live with trust that both categories are essential. The belief that only the first, scientific, category has validity, is the dark side of a “scientism” which flows from absolutizing the Enlightenment.

Here are a few of the things we all—or at least most of us—believe by faith.

Life—my life—has meaning.
There are those we admire who live beautiful lives.
Every human must have some purpose which is a guiding principle for action.
Occasionally we are encountered by some vision, experience, notion before which we bow in awe.
Most of the values which make life meaningful cannot be “proved” as existing.
To live without hope is to live in despair, therefore we must live in hope.
To trust anyone or anything is to live by faith.
The universe has a built-in struggle for refinement. In science we call it evolution. In philosophy we call it the élan vital.
A hunger to be accepted means we long for some human relationship.
There is a spiritual hunger build into most of our lives. There is that to which we can only point that gives meaning and hope.
We live by affirming that behind all value is that reality which has lured people in every culture and time.
Most of life involves believing things we cannot see, let alone prove.
This beyondness is the core and instigator of religion and thus the quest for God, whose existence—like all these other things—cannot be proved.

September 14, 2012

Hawking and the theory of everything

Stephen Hawking embodies probably the most respected scientific-philosophical perspective of anyone alive. Despite his ravaged body, his mind has never stopped generating approaches to the greatest of all Mysteries, which is “a theory of everything.” He has been claimed by both theists and atheists as representing their quite divergent positions. He deliberately comes down in neither camp. That probably means he is on to something.

While never claiming any particular religious conviction, Hawking continually uses the word GOD, which stands for one of his core affirmations. As far back as 1988 he posited that to come up with a theory explaining everything is to “know the mind of God.” God is not just a throwaway clever word. He defined God as “the embodiment of all the laws of physics,” This comes very close to the increasingly popular “process theology” which is now near the center of America’s great seminaries.

Science begins with questions, and hopes to discover clues to ways of approaching the thus far unanswerable. Religion seeks to hear those same clues. One cannot find in Hawking absolutist positions even on God’s existence or non-existence. Fundamentalists in both theistic and atheistic camps, who make claims to the contrary, are simply parading their arrogance. Hawking looks at the universe and suggests that there are ultimate questions that at this point can neither rule God in or rule God out. Not a bad way to approach the great Mystery which lies at the heart of everything.

September 5, 2012

Religious liberals are increasingly concerned about the slaughter of Americans by firearms.

Several weeks back we were met with the spectacle of a seriously disoriented young man who easily purchased an assault weapon with a 100-bullet clip. Every year thousands of Americans are shot with legally purchased guns. Why anybody outside a war zone needs an assault weapon boggles the mind. Any number of them can be picked up on the Internet or in gun shows. Consider the suggestion that if those in that theater audience had been equally armed, the slaughter would have been prevented. Really? Thousands of bullets whizzing around a closed theater is hardly a sane scenario. The recent shooting in New York resulted in the death of the culprit and the wounding of nine bystanders---all from police bullet fragments!!

If the gun control issue is to be seriously addressed, who is going to do it? While the issue is buried somewhere in the Democratic platform, only Dianne Feinstein has been willing to raise as much as a whisper. How come? The Republicans are cuddled up with the NRA, the Democrats are scared to death of this organization, and the majority of Americans don’t seem to care.

Increasingly the liberal church is taking up the issue. Recent articles in The Christian Century (the widest read ecumenical journal), America (a national forum produced by the Jesuits), Christianity Today (a widely read evangelical publication) and a series of releases by Religion News Service have brought the matter to the attention of millions of America’s religionists. The Jesuit, Fr. James Martin, calls gun control “a pro-life issue.” Fr Frank Pavone, head of “Priests for Life” has said, “Anyone concerned about protecting human life has to be concerned about the misuse of guns.”

Other than these faint efforts coming from the religious left, where else is there much active concern? What non-religious groups, or even prominent persons are taking it up? In the meantime we will continue to see thousands of Americans gunned down every year—five times more firearm deaths than in the rest of the world put together.

September 3, 2012

A significant slice of American religion has always been and is now dedicate to peace

Foremost are historic "peace churches" such as The Church of the Brethren, Quakers and Mennonites.

In addition, the ecumenical councils that represent the broad scope of main-line Christianity, have been deeply involved in the anti-war movement. Over the years, any significant peace protest has seen deeply embedded in it a preponderance of those there for religious reasons, joining those of non-religious persuasions as colleagues in the effort.

At the opening of our Democratic Campaign headquarters this afternoon, almost one half of the crowd were probably in some church this morning.

Every Friday afternoon since the beginning of the Afghanistan war, a score of religiously motivated people have stood with protest signs at a major intersection near us.

Many denominations have long-since issued statements against war and have backed up these statements with action. Here is one from a major denomination issued in 1936.


"We believe war to be morally and ethically wrong and a direct contradiction to the teachings of Jesus Christ. We therefore disassociate ourselves from the war system and serve notice upon all whom it may concern that we will not support future wars not will we as a religious body permit our co-operative agencies to be used either directly or indirectly for such purpose."
-1936 Disciples of Christ International Convention held in Kansas City-

To call for the prohibition of religion in public life--in this case war and violence--would be to seriously injure the peace movement and violate the "free exercise" clause of the First Amendment.