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October 28, 2005
Rosa Parks, Progressive Christian Activist
Posted by Faithful Progressive
When Rosa Parks, the beloved mother of the civil rights movement, died this week universal praise and honor was bestowed on her. She was a woman Time magazine ranked as one of the 100 Most Influential of the 20th Century. Unfortunately, we still heard some of the same myths that serve to at once to belittle her achievement and to misinform those who would follow her path as a Christian peacemaker. I heard at least three TV tributes that used the fairy tale that she was just a tired little old lady who didn't want to stand up on that fateful day in Montgomery when she sparked the civil rights movement. Ms. Parks herself hated this version of her story, commenting, "The only tired I was, was tired of giving in...I knew someone had to take the first step and I made up my mind not to move. Our mistreatment was just not right, and I was tired of it." As the poet Rita Dove writes in the Time tribute, "Parks was 42 years old when she refused to give up her seat. She has insisted that her feet were not aching; she was, by her own testimony, no more tired than usual. And she did not plan her fateful act: "I did not get on the bus to get arrested," she has said. "I got on the bus to go home."
The real story of Rosa Parks is far more interesting and perhaps more threatening to the staus quo and the powers that be: she was a progressive Christian Activist. This was true both before and after she led the Montgomery Bus Boycott. According to historian Douglas Brinkley, by "...1955 she was already a veteran civil rights activist, married to a charter member of the NAACP's Montgomery chapter, and a devout member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the many black churches whose congregants organized and fought to desegregate the South.”
According to this profile in the Academy of Achievement: "The couple joined the local chapter of the NAACP and worked quietly for many years to improve the lot of African-Americans in the segregated south. "I worked on numerous cases with the NAACP," Mrs. Parks recalled, "but we did not get the publicity. There were cases of flogging, peonage, murder, and rape. We didn't seem to have too many successes. It was more a matter of trying to challenge the powers that be, and to let it be known that we did not wish to continue being second-class citizens."
Rita Dove writes that Ms. Parks was the ideal candidate to change this status: "At the news of the arrest, local civil rights leader E.D. Nixon exclaimed, "My God, look what segregation has put in my hands!" Parks was not only above moral reproach (securely married, reasonably employed) but possessed a quiet fortitude as well as political savvy — in short, she was the ideal plaintiff for a test case."
The rest, is of course, history. The Academy article continues, "The bus incident led to the formation of the Montgomery Improvement Association, led by the young pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The association called for a boycott of the city-owned bus company. The boycott lasted 382 days and brought Mrs. Parks, Dr. King, and their cause to the attention of the world. A Supreme Court Decision struck down the Montgomery ordinance under which Mrs. Parks had been fined, and outlawed racial segregation on public transportation."
Still, we cling to the fairy tale of the tired little old lady, rather than the engaged Christian activist with deep roots in her church and in the NAACP. Why? Some of us want to believe that change comes easier than it really does. There were no doubt many boring meetings and organizational efforts prior to that fateful day on a bus--and these laid the groundwork for what came from it. When the time came, people were organized and developed a very specific agenda: the legal challenge and the Bus Boycott. Rosa Parks was not just a tired and dignified old lady, she was a progressive Christian activist whose faith led her to move mountains. God bless you, Rosa Parks, and thank-you for a lifetime of steady effort to make the world a place more worthy of God's unending love.
• Saturday: Parks' body will lie in state at her church, St. Paul AME in Montgomery, Ala.
• Sunday: 10:30 a.m. service at St. Paul AME; the casket then will be flown to Washington, D.C.
• Sunday: Parks' body will lie in state at the Lincoln Memorial from 6 p.m. to midnight.
• Monday: Memorial service at 1 p.m. at the Historical AME Church. Then the casket will travel back to Detroit. The body will lie in state at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History from 9 p.m. Monday to 5 a.m. Wednesday.
• Wednesday: 11 a.m. funeral at Greater Grace Temple, Detroit.
Posted by Faithful Progressive at 02:37 PM | Comments (3)
October 27, 2005
Responding to Intelligent Design
Posted by Jesus Politics
Frederick Clarkson links to a remarkable speech where Cornell University's interim president challenges the Christian Right's misguided obsession with intelligent design. Some quotes:
This morning, though, I want to address a matter of great significance to Cornell and to the country as a whole, a matter with fundamental educational, intellectual, and political implications. This matter has become so urgent that I feel it imperative to make it the central subject of my State of the University Address on Trustee-Council Weekend.
The issue in question is the challenge to science posed by religiously-based opposition to evolution, described, in its current form, as “intelligent design.” This controversy raises profound questions about the nature of public discourse and what we teach in universities, and it has a profound effect on public policy.
Now, with the well-organized, resolute intelligent design movement, the issue is back again. What adds urgency to this iteration of the dispute is the fact that this country is so polarized, both culturally and politically. When we divide ourselves into “Red States” and “Blue States”; into the people who watch Fox News and those who watch PBS; into “people of faith” and “secular humanists,” when ciphers substitute for nuanced ideas, is it any wonder that this debate now concerns matters as fundamental as what we teach in our primary and secondary schools, what academic standards universities require, and what rhetoric candidates adopt in political races? When ideological division replaces informed exchange, dogma is the result and education suffers.
And if we are honest, we have to admit that many of us in universities have contributed to the polarization that afflicts the country as a whole. President Emeritus Frank Rhodes, writing in 1982 at the height of the “creationism” debates, noted that “both fundamentalist advocates and some popular scientists claim an extension of their area of authority which is logically illegitimate. The fundamentalists offer an old doctrine of scriptural infallibility, improperly disguised as science; the scientists offer an old doctrine of materialism, equally improperly disguised as science…. Each, in its increasingly intemperate pronouncements, is guilty of intellectual imperialism.”
Today, as Glenn Altschuler, Cornell’s Litwin Professor of American Studies, has noted, we continue to have scientific imperialists who believe that only science can be looked to for answers to all answerable questions and that those areas where science cannot provide answers are unimportant. And we have religious imperialists who assert that all questions are appropriately directed to faith-based sources for answers.
What about including I.D. in public policy discourse? After all, it is an important view of the world shared by many Americans. Many religiously-based views enter the public arena and inform our policy debates, and they should. Religiously-derived arguments, in my view, must bear two burdens: they must be clearly identified as such, that is, as propositions of faith; and, in acknowledging that others do not share these propositions of faith, they must be supported by other arguments.
When religion moves beyond the private realm and into the public square, it must do so with great care; otherwise, it creates serious potential dangers to the civic polity and to religion itself. That is why James Madison, the author of the First Amendment, was at such pains throughout his long public life to separate church and state.
In essence, Madison argued that government must be extremely cautious in employing religion as an instrument of civil policy. I.D. is a religious belief masquerading as a secular idea. It is neither clearly identified as a proposition of faith nor supported by other rationally-based arguments.
I am convinced that the political movement seeking to inject religion into state policy and our schools is serious enough to require our collective time and attention.
Posted by Jesus Politics at 09:01 AM | Comments (43)
Another Sad Milestone
Posted by Fresh Politics
Tuesday was the 2,000th U.S. Death in Iraq – another sad milestone that has come and gone since we invaded Iraq in 2003. I read about some local troops who died in this morning's paper. A 20 year old who entered the Army to be able to afford college; a 22 year old with the same goal. A man who never met his twin children. Another described as a “gentle soul” by his mother. So many lives with so many touching stories and so many tears shed over their passing.
And for what exactly? There were people who were inspired to join the military after September 11th to protect and defend this country against those who attacked it. No weapons of mass destruction were found. Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the September 11th attacks, despite President Bush and Vice President Cheney making carefully timed references to the two in an attempt to make it appear that way. There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator, and I am not sad to see him in custody and preparing for trial, but this Administration dropped the ball when we went after the “easier” target, Iraq, instead of Al Qaeda. When the neo-cons were pitching our invasion of Iraq, they sold it with imagery of being greeted as liberators, of Iraqis welcoming our troops with candy and flowers. Instead our soldiers got rocket propelled grenades and roadside bombs. And worst of all, we've created a breeding ground for terrorism in war-ravaged Iraq.
This administration has said that we need to finish what we started, and I've read soldiers say the same thing. But do we even know what it means to “finish” this ordeal? To me, it means getting Iraq stable enough so we can get our troops out and they can run their own country their way. To this administration, it may mean getting corporations like Bechtel safely established so it is well protected after our presence fades. There can be no meaningful debate about pulling out of Iraq until we figure out what our goal is. At this point, we seem to be trudging along with no clear objective except not to let things get more chaotic.
Film footage of people parading around with purple thumbs is simply not enough. While significant milestones, the trumpeting of the elections or the vote on the Constitution cannot undo the damage inflicted on the country and the people. We owe the Iraqi people some stability before we leave, but we owe it to our troops to make a plan to leave and stick to it. 2,000 American lives and dreams have been lost, and families destroyed. 2,000 more should not perish simply to maintain the status quo.
Posted by Fresh Politics at 02:53 AM | Comments (1)
October 25, 2005
NCC: "Proposed Budget Cuts Sinful"
Posted by Father Jake
From the Washington Post:
House Republican leaders have moved from balking at big cuts in Medicaid and other programs to embracing them, driven by pent-up anger from fiscal conservatives concerned about runaway spending and the leadership's own weakening hold on power.
Beginning this week, the House GOP lawmakers will take steps to cut as much as $50 billion from the fiscal 2006 budget for health care for the poor, food stamps and farm supports, as well as considering across-the-board cuts in other programs. Only last month, then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Tex.) and other GOP leaders quashed demands within their party for budget cuts to pay for the soaring cost of hurricane relief...
You can view the details of the proposed cuts here.
Here is an excerpt from the response to these proposed cuts by the Center for American Progress:
...Spending cuts should strike first and foremost at the corporate subsidies and congressional earmarks that have been the hallmark of the last four years. While President Bush has not vetoed a spending or tax cut bill since he became president, he has enacted historic giveaways to drug, energy, and any number of other corporations. At the same time, earmarking has reached historic heights.
The victimization of the Gulf Coast’s poor by Katrina cannot become an excuse to victimize the rest of America’s poor through budget cuts. The Republican Study Committee’s proposals, among others, to cut Medicaid by $225 billion, to increase Medicare premiums by $85 billion, and to cut $4.5 billion from rural economic development would visit a second hurricane on poor people across America...
The National Council of Churches has also responded the Republican Study Committee's proposals. Here is a portion of the letter they sent to the Senate:
...We watched as members of Congress vowed to help rebuild the Gulf Coast. We heard our representatives promise to make helping those affected by hurricanes Katrina and Rita a national priority. Yet despite those pledges, members of Congress now stand ready to cut $50 billion in essential programs that help those in need, while maintaining excessive tax cuts that help only the wealthy. The hurricanes were a natural disaster. But this proposed budget reconciliation would be a moral disaster of monumental proportion—and it is one that can be avoided.
The role of government is to protect its people and work for the common good. This is not the time for the budget reconciliation process to create greater hardships for those who are already experiencing great suffering.
To do so is not only unjust; it is a sin. It violates all the fundamental Christian principles of loving thy neighbor, caring for the poor, and showing mercy. As religious leaders, this violation is unacceptable to us...
We are called to be the advocates, to be the voice, of those who will suffer because of greed and injustice. My brothers and sisters in Christ, it is time to speak out. Call your local press. Contact your elected representatives. Let us work together to prevent this moral disaster.
Posted by Father Jake at 08:13 PM | Comments (2)
October 24, 2005
Quick! Let's Find Another Country to Invade!
Posted by Public Theologian
As the Bush Administration gets closer to imploding under the weight of its own misdeeds, watch for a change in subject in order to get the American public’s mind off of the scandal. Since Karl and Scooter are busy conferring with their lawyers about how much time they are going to do, as well as with Martha Stewart on what pillow shams coordinate best with orange jumpsuits, they simply cannot devote the time to helping the President find his way forward out of this mess, so I thought I would offer a bit of advice.
In other times the White House might turn to the Congress which it controls, or the courts, which it controls, in order to get someone to throw it a lifeline. But with the House Majority Leader under indictment and the Senate Majority Leader under investigation, those folks have enough on their plates trying to save their own careers. And with Harriet Miers’ nomination dead in the water, there isn’t going to be a ray of sunshine coming from that branch of government anytime soon either.
My advice is simply the same advice my old high school basketball coach used to give us whenever we faced a team in a tournament that was bigger and faster than we were: You gotta dance with the one that got you there. In other words, just because you face adversity, it doesn’t mean you have to change your game. Do what you have always done best and play to your strength—it’s the best way to face your troubles and have a chance at success. So that is my advice to the President in this, his hour of greatest difficulty. What we need is to feel afraid again, so that the President can show us by contrast what a fearless leader he is in the face of threats to our national security. What we need in short, if this Presidency is to be salvaged in that most important category obsessed over by lame ducks of every party, i.e. its legacy, then we’re simply going to have to pick another Middle Eastern country to invade. And why not? This was what sustained the President through the stealing of an election, record budget deficits, tortured prisoners and the wearing of an ear piece in a Presidential debate, so why shouldn’t it work now? Raising the specter of impending disaster and the imminent need for military action can be very politically rewarding, as the President himself well knows. No incumbent President has ever been defeated for re-election during wartime, and neither has any one been impeached either. That statistic should give the President a glimmer of hope.
Actually, I think that the President has already realized that this is his only shot at rehabbing his tenure. When the UN report came out last week concluding that the Syrians had engineered the assassination of a Lebanese leader earlier this year, the President began the saber rattling in Syria’s direction. His buddy Tony Blair, also under a lot of pressure at home, has been rattling his saber in the direction of Iran, whose nuclear ambitions are placing it at odds with the west. Now both of these situations are legitimate foreign policy concerns but some weak-kneed members of the government who don’t care about the President’s legacy have pointed out that there are particular problems with the use of force in handling Iran and Syria, the main ones being that we have no military to do either job and the rest of the Muslim world has never held us in lower regard and would likely only step up insurgent attacks in Iraq.
But these details should not deter the President. It does not really matter whether we win in Iran or Syria (or Iraq for that matter). What matters is, for purposes of domestic consumption, i.e. the nightly news, that the President project an aura of power and invincibility, showing all of us who cower in fear in our ranch-style homes at the thought of the Muslim menace that he has matters under control, that, as on 911, he’s still talking into “the bullhorn of freedom” and that, with his arm draped around first responders, he can be counted on to strike the right pose and say the most outlandishly menacing phrase against the enemy (e.g. “bring ‘em on”) in order to soothe the anxious hearts of Americans.
A wave of cruise missiles, a few hundred sorties off the carriers in the Gulf, some carpet bombings from B-52s on Diego Garcia, and a few dozen tanks rolling through the desert towards Damascus will take Patrick Fitzgerald and his trumped up charges off the front pages of America’s papers before next Sunday’s talk shows. Come to think of it, this could happen even faster if he would give Judy Miller of the New York Times an exclusive.
Posted by Public Theologian at 01:51 AM | Comments (22)
October 21, 2005
The Pendulum Swings: Beyond Indictments, a New Movement Wins Key Battles
Posted by Faithful Progressive
When the history of this era is written, this will go down as the week when the corrupt, cynical and incompetent powers-that-be finally started to lose their grip on Washington. Further, they may even have lost the ability to spin and lie their way out of trouble. (This AP headline and story said it all: Blaming Media in Leak Case Not Working) Three events stand out in a seminal week that may have marked the end of an era.
1.) That symbol of both Congressional corruption and of a cynical and disturbingly dark vision of Christianity, former House leader Tom Delay, was indicted.2.) Spin-kaiser Karl Rove and Cheney strong-man Scooter Libby were officially advised that they were in jeopardy of indictment and prosecution. As Friday's NY Times reports: Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby have been advised that they may be in serious legal jeopardy, the lawyers said, but only this week has Mr. Fitzgerald begun to narrow the possible charges.3.) Perhaps most telling of all, a new coalition of 750 religious, labor, justice, and other human needs groups succeeded in putting enough moral pressure on the House leadership that they first backed away from 674 million in proposed cuts to food stamps. Later, after receiving more than 43,000 phone calls and more than 100,000 e-mails this week condemning the prospect, the House failed to garner enough votes to pass a particularly mean-spirited effort to reduce services to the poor by 55 billion dollars.
This last may be the most significant development of all--though it was no doubt the least-noticed. Opponents of cuts to the poor awoke with passionate, concerted action and addressed the issue in moral and ethical terms that won the argument. Religious groups were instrumental, and both the National and the Wisconsin Christian Alliance for Progress were a big part of this effort. The national group was among the 750 endorsers of the Coalition on Human Needs statement, and it urged action and calls on this website. No doubt many of you called and e-mailed Congress this week.
Prior to this week, our Wisconsin Chapter focused on the food stamp issue, as did numerous other religious action and advocacy groups. We published letters to the editor opposing food stamps cuts in scores of newspapers, and also made hundreds of e-mails and calls. People noticed our efforts and it sparked an interest in our group and its work. The director of the Lutheran Office for Public Policy in Wisconsin wrote to tell us that, "The letter to the editor in last Saturday's WSJ on Food Stamp authorization was very well-informed and timely...A progressive religious action network is very refreshing and I hope that we will be in touch." We gained an important potential new member by being involved and visible and focusing on a single issue in a timely manner.
Here's another e-mail that was received by both national and local CAfP leaders that helps explain just what you all helped accomplished this week and were we go from here:
Today, the U.S. House of Representatives is not voting on increasing cuts in vital services from $35 billion to $50 billion.
They didn't have the votes, so the House leadership pulled it from the floor.
THANK YOU for your calls, letters, participation in events, letters to the editor, and so much more.Our work together is making a difference.
We hope you've heard about the other victories your work has created: NO Food Stamp cuts by the Senate Agriculture Committee, and the inability of the House to agree on across-the-board cuts that would affect almost every domestic program.
We haven't gotten the reports from all the many groups that sponsored toll-free calls, but just two - American Friends Service Committee and Moveon.org - generated more than 43,500 calls! And as of last night, Moveon reported that their folks also sent 104,000 emails to members of Congress. We know you joined with others to make those calls and send those emails - THANKS!
It's not over. Next week, the House will try again to vote on a package of wrong-priority cuts that would hit almost every program we care about. And with or without this vote, there have been reports that the House Ways and Means Committee will make cuts drastically deeper than the $1 billion they were instructed to make - maybe $8 billion or so. House Ways and Means has jurisdiction over Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Supplemental Security Income (SSI - for poor elderly and disabled), foster care, child care, child support enforcement, unemployment insurance, and the Earned Income Tax Credit. We've also heard that the House Agriculture Committee will consider substantial cuts to the Food Stamps program. And we know that the House Energy and Commerce Committee is still working on Medicaid cuts. Cutting these services to pay for tax cuts is an outrage.
Our Things to Do list for the near term:
1: Bask - everyone deserves a good bask in our shared victories so far.
2. Next week - members of the House Ways and Means, Agriculture, and Energy and Commerce Committees need to hear from their constituents. Here are links to lists of those members:
House Ways and Means Committee: House Agriculture Committee:
House Energy and Commerce Committee:
If you or your networks are in their districts, they really need to hear from you. We'll send something out more specific next week.
So - feel great about what you've done! Rest up! But don't let up - we really can stop these dangerous cuts.
Gratefully,
Debbie Weinstein,
Together, we can accomplish a lot and win many more battles, large and small.
Posted by Faithful Progressive at 05:51 AM | Comments (5)
October 20, 2005
The Evangelical Ethic and the Spirit of Neo-Imperialism
Posted by Jesus Politics
About a year ago, Hugh Urban wrote an insightful article examining the similarities between Tim LaHaye's Left Behind series and president Bush's foreign policy. His comparison remains relevant and hopefully will inspire others to study in more detail the links between our current government and the Christian Right.
Some quotes from Urban's article:
As a professor of comparative religion and cultural studies, I have long been fascinated by the strange intersections between religion, politics and popular culture. One of the most striking such intersections occurred to me this summer as I sat down to read the twelfth and last volume of the wildly popular Left Behind series by evangelical preacher Tim LaHaye and novelist Jerry Jenkins.
For those who haven't yet had a chance to read any of LaHaye and Jenkin's series, the story is basically an evangelical interpretation of the Book of Revelation set in the context of contemporary global politics: the Rapture has taken place, the Antichrist has taken control of the U.N. and created a single global economy, while a small group of American-led believers battles the forces of evil in a showdown in Jerusalem.
At the same time that I was immersed in this entertaining mixture of Stephen King-esque thrills and fundamentalist rhetoric, I had also been reading much of the recent literature on the Neoconservative movement and its powerful role in the Bush administration. As Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke have persuasively argued in their recent study, America Alone, the election of George W. Bush and the confusion following 9/11 allowed a small but radical group of intellectuals to seize the reins of U.S. foreign policy. Led by figures like Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and the members of the Project for a New American Century, the Neocons have been able to put into effect a long-held plan for asserting a U.S. global hegemony, in large part by dominating the Middle East and its oil resources.
The two narratives that I was reading here -- the Neocon's aggressive foreign policy, centered around the Middle East, and the Christian evangelical story of the immanent return of Christ in the Holy Land-- struck me as weirdly similar and disturbingly parallel. The former openly advocates a "New American Century" and a "benevolent hegemony" of the globe by U.S. power, inaugurated by the invasion of Iraq, while the latter predicts a New Millennium of divine rule ushered in by apocalyptic war, first in Babylon and then in Jerusalem.
So what are we to make of the strange parallels between this popular series of evangelical fiction and this aggressive Neoconservative strategy for American hegemony? On the one hand, we have the wondrous vision of a New Millennium established after a small American-led group fights against the global forces of the Antichrist in the Holy Land; on the other, we have the bold vision of a New American Century established after American unilateral military force defeats the Axis of Evil and asserts its benevolent hegemony in the Middle East. But how are these two narratives related? Is it a plot hatched secretly in one of LaHaye's Council for National Policy meetings? A coded message woven subliminally into the Left Behind books themselves?
Probably not. Instead, I think this connection is not so much an explicit or even necessarily intentional link, but rather a subtle yet powerful kind of "elective affinity," in Weber's sense of the phrase. As Weber argued in his classic work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, it is not simply the case that Protestant Christianity caused the rise of early modern capitalism, or vice-versa. Rather, the two shared an affinity that was mutually beneficial and reinforcing.
So too, I would suggest, there is a fit or affinity between the evangelical vision of the New Millennium and the Neoconservative ideal of a New American Century. Updating Weber somewhat, we might call this affinity "the Evangelical Ethic and the Spirit of Neo-Imperialism." The Neocons and the Christian Right may not be conspiring together secretly behind the scenes; but they do need each other to promote their respective agendas, and they do have enough similar interests to find common ground in the Prodigal Son, George W. As a relatively empty, unformed "floating signifier," Bush serves as the key link in this elective affinity, the point at which the otherwise conflicting interests of the Neocons and the evangelicals come together in a disturbingly powerful way.
Posted by Jesus Politics at 11:00 PM | Comments (6)
Tempering Indictment Excitement
Posted by Fresh Politics
Republican leaders haven't had a very good time of things lately. There's been President Bush's declining approval numbers, the Hurricane Katrina fiasco, an SEC investigation of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, and Tom DeLay stepping down as House Majority Leader after being indicted on criminal charges in Texas. As the term of the grand jury investigating the Valerie Plame outing moves closer to its October 28th expiration date, the progressive blogosphere and pundits smell blood in the water – the blood of high-level administration officials.
While some may have their champagne on ice, maybe they should re-think their celebratory mood. I admit that I feel some amount of joy at the prospect of someone like Karl Rove being indicted for his role in this reprehensible incident. After watching some of the same Bush apologists carry on investigations into any rumor about Bill Clinton, it's somewhat gratifying to see that the chickens may finally come home to roost. These are people who have totally and completely abused their power and in a political climate that has been slow to hold them accountable, it is refreshing to watch them squirm now.
But thinking beyond that initial reaction, as a person with progressive values, I have to consider the bigger picture. Anyone who either exposed a CIA operative to retaliate against her husband's criticism of the administration's assertion that there were WMDs in Iraq, or obstructed the investigation into the leak, should be held accountable. Still, this is not a victory for progressives. There's a certain glee among some in the progressive world about the indictments expected to come down that seems to be more rooted in an intense hatred of the Bush administration. It's vaguely reminiscent of Clinton's detractors during the Ken Starr investigation, which helped to fuel a process largely opposed by the American public at the time.
Although it is important to hold those who abuse their power accountable, there will always be someone ready to step into the shoes of a Tom DeLay or Karl Rove when one of them falls from power. Pointing out their corruption – and even having that assertion validated by a grand jury – won't change the push to roll back environmental laws or give tax breaks to the Paris Hilton's of the country. There is still a huge war going on – showing the American public that a government that cares more about making corporations happy than helping the poor both eat and heat their homes this winter does not represent American values. While the Plame outing is important and should be covered, progressives should take care not to lose sight of what ultimately matters. I'll save my celebration for when we have leadership in the federal government that prioritizes values that many Americans share. Until then, we should take care to keep our eyes open and the debate going.
Posted by Fresh Politics at 04:17 AM | Comments (5)
October 19, 2005
How Do You Approach the Bible?
Posted by Father Jake
I first read the bible when confined to a bedroom during my elementary years. I loved the stories, and still do. But even at that young age, I understood that most of the heroes of the stories were, at best, "colorful characters."
Abraham was a bit of a scoundrel; giving his wife away to save his tail, and almost murdering his son. As I read the story of Isaac then, and today as well, it seemed obvious that there was something wrong with the man. God told him to kill his son? Serious child abuse going on here; blamed on "just following orders."
I liked his brother Lot even less. He takes the best land, and then remains there when it evolves into some kind of perpetual mardi gras. He offers his daughters to the crowd, to save the angels. And the angels have no problem with this? I sure did. His wife as a pillar of salt was a bit much, but I suppose it set things up for the incestuous scene later on with his daughters. Racey, maybe, but also rather disgusting.
We don't hear much about Isaac, except about his acquiring a foreign wife. Next time he takes the stage, he's an old man. No surprise. If my dad tied me up and offered me as a blood sacrifice to a God only he heard, most likely I'd have a few "issues" that would keep me from doing anything very productive with my life.
Jacob was a much more likeable guy. A thief and a liar, but still likeable. Served him right that he lost the wrestling match because the angel cheated; a kind of karmic justice, if you will. Yet, he is blessed by God. So God likes incorrigible rascals? Ok; nice twist to the story.
Joseph starts out depicted as a goody-two-shoes, but just can't resist making his brothers sweat in the end. A dream interpreter; I thought that kind of thing was verboten? I suppose dabbling in the occult was still considered a cut above the legacy left to him by his crazy great-grandfather, traumatized grandfather and unscrupulous father.
Moses had a mean temper, and it appears a drinking problem as well. And a huge ego. No doubt he needed it to keep those folks together for so long out in the middle of nowhere. He established the law, the ritual, and their form of government. Not too bad for a condemned murderer. The plagues were storytelling at its best. Frogs everywhere...I love it! The best part of the story to me, except for that last one. Killing the oldest son? Being an oldest son myself, that seems way over the top. And the drowning of the Egyptians in the sea; now come on, the story claims that God "hardened" Pharoah's heart. Either God doesn't play fair, or the Israelites need to tighten up their story line.
Joshua comes off pretty well; I even liked the part where he stops the sun. Never mind that the sun wasn't moving. Great image; need more light to finish slaughtering your enemy? No problem; I'm hooked up with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (somehow, by the time of Joshua, these three are depicted as impeccable models of character...imagine that!).
You can imagine going through the rest of the stories; reading them with the understanding of a precocious ten year old. Much later in life, when I showed up in church, and started attending indoctrination classes (they were called "bible study" of course), I was dumbfounded by the way the "teachers" insisted that there was only one "right" way to read these stories, and my way was just plain wrong.
That was the end of group bible study for me for awhile. Instead, I went to college and majored in literature, where creative interpretation was not only allowed, but encouraged, as long as you had some thin thread of supporting documentation to back up your theory.
I love the bible. I find parts of it clearly inspired by God. Other parts seem just as clearly to be inspired by colorful characters, and that's ok too. But this notion of using it like an instruction manual is a mindset that has never made much sense to me.
During my adult years, I’ve been pleased to discover other approaches to the bible that are much more appealing to me. I want to offer some thoughts from someone who is much more articulate on the topic of the bible than I will ever be; Marcus Borg. The following quote is from an excellent address he gave entitled Spirituality and Contemporary Culture;
...I see religion, in general, and the Bible, in particular, as human cultural responses to the experience of the Sacred. I see each of the enduring religions as emerging as a human response to the experience of God. The immediate implication of this, which is really my second statement in shorthand form, is that the Bible is thus a human product, namely, the response of two ancient communities to their experience of the Sacred. Now when I say it’s a human product, of course I have a contrast in mind, and to make that contrast explicit, I mean, not a divine product. Rather, the Bible is a product of two ancient communities – the Hebrew Bible being the product of ancient Israel, the Christian Testament the product of the early Christian movement. As a human product, the Bible tells us about their experiences of the Sacred, about how these two communities saw things. It tells us about how they told their stories, and what they thought life with God was about. When we are not completely clear and candid about the Bible being a human product, we create the possibility of enormous confusion...
... Now if we think of the Bible as a divine product, then the laws of the Bible are God’s laws. This is certainly the way I was taught the ten commandments. These are the laws of God. Let me illustrate the difference it makes with one of the hot-button issues in the contemporary church, this is the single law, and there is only one, in the Hebrew Bible prohibiting homosexual behavior amongst men. The law is found in Leviticus 18:22. I think most of you know it pretty well: "If a man lies with another man as with a woman, it is an abomination." Then two chapters later in Leviticus 20:13, the penalty is specified, and of course the penalty is death. Now, if we think of the Bible as a divine product, then the ethical question becomes: "How can one justify setting aside one of the laws of God?" Of course, this is exactly how our conservative brothers and sisters see it. Some of them will even say, "I’m not against homosexuality, but its one of the laws of God." Bullshit – that they’re not against homosexuality! Now, I think there are some who can genuinely be in that place. I can grant that. But if we think of the Bible as a human product, then this is not one of the laws of God, but one of the laws of ancient Israel. And it tells us that within ancient Israel, homosexual behavior was considered unacceptable.
Then the ethical question becomes: "What would be the justification for continuing to see things as ancient Israel saw things?" – especially when, as most of you would know, the law prohibiting homosexual behavior is imbedded in a context in Leviticus in the holiness code, the purity code, as it’s sometimes called, which also prohibits the planting of two kinds of seed in the same field, or the wearing of garments made of two kinds of cloth. Now how many of you have blends on this morning? I mean, why aren’t we bent out of shape about that? So, anyway, the Bible is a human product. We need to be utterly candid about that, and not out of a misplaced sense of reverence or respect say, "Well, I really think it comes from God somehow." We just make it enormously confusing when we say that. The Bible is the response to the experience of God, but as the response to the experience of God, it is a human product.
I'm not going to muddy things up by making any further comments. After you've read his entire lecture, and have seen this quote in context, I'd be interested in hearing your response to Borg's approach to the bible.
Posted by Father Jake at 01:19 AM | Comments (17)
October 17, 2005
Assault on the Poor and Middle Class
Posted by Public Theologian
The war on poverty that we all thought we were going to see last month in the wake of the Katrina disaster is now turning into a war on the poor and middle class. President Bush went to New Orleans and stood outside the city’s cathedral and solemnly declared that something would be done to alleviate the suffering of the most vulnerable in our society. Yet he went right to work assaulting the poor, giving away the store to corporations who did not have to worry about such niceties as bidding, and to other companies who sold the government items in ridiculous prices in quantities that they would never need, like the leased Carnival ships that sit half empty in the Gulf and the millions of pounds of ice that are being stored in warehouses and in refrigerator trucks from coast to coast at a cost of more than double what it would take to produce new ice from scratch.
But that was just the beginning. Bush also invoked the Davis-Bacon Act which suspended prevailing wage laws in storm ravaged areas so that rapacious contractors could pay workers desperate for wages whatever the contractors wanted, supposedly in the name of a speedy recovery, which really meant a speedy and exorbitant profit. And many in the GOP-controlled Congress have seen this disaster as a good time to cut other poverty programs, insisting—all of the sudden after years of the most profligate spending, in which the number of registered federal lobbyists have increased from 17,000 to 35,000 just since 2000—that the public is demanding fiscal responsibility. A klatch of the most loony House Republicans are actually pushing for a 2% reduction across the board on all domestic spending, this at a time when hundreds of thousands have lost homes, jobs and insurance, and in the face of a winter in which the cost of heating is going to be 50% higher than last year and which will doubtless leave the poor in every region of the country in need of federal help to keep from freezing. Programs that help the poor keep warm, fed, clothed and healthy will thus have to be EXPANDED, not slashed, if we are to keep these folks from disaster in coming months.
But the looming crisis for the poor is not the only concern, for the middle class is in trouble as well. As Paul Krugman writes in today’s New York Times the bankruptcy of auto parts maker, Delphi, is another sign that the good paying jobs that have sustained the middle class are vanishing, this despite the fact that the economy is supposedly booming. As Krugman points out, while Delphi was providing dividends to investors and huge financial packages to management, it was inadequately funding its pension fund, which will now likely devolve into being funded by tax payers. Moreover, the company is now offering its employees, which had been making $27 an hour, cuts which would drop them to as low as $10 an hour. The sales numbers of the nation’s carmakers are bad across the board and Krugman suggests that Delphi is a bellwether of what awaits the rest of Americas’ largest remaining segment of factory workers.
The moral and theological problem with all of this bad news is that at the same time that the poor and middle class in our country are under increasing pressure, the wealthy are living in boom times. The Census Bureau reported last month that the number of millionaires was up by 700,000—a staggering number—in comparison to the number just a year before, and all the more disgusting given the fact that the number of poor in America has grown to 37 million and the number of uninsured to 45 million. We have been sold the line that a “rising tide raises all boats” but years of that supply side nonsense has only given us record budget deficits that mortgage our children’s futures and which line the pockets of the rich. How can we justify such disparities? Is not the scripture filled with the prophets and even Jesus himself railing against such financial abuses? The fundamentalists are obsessed with absolute truth and getting creationism taught in schools and controlling everybody’s pelvic region, but why do they remain unmoved by the strong message of biblical faith about the sin of hording? Have they forgotten that we are the people who go out daily to get our bread and that collecting any more than that portion would simply be subject to rot?
We will never be the society that we can be or that God wants us to be until we take seriously the responsibility to care for the needs of the neighbor as we care for ourselves. The neighbor is the standard of our ethics, the barometer whereby we can measure our own fidelity to biblical faith. And frankly, right now the neighbor is in trouble, which has to give all who worship the God of Abraham no small amount of consternation.
Posted by Public Theologian at 04:12 PM | Comments (17)
October 13, 2005
Not Hillel or Jesus, but Ebenezer Scrooge Guides Our President and Congress: Call Them on US Budget on Mon. & Tues.
Posted by Faithful Progressive
Despite all the showy religiosity of the present Administration and Congress, it sometimes seems as though the real guiding moral compass of our present government is Ebenezer Scrooge. Certainly the current direction of the new budget owes much more to that mean-spirited Dickens-character than it does to Jesus or Hillel. The bitter irony associated with the fall-out and reconstruction of hurricane Katrina is that, after all of the discussion about poverty in America, our government is now cynically using the costs of hurricane reconstruction as an opportunity to cut aid to the poor. This is shocking and immoral and we need to tell them so.
This repested pattern of using a crisis to rationalize old policy goals started up again with President Bush slashing wages for workers involved in the clean-up by suspending the Davis Bacon Act. Now there are renewed calls for cuts for programs that serve the poor.
Margaret Krome of the Capital Times reports, "Calls for budget reconciliation began last winter, and for a while after Hurricane Katrina, they paused, as politicians were temporarily worried about being criticized as callous to the tremendous needs brought on by the disaster. Then, Republican leaders got the idea that they could actually use the hurricane reconstruction costs to justify budget cuts they wanted anyway. They rolled up their sleeves and began slicing.In the name of cutting the deficit, they proposed to cut Medicaid, Medicare and $574 million from food stamps, as well as make cuts in environmental, conservation and virtually all other domestic programs except for those associated with homeland security."
But what's most cynical about this exercise is the assumption that the potentially $200 billion bill for hurricane relief and reconstruction is the cause of the $317 billion deficit. In fact, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysts say that interest on the borrowing for these reconstruction costs can be expected to increase the deficit by no more than 3 percent, 10 years from now. They point out that the budget was successfully balanced in the 1990s despite expenditures to deal with that decade's disasters.
So if the one-time, albeit huge, costs of Gulf Coast reconstruction aren't the source of a worsening deficit, what is? The two words responsible are short, understandable and clear. They are "tax cuts."
The nation's deficit will balloon, not from disaster relief costs, but from the huge tax cuts for the nation's wealthiest individuals. The tax cuts enacted since 2001 will cost more than $1.77 trillion over the next five years - many times the anticipated cost of the hurricanes."
Religious leaders are once again calling for action. Here's a staement from a group of ELCA Bishops
Cuts to mandatory spending called for in the reconciliation package would decrease valuable assistance to millions of low-income families, children, elderly and people with disabilities. Even as the number of people living in poverty and without insurance has increased dramatically in the past five years, the last few tragic weeks in the Gulf Coast area have put a face, indeed, thousands of new faces, on poverty in the heart of our society. Programs such as Food Stamps, Medicaid, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) help to keep struggling families together and assist low-income working families in moving to higher economic ground. This is not the time to cut such important programs while using the cuts to pay for tax breaks for those who don’t need them.
The Biblical record is clear. The Scriptural witness on which our faith tradition stands speaks dramatically of God’s concern for and solidarity with poor and oppressed communities while speaking firmly in opposition to governments whose policies place narrow economic interests driven by greed above the common good. Jesus speaks and acts unequivocally on behalf of those on the margins of society. St. Paul writes forcefully about the importance of community and expands the definition of those we call brothers and sisters in Christ. As Americans open their homes to embrace neighbors from Gulf Coast states, as non-profit and religious organizations provide relief services, we strongly urge you to reflect on your role as a government official in providing for the least in our society and ask that you oppose any attempt to move forward with the budget reconciliation process.
The Coalition on Human Needs and the American Friends Service Committee are sponsoring a toll-free call-in to the Capitol Toll-Free (1-800-426-8073)next Monday and Tuesday, Oct. 17 & 18. Set Congress's Priorities Straight! If you click the link it will tell you all about it. In the name of Jesus and Hillel, in the name of all that is right and fair, please speak up and help restore America to real Judeo-Christian and American values.
Posted by Faithful Progressive at 11:31 PM | Comments (2)
Dobson, Land and Warren
Posted by Jesus Politics
The Boston Globe recently published a three-part series on James Dobson, Richard Land and Rick Warren. Some quotes:
To Dobson, Focus on the Family is a God-ordained ministry. To his critics, including the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Dobson is a dangerous demagogue.
''There is no question that the beliefs of conservative Christians are under attack," Dobson told the Globe. ''Any conviction founded on religious faith is vilified; any stand on absolute truth is denigrated as old-fashioned at best, or reminiscent of the Taliban at worst; any view out of lockstep with the left's agenda is met with anything but tolerance and acceptance."
Despite the prominent political role he played, Dobson dismissed the notion that he is a presidential kingmaker. ''It's clear that there is a growing awareness among conservative Christians that it's time to stand up and be counted in the marketplace of ideas," Dobson said. ''I'm just one of them who happens to have a public platform through which to communicate what we believe."
Many others have a different perception. As Ralph Neas, president of the liberal group People for the American Way, has said: ''There is no question that James Dobson is the most powerful and most influential voice on the religious right." Land, of the Southern Baptist Convention, described Dobson as ''the most respected and influential person in evangelical Christendom."
Dobson's advance into the political limelight has been a measured, incremental journey whose turning point occurred at a 2003 rally in Montgomery, Ala. There, in 100-degree temperatures, Dobson joined the state's chief justice, Roy Moore, to protest a federal judge's order to remove a sculpture of the Ten Commandments from the rotunda of the Alabama Supreme Court. Moore later was removed from office by the state's judicial ethics committee for his defiance and is now running for governor of Alabama.
The sweltering rally attracted 10,000 people, Hetrick said. ''There was something about that moment, something about that crowd, that impressed itself on Dr. Dobson," Hetrick recalled. ''It said to Dr. Dobson that they were looking for leadership, for someone to resist what was happening. He came away from that thinking that he wanted to make a difference."
But his critics know him as an unyielding proponent of banning abortion rights, gay marriage, and embryonic stem cell research. His public statements on social issues, says J. Brent Walker, executive director of the centrist Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, ''can be very acerbic. He's more likely to take a very hard-edged position."
On issues involving separation of church and state, Walker says, ''I think in his heart [Land] is more moderate than many would suppose. But my perception is that his support for the Bush administration and pressure from right-wing forces within the Southern Baptist Convention push him in the other direction. He tries to have it both ways in many cases."
But Land also provided much of the intellectual underpinning for the Southern Baptists' shift toward fundamentalism and hard-right political views, a trend known as the ''conservative resurgence" that in the early 1990s prompted moderates to leave in droves.
He condemns the actions of former Alabama chief justice Roy S. Moore, who refused to remove a Ten Commandments monument from his courthouse, despite court orders. Moore received a hearty welcome from Southern Baptists at their June meeting, but Land says it was ''offensive" for Moore to compare himself to Martin Luther King Jr.
And although his roots are deeply and unmistakably Californian, Warren is often dubbed ''America's pastor" by observers of the religious scene, many of whom rank him second only to the Rev. Billy Graham in the popular hierarchy of evangelical leaders.
Some critics, however, say Warren has crafted a message that might be too user-friendly and that his methods sometimes seem overly commercial. Glen Stassen, an ethics professor at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., says Warren has skillfully adapted his church to the surrounding culture, but that he wonders whether the pastor is serving a watered-down Jesus to an affluent community groping for an anchor of meaning in a materialistic world.
''He's making worship very informal to go with the informal culture of Southern California, and he's studying the attitudes of people in the area to try to make the church conform to the surrounding culture," Stassen said. ''The way of Jesus has been thinned down so it won't offend any of the reigning ideologies, so you get a very thin Jesus. I want a thick Jesus."
Warren said he has met Land, but that he does not speak with Land or Dobson about political issues and strategy.
Warren's call for massive, immediate attention to the AIDS crisis in Africa helps set him apart on the American religious stage, especially among the conservative evangelical wing, which regards homosexuality as a sin. Warren said he was inspired to act by his wife, Kay, who became horrified when she read about the millions of orphans and widowed spouses created by the disease in sub-Saharan Africa.
Posted by Jesus Politics at 10:28 PM | Comments (12)
A Leap of Faith
Posted by Fresh Politics
Maybe it's the autumn blues of an off-cycle election year, but I've been finding it hard to get into the confirmation hearings of President Bush's Supreme Court nominees. On second thought, though, it may just be that I don't think we're likely to learn anything valuable from them. The confirmation hearing for now Chief Justice John Roberts was a complete farce. Did anyone really think we would get a clear, non-evasive answer on his thoughts on the right to privacy? Instead, we were treated to Republicans and Democrats preening in front of the cameras and trading zingers. At the end of the day, Roberts was confirmed (as we all believed he would be), but we learned nothing of real substance about the newest member of the Supreme Court.
With Harriet Miers, we are likely to learn even less. A nominee with no judicial record, debate has increasingly focused on her private life as a source for gleaning information about how she might rule on key controversial issues likely to be before the Court. Today, President Bush stated: "People are interested to know why I picked Harriet Miers. They want to know Harriet Miers' background. They want to know as much as they possibly can before they form opinions. And part of Harriet Miers' life is her religion." The personal should not be political, but it appears that it is increasingly becoming that way. Supreme Court justices wield incredible power that can have an enormous influence on our lives. Of all institutions, it is probably the most important one to stay above the fray of personal politics. A nominee selected on this basis, or with personal beliefs representing a significant consideration in the nominee's selection, does a disservice to the American people.
I have no doubt that Miers was chosen because the President believes that she will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. If the President is telling the truth about his ignorance of Miers's views on abortion, and I do not believe that he is, then I think he is gambling on her religious background to prove to himself and to the social conservatives who have supported him that she will vote to support their radical agenda. This is unbelievable...a person should not be nominated based on her religious background, especially to the Supreme Court. Just as a person should not be nominated (or passed over) simply because of her gender. I continue to believe that Miers deserves fair consideration, that is, consideration based on her abilities and experience. Her gender or religious beliefs should play no role in the confirmation process.
Posted by Fresh Politics at 04:54 AM | Comments (1)
October 11, 2005
Earthquake Draws Global Response
Posted by Father Jake
A 7.6-magnitude earthquake rocked cities and villages in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan on October 8. The death toll is estimated to be between 40,000 and 80,000. As many as 2 million are homeless, with winter quickly approaching. A global response to this crisis is being mobilized;
The European Union on Sunday committed $4.4 million in primary emergency relief…
The United States and the governments of Japan, Thailand, Germany, Britain, the Czech Republic, and Australia on Sunday pledged $2.46 million in aid. China has promised $6.2 million…
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw pledged $176,150 and said the government planned to send 60 medics, emergency workers and foreign office staff…
A Spanish group, United Firefighters without Frontiers, said its rescue team had already arrived in Islamabad with two large field hospitals and two tons of emergency equipment...
A Chinese emergency response team of 50 arrived in Islamabad on Sunday, also with search dogs, as well as communication equipment, blankets, medical and relief supplies, Pakistan said. A second Chinese planeload of relief goods was due Monday.
A Japanese disaster team of 50 was dispatched to Islamabad, where a medical team deployed by the Japanese Red Cross Society is expected to arrive Monday.
Russia said it was sending a plane carrying emergency workers, trucks, equipment and two weeks' supplies on Sunday, and the Swedish Rescue Services Agency was sending tents and blankets. It also offered communications equipment.
The Czech government said it was ready to send rescue teams with sniffer dogs.
The Malaysian Red Crescent said it was sending a relief team to Pakistan as soon as it received clearance from Islamabad, and that the team would be joined by Red Cross and Crescent workers from other Southeast Asian nations, including Indonesia, the Philippines and Singapore. A Malaysian government emergency response team was expected, too…
An area hit hard by this earthquake, Muzaffarabad, is just across the Line of Control from Indian-controlled Kashmir. The area of Kashmir has been heatedly disputed by Pakistan and India for many years. In response to this earthquake, there is hope that these two countries will work together to aid those suffering from this crisis. One report, entitled India, Pakistan Cooperate to Aid Survivors Desperate for Help suggests that in times of crisis, disputes can be set aside;
So far, 865 people have been confirmed dead in India-controlled Kashmir. Just across the border, more than 20,000 people have died in Pakistan. Officials predict the death toll will climb and fear that more could die from exposure or disease. The United Nations has said 2.5 million people near the border need shelter...
The huge death toll in Pakistan appeared to bring the long-term rivals closer together. On Monday, Pakistan agreed to accept earthquake aid from India. And a top militant commander reportedly ordered fighters to suspend attacks in earthquake-hit areas of India-controlled Kashmir.
Another report also suggests that working together during times of tragedy may give rise to the hope of healing deep wounds;
Tragedies have a way of bringing people together _ even adversaries. Saturday's devastating earthquake in Kashmir joined rivals Pakistan and India in a common grief and offered them a chance to shed past hostilities and make peace. But that might be just wishful thinking…
Kashmir is simply too deep a wound in the political psyches of both India and Pakistan to be healed quickly. Since Pakistan's creation from British colonial India, the two nuclear rivals have fought three wars, two of them over Kashmir that left the Himalayan region divided between them by a cease-fire line, the de facto border today.
On Saturday, deaths visited on both sides of that border, but much more so in Pakistan _ where the death toll is between 20,000 and 30,000. In the Indian Kashmir, the toll was 650.
Within hours of the quake, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh spoke with Pakistani leader Gen. Pervez Musharraf by telephone to offer relief and rescue assistance to his country.
The Indian foreign minister also made a similar offer to his Pakistani counterpart…
To N.M. Prusty, the head of emergency relief at the international aid agency CARE's India office, this is a golden opportunity.
"The mutual help in humanitarian crisis will be the most powerful confidence building measure in the history of India-Pakistan relationship,'' he told the AP.
"History shows that at the time of natural disasters we have come together in this region. This is an opportunity when both India and Pakistan can forget their differences,'' he said…
President General Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz of Pakistan have called for special prayers on Friday “for speedy relief, recovery and rehabilitation of their earthquake-stricken countrymen.” Let us join in offering our prayers this Friday for all those suffering from this disaster. Let us also pray that the seeds of peace between Pakistan and India might be planted during the recovery process.
Alertnet offers a good listing of charities responding to this crisis.
Church World Service is in Pakistan and already assessing the needs for food and shelter. Immediate needs include clean drinking water, food, tents and medicines. They are also putting together Shelter, Food and House Reconstruction Kits.
Let us join with those around the world responding to this tragedy.
God of infinite mercy,
We cry out to you for all the suffering people of the world,
and especially the victims of natural disaster.
The dead and the injured,
the bereaved
and those who have lost their livelihood are all in your hand.
We pray to you for all them in their particular needs.
We ask you to strengthen the wills and efforts of the whole human family
in responding to this crisis
and through it make us more aware of our common humanity.
Through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord.
Amen.
Posted by Father Jake at 09:06 PM | Comments (2)
October 10, 2005
Conservative Chaos
Posted by Public Theologian
A week ago in this space I predicted (it was a no-brainer) that the President would quickly nominate someone to replace Sandra Day O’Connor in order to get the scandals dogging his party off of the front pages of newspapers across the country. He didn’t wait very long to fulfill my prophecy, doing exactly that less than an hour after my piece was posted.
But it didn’t work.
Oh there was about five minutes last week when the scandals weren’t on the front page. But he actually might prefer the scandals, which are now front page below the fold, to what has become the daily headline: Bush’s own party is in revolt over the nomination of crony Harriet Miers.
The nomination is already a joke, with every conservative pundit and leader having heaped scorn and contempt on her by week’s end. Judge Robert Bork, who knows a thing or two about being a failed nominee, called Miers nomination, “a disaster on every level.” Former Bush speech writer David Frum called the nomination, “an unforced error.” By the weekend, the critics had gotten up enough collective gumption to start mentioning what they had all been thinking since Monday but could not then articulate. They think that the President should withdraw the nomination and pick a fight with the Democrats by nominating a real hardline conservative who will fulfill their wildest fantasies by allowing business to run amok over consumers and who will allow government total control of people’s sex lives.
The only true “patriots” still standing beside Mr. Bush by week’s end were the normally unwelcome liberal Republicans from California and New England, and remarkably, the Grand Ayatollah James Dobson, who claimed midweek to his radio flock that, like Richard Nixon, who had a “secret plan to end the war” he had been given information about Miers that he was unable to share, which made him confident that she was an acceptable nominee. Now assuming this information was not that Miers had been studying constitutional law at night by correspondence, it is likely that this was some signal from the White House that Miers could be trusted, and that though a stealth candidate who apparently has never even uttered the word abortion in her adult life (where do Republican Presidents keep finding these people?), she could nonetheless be counted on when the moment was right to do the proper thing and slay the beast of Roe v. Wade.
Now inquiring minds want to know what information Dobson was given, which may make for some very exciting reality TV in the very near future, because one of those inquiring minds is Judiciary Committee chair Senator Arlen Specter, who yesterday stopped short of saying that he would subpoena Dobson but who nonetheless made it clear that he was not going to be kept in the dark while some fundamentalist wingnut had the keys to information about the future of our nation’s highest court. (Note that he didn’t exactly use the words “fundamentalist wingnut” but there is little doubt that this is what Specter thinks about the radio shrink.) The reason that this could get so interesting is that it was less than a year ago that Dobson was trying to throw his weight around in order to make sure that Specter, who is for abortion rights, was locked out as chair of the committee because he would not toe the party line. Back in those days, Specter had to bow and scrape to hang onto his job, but my how things have changed in just a few months! Now he intends to use his authority to make Dobson spill the beans, a prospect which could make “Survivor: Guatemala” look dull by comparison.
Although Miers is clearly a dud in terms of her experience in constitutional law, there really isn’t any question that she is against abortion. She has given money to an anti-abortion group and is active in a fundamentalist church that has long taken very public stands against it. It is difficult to imagine that she has been participating in this church all these years while secretly holding views in opposition. That kind of thing happens all the time in Catholic churches, where there is a wide disconnect between church teachings and the faithful, but is much less common among conservative Protestants, who tend to move in lock step on these issues. What is so interesting to me on this is that conservatives, who were just the other day insisting that the views of John Roberts need not be made explicit, are now saying just the opposite about Miers, despite her long affiliation with fundamentalism.
Now the White House clearly wants to send the signal to the base that she can be trusted and has been tirelessly flaking the story of her Sunday school teaching all week. But apparently there is much more than this surface story to which Dobson has been made privy, but what can it be? I wonder if, in the interests of national security, they will torture him. Most of the conservative punditocracy seems to be cool with torture, even if used against American citizens, so perhaps this is an approach that can be used to get him to tell what he knows. Lyndie England’s calendar is freed up now that her trial is over so perhaps she can do a photo spread with Dobson in a dog collar. Perhaps he should be forced to watch a continuous loop of “La Cage aux Folles” until he breaks.
There is thus nothing but unalloyed chaos in the rightwing these days, which is a very different scenario than we were led to expect just a little less than a year ago when Bush and all the talking heads on the Faux News Channel proclaimed that he had won a “mandate.” That mandate is long gone and he is in serious trouble.
Posted by Public Theologian at 01:53 PM | Comments (21)
October 06, 2005
Leonard Pitts on Race in America: "Further ahead than we once were, but not as far as we ought to be"
Posted by Faithful Progressive
FP had the pleasure of going to hear Leonard Pitts Jr., the Pulitzer Prize winning Miami Herald columnist, speak this past week and even had the chance to ask him a question that may be of interest to readers of this Blog. For those of you who don’t know his work, Leonard Pitts Jr. is simply one of the two or three best newspaper columnists in the country. He is a Christian and is not afraid of saying so. Here’s a recent piece of his on the Intelligent Design debate and an older column that inspired FP to begin his blog. Finally, here's his take on the idiotic and insensitive remarks of a former Secretary of Education: Bennett's quip touches on tacit race, crime tie
His speech in Madison to a packed room of 300 asked the same question as Dr. Martin Luther King’s last speech—Race, Reconciliation and other Tattered Dreams-Where Do We Go From Here?" Pitts said the Katrina disaster was a sort of national “Rorshach inkblot” into which people projected what they wanted to see. For himself, Pitts thought it was odd that we immediately fell into a discussion about race at a time of national disaster. Rather, Pitts saw mostly the impacts of poverty, which he believed were even more important than race in his assessment of Katrina’s disproportionate effects on people from different strata. But America readily falls into a dialogue that is based upon "race, culture and recrimination."
The truth is, Pitts said, that both blacks and whites have become locked in to a view that sees only a part of the real picture. Some African Americans deny the extent of racial progress, while many whites pretend that race is no longer a factor and that we should therefore be color-blind in making important social decisions. Pitts challenged both assumptions with a detailed set of facts about both the real progress we have made and the extent to which racial disparities still plague us.
He spoke of the irony of hearing a black couple complain that things were "worse than ever" at a park in Birmingham where an earlier generation would have had dogs and hoses put on them by racist police chief Bull Connor. Pitts also cited numerous labor and criminal justice statistics that demonstrated how far we are from color blind (the killer of a white victim is 11 times more likely to be put to death than the killer of a black victim, etc). He also recalled an NBA star driving an expensive car that was pulled over and questioned at length. The police found nothing, but claimed they pulled him over not because of his race but because his license tags were about to expire later that month. Pitts concluded that we were, "further ahead than we once were, but not as far as we ought to be" How do we get further down the road to racial progress?
Mr. Pitts suggested that we are still too divided by race, including in our churches. He told the story of a "preacher exchange" where a white minister said his world was too white, and then cautiously added and "perhaps yours is too black." Much to his surprise, the congregation greeted him with applause. Both sides need to work to engage and get to know each other. Pitts noted that a decade ago he had paused before inviting a white friend at work into his home-a boundary neither of them had crossed. He finally invited the friend to meet his family and friends and a good time was had by all. It's these subtle boundaries that keep us apart, Pitts suggested, the law can only take us so far. Pitts said Katrina was a crossroads for this country but that "we are not doing everything we can to get off this crossroad." The key failure is a lack of honest communication between the races, but no one can blame this on the refreshingly direct Mr. Pitts.
PS
Now the question FP put to him: had he noticed any greater voice from progressive people of faith since the election? Indeed Pitts had heard more from the Christian left in his e-mail inbox and on the Web, but he expressed surprise that faithful progressives were not a louder voice in the letters to the editor pages of local newspapers and that opposition to the war hadn't galvinized them as a political force. In the next weeks, I'll describe a letter-writing campaign that the Wisconsin Christian Alliance for Progress is undertaking relating to speaking out for the poor in relation to the federal budget.It's time that we make sure our voices are heard.
Posted by Faithful Progressive at 10:12 PM | Comments (5)
Roy and His Rock
Posted by Jesus Politics
Some quotes from Joshua Green's article in The Atlantic Magazine about Judge Roy Moore:
The constitutional crisis that unfolded reached the U.S. Supreme Court before Moore and the Rock were ultimately tossed out. The national media moved on, but Moore and his legion of followers did not. The believers will tell you that God's will is not so easily thwarted. That Moore has set something in motion that will not be stopped. That whomsoever the Lord our God shall drive out from before us, them will we possess.
You don't have to believe that Moore's Ten Commandments drama was prophetic, as some of his supporters do, or see the hand of God in the country's recent politics, to believe that the national culture is moving in Roy Moore's direction. Moore will tell you that before the filibuster showdown, before the Terri Schiavo controversy, before Tom DeLay insinuated violent retaliation against the federal judges who ended it, before the Supreme Court ruled that the Ten Commandments have no place in a courtroom, even before a swell of evangelical Christians carried George W. Bush to a second term, he was fighting the battle to acknowledge God. He has never stopped talking about it, never stopped arguing his case, and over the past three years he has built a national following, becoming a political phenomenon of the sort Alabamians haven't seen since the days of George Wallace.
For years Moore's has been a story that everybody in Alabama and almost nobody outside it knows. But the likelihood that he will challenge the state's incumbent governor, Bob Riley, a fellow Republican, is bringing him back to national attention. The race between Riley, the darling of the business community, and Moore, the religious conservative in excelsis, is shaping up as a showdown between the two pillars of the Republican Party, with implications that reach far beyond Alabama. In the local parlance Moore appears poised to "ride the Rock" to the governorship and re-establish himself in the spotlight. Only this time, if the Lord delivers him there, he will have an eye toward reshaping not just his courtroom but also his country in the image of God.
In Moore's way of seeing things, the Founding Fathers intended the United States to be a Christian nation. He attributes the fact that many do not share this view to the malign influence of power-hungry federal judges and unprincipled lawmakers. Moore's installation of the Rock was an effort to force the issue, and its intended effect was as much legal as political. Put simply, Moore believes that the law vindicates him, and he has plundered texts from the Bible to Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England to build an elaborate case that God is the basis of American government. Where Moore parts company with others who share this historical view is in his assertion that the government therefore falls under the sovereignty of God. His position goes beyond the notion of a civil religion and beyond even the views of most conservative judicial scholars. It amounts to theocracy. "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers," he declared in Nashville, citing Romans 13:1. "For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God."
In style if not in substance, Moore's religious populism is a lineal descendant of the race-baiting that propelled Wallace to the statehouse a generation ago. Moore has begun to wield a similar sort of influence.
To people like these Moore offers an authenticity that no other conservative, not even George W. Bush or Tom DeLay, can claim. He is viewed as a martyr to the secular establishment and an exotic specimen in the fallen world of politics—someone who sacrificed power for principle.
Should Moore become governor, he would have a more prominent platform than ever before. If he carries with him a wave of judges and an attorney general, he will have both the capacity and a popular mandate to challenge fundamental issues about the limits of religion in government. This is a prospect that profoundly unsettles not just liberals but conservatives aware of how Moore's influence could change public perceptions of the Republican Party. In light of Moore's crusading nature it seems clear that in the approaching vacuum of the post-Bush era he will attempt to exercise a measure of control over the national Republican Party, much as he has done in the Alabama Republican Party.
Posted by Jesus Politics at 05:40 AM | Comments (11)
Who's Afraid of Harriet Miers?
Posted by Fresh Politics
Few seem to be happy with President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court. Filling the crucial seat vacated by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the left views Ms. Miers as a stealth candidate with no record on controversial issues such as abortion and affirmative action, where Justice O'Connor provided the deciding vote. The religious right is also upset with this, and feels betrayed by the President for not nominating someone with a clear record akin to conservative Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
These are completely valid issues. I think the American public is entitled to have a nominee with some record, so we have some sense of what we're buying before she is confirmed to a lifetime appointment on the highest bench in the land. I wouldn't buy a used car without first checking out the vehicle's history...surely the protection of our Constitution requires at least the same level of diligence. And while I disagree with social conservatives on just about every issue, I can understand their frustration with the President on this one. They were pivotal in helping him win re-election last year and have always been clear that they expected nominees to the Supreme Court who would be in line with their positions on social issues. For the President to have nominated two justices to the Supreme Court without a strong stance runs contrary to what they wanted and expected.
I think it is important for a Supreme Court nominee to have had at least some experience as a judge. Though some have argued that this is not necessary (pointing to the late Chief Justice Rehnquist, who was not a judge before he was appointed to the Supreme Court), I stand by my position because being a judge is vastly different from being an advocate and one must have demonstrated the ability to be a skilled judge before moving up to the high court. I do not doubt that Ms. Miers has a keen legal mind; surely she would not have risen to the level she has if she were unskilled. Yet, we have no record of how she would act as a jurist. Would she be more of a Janice Rogers Brown, a judge who routinely injects her personal beliefs into her opinions and dissents? Or would she separate her personal opinions from her interpretation of the law, something I think that Justice O'Connor was able to do more often than not.
Further, the fact that Ms. Miers has been so close to President Bush, most recently serving as White House Counsel, is also troubling. It smacks of the same kind of cronyism that has been pervasive in this administration, though Ms. Miers is likely in a different category than Mike Brown.
While these are valid criticisms – and should most certainly be discussed – I am appalled that much has been made of Ms. Miers's private life. The first thing I learned about her was that she has never been married, followed by a comment that she was rather homely. I have also heard people say, in jest, that she and Justice Souter should get together since they are both unmarried, or speculate that she might be a lesbian because of her marital status. Like any of this is remotely relevant to the kind of judge she would be! These things have been discussed on both sides of the political spectrum, but regardless of who is saying them, they do a tremendous amount of harm. Even if I ultimately disagree with her nomination, it is something that should be decided on her merits as a judge, not on this invasive speculation. I can't help but admire a woman like her who advanced so far in a profession that had been dominated by men for so long. She deserves a fair assessment that is not sidetracked by irrelevant speculation about personal matters that is far too often levied against women advancing in their careers.
Posted by Fresh Politics at 04:56 AM | Comments (11)
October 04, 2005
God's October Surprise
Posted by Father Jake
We have an unusual convergence of Holy Days happening during the month of October.
Both the Muslim and Jewish calendars are based on "lunar months." They diverge slightly because every 19 years the Jewish calendar adds a "leap month." It just so happens that this year, the seventh month of the Jewish calendar, known as Tishrei, the "sabbatical month," occurs in October. It includes Hashanah at the new moon, Yom Kippur on the tenth day, Sukkot at the full moon, and Sh'mini Atzeret/ Simchat Torah at the waning of the moon.
According to the Muslim calendar, which does not include leap months, October is the sacred month of Ramadan. Rarely do Tishrei and Ramadan coincide. Since October 13 is Yom Kippur, as well as in the middle of Ramadan, on that day both Jews and Muslims will be fasting.
October 13 is also Vijayadashami for the Hindus, which follows Navarathi, and is often commemorated by fasting and other forms of observance.
Among Buddhists, October 13 is within Vassa, which is a time for reflection or retreat.
In the Christian tradition, October 4 is the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi; and October 2 is World Communion Sunday.
The Tent of Abraham, Hagar and Sarah is calling for the faith traditions of the world to use this unusual convergence as an opportunity to join together to share our concerns for peace, justice, and healing of the earth;
... We call on all communities of faith and ethics to observe a Nationwide Fast for Reflection, Repentance, Reconciliation, and Renewal, from sunrise to sunset on October 13. That day is for Muslims one of the fast days of Ramadan, and for Jews is the fast day of Yom Kippur.
Just as Abraham, Hagar, and Sarah welcomed into their tent thirsty travelers from all four directions, we welcome to this Fast not only those of the three Abrahamic traditions but all who thirst for a world made whole. We encourage those who join in this Fast to dedicate their prayers and their intention to serve the God Who calls us to seek peace, feed the poor, heal the earth, and then later to take visible steps in the world to heed God's call...
Engaged as we are in war, violence, and repression with strong religious overtones, we, communities of the faithful, could instead take some action together during the Ramadan/ Tishrei month to change public policy — in favor of protecting human rights, healing the earth, and achieving peace in the regions where Abraham, Hagar, and Sarah sojourned.
We urge those of all our traditions to begin NOW, in our own cities and neighborhoods as well as nationally and internationally, to plan with each other how to use God's October Surprise of these sacred dates to heed the call of the Holy One that we live in peace together.
Some possible actions you might plan for October 13 are listed here.
The following organizations have endorsed this call for a Day of Fasting on October 13;
National Council of Churches
Islamic Society of North America (ISNA)
ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal and it's Rabbinic Affiliate, Ohalah
The Shalom Institute
The Jewish Committee for Isaiah's Vision (
Fellowship of Reconciliation
Disciples Justice Action Network
Pax Christi
From Rabbi Arthur Waskow;
At a moment in history when the world is experiencing an upsurge in religious hostility and war, when the blood-streaked strands in the fabrics of many religious traditions seem to win more attention than the peaceful teachings at the heart of all of them, the confluence of these dates seems a gift from God: Can we draw upon this gift to act in ways that honors the best in all our traditions and that reconnects them all with that Unity that calls us toward making peace, seeking justice, healing the earth?
Can we?
Posted by Father Jake at 08:20 PM | Comments (5)
October 03, 2005
Rotten to the Core
Posted by Public Theologian
What’s left of the moral house of the American right wing is crumbling before our very eyes. Just a few short weeks ago, Tom DeLay was the featured speaker at the Religious Right’s confab, Justice Sunday 2, in Nashville. This week he was indicted for conspiracy. Furthermore, we discovered this week that there is a second traitor in the White House, Vice-President Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff Scooter Libby, who placed partisan politics ahead of our national security by outing Valerie Plame to reporter Judith Miller in an attempt to destroy the credibility of her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is now under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as the Justice Department for a very shady stock transfer in which his supposedly blind trust sold all of his shares in his family’s business just ahead of steep plunge in the market value of its stock. In Kentucky and Ohio, the scandals involving the GOP governors of those states, as well as their minions, have been front page news for months, while in Illinois, the former Republican Governor’s trial began this week.
I could also mention the arrest of the former head of the General Services Administration and the abrupt resignation of the head of the FDA who is rumored to have some serious financial conflict of interest, as well as all the right wing Congressmen who have had one too many free trips and far too many steak dinners paid for by the wrong people whom they have not reported as they are required, but frankly, my fingers are getting tired from compiling this list.
The point is that this party is corrupt, from the President who lied about everything from the existence of WMD to the cost of the prescription drug benefit, to the members of Congress who allow lobbyists to write legislation and who take favors from special interests, to the Washington bureaucracy controlled by the Republicans, which under their administration has become a revolving door for K Street lobbying firms to move back and forth between government positions and the special interests from which the government is supposed to be protecting the American people.
But where is the moral leadership of the Religious Right? Pat Robertson can be whipped into a frenzy at the mere mention of the name of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, but why can’t he demand that the President fire traitors Rove and Libby if he really is interested, as he claims to be, in our national security? That great nemesis of Spongebob Squarepants, radio psychologist James Dobson, can shake the country with his fulminations and pronouncements about the immorality of a cartoon character, so why can’t he stand up for truth and righteousness and demand it from members of Congress? The answer, of course, is that the Religious Right has sold what’s left of it’s soul to these jokers and, so long as none of them has oral sex and is not gay, they can pretty much do whatever they want, be it ever so illegal or traitorous, and it will be fine.
As Frank Rich noted in yesterday’s New York Times, there are going to be a lot more weeks like the past one in the GOP’s future. This week the President is likely to nominate someone to take Sandra Day O’Connor’s place and thus knock the DeLay scandal off the front pages of America’s newspapers. But he doesn’t have nearly the number of Supreme Court picks as he does cronies about to be indicted, so hold onto your hats. As Rich suggests, this could well make Watergate look small time.
There is an important moral lesson to be learned here from these erstwhile denizens of American morality. One can win in the political arena and yet still lose sight of what you were trying to get to the winner’s circle for in the first place. The Apostle Paul asked the famous question regarding such achievement nearly two thousand years ago: "What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” That is an important thought for reasonable Christians to ponder, as the fundamentalists implode before our very eyes. The day is coming, and it will not be long, when a different group of politicians whose perspective is more favorable to our own come to power, when America sweeps these corrupt self-servants out of office. When that happens, the same temptation that has beset the fundamentalists will then be in our laps: How will we respond if such corruption appears among those whom we supported? Will we demand hearings and investigations? Will we call for resignations and firings? In short, will we hold to the same ethical standards when we have the reins of power that we claim we hold when we are on the outside looking in?
Late Update: There may be two more traiitors in the White House. I just saw the clip of Stephanopoulus yesterday claiming that a source had told him that the Presidnet and Vice President had been in on conversations regarding the leak of Plame's name. Perhaps that's why both men got lawyers the minute the Special Counsel began looking into the matter.
Posted by Public Theologian at 11:41 AM | Comments (27)
