06.07.06
Godless Heathens
…Because, you know, those heathens certainly weren't polytheists or anything. I think their Neo-Pagan counterparts, most of whom I assume to be more liberal politically, will be surprised to learn that they actually belong to the Church of Godlessness. As a theist of sorts (if panentheism can be said to be a kind of theism) I'm pretty surprised myself. I'm sure liberal Jews, Christians and Muslims must be the most surprised.
Ann Coulter explains it all in her new book Godless: The Church of Liberalism, which hits the shelves today (In case you've been in a cave with no calendar, today's date is 06/06/06). It's a good thing she wrote this, because I was under the impression that we liberals are quite religiously diverse. Evidently, "Liberals love to boast that they are not ‘religious.’" OK, now I'm confused, because I know plently of liberals that claim to be religious. It must have all been a rouse to trick People Of Faith into voting for them. Those dastardly liberals!
Oh, wait, now I remember. Ann Coulter is full of it. And full of herself, too, if one is to judge books by their covers. Of Coulter's five novels (because they're certainly not non-fiction), four of them have her picture right there on the front. But I shouldn't argue ad homenim; that's be stooping to her level.
I don't even know why I'm surprised. Conservativism has been trying for years to claim religion as it's own, so conflating liberalism with atheism shouldn't shock me. Unfortunately Coulter's false them-versus-us dichotomy is sure to appeal to conservatives. They can't understand and accept diversity among people in general, why expect them to recognize the vast religious and non-religious diversity among liberals?
All the more reason for us to fight the good fight, I suppose. I, as a religious liberal, intend to keep raising hell (so to speak) until our existance is recognized. Even conservatives can't ignore the truth when it's looking them in the eyes. They do try so hard to ignore it, though, don't they?
04.17.06
Easter Followup
My previous post on UU Easter started quite a dialogue including PeaceBang and Fausto. Patrick Murfin also had some thing to say on the subject.
I did not follow Fausto's suggestion to attend a high church service yesterday. I just didn't feel comfortable with it. Maybe another year. I did, however, attend the service at the UU church. I decided to because I am quite fond of my church's interim minister's style, and because she's an interim minister this was my only chance to witness her treatment of Easter. Happily the service did not disappoint.
I have come to realize while listening to this and other great ministers, that writing a sermon is an art. Those skilled in the craft can pull various elements such as symbols, anecdotes, myths, historical and current events and weave them together to create a coherent piece.
This minister did just that. She spent several minutes talking about symbols that have been linked to the Easter narrative in the past as well as other symbols and myths concerning birth, death and rebirth. She also told of some humorous family traditions on Easter. She did not spend an extraordinary amount of time on any one subject, yet the keen observer would be able to note the numerous connections between them.
Another element of worship at this church that is cause for me to rejoice is every Sunday, and this Sunday expecially, is the quality of the music program. I've been to other congregations that had a small or nonexistent choir, and the contrast is stark.
All things considered it was a wonderful service. So, aside from the music, what made this service so different from other UU Easter services I've attended in the past? After considering it for a moment I came to the conclusion that the difference is that this one was stimulating to the mind and spirit.
In the previous entry I did not mean to imply that our Easter services should completely drop the discourse of "Wow, Things Are Growing Again," only that it had become so often reiterated as to lose its power of inspiration. Fausto described it better: "we UUs seem to have a particular gift for taking spiritual insights of timelessness and power and regurgitating them in ways that can be astonishingly ephemeral and glib."
But I now think even my initial claim was an over-reaction. Tradition and cycles are important and Easter (and Passover!) exemplifies this. The rebirth myth is inherently powerful, whether the subject is Tammuz, Adonis, Baldur, Mithras, Jesus or Mother Earth. UU's are of above average intelligence, so it is imperative that our ministers appeal to the intellect, but I fear that many do this at the expense of the spirit.
It is futile to talk about rebirth if you don't feel "born again," (if you'll excuse my appropriation of the term).
04.14.06
Easter Rant
Confession: I really don't like Easter services. I honestly think it's a waste of a Sunday. Just about any other Sunday out of the year the theme of the service could be literally anything. There's no limit on what a UU sermon could be about! Yet on Eastern Sunday minister and worship committee feel obligated to rehash the same old spiel about how this time of year flowers are blossoming and animals are coming out of hibernation and life is beginning anew. This trope is particularly meaningless here in the South where actual Winter lasts for about three weeks. I guess I can understand why the beginning of Spring would be a joyous occasion in the North, but down here it just means we're only a few weeks away from the part of the year where you can't step outside without sweating. Not much to get excited about. I can appreciate these Christian and Wiccan myths, and why they appeal to people. I'm just tired of hearing about them.
It's ironic, really, that the language of rebirth keeps getting reused to the point where Easter-time serivces are in dire need of reinvigoration.
03.29.06
Putting God Back on the Air
As you may have heard, the United Church of Christ has teamed up with Media Matters to create the Accessible Airwaves campaign to combat the religious right-wing slant on television. Specifically, the UUC points to how conservative religious leaders are invited to Sunday morning talk shows, but moderates and liberals are not.
Why do James Dobson, Franklin Graham, Al Moehler [sic], Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell warrant seemingly endless coverage when ministries of the United Church of Christ, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, among others, rarely receive a single mention?
But it's not just talk shows. The sensationalist nature of the mainstream media means that extremists always get more than their share of news coverage. Take Fred Phelps, for example, whose theology and politics are even more extreme than the rest of the Religious Right. His Westboro Baptist Church has less than 200 members; all the less reason to pay him any heed.
During and after Hurricane Katrina it was not hard to find someone blaming the natural disaster on homosexuals, abortion clinics or even *gasp* gambling. In the subsequent months when religion was mentioned in conjunction with the aftermath, it was how religious organizations were asking for compensation for their charity. Meanwhile, a host of clergy felt uncomfortable that the government offered religious institutions money. The only news show I'm aware of that included this perspective was only PBS' Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly. Once again, public television proves superior to its commercial counterpart.
Street Prophets' Pastordan summed it up well:
That's a real filter, and it doesn't just hurt faithful progressives. It hurts our churches, temples and mosques as well, by buying into the spin that conservative activists – who can give great soundbite on politics – represent the true face of faith in America. For that matter, it hurts all denominations, who are usually more interested in doing good than playing political footsie with the Republican party.
I hope that this campaign is effective. The only way it can be effective is if the UCC is ecumenical about it. I hope the UCC can keep this campaign seperate from it's recent ad campaign and that other religious groups can join in, Christian and non-Christian.
03.27.06
Religion isn’t Part of the Equation
The radio show State of Belief asked its listeners to write or phone in with their opinions of the role religion should or should not play in the same-sex marriage issue.
Here's my response.
The Religious Right's insistence on discriminating against LGBT individuals is contrary to my religious beliefs. The Founding Fathers set up a separation of religion and politics in this country because they knew that an alliance of one religious group with the political establishment would infringe on the rights of other religious groups. Assume for a moment the opposite of the current situation was taking place; that I was forcing my religious views on others, specifically forcing churches that were against same-sex marriages to perform them anyway. Such a situation would also be detrimental to religious liberty. The issue of marriage equality does have religious implications, but religion should not be used as the justification for legal action. The equality for LGBT individuals to marry should be recognized only because it is unconstitutional not to, and religious people should be able to decide among themselves whether to preform and recognize same-sex marriages within their own religious group, because it would be unconstitutional to force them either way.
03.20.06
Laying Down one’s Sword and Shield Literally but not Metaphorically
As you probably know, yesterday was the third anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war. At this time one year ago I was sitting down to dinner with my family, and watching reports on the news about the first few hours of the war. That day I had argued with my classmates on why the war was premature and unjustified while sporting a black armband. Over these three years I have maintained a pretty steady position on the war. The news has gotten steadily worse and worse and it is getting harder and harder not to say ‘I told you so.’
Despite the efforts of a minority – a significant minority – of Americans that argued and picketed against the immorality and short-sightedness of the proposed military action, the Bush administration went ahead with its plans for war. I was among this minority which opposed starting the war. My opposition was deeply rooted in my moral conviction that warfare should only be used the most extreme of circumstances, and that this was certainly not such a situation.
Things are different now. The mission, we were told, has been accomplished. And we’re still there. The war now is not against an organized military lead by national government, but against insurgents whose guerrilla tactics make them difficult to root out. The opposition to the war has grown steadily since the beginning of the war. The anti-war movement has set it’s sights on bringing back the troops, including UUA President Bill Sinkford.
However, at this time I cannot side so strongly with the anti-war movement. I am not convinced that immediate withdrawal of troops the is best course of action. You might think that I’ve fallen for the “stay the course” rhetoric, but it seems to me that civil war is imminent. The bombing of the Shi’a Al Askari Mosque last month would seem to be evidence of this, despite the many news reports of that have Shi’as not blamed the attacks on Sunnis in general. In fact I recall a certain Shi’a state that he believed the attack was contrived by Americans to intensify sectarian violence.
Iraqis are not the only ones that believe the Bush administration has been conspiring. Rev. Davidson Loehr said in a sermon last month, that the administration had a hand in causing 9/11. This provoked a number of individuals to walk out of his sermon. Loehr, who has been known for some controversial sermons in the past, admitted, “I didn’t do research, and I flung out some Web sites. It was a very sloppy thing to do.”
I tried to imagine what I would have done in the situation. I think I would neither have walked out nor given a standing ovation both of which many of the congregation did. I despise the Bush administration, and would be (unfortunately) only mildly surprised if there proved to be another parallel between Bush and Hitler. However, I have really seen little evidence to support the claim.
Though I label myself as very liberal, it seems evident to me that I am moderate by UU standards. The only conspiracy involving the Bush administration I am sure of is the one that should be known by all Americans by now (if only the mass media were responsible enough); that invasion of Iraq was planned long before 9/11. I find that current direction of the war and just how evil the administration can be to be issues that are much more complicated.
I find inspiration in Rev. Sinkford’s prayer of the third anniversary of the war, “May we have the courage and conviction to honestly engage the difficult questions.” Or, as a Presbyterian minister commented on Rev. Loehr’s sermon, “I [...] think it’s a shame that somebody can bring up issues, and it’s not acceptable to even explore those as possibilities.” Only by critically exploring these issues through research and debate, like I did those three years ago, will we be able to say with confidence what is happening, what has happened and what we will do about it. Already I see this happening. In a recent post, including a member of Loehr’s congregation, on the UU community on LiveJournal debate has begun about the events of 9/11. To achieve peace we will have to take up intellectual arms and spar with our friends and foes alike.
To quote Rev. Sinkford more fully:
May we have the courage and conviction to honestly engage the difficult questions;
to speak hard truths,
to accept our responsibility to each other and the world.
May we find the strength and vision to end the cycles of violence.
03.10.06
Tradition
As a religious liberal I can quite understand the impulse to constantly renew and reform my spirituality. This process requires me to rid myself of the unnecessary and superfluous. I also have a tendency to be skeptical of and rebel against bastions of authority. In these respects I have quite a bit in common with religious reformers of the past.
Many of the Old Testament figures rebuked the practice of idol-worship. The religion of the supreme, unified God in which Abraham and his descendants believed was strikingly different than those of neighbouring peoples. According to Jewish tradition Abraham’s father Terah produced idols and that Abraham rebelled and smashed up the contents of his fathers workshop. Another example is of King Josiah who destroyed the idols of all the gods besides YHWH that were in the Temple. Unlike the neighbouring polytheistic cultures the Israelites tried to maintain their distinctiveness by not allowing practices of other religions to be mixed with their own. It was by ardently avoiding foreign practices that Jews avoided the apotheosis common in other cultures, in which the ruler was elevated to godhood. This could be considered the first step toward the separation of church and state.
In the New Testament, Jesus opposed the hypocrisy and corruption he saw in the religious establishment. He was quite confrontational about it. Many time Jesus is reported to have gone into synagogues to preach. Often the crowds were amazed by his wisdom, but on occasion they were disgruntled with his iconoclastic message. Even in his own hometown, his message was not well-received (Luke 4:28-30). And who could forget the time he drove the capitalists out of the Temple? The essential theological conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees (the sect from which all forms of modern Judaism are descended) was their regard of the Oral Law. The Pharisees held to the extra-textual traditions, but Jesus rejected them. For better or worse, Jesus’ rebellion got him executed.
History repeated itself a millennium and a half later when the likes of Jan Hus stood up against Catholic hegemony and were summarily executed. It was not until Luther, Zwingli and Calvin that the Reformation began to gain ground. Protestants took Christianity in a very different direction than the Catholic Church. Their reforms have been summarized in the Five Solas. They did away with the concept that good works could absolve a sinner, and that only faith in Jesus Christ, and through his grace could the soul be saved. Another major difference was the rejection of a number of books as not being the word of God.
While I can admire the spirit of these religious reformers and even draw inspiration from them, there is something vastly different between them and myself. All of their reforms were of a conservative nature. According to these men, they were returning back to the original religion. It is a very common claim made by many religious reformers in the past including Confucius, Lao Tzu, Zarathustra and Muhammed. In Chinese religion the ancient kings were held as the quintessential model, and many major Chinese thinkers attributed their beliefs to these kings. In Islam innovation is generally frowned upon. The Bible, it is believed, has been corrupted over time by human intervention, and Jews and Christians have deviated from God’s will. If one listens to the rhetoric of a fundamentalist of any religious background their message will be one against innovation.
As both a religious liberal and a student of religion I know just how necessary and inevitable innovation is in religion. For a religion to survive, it must change. If religion cannot adapt to new conditions in which people find themselves it will die. Religions, philosophies and other belief systems that do not sufficiently allow people to address the things that happen in their lives will naturally be discarded.
In the major reforms of “the” Judeo-Christian tradition there is a pattern. The reformer brings a religion that is more individualized than its predecessor. The Old Testament Patriarchs led people away from the religion of their more powerful neighbours, needing not idols to connect with the divine. Jesus lead people against the priestly class of the Temple, needing not sacrifices to connect with the divine. The Protestant reformers lead people away from the Catholic Church, needing only a Bible to connect with the divine. With each reformer the religious authority is given to the individual, but over time the authority is returned back to an institution. I speculate this is because people need to feel part of something bigger.
It is only through liberal religion that one can be part of something bigger and still maintain ultimate authority. In liberal religion, one is able to see the divine manifest in numerous ways. A certain religious text might not be divinely inspired, but that does not mean it does not contain wisdom. It seems to me that the Protestant reformers threw the baby out with the bathwater in a number of ways. To my mind one of the most powerful concepts in Catholicism is the Seven Deadly Sins. Gluttony, vicarages and pride are especially alluring sins in our culture. It could also be argued, that by focusing only on faith and not on works Protestants have rid themselves of any obligation to do good. And in rejecting texts they do not find canon and forgetting about the saints, they have severed themselves from a great wealth of lore and mythology. The fact that popular media like Dogma and Sandman tap primarily into a Catholic cosmology is attests to this.
Likewise, it seems to me that Jesus was rather hasty in rejecting all of the Oral Law. There exists a wealth of Jewish folklore outside of the Bible, including the above story about Abraham. Today the Talmud contains the Oral Law. Without this exegesis, the bulk of modern Jewish practice would not exist. This is because the commandments that appear in the Torah are primarily do-not’s, whereas the Talmud offers do’s.
I think that even the ancient Israelites were a bit rash in trying to set themselves apart from other cultures. No man is an island, and the Bible demonstrates it. A number of elements appear in other cultures, the most well-known being the Flood story, but even Proverbs 22:17-24:22 appear to have been taken from the Egyptian text Instruction of Amenemope. Father Abraham may have lead us to more abstract conceptions of God, but he also set the precedent of righteous indignation that has been the underlying cause of innumerable wars about or justified by religion.
In liberal religion I can take a critical look at both side of any theological claim and come to my own conclusions that work for me. I can read the works of any scribe, rabbi, classical philosopher, protestant reformer, or theologian and be inspired. Or choose to respectfully disagree. The beauty of liberal religion is that I am constantly forced to galvanize my beliefs and worldview. Like a religious debate with another person, I can read a text to challenge my beliefs and either strengthen them or replace them. By avoiding a conservative mindset that thinks in absolutes I am opening myself up to unlimited sources of wisdom and inspiration. That is why I am glad I belong to a tradition that questions tradition.
02.27.06
You’ll Believe Anything…
I think perhaps the most frequently used criticism of Unitarian Universalism is “you can believe anything.” The implication usually being that our religion requires little spiritual commitment. In one (more literal) sense this criticism is obviously false. There are some things our hearts and minds will not allow us to accept. I, for example, really wish I could believe in karma, or at least divine retribution, but I cannot.
However, there is another sense to the common criticism which is almost true; that one can have any belief and still choose to label themselves Unitarian Universalist. I say this is almost true because in some more fundamentalist belief systems, which would regard Unitarian Universalism as downright blasphemous, it would be a theological contradiction.
In the minds of others our syncretic, creedless religion might not be evil, but may seem flimsy or “wishy-washy.” Keith Troughton of the Dublin Unitarian Church described this in a December sermon as the “a la carte” (or “buffet” in American usage) criticism. “Sometimes ‘a la carte’ is accompanied by a comment like, ‘Well, that’s not really a religion at all, is it?’ which isn’t really a question so much as a statement.” Many have and continue to subscribe to this train of thought, including Texas comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, who in May 2004 challenged the tax-exempt status of Red River Unitarian Universalist Church on the grounds that it, “does not have one system of belief.” This assessment is misleading because it equates a system of belief with a creed.
It is my thought that the distinction between the two is very important. There is a vast diversity among UUs on an equally vast number of theological and philosophical issues. This is a natural result of UUism’s creedlessness. However, there is a certain mindset which pervades the spirit of our religion: open-mindedness, freethought, questioning and inquiry. The free and responsible search. The humility to admit to ourselves and others that we may never have all the answers, but the courage to never quit looking.
Troughton asserts, and I heartily agree, that Unitarianism requires great commitment: “Worst of all for me is the suggestion that being a Unitarian, being open to the spirit of life and the eternal no matter where or how it comes, lacks any kind of conviction or commitment. Certainly for this Unitarian the opposite is true.”
The lack of a creed is a challenge for us, sometimes even a hardship. That is not to say that members of creedal religions do not have their spiritual crises, but that for them more certainty exists. In my opinion, the courage to confront life and all of its religious implications despite uncertainty is the Unitarian Universalist commitment.
12.08.05
Happy Holidays?
Sorry I post so infrequently. This is the first semester I have ever tried to balance a job and school, so other activities like this blog get pushed to the side. I’m still in the midst of exams, but expect a bunch of updates later this month.
Now to address an issue that has been bothering me for a while. It is so obvious to me that the whole furor over a supposedly anti-Christmas agenda is just a streitpunkt the talking heads are exploiting to get people riled up. Why do I say that? Well the phrase “happy holidays” has been around for ages. Last year Peanuts (which as you may know is running “rerun” strips under the title Classic Peanuts) ran a strip, originally published in 1969, in which one of the characters said that very phrase. In 1969. This from Charles Schultz whose Christian faith was obviously an important part of his life. I’m sure others who have lived for much longer than I have can attest to “happy holidays” not being a recent invention. Heck, I can remember it being used when I was in elementary school, so it’s got to be at least a decade old.
So here’s my point: If “happy holidays” has indeed been around as long as I contend it has, why are people just now getting worked up about it? That’s right, it’s our good friends at the liberal, Jew-run media who are trying to save Christmas from the liberals and non-Christians who are trying to get rid of it. I remember watching Bill O’Reilly last year bemoaning some city’s parade which had recently been changed from a “Christmas” parade to a “Holiday” parade. Evidently other media outlets took the hint. This year I hear so much about it that I just may avoid watching television at all, until the ball drops.
11.08.05
The Fundamentalist Agenda
PINKERTON – As the polls are coming in, it is obvious that pro-gay-rights candidates have won a majority of the seats on the town’s school board.
“Well, it’s about time,” says voter Evelyn Gaylord, “I’m sick and tired of those Fundamentalist Christians and their Agenda.” Mrs. Gaylord’s sentiments seem to be shared by many of the voters in today’s election.
It appears that the firebrand anti-Fundamentalist rhetoric of several of the candidates hit its mark among the voters. A good example of such rhetoric is from a statement issued by incumbent Simeon Kwir, “Thanks to Fundamentalist activists there are already Christian clubs in our schools. Next on their Agenda is school prayer. It’s obvious who their target is: our children. The Fundamentalists are recruiting in schools and that has to stop!”
“My son found out the other day that his geography teacher is, is.. one of them. I cannot stand for this,” says concerned parent Sappho Jones. Jones cites the presence of openly Fundamentalist teachers as a sign of the declining focus on morality in public schools. “The curriculum in the schools nowadays actually teaches that thier lifestyle is OK. If somebody doesn’t do something about this soon I’m going to send my kids to a Montessori school.”
“It’s part of a grand vision for them, a Fundamentalist Agenda,” says Dr. John van Dyke, founder of Fixation on the Familial Unit, “They are conspiring with the pro-war crowd and corrupt CEO’s to create an America devoid of morality. I’m afraid it may get worse before it gets better. With activist judges legislating from the bench, we may see more laws being circumvented to benefit the Religious Right. This is the reason our organization was founded. We want to be a source of hope in these troubling times. We will publicly endorse candidates like Mr. Kwir who are courageous enough to stand up to the Fundamentalist Agenda.”
If the new school board members live up to their promises, the future of Pinkerton’s schools is clear. Is this the beginning of a nation-wide, grassroots movement to combat the Religious Right? Only time will tell.
