Happy New Year's Eve-Eve, everyone. I'm occupied with work-related stuff in an effort to finish up in time to enjoy the next couple of days work-free.
In the meantime, quite a bit on the evangelicals-in-the-world front is going on. I'll relate one such item all-too-briefly:
I refer to the situation involving a custody battle between two women, Lisa Miller and Janet Jenkins. Miller and Jenkins were legally coupled (a la domestic partnership) in Vermont back in 2000. Two years later, they had a baby, Isabella, as a couple (though Miller was the biological mother). Miller subsequently (in the fall of 2003) returned to her conservative Christian faith, renouncing her relationship with Jenkins and becoming in effect a former lesbian. Jenkins, understandably, sought to enjoy visitation rights guaranteed in Vermont's law. Though Miller had moved to Virginia, courts there consistently ruled that Jenkins has the same rights to see and visit Isabella that any straight parent would have in the instance of a divorce with children.
Miller, with extensive support from conservative Christian legal agencies, consistently challenged Jenkins's right to see Isabella. Courts became increasingly impatient with Miller's resistance, finally ruling this last year that the only way to enforce visitation rights is to switch custody to Jenkins.
The switch was to take place on Jan 1, 2010. A last-ditch effort by Miller's attorneys to stay the switch failed, as the Virginia judge noted that Miller had failed to show up to the hearing and had cut off all contact with her lawyers. (The blog Box Turtle Bulletin, always a great source of LGBT-related news, has a nice summary and timeline.)
The latest twist? It seems now that Miller has absconded with Isabella rather than abide by the court's ruling.
Let there be no mistake: the situation with Isabella and her parents is at least as ugly as custody battles usually are. My interest is in the conservative-evangelical response to it. Of course, conservative evangelicals typically oppose any civil union or marriage-like arrangement between same-sex partners (with multiple exceptions, of course). Yet they also typically oppose breaking the law, in this case the direct and repeated orders from Virginia courts as well as kidnapping a seven-year-old. Which tendency will win out?
It's early yet to tell; the story hasn't quite broken the surface of national media. But in the conservative news sources I look at, the spin seems to be that Miller's kidnapping and going into hiding constitutes a brave and necessary act of civil disobedience. Onenewsnow's comments on their heavily slanted reporting are revealing (though in fairness a number of posters seem supportive of Jenkins). More telling (and disturbing) is this web site, proclaiming a "Protect Isabella Coalition." Box Turtle Bulletin links that site to one Debbie Thurman, a semi-prominent spokesperson for ex-gay ministries (primarily her own, called "The Formers"). Interestingly, the site's "think of the children!" rhetoric works alongside some good old-fashioned talk about "judicial activism" and the violation of Miller's religious rights.
"Why aren't Virginia's marriage laws and DOMA [Defense of Marriage Act] not working?" asks the FAQ section. The answer, of course, is that the federal constitution's full faith and credit clause requires Virginia to honor agreements legally made in Vermont. Moreover, the fact that Miller is in contempt of court by disappearing with Isabella does not show her or her case to advantage in the eyes of the judiciary.
Thus civil disobedience--breaking a law one considers unjust--becomes necessary. The groundswell of support for Miller among at least some evangelicals, however, suggests that such civil disobedience may spread. A person that knowingly shelters Miller and Isabella, or who lies about their whereabouts, is also committing civil disobedience.
The question then presents itself: how does this act of civil disobedience (and the pronouncements of support for it) function as political activism? How does it function as Christian witness?
More tomorrow,
JF
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Permittted Free Speech and Open-Air Preaching in Georgia
"Permitted free speech?" repeats the man incredulously, "That's an oxymoron!"
It's March 28, 2008, a sunny day on what looks to be the central quad of Georgia Southern University. A group of people, led by a young man with longish brown hair, confront an administrator, who is flanked by a two burly campus police. What's the problem?
The man, Benjamin Bloedorn, had, along with a handful of other men, been evangelizing in public, "open-air preaching" (with some sign-waving and singing as well) in an attempt to encourage GSU students and passersby to convert. It appears, however, that in doing so he violated GSU's free speech policy, which requires that non-sponsored speakers apply for and receive permission to speak on campus. During the confrontation, which eventually led to Bloedorn's arrest, Bloedorn and his associates argued that GSU, as a public university supported by state taxpayer funds, cannot claim to be private property and thus has no standing to dictate who may or may not speak on their grass and sidewalks.
The police disagreed. So too, according to a story today on the conservative site Onenewsnow, did the Georgia court. Of course, Onenewsnow spins the story as yet another slight in a context of anti-Christian bias by the state: "Christian witnessing a no-no on campus," reads the headline. Other conservative evangelical websites echo this sentiment, alleging both that the act constitutes an attack on Christianity and an unconstitutional hindrance on free speech.
The Bloedorn affair represents something of a trend in which confrontational evangelists (and other kinds of activists) challenge the state's right to police free speech and expression. Other evangelists, such as Michael Marcavage of the group Repent America, regularly run afoul of officers' charging them with trespassing. Such charges, of course, fuel Marcavage's particular evangelistic philosophy, which interprets resistance by authorities as proof that God's word is being preached (and resisted by the devil).
Bloedorn, from what I can tell, seems linked to the Faithful Soldier School of Evangelism, a kind of homegrown training/evangelism group led by Jason and Sara Storms, specializing in confrontational campus evangelism, particularly around issues such as pro-life and anti-homosexuality. Bloedorn is an alumnus of this school (you can see him in Faithful Soldier pictures here and here), though I don't think the GSU protest was FSSE activity. Broadly, FSSE seems to follow a Ray Comfort-type philosophy that the best, most Biblically based evangelism takes place via open-air preaching that uses the Law (i.e., the Ten Commandments) to inspire listeners to confront their own guilt before God, repent, and receive Christ.
I gather that Bloedorn and company were doing just that when the GSU officials confronted them. This being the Youtube age, a video account of this confrontation and the subsequent arrest exists. Here's Bloedorn being arrested:
Videos of the arguments leading up to the arrest are here here and here. These video accounts match up to that contained in the brief filed on behalf of Bloedorn by the conservative Alliance Defense Fund.
Now, Bloedorn's evangelistic strategy of course interests me, given my research interests. But, as a matter of clarification, let me address the free speech arguments advanced by Bloedorn and by the ADF.
Is "permitted free speech" an oxymoron? Only in the abstract. In practice, no such thing as a right to utterly unrestricted speech has ever been recognized by the US government. Indeed, for a long time the "freedom of speech" meant only that the US federal government could not impose "prior restraint"--preemptively forbid speech. This prohibition did not necessarily extend to the state or local governments, nor did this prohibition exclude punitive measures by the State against speakers. Only in the twentieth century did speech rights come to mean more what we recognize today as the right of an individual to say or express whatever he or she pleases without fear of censorship or state reprisal.
And even this right isn't absolute. The right to free speech has never been understood to cover direct threats ("I'm going to kill you if you vote for X candidate"), incitements to violence ("you should shoot X candidate in the face when she gets up to speak"), disruptions of the peace (e.g., shouting "fire!" in a crowded theatre), obscenity, or libel/slander. Nor is speech allowed just anywhere, at any time, whenever or wherever someone pleases. The US relies on a scheme of ordered liberty, not a free-for-all yelling match. The right to express whatever you'd like does not guarantee you an audience.
In this case, the evangelists repeatedly make two arguments: 1) that GSU, as a public university, cannot claim private property or restrict speech on its grounds; and 2) that the notion of permitted free speech is unconstitutional. The latter claim, as I've demonstrated, does not stand. All speech operates under certain prior restraints in the interests of public safety. As fo the former claim, the evangelists use questionable definitions of public and private. Yes, GSU is likely a public university. And yes, GSU has the right to restrict trespassers and speakers--especially when said speakers are not students at GSU (as Bloedorn was not).
The University official had it right when she pointed out to the evangelists that one cannot simply traipse into a courthouse or senate building, set up signs, and begin preaching (the camera operator--whom I think was Bloedorn--tried to argue that point, insisting he had heard of people who had done just that). The freedom of speech isn't the same as a freedom of universal access. Georgia taxpayers doubtless do pay for a great deal of GSU's budget; it does not follow that any one taxpayer has unfettered access to all parts of the University.
Tellingly, the ADF's brief does not attempt to make either of the evangelists' arguments. Instead it suggests that 1) the boundaries between public sidewalks and GSU property are unclear; and 2) GSU's procedures for granting non-sponsored speakers access are arduous and unfair, constituting a prior restraint.
Those procedures, by the way, are as follows (copied from the brief):
The administrator confronting the evangelists actually went over this procedure several times, offering them numerous opportunities to leave, fill out the form, get permission, and return. The evangelists seemed unaware of these procedures and, when informed of them, pointedly refused to abide by them.
The legal-civil issues at play here seem clear. GSU had set procedures for non-sponsored speakers to speak; Bloedorn and company declined to follow them.
The theological issues here actually interest me more.
More tomorrow,
JF
It's March 28, 2008, a sunny day on what looks to be the central quad of Georgia Southern University. A group of people, led by a young man with longish brown hair, confront an administrator, who is flanked by a two burly campus police. What's the problem?
The man, Benjamin Bloedorn, had, along with a handful of other men, been evangelizing in public, "open-air preaching" (with some sign-waving and singing as well) in an attempt to encourage GSU students and passersby to convert. It appears, however, that in doing so he violated GSU's free speech policy, which requires that non-sponsored speakers apply for and receive permission to speak on campus. During the confrontation, which eventually led to Bloedorn's arrest, Bloedorn and his associates argued that GSU, as a public university supported by state taxpayer funds, cannot claim to be private property and thus has no standing to dictate who may or may not speak on their grass and sidewalks.
The police disagreed. So too, according to a story today on the conservative site Onenewsnow, did the Georgia court. Of course, Onenewsnow spins the story as yet another slight in a context of anti-Christian bias by the state: "Christian witnessing a no-no on campus," reads the headline. Other conservative evangelical websites echo this sentiment, alleging both that the act constitutes an attack on Christianity and an unconstitutional hindrance on free speech.
The Bloedorn affair represents something of a trend in which confrontational evangelists (and other kinds of activists) challenge the state's right to police free speech and expression. Other evangelists, such as Michael Marcavage of the group Repent America, regularly run afoul of officers' charging them with trespassing. Such charges, of course, fuel Marcavage's particular evangelistic philosophy, which interprets resistance by authorities as proof that God's word is being preached (and resisted by the devil).
Bloedorn, from what I can tell, seems linked to the Faithful Soldier School of Evangelism, a kind of homegrown training/evangelism group led by Jason and Sara Storms, specializing in confrontational campus evangelism, particularly around issues such as pro-life and anti-homosexuality. Bloedorn is an alumnus of this school (you can see him in Faithful Soldier pictures here and here), though I don't think the GSU protest was FSSE activity. Broadly, FSSE seems to follow a Ray Comfort-type philosophy that the best, most Biblically based evangelism takes place via open-air preaching that uses the Law (i.e., the Ten Commandments) to inspire listeners to confront their own guilt before God, repent, and receive Christ.
I gather that Bloedorn and company were doing just that when the GSU officials confronted them. This being the Youtube age, a video account of this confrontation and the subsequent arrest exists. Here's Bloedorn being arrested:
Videos of the arguments leading up to the arrest are here here and here. These video accounts match up to that contained in the brief filed on behalf of Bloedorn by the conservative Alliance Defense Fund.
Now, Bloedorn's evangelistic strategy of course interests me, given my research interests. But, as a matter of clarification, let me address the free speech arguments advanced by Bloedorn and by the ADF.
Is "permitted free speech" an oxymoron? Only in the abstract. In practice, no such thing as a right to utterly unrestricted speech has ever been recognized by the US government. Indeed, for a long time the "freedom of speech" meant only that the US federal government could not impose "prior restraint"--preemptively forbid speech. This prohibition did not necessarily extend to the state or local governments, nor did this prohibition exclude punitive measures by the State against speakers. Only in the twentieth century did speech rights come to mean more what we recognize today as the right of an individual to say or express whatever he or she pleases without fear of censorship or state reprisal.
And even this right isn't absolute. The right to free speech has never been understood to cover direct threats ("I'm going to kill you if you vote for X candidate"), incitements to violence ("you should shoot X candidate in the face when she gets up to speak"), disruptions of the peace (e.g., shouting "fire!" in a crowded theatre), obscenity, or libel/slander. Nor is speech allowed just anywhere, at any time, whenever or wherever someone pleases. The US relies on a scheme of ordered liberty, not a free-for-all yelling match. The right to express whatever you'd like does not guarantee you an audience.
In this case, the evangelists repeatedly make two arguments: 1) that GSU, as a public university, cannot claim private property or restrict speech on its grounds; and 2) that the notion of permitted free speech is unconstitutional. The latter claim, as I've demonstrated, does not stand. All speech operates under certain prior restraints in the interests of public safety. As fo the former claim, the evangelists use questionable definitions of public and private. Yes, GSU is likely a public university. And yes, GSU has the right to restrict trespassers and speakers--especially when said speakers are not students at GSU (as Bloedorn was not).
The University official had it right when she pointed out to the evangelists that one cannot simply traipse into a courthouse or senate building, set up signs, and begin preaching (the camera operator--whom I think was Bloedorn--tried to argue that point, insisting he had heard of people who had done just that). The freedom of speech isn't the same as a freedom of universal access. Georgia taxpayers doubtless do pay for a great deal of GSU's budget; it does not follow that any one taxpayer has unfettered access to all parts of the University.
Tellingly, the ADF's brief does not attempt to make either of the evangelists' arguments. Instead it suggests that 1) the boundaries between public sidewalks and GSU property are unclear; and 2) GSU's procedures for granting non-sponsored speakers access are arduous and unfair, constituting a prior restraint.
Those procedures, by the way, are as follows (copied from the brief):
It is the policy of Georgia Southern to permit the use of facilities by the general community in a manner which does not compete with the ongoing programs of the University. Speakers who are not sponsored by a campus organization may request permission to initiate a gathering on campus. Request forms are available in the Russell Union Office, Room 2070.
If a non-campus speaker is approved, the University reserves the right to assign space and designate time frequency and length of the proposed activity. A typical length of time for a speaker is one and a half hours. Frequency should be no more than once a month under normal circumstances. Under no conditions will a noncampus speaker be permitted to sell items or solicit funds on campus. (Members of the same group or organization dealing with the same general topic will be considered one speaker for the purpose of scheduling stipulation.)
The administrator confronting the evangelists actually went over this procedure several times, offering them numerous opportunities to leave, fill out the form, get permission, and return. The evangelists seemed unaware of these procedures and, when informed of them, pointedly refused to abide by them.
The legal-civil issues at play here seem clear. GSU had set procedures for non-sponsored speakers to speak; Bloedorn and company declined to follow them.
The theological issues here actually interest me more.
More tomorrow,
JF
Monday, December 28, 2009
Top Ten Religion Stories 2009
As the year (to say nothing of the decade) winds down, news media inevitably blossom with "top ten" lists. For my money, one can find the most entertaining and thoughtful of these on The Onion's AV Club site (my favorites: 45 Most Indelible Moments from 2009 TV; Best Bad Movies of the 00's).
More relevant to this blog's purpose, however, are the top ten theology stories from various points around the web. Collin Hansen of Christianity Today offers his list here. Time Magazine's list is here (scroll down--they're doing top ten everything). The Religion Newswriters Association made a list (with many runners-up) here. More are sure to come, though the RNA's list seems to be attracting the most attention from the evangelical/Christian blogosphere thus far.
No one story appears on all three lists. Time and the RNA lists share the most overlap, largely due to their focus on religion in toto rather than on a particular facet of Christianity. Even so, their priorities differ markedly. Time, for instance, gives primary importance to the growing and self-conscious secularist trend in Europe, including (as an example) the Swiss ban on Muslim minarets I've written about previously. The RNA rates that story as number 11 (the first among the runners-up), and Hansen mentions it not at all.
President Obama appears on the more wide-net lists, though for Time his significance lies in his continuance of Bush-era faith-based programs. RNA lists that item as 16. Number one on RNA's list is Obama's speech in Cairo in which he pledges better relations to the world's Muslims, assuring his audience that the US is not at war with Islam (reflect for a moment on the significance of his needing to offer such a reassurance). The Christianity Today list focuses not so much on Obama as on Rick Warren's participation (as one of many pray-ers) in Obama's inauguration (#7). Both Time and the RNA include the president's speech at Notre Dame and the extreme counter-reaction against it as, respectively, 7 and 6.
First on the Christianity Today list is a story unmentioned on the other lists: the ongoing translation battles around the New International Version and the (widely criticized among evangelicals) "Today's New International Version." As this story explains, the translation committee responsible for the two versions plans to phase both out in favor of an as-yet-unproduced version in 2011. The NIV has long been the most popular non-King James rendering of the Bible in evangelical churches; it's the standard pew Bible, so changes to it (as evidenced by the TNIV controversy) provoke tension.
The committee seems mainly concerned with scholarly and linguistic issues, but most evangelical commentators sideline these in favor of a more culture-warrior question: will the new version contain "gender-neutral" language? The committee has yet to decide. I don't envy them their choice. Scholarly and linguistic trends may dictate "brothers and sisters" to reflect that an epistle's "dear brothers" refers to more than just males. But to many evangelicals, spelling out terms of inclusive address in such a manner suggests a bow to liberalism and feminism, an alteration of the inerrant word.
I'm surprised, I must say, by the fact that the CT list (which in fairness concerns stories about theology rather than religion) doesn't include such items as James Dobson's stepping down from being chair of Focus on the Family, the Catholic Church's overture to Anglicans, or George Tiller's murder in a Lutheran Church.
Missing from all three lists is any reference to the Ugandan anti-homosexuality bill being debated in that country's parliament. More important than the bill itself is the tensions within global Christianity that this debate has begun to reveal, a tension mirrored by the Anglican Communion's unease about some African bishops' setting up alternative sub-Communions for disaffected US Anglicans.
Indeed, were I (in my relative ignorance) to suggest the most important trend of 2009 or of the past decade, it would be the increasing tension between religious and nonreligious worldviews. I get nervous when I consider Europe's more strident secularism (e.g., French President Nicolas Sarkozy's suggestion that burquas be banned in public, the Swiss minaret controversy, animosity toward Muslims) side-by-side with the growing/maturing Christianities (and other faiths) of the Global South. These are incompatible worldviews, and they promise to come into conflict sooner rather than later.
More and more, I'm convinced Stanley Fish was right when he offered "religion" as the make-or-break issue of the 21st century. I only hope (and pray) that the next ten years offer stories with more hope of "making" than "breaking."
More tomorrow,
JF
More relevant to this blog's purpose, however, are the top ten theology stories from various points around the web. Collin Hansen of Christianity Today offers his list here. Time Magazine's list is here (scroll down--they're doing top ten everything). The Religion Newswriters Association made a list (with many runners-up) here. More are sure to come, though the RNA's list seems to be attracting the most attention from the evangelical/Christian blogosphere thus far.
No one story appears on all three lists. Time and the RNA lists share the most overlap, largely due to their focus on religion in toto rather than on a particular facet of Christianity. Even so, their priorities differ markedly. Time, for instance, gives primary importance to the growing and self-conscious secularist trend in Europe, including (as an example) the Swiss ban on Muslim minarets I've written about previously. The RNA rates that story as number 11 (the first among the runners-up), and Hansen mentions it not at all.
President Obama appears on the more wide-net lists, though for Time his significance lies in his continuance of Bush-era faith-based programs. RNA lists that item as 16. Number one on RNA's list is Obama's speech in Cairo in which he pledges better relations to the world's Muslims, assuring his audience that the US is not at war with Islam (reflect for a moment on the significance of his needing to offer such a reassurance). The Christianity Today list focuses not so much on Obama as on Rick Warren's participation (as one of many pray-ers) in Obama's inauguration (#7). Both Time and the RNA include the president's speech at Notre Dame and the extreme counter-reaction against it as, respectively, 7 and 6.
First on the Christianity Today list is a story unmentioned on the other lists: the ongoing translation battles around the New International Version and the (widely criticized among evangelicals) "Today's New International Version." As this story explains, the translation committee responsible for the two versions plans to phase both out in favor of an as-yet-unproduced version in 2011. The NIV has long been the most popular non-King James rendering of the Bible in evangelical churches; it's the standard pew Bible, so changes to it (as evidenced by the TNIV controversy) provoke tension.
The committee seems mainly concerned with scholarly and linguistic issues, but most evangelical commentators sideline these in favor of a more culture-warrior question: will the new version contain "gender-neutral" language? The committee has yet to decide. I don't envy them their choice. Scholarly and linguistic trends may dictate "brothers and sisters" to reflect that an epistle's "dear brothers" refers to more than just males. But to many evangelicals, spelling out terms of inclusive address in such a manner suggests a bow to liberalism and feminism, an alteration of the inerrant word.
I'm surprised, I must say, by the fact that the CT list (which in fairness concerns stories about theology rather than religion) doesn't include such items as James Dobson's stepping down from being chair of Focus on the Family, the Catholic Church's overture to Anglicans, or George Tiller's murder in a Lutheran Church.
Missing from all three lists is any reference to the Ugandan anti-homosexuality bill being debated in that country's parliament. More important than the bill itself is the tensions within global Christianity that this debate has begun to reveal, a tension mirrored by the Anglican Communion's unease about some African bishops' setting up alternative sub-Communions for disaffected US Anglicans.
Indeed, were I (in my relative ignorance) to suggest the most important trend of 2009 or of the past decade, it would be the increasing tension between religious and nonreligious worldviews. I get nervous when I consider Europe's more strident secularism (e.g., French President Nicolas Sarkozy's suggestion that burquas be banned in public, the Swiss minaret controversy, animosity toward Muslims) side-by-side with the growing/maturing Christianities (and other faiths) of the Global South. These are incompatible worldviews, and they promise to come into conflict sooner rather than later.
More and more, I'm convinced Stanley Fish was right when he offered "religion" as the make-or-break issue of the 21st century. I only hope (and pray) that the next ten years offer stories with more hope of "making" than "breaking."
More tomorrow,
JF
Sunday, December 27, 2009
A Visit to my Old Church
So... After a nice make-up Christmas with my family, the inevitable Sunday morning question presented itself: where to go to church? It's a rare Sunday when my father is off from his preaching duties, but impassable streets, ice-slick church parking lots, and the specter of parishioners' broken hips compelled him to cancel his morning services, allowing he and I to travel to the city to visit my sister and her husband.
But my father's cancellation didn't mean "no church," just "different church." We ended up visiting my old church, the Methodist congregation I had attended throughout my undergrad years.
This church is what is called a "reconciling congregation," meaning it aligns with the Reconciling Ministries Network, a parachurch organization aimed at changing United Methodist policy to become more inclusive of GLBT folk. I began attending the church my freshman year largely because it was nearby (I lacked a car in those days), because some friends of mine went, and because the church was smaller than the more intimidating Huge Methodist Churches in the area.
That it was Reconciling was, in retrospect, a God thing--serendipity with a divine push--for my freshman year of college just happened to be the year I came to terms with being gay myself.
I hesitate to go into that now; it's a story I've told so many times it feels old and trite to me. Suffice it to say that, in a time where I was questioning just about every aspect of my life and self-image, that Reconciling church helped me to hang on to a sense of God as reliably loving. I might be changing (at least, my image of myself--my past, my future--might be changing), but two things I knew: 1) my family loved me no matter what; and 2) God loved me no matter what.
To those who haven't experienced a reconciling congregation or other GLBT-affirming worship--I recommend it. Rarely do you see such a cross-section of society (racial, class, gender, age, ability) in a single sanctuary. People--gay and lesbian and bisexual and transgender people especially--hear about this place where it's OK to be who they are and worship as they feel they should. And they come. And they come. And they come. When I first started attending, the church had just voted to become reconciling, and church numbers soared.
You experience the conventions of worship, the vocabulary of liturgy, so differently in an audience of people who come from places where they've been denied those things. To sing a hymn together openly and proudly, to hear a sermon with hope rather than trepidation, to take communion--these things are so easy to take for granted. In a reconciling church, you realize that you are surrounded with people who many times have lived years locked outside of church participation because of who they are. Many had been told that they could never, ever be gay or lesbian and live a life pleasing to God. Many had been subjected to (or had subjected themselves to) intensive, psychologically excruciating efforts to change or mute their sexuality or gender identities, only to fail and, in shame and sorrow (and perhaps with bitterness, too) strike out "going to church" from their future life script.
Some people I knew had even been excommunicated from their congregations. One man described a ceremony where his tiny congregation--the congregation he had grown up with, laughed and prayed and cried and shared and worked and fellowshipped with--formed a circle around him and turned their backs to him, one by one, to demonstrate his out-cast-ness.
I really have to wonder just what kind of picture of God or agape such people had in their minds or hearts to imagine such an act as Christlike.
So, in a reconciling church, if there's mention of the open table of communion--all are welcome--there's an added kick. All means all.
This church had communion every Sunday. It still did. My father and I braved the icy side streets (well, he drove, so he really braved the ice) to find the church open for business. The crowd was smaller than normal, but some people recognized me from 10+ years ago (and my father from nearer to that--he's a more frequent visitor). We met new faces. We shared songs (finally Christmas songs!) and bread and juice. It reminded me of what's best about church and what's great about a Methodist church who takes its call to be loving and open seriously.
More tomorrow,
JF
But my father's cancellation didn't mean "no church," just "different church." We ended up visiting my old church, the Methodist congregation I had attended throughout my undergrad years.
This church is what is called a "reconciling congregation," meaning it aligns with the Reconciling Ministries Network, a parachurch organization aimed at changing United Methodist policy to become more inclusive of GLBT folk. I began attending the church my freshman year largely because it was nearby (I lacked a car in those days), because some friends of mine went, and because the church was smaller than the more intimidating Huge Methodist Churches in the area.
That it was Reconciling was, in retrospect, a God thing--serendipity with a divine push--for my freshman year of college just happened to be the year I came to terms with being gay myself.
I hesitate to go into that now; it's a story I've told so many times it feels old and trite to me. Suffice it to say that, in a time where I was questioning just about every aspect of my life and self-image, that Reconciling church helped me to hang on to a sense of God as reliably loving. I might be changing (at least, my image of myself--my past, my future--might be changing), but two things I knew: 1) my family loved me no matter what; and 2) God loved me no matter what.
To those who haven't experienced a reconciling congregation or other GLBT-affirming worship--I recommend it. Rarely do you see such a cross-section of society (racial, class, gender, age, ability) in a single sanctuary. People--gay and lesbian and bisexual and transgender people especially--hear about this place where it's OK to be who they are and worship as they feel they should. And they come. And they come. And they come. When I first started attending, the church had just voted to become reconciling, and church numbers soared.
You experience the conventions of worship, the vocabulary of liturgy, so differently in an audience of people who come from places where they've been denied those things. To sing a hymn together openly and proudly, to hear a sermon with hope rather than trepidation, to take communion--these things are so easy to take for granted. In a reconciling church, you realize that you are surrounded with people who many times have lived years locked outside of church participation because of who they are. Many had been told that they could never, ever be gay or lesbian and live a life pleasing to God. Many had been subjected to (or had subjected themselves to) intensive, psychologically excruciating efforts to change or mute their sexuality or gender identities, only to fail and, in shame and sorrow (and perhaps with bitterness, too) strike out "going to church" from their future life script.
Some people I knew had even been excommunicated from their congregations. One man described a ceremony where his tiny congregation--the congregation he had grown up with, laughed and prayed and cried and shared and worked and fellowshipped with--formed a circle around him and turned their backs to him, one by one, to demonstrate his out-cast-ness.
I really have to wonder just what kind of picture of God or agape such people had in their minds or hearts to imagine such an act as Christlike.
So, in a reconciling church, if there's mention of the open table of communion--all are welcome--there's an added kick. All means all.
This church had communion every Sunday. It still did. My father and I braved the icy side streets (well, he drove, so he really braved the ice) to find the church open for business. The crowd was smaller than normal, but some people recognized me from 10+ years ago (and my father from nearer to that--he's a more frequent visitor). We met new faces. We shared songs (finally Christmas songs!) and bread and juice. It reminded me of what's best about church and what's great about a Methodist church who takes its call to be loving and open seriously.
More tomorrow,
JF
Friday, December 25, 2009
merry christmas
Christmas Day--sick with a sore throat and stuck by snow and ice.
It's a nice day nonetheless, home safe with my father and the dog.
No real post today beyond "Merry Christmas."
More tomorrow,
JF
It's a nice day nonetheless, home safe with my father and the dog.
No real post today beyond "Merry Christmas."
More tomorrow,
JF
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Blizzards on Christmas Eve
So--a blizzard has hit. Nothing like this has been seen in this part of Oklahoma since...well, ever, really. Drifts are piling up, snow is blowing. Internet is sketchy; power is fluctuating (though, thankfully, we still have some).
Plans to go out to see a movie and then to the Christmas Eve service later this evening? Nixed. Plans to go see my sister in the big city tomorrow? Uh... Not likely. Our Christmas celebrations and family get-togethers will likely have to wait, postponed as we shift from "relaxed and eager" to "nervously waiting to see how bad things will get." And I'm quite lucky. Some people are apparently stranded on the interstate, unable to exit due to blocked-off ramps. Disappointed as I may be not to celebrate Christmas as I'd prefer, I'm grateful to be indoors and warm. Lord, help those in distress.
Now, if this were a different sort of religious-ish blog, I'd segue into some hamfisted comparison with That Christmas Eve So Long Ago. "As cold as we are now," I'd muse, "surely Mary and Joseph were colder--and they had no place to stay, no internet, no cars. Just a manger. And that's where Christ was born! Makes you think, doesn't it?"
Of course it does not. It's vapid guilt-by-coincidence. Yes, yes--the Holy Family had a rough time while I enjoy internet and home heating with snow blowing outside the window. But does this realization move me beyond anything except a vague sense of shame for fretting over an unprecedented blizzard? I often find such smug comparisons are more about the person making the comparison ("see how deep and spiritual I am?") than they are about any novel insight. It's the Debbie Downer act of Christian spirituality, relentlessly dismissing any reaction to a present situation by comparing it haphazardly to some Biblical situation. "You think this weather is bad? Read Genesis about the Great Flood. You'll be begging for the Christmas Blizzard of '09." Cue wah-wah music.
This is Christmas Eve, however, the end of the Advent season of stopping and looking and reflecting. It behooves me to do a little bit of memory work to re-imagine that first experience. In that spirit, then, let me risk smugness with this comment: Yes, the Holy Family had a rough time of it on Christmas Eve. In a strange city, crowded with out-of-towners, going into labor--all in a barn. Terrible conditions--and there Jesus is.
And isn't the point of the story not the terrible conditions but the miraculous birth?
If Christ is "God With Us," then the Christmas story as related in Luke works as a neat acknowledgment of the fact that, many times, where we are is in a terrible spot. Stuck in a barn. Stuck on the highway. Stuck at home. Isolated from reunions, from warmth, from comfort, from everything Christmas Eve should be or mean.
And there Jesus is.
There are worse things to think about as the snow swirls outside and the temperature plummets. Advent is God here, Jesus with us, wherever we may be stranded.
Merry Christmas Eve to anyone reading this, wherever you are. May Jesus be with you, and may that knowledge warm you.
JF
Plans to go out to see a movie and then to the Christmas Eve service later this evening? Nixed. Plans to go see my sister in the big city tomorrow? Uh... Not likely. Our Christmas celebrations and family get-togethers will likely have to wait, postponed as we shift from "relaxed and eager" to "nervously waiting to see how bad things will get." And I'm quite lucky. Some people are apparently stranded on the interstate, unable to exit due to blocked-off ramps. Disappointed as I may be not to celebrate Christmas as I'd prefer, I'm grateful to be indoors and warm. Lord, help those in distress.
Now, if this were a different sort of religious-ish blog, I'd segue into some hamfisted comparison with That Christmas Eve So Long Ago. "As cold as we are now," I'd muse, "surely Mary and Joseph were colder--and they had no place to stay, no internet, no cars. Just a manger. And that's where Christ was born! Makes you think, doesn't it?"
Of course it does not. It's vapid guilt-by-coincidence. Yes, yes--the Holy Family had a rough time while I enjoy internet and home heating with snow blowing outside the window. But does this realization move me beyond anything except a vague sense of shame for fretting over an unprecedented blizzard? I often find such smug comparisons are more about the person making the comparison ("see how deep and spiritual I am?") than they are about any novel insight. It's the Debbie Downer act of Christian spirituality, relentlessly dismissing any reaction to a present situation by comparing it haphazardly to some Biblical situation. "You think this weather is bad? Read Genesis about the Great Flood. You'll be begging for the Christmas Blizzard of '09." Cue wah-wah music.
This is Christmas Eve, however, the end of the Advent season of stopping and looking and reflecting. It behooves me to do a little bit of memory work to re-imagine that first experience. In that spirit, then, let me risk smugness with this comment: Yes, the Holy Family had a rough time of it on Christmas Eve. In a strange city, crowded with out-of-towners, going into labor--all in a barn. Terrible conditions--and there Jesus is.
And isn't the point of the story not the terrible conditions but the miraculous birth?
If Christ is "God With Us," then the Christmas story as related in Luke works as a neat acknowledgment of the fact that, many times, where we are is in a terrible spot. Stuck in a barn. Stuck on the highway. Stuck at home. Isolated from reunions, from warmth, from comfort, from everything Christmas Eve should be or mean.
And there Jesus is.
There are worse things to think about as the snow swirls outside and the temperature plummets. Advent is God here, Jesus with us, wherever we may be stranded.
Merry Christmas Eve to anyone reading this, wherever you are. May Jesus be with you, and may that knowledge warm you.
JF
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Back On Line and Some Updates
Back at my parents' house for the holidays and thus (re)connected.
What have I missed in my time away? Let's see... there's a lot, so today I'll give a quick rundown/update on three issues I've been concerned with over the past few months.
* the Ugandan anti-homosexuality bill: Last I wrote, as I recall, I reported that Rick Warren had finally relented and released a pastoral encyclical urging Ugandan Christians to resist this bill. Warren Throckmorton's website (one of the best go-to sources of info on this) reported on a letter written by Ugandan pastor Martin Ssempa (co-signed by a number of other Ugandan Christian groups) ardently defending this bill. Versions of the letter appear here (from Christianity Today) and here (on Ssempa's website). Seempa protests that the main concern involves--well, the letter claims a number of claims: the abuse of minors by homosexual predators, the spread of AIDS/HIV, the creeping influence of homosexual lobbies internationally and in Uganda specifically.
Throckmorton notes that the letter completely ignores Warren's (and others') theological arguments against the bill. He also takes apart much of the evidence the letter links to in order to support its reasoning--not that his arguments (or those of the commentators to his blog posting) seem to matter much. If anything, the pastors' letter suggests to me a level of leave-us-alone intransigence on the part of the pro-bill Ugandan Christians. The relationship of Ugandan evangelicals to their western counterparts is in many ways growing more strained, and this situation is evidence of it. For a detailed overview of the relationship between Ugandan Christianity and US Christianity, see this article by Kapya Kaoma, which itself may deserve a post from me.
* The War on Christmas. Basically, the only new info here is more arguments pro- and anti- War. For example, Matt Barber, pundit-attorney for the Liberty Council, warns us that "the next time you hear someone say 'Happy Holidays,' remember that what they're actually saying – perhaps innocently enough – is 'Happy Holidays, Comrade.' They're playing right into the secularist agenda that seeks to replace the God of the universe with the god of government." His proof? Apparently the Soviet Union at one time discouraged recognition of Christmas. So obviously people's saying "happy holidays" in 2009 US and the USSR's anti-Christmas actions from the past only seem utterly incomparable.
Other Christian writers express impatience at the idea of a Christmas War (declared, it seems, by those who ostensibly want to defend Christmas). See Edward Grinnan's guest stint on the Washington Post's "On Faith" blog. See also this guest post on Michael Spencer's Internet Monk site. Both point out that fighting a Christmas War defeats the ethos of the season. Christmas Warriors are keen on making dire predictions about the awful world that will doubtless come should Christians lose the war. But what exactly would "winning" this War on Christmas look like? What or who would be defeated? Would Christians be happier if the government were to ban other holidays that occur around the end of the year?
* Health Care. This whole subject gets covered so extensively on other areas of the interwebs that I leave it up to you to investigate. Suffice it to say that it looks like a version of the health care plan will indeed be passed in the Senate before Christmas. I am personally for many of the provisions in the bill (i.e., eradicating lifetime caps on coverage, extending coverage to the uninsured, removing pre-existing conditions as a bar to coverage, etc.) though I would have been more pleased with some form of public option.
I continue to be depressed by the widespread resistance to this bill--well, not just this bill but to any health care reform whatsoever. Republican intransigence (there's that word again) to seemingly any kind of legislation whatsoever puts the lie to their insistence that they have the best interests of people at heart.
More distressing, however, is the fact that this resistance has come to be a signal issue for many on the religious right. I find utterly lacking any recognition that, in fact, many people are suffering due to lack of health care in this country, and that fixing this problem is worth the investment of some tax dollars. I get frustrated that the debate thus far seems primarily about money: support the bill to reduce deficits and cut costs or resist the bill because it will increase taxes. Both of these broad arguments pass over the deeper question of what the right thing to do is. Is it right for people to suffer and die because they can't afford adequate care? Is health care a right or a privilege?
I would think that the Christian answer to these questions is obvious. But religious right arguments against health care reform either ignore the questions altogether or--worse--suggest that the poor and/or underprivileged deserve their fate and that the better-off have to watch out for their own stuff.
Anyway--that's all for now. More tomorrow,
JF
What have I missed in my time away? Let's see... there's a lot, so today I'll give a quick rundown/update on three issues I've been concerned with over the past few months.
* the Ugandan anti-homosexuality bill: Last I wrote, as I recall, I reported that Rick Warren had finally relented and released a pastoral encyclical urging Ugandan Christians to resist this bill. Warren Throckmorton's website (one of the best go-to sources of info on this) reported on a letter written by Ugandan pastor Martin Ssempa (co-signed by a number of other Ugandan Christian groups) ardently defending this bill. Versions of the letter appear here (from Christianity Today) and here (on Ssempa's website). Seempa protests that the main concern involves--well, the letter claims a number of claims: the abuse of minors by homosexual predators, the spread of AIDS/HIV, the creeping influence of homosexual lobbies internationally and in Uganda specifically.
Throckmorton notes that the letter completely ignores Warren's (and others') theological arguments against the bill. He also takes apart much of the evidence the letter links to in order to support its reasoning--not that his arguments (or those of the commentators to his blog posting) seem to matter much. If anything, the pastors' letter suggests to me a level of leave-us-alone intransigence on the part of the pro-bill Ugandan Christians. The relationship of Ugandan evangelicals to their western counterparts is in many ways growing more strained, and this situation is evidence of it. For a detailed overview of the relationship between Ugandan Christianity and US Christianity, see this article by Kapya Kaoma, which itself may deserve a post from me.
* The War on Christmas. Basically, the only new info here is more arguments pro- and anti- War. For example, Matt Barber, pundit-attorney for the Liberty Council, warns us that "the next time you hear someone say 'Happy Holidays,' remember that what they're actually saying – perhaps innocently enough – is 'Happy Holidays, Comrade.' They're playing right into the secularist agenda that seeks to replace the God of the universe with the god of government." His proof? Apparently the Soviet Union at one time discouraged recognition of Christmas. So obviously people's saying "happy holidays" in 2009 US and the USSR's anti-Christmas actions from the past only seem utterly incomparable.
Other Christian writers express impatience at the idea of a Christmas War (declared, it seems, by those who ostensibly want to defend Christmas). See Edward Grinnan's guest stint on the Washington Post's "On Faith" blog. See also this guest post on Michael Spencer's Internet Monk site. Both point out that fighting a Christmas War defeats the ethos of the season. Christmas Warriors are keen on making dire predictions about the awful world that will doubtless come should Christians lose the war. But what exactly would "winning" this War on Christmas look like? What or who would be defeated? Would Christians be happier if the government were to ban other holidays that occur around the end of the year?
* Health Care. This whole subject gets covered so extensively on other areas of the interwebs that I leave it up to you to investigate. Suffice it to say that it looks like a version of the health care plan will indeed be passed in the Senate before Christmas. I am personally for many of the provisions in the bill (i.e., eradicating lifetime caps on coverage, extending coverage to the uninsured, removing pre-existing conditions as a bar to coverage, etc.) though I would have been more pleased with some form of public option.
I continue to be depressed by the widespread resistance to this bill--well, not just this bill but to any health care reform whatsoever. Republican intransigence (there's that word again) to seemingly any kind of legislation whatsoever puts the lie to their insistence that they have the best interests of people at heart.
More distressing, however, is the fact that this resistance has come to be a signal issue for many on the religious right. I find utterly lacking any recognition that, in fact, many people are suffering due to lack of health care in this country, and that fixing this problem is worth the investment of some tax dollars. I get frustrated that the debate thus far seems primarily about money: support the bill to reduce deficits and cut costs or resist the bill because it will increase taxes. Both of these broad arguments pass over the deeper question of what the right thing to do is. Is it right for people to suffer and die because they can't afford adequate care? Is health care a right or a privilege?
I would think that the Christian answer to these questions is obvious. But religious right arguments against health care reform either ignore the questions altogether or--worse--suggest that the poor and/or underprivileged deserve their fate and that the better-off have to watch out for their own stuff.
Anyway--that's all for now. More tomorrow,
JF
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Some Difficulteis with Worldviews
Just a quick note--I'll be visiting my in-laws for a few days, and internet access is likely to be sketchy to non-existent. Don't be surprised, then, if I take a few days off posting.
Back to the worldview evangelism topic from a few days ago. Briefly, worldview analysis posits that people's beliefs and behaviors stem from their worldview, meaning a related set of foundational ideas, values, and assumptions about reality. These foundational attitudes are largely presuppositional or pre-rational, though they may be susceptible to rational inquiry or criticism. The evangelist's task involves sharpening a sense of her own (Biblical Christian) worldview, learning to recognize and critique other worldviews, and becoming adept at interacting with those living in other worldviews, eventually leading them to recognize the superiority of the Biblical-Christian view.
I suggested that worldview analysis represents a positive trend in evangelicalism in that it insists upon critical thinking, self-reflection, and respectful interchange with non-Christians. It is, in any case, a step back from the tone-deaf, "Jesus: take him or leave him, culture!" approach to evangelism (manifested, I think, in artifacts like the CHRIST-mas tree).
That being said, though, the worldview approach itself depends upon a number of warrants that upon reflection seem at least questionable. Let me touch on a few of these:
* The coherence of worldviews: I don't doubt that much of what we do and believe and humans relies not on consciously worked-out, rational processes but on inchoate presuppositions we absorb from culture or family. People live their entire lives, after all, without necessarily systematizing their thought processes. It is less clear to me, though, that our presuppositions or unexamined assumptions about life necessarily group themselves into something as coherent as a worldview that can be identified or diagnosed. Worldview analysis seems to work best with people who already think of their beliefs and values systematically, and then only with those whose systematization matches the descriptions of worldview analysts.
* The definition of worldviews: Lists of various worldviews that I've seen tend to include a wide range of different religions, philosophies, or thought-belief systems. Some of these (like Marxism) are fairly well-defined, formal systems, products of the work of specific philosophers (i.e., Marx and Engels) credited with shaping the system in question. Others, such as postmodernism, name not a specific philosophy but a general trend, style, or era. They have some key interpreters (Jean-Francois Lyotard, for instance), but by nature they lack the orthodox formality of specific philosophies. Still others are religions, like Islam or Hinduism, that identify as vast a range of variants as Christianity does.
The problem here is that worldview analysis forces each of these very different categories into the same conceptual box--the worldview. Such a gesture does violence to the specificity and/or multiplicity of the systems themselves, turning them all into variants of the same thing. Worse, worldview analysis suggests a degree of exclusivity among worldviews--you're one of these, not two or three of them--that many people would balk at accepting. Evolutionary biologists, for instance, typically get categorized automatically as living under the "naturalist science" or "materialist humanism" worldview, even though many of them would also describe themselves as Christian, postmodern, New Age, Marxist, or any number of other worldviews. Worldview analysis proves too simplistic a tool to account for such blended systems.
* The worldview of worldviews: Worldview analysis shows its 19th century origins in its fondness for categorization and taxonomy, a favored post-enlightenment mode of creating and disseminating knowledge. Worldview apologists typically operate by identifying and listing the major competing worldviews as they see them, summarizing these viewpoints into a grid or table for easy comparison/contrast (see pages C-1 through C-4 of this document, for example). Distinguishing features codified on such a grid might include "view of Truth," "main proponents," "primary values," and the like. The complicating factor here, though, is that putting so many divergent worldviews on the same table assumes that, no matter how different the worldviews in question are, they are all amenable to being described and analyzed with the same set of sub-categories.
Perhaps they are. But I think it more likely that the worldview grids that analysts create are themselves the products of a particular worldview, a meta-worldview, if you like, that presupposes "truth" to be a thing that can be atomized, subdivided, and arranged in tabular format. This is itself a particular viewpoint at odds with other viewpoints past and present. Indeed, I imagine many Christian thinkers from history (or even from today) would find this system foreign.
Many worldview thinkers, of course, are themselves aware of these questions and limitations. They are careful to use worldview analysis as a heuristic, a rule of thumb to get Christians to think about themselves in relation to others, rather than as Divine Truth. But the curricula about worldviews that I've seen tends to dumb down an already simplified and simplifying notion.
More tomorrow (or perhaps next week),
JF
Back to the worldview evangelism topic from a few days ago. Briefly, worldview analysis posits that people's beliefs and behaviors stem from their worldview, meaning a related set of foundational ideas, values, and assumptions about reality. These foundational attitudes are largely presuppositional or pre-rational, though they may be susceptible to rational inquiry or criticism. The evangelist's task involves sharpening a sense of her own (Biblical Christian) worldview, learning to recognize and critique other worldviews, and becoming adept at interacting with those living in other worldviews, eventually leading them to recognize the superiority of the Biblical-Christian view.
I suggested that worldview analysis represents a positive trend in evangelicalism in that it insists upon critical thinking, self-reflection, and respectful interchange with non-Christians. It is, in any case, a step back from the tone-deaf, "Jesus: take him or leave him, culture!" approach to evangelism (manifested, I think, in artifacts like the CHRIST-mas tree).
That being said, though, the worldview approach itself depends upon a number of warrants that upon reflection seem at least questionable. Let me touch on a few of these:
* The coherence of worldviews: I don't doubt that much of what we do and believe and humans relies not on consciously worked-out, rational processes but on inchoate presuppositions we absorb from culture or family. People live their entire lives, after all, without necessarily systematizing their thought processes. It is less clear to me, though, that our presuppositions or unexamined assumptions about life necessarily group themselves into something as coherent as a worldview that can be identified or diagnosed. Worldview analysis seems to work best with people who already think of their beliefs and values systematically, and then only with those whose systematization matches the descriptions of worldview analysts.
* The definition of worldviews: Lists of various worldviews that I've seen tend to include a wide range of different religions, philosophies, or thought-belief systems. Some of these (like Marxism) are fairly well-defined, formal systems, products of the work of specific philosophers (i.e., Marx and Engels) credited with shaping the system in question. Others, such as postmodernism, name not a specific philosophy but a general trend, style, or era. They have some key interpreters (Jean-Francois Lyotard, for instance), but by nature they lack the orthodox formality of specific philosophies. Still others are religions, like Islam or Hinduism, that identify as vast a range of variants as Christianity does.
The problem here is that worldview analysis forces each of these very different categories into the same conceptual box--the worldview. Such a gesture does violence to the specificity and/or multiplicity of the systems themselves, turning them all into variants of the same thing. Worse, worldview analysis suggests a degree of exclusivity among worldviews--you're one of these, not two or three of them--that many people would balk at accepting. Evolutionary biologists, for instance, typically get categorized automatically as living under the "naturalist science" or "materialist humanism" worldview, even though many of them would also describe themselves as Christian, postmodern, New Age, Marxist, or any number of other worldviews. Worldview analysis proves too simplistic a tool to account for such blended systems.
* The worldview of worldviews: Worldview analysis shows its 19th century origins in its fondness for categorization and taxonomy, a favored post-enlightenment mode of creating and disseminating knowledge. Worldview apologists typically operate by identifying and listing the major competing worldviews as they see them, summarizing these viewpoints into a grid or table for easy comparison/contrast (see pages C-1 through C-4 of this document, for example). Distinguishing features codified on such a grid might include "view of Truth," "main proponents," "primary values," and the like. The complicating factor here, though, is that putting so many divergent worldviews on the same table assumes that, no matter how different the worldviews in question are, they are all amenable to being described and analyzed with the same set of sub-categories.
Perhaps they are. But I think it more likely that the worldview grids that analysts create are themselves the products of a particular worldview, a meta-worldview, if you like, that presupposes "truth" to be a thing that can be atomized, subdivided, and arranged in tabular format. This is itself a particular viewpoint at odds with other viewpoints past and present. Indeed, I imagine many Christian thinkers from history (or even from today) would find this system foreign.
Many worldview thinkers, of course, are themselves aware of these questions and limitations. They are careful to use worldview analysis as a heuristic, a rule of thumb to get Christians to think about themselves in relation to others, rather than as Divine Truth. But the curricula about worldviews that I've seen tends to dumb down an already simplified and simplifying notion.
More tomorrow (or perhaps next week),
JF
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
This Week in Embarrassing Christianity: the CHRIST-mas Tree
Today in "Embarrassing Christianity":
You've heard of Christmas trees. You may even have heard of Chrismon trees. But have you encountered...
...the CHRIST-mas tree? Behold its kitschy glory:
Just when you were worried that, in all this Advent rush, we were insufficiently aware of the horrible passion and execution of Christ, Boss Creations, Inc. has offered this marvelous solution: a cross with a Christmas tree growing out of it (or, alternately, a Christmas tree that has been crucified--presumably by Romans with allergies to evergreens).
There's more.
You can, if you wish, adorn your CHRIST-mas tree (the capital letters mean you have to shout when you say it, I'm guessing) with this:
A crown of thorns to put atop the tree (with the star? on top of it?). Perfect for the kids!
Sigh. Oh, Christianity.
The "movement" to which the advertisement refers is the so-called "War on Christmas," the name given by conservative Christians who annually stir up concerns about Christmas's being absorbed into a muddle of generic winter "holidays." Boss Creations explains this view here. A quick search around conservative evangelical (blurring into "religious right") webpages will reveal a host of bumper stickers, ornaments, and buttons to make sure you, too, can strike a blow for Christianity and against... um...
Well, against the recognition that other holidays from other faiths occur around the same time as Christmas, perhaps? Again--judge this gesture of ostensible evangelism as a kind of activist performance: Who's the audience here? What kind of message does this send to non-Christians? What kind of stereotypes does it confirm? I see the cross, but where's the Christ whose presence--whose Advent--we are celebrating and whose God-With-Us love meets people where they are?
I think--I hope--that the creators of this tree (patent pending!) have only the best intentions, even as they seem to be capitalizing on the growing war-on-Christmas niche market. But I just don't see any kind of love or, frankly, reverence in shmushing together a cross with a family Christmas tree, complete with presents underneath and stockings hung with care in the background. The juxtaposition is grisly and gaudy at once, cheapening what should be a sobering symbol.
Worse, it doesn't seem to strike anyone outside of the war-on-Christmas partisans as clever, only sad and a little nutty. This tree says, "Hands off, culture! Keep away!" And you know what? Message received. The CHRIST-mas tree is already a pop culture joke, having been admirably skewered by the Onion AV Club's "The Hater" (Amelie Gillette). The only thing more depressing than the cross's being made into a joke is the fact that the people who buy and sell and promote this tree will in all likelihood interpret secular culture's derision as a sign of success: "See? We got to them! We really, really got to them and made them think!"
It's time to revisit the old kindergarten lesson that not all attention is good attention.
On a brighter note, my father sent me this Time article, which talks about The Advent Conspiracy, a group that proposes a wholly different kind of war on Christmas. Rather than making shrill statements about the exclusivity of Christmas, Advent Conspiracy promotes the mantra, "Spend Less, Give More." They encourage an anti-consumerist Christmas season where money that would be spent on so many gifts becomes donations to charities (specifically those working to help build clean water wells in developing countries). As the Time article points out, Advent Conspiracy appropriates much of the "keep the Christ in Christmas" rhetoric of the war-on-Christmas warriors, but it mobilizes it to a more, well, Christlike end.
Watch this video. It's a refreshing curative to the crucified evergreen:
More tomorrow,
JF
You've heard of Christmas trees. You may even have heard of Chrismon trees. But have you encountered...
...the CHRIST-mas tree? Behold its kitschy glory:
Just when you were worried that, in all this Advent rush, we were insufficiently aware of the horrible passion and execution of Christ, Boss Creations, Inc. has offered this marvelous solution: a cross with a Christmas tree growing out of it (or, alternately, a Christmas tree that has been crucified--presumably by Romans with allergies to evergreens).
There's more.
You can, if you wish, adorn your CHRIST-mas tree (the capital letters mean you have to shout when you say it, I'm guessing) with this:
A crown of thorns to put atop the tree (with the star? on top of it?). Perfect for the kids!
Sigh. Oh, Christianity.
The "movement" to which the advertisement refers is the so-called "War on Christmas," the name given by conservative Christians who annually stir up concerns about Christmas's being absorbed into a muddle of generic winter "holidays." Boss Creations explains this view here. A quick search around conservative evangelical (blurring into "religious right") webpages will reveal a host of bumper stickers, ornaments, and buttons to make sure you, too, can strike a blow for Christianity and against... um...
Well, against the recognition that other holidays from other faiths occur around the same time as Christmas, perhaps? Again--judge this gesture of ostensible evangelism as a kind of activist performance: Who's the audience here? What kind of message does this send to non-Christians? What kind of stereotypes does it confirm? I see the cross, but where's the Christ whose presence--whose Advent--we are celebrating and whose God-With-Us love meets people where they are?
I think--I hope--that the creators of this tree (patent pending!) have only the best intentions, even as they seem to be capitalizing on the growing war-on-Christmas niche market. But I just don't see any kind of love or, frankly, reverence in shmushing together a cross with a family Christmas tree, complete with presents underneath and stockings hung with care in the background. The juxtaposition is grisly and gaudy at once, cheapening what should be a sobering symbol.
Worse, it doesn't seem to strike anyone outside of the war-on-Christmas partisans as clever, only sad and a little nutty. This tree says, "Hands off, culture! Keep away!" And you know what? Message received. The CHRIST-mas tree is already a pop culture joke, having been admirably skewered by the Onion AV Club's "The Hater" (Amelie Gillette). The only thing more depressing than the cross's being made into a joke is the fact that the people who buy and sell and promote this tree will in all likelihood interpret secular culture's derision as a sign of success: "See? We got to them! We really, really got to them and made them think!"
It's time to revisit the old kindergarten lesson that not all attention is good attention.
On a brighter note, my father sent me this Time article, which talks about The Advent Conspiracy, a group that proposes a wholly different kind of war on Christmas. Rather than making shrill statements about the exclusivity of Christmas, Advent Conspiracy promotes the mantra, "Spend Less, Give More." They encourage an anti-consumerist Christmas season where money that would be spent on so many gifts becomes donations to charities (specifically those working to help build clean water wells in developing countries). As the Time article points out, Advent Conspiracy appropriates much of the "keep the Christ in Christmas" rhetoric of the war-on-Christmas warriors, but it mobilizes it to a more, well, Christlike end.
Watch this video. It's a refreshing curative to the crucified evergreen:
More tomorrow,
JF
Monday, December 14, 2009
Worldview Evangelism
Grading down--now just a dissertation to read before 10:00 tomorrow!
As I was winding down from a day of grading, doing my half-hour on the elliptical (a device I refer to as "the sweating machine"), I listened to a podcast from an evangelist named Randal Niles called Think Again (formerly, I believe, Think it Thru). Niles runs a number of evangelical websites aimed at skeptics, atheists, and the Christians who want to reach them. The podcast I heard dealt especially with the notion of worldviews, which I've written about here previously.
Worldview refers of course to a set of ideas, assumptions, and attitudes that shape how one moves through the world. A number of philosophers formal and informal have dealt with ideas similar to worldview (from the German Weltanschauung) for some time (for an overview and comparison/contrast of these notions--from a strictly evangelical perspective--see David K. Naugle's Worldview: The History of a Concept). The term itself rose to prominence in the nineteenth century, and in the twentieth century various evangelical apologists latched onto as a way of conceiving of Christianity as a comprehensive, unified mode of interpreting the universe.
Today, worldview apologetics in some form or another has become the preferred mode of outreach for a growing number of evangelicals--thus my interest in the subject. Niles, the podcaster, even hosts a website (one of his "all about" series) called "All About Worldview," which contains a variety of informative and critical articles, many of which come from Summit Ministries, an established purveyor of worldview curricula, conferences, and worskshops.
I have only just begun to sample Niles's particular take on worldview apologetics, but from what I can tell, his version is similar to most others. It's a three-step process. First, Christians have to clarify and become proficient in articulating (and defending, and advocating) the "Christian worldview," more commonly (and more tellingly) called "Biblical worldview." Descriptions of this worldview typically consist of litmus-test affirmations about the inerrancy of scripture, the exclusive verity of Christian doctrines, the superiority of literal-scriptural accounts of science and history (i.e., young-earth creationism), and conservative views of gender and sexuality.
Next in the worldview evangelism approach, Christians should educate themselves about the other competing worldviews operating at present. Different worldview evangelists will categorize these systems differently, but most lists (tables, more commonly) will include, for example, "Naturalistic Humanism" (i.e., materialist science), postmodernism, "new age" or "pantheism," and Communism/Marxism . Also included are worldviews arising from competing faiths: the Islamic worldview, the Jewish worldview, the Hindu worldview, etc. Evangelists in training learn key features of these worldviews, identifying presuppositions and noting salient differences from the Biblical Christian view. Since, as per the Biblical worldview's presuppositions, only the Biblical approach can claim absolute epistemological accuracy, worldview apologetics teaches about other systems in terms of their divergence from the truth of scripture.
The final step involves training Christians to interact with people living in and seeing the world through these other (inferior) sets of lenses. Of course, the approach is more complicated than simply going up to someone and lecturing them about how mistaken their deeply held beliefs are. Worldview apologetics departs from most other confrontational evangelistic approaches, largely eschewing a Bible-thumping, in-your-face approach as unproductive. Instead, worldview evangelists seek to demonstrate that 1) the Christian worldview is in fact cohesive and epistemologically appealing; and 2) other worldviews, in comparison, prove unsatisfactory. The trick, then, is to know the other's (non-Christian) worldview better than the other person does, guiding the person conversationally through an exploration of that worldview, helping the person to see where the non-Christian worldview proves inconsistent ro contradictory (in Greg Koukl's words, showing people how and where their worldview "commits suicide").
This, as worldview evangelists will tell you, is no easy task. It requires training, research, conversational practice, and a willingness to explore--and if necessary repair--one's own faith.
I find much to admire in worldview apologetics of this sort. The openness to others--engage them on their own terms rather than hectoring them from afar--is a refreshing departure from the stereotypical "turn or burn" tactic (or, more gently, from the "if you died right now, do you know where you'd wake up?" gotcha questions of the Way of the Master). I also like how this approach resists the anti-intellectualism that even many evangelicals lament has long afflicted present-day evangelicalism. Worldview apologetics requires that the evangelist be well-read and well-equipped with an arsenal of rhetorical and critical skills. As an educator, I can hardly argue with the value of training people to recognize the difference between logical fallacies and strong arguments. Indeed, I see in worldview apologists the seeds of a new evangelicalism (recognizing, of course, that "the seeds of a new evangelicalism" get discovered by countless writers every day). Worldview evangelism, however, does in fact aim to be an articulation of Christianity that does not just survive but competes in the marketplace of ideas.
That being said, the notion of worldviews as so elaborated by Niles, Summit Ministries, and the like has some features I find less attractive...
More tomorrow,
JF
As I was winding down from a day of grading, doing my half-hour on the elliptical (a device I refer to as "the sweating machine"), I listened to a podcast from an evangelist named Randal Niles called Think Again (formerly, I believe, Think it Thru). Niles runs a number of evangelical websites aimed at skeptics, atheists, and the Christians who want to reach them. The podcast I heard dealt especially with the notion of worldviews, which I've written about here previously.
Worldview refers of course to a set of ideas, assumptions, and attitudes that shape how one moves through the world. A number of philosophers formal and informal have dealt with ideas similar to worldview (from the German Weltanschauung) for some time (for an overview and comparison/contrast of these notions--from a strictly evangelical perspective--see David K. Naugle's Worldview: The History of a Concept). The term itself rose to prominence in the nineteenth century, and in the twentieth century various evangelical apologists latched onto as a way of conceiving of Christianity as a comprehensive, unified mode of interpreting the universe.
Today, worldview apologetics in some form or another has become the preferred mode of outreach for a growing number of evangelicals--thus my interest in the subject. Niles, the podcaster, even hosts a website (one of his "all about" series) called "All About Worldview," which contains a variety of informative and critical articles, many of which come from Summit Ministries, an established purveyor of worldview curricula, conferences, and worskshops.
I have only just begun to sample Niles's particular take on worldview apologetics, but from what I can tell, his version is similar to most others. It's a three-step process. First, Christians have to clarify and become proficient in articulating (and defending, and advocating) the "Christian worldview," more commonly (and more tellingly) called "Biblical worldview." Descriptions of this worldview typically consist of litmus-test affirmations about the inerrancy of scripture, the exclusive verity of Christian doctrines, the superiority of literal-scriptural accounts of science and history (i.e., young-earth creationism), and conservative views of gender and sexuality.
Next in the worldview evangelism approach, Christians should educate themselves about the other competing worldviews operating at present. Different worldview evangelists will categorize these systems differently, but most lists (tables, more commonly) will include, for example, "Naturalistic Humanism" (i.e., materialist science), postmodernism, "new age" or "pantheism," and Communism/Marxism . Also included are worldviews arising from competing faiths: the Islamic worldview, the Jewish worldview, the Hindu worldview, etc. Evangelists in training learn key features of these worldviews, identifying presuppositions and noting salient differences from the Biblical Christian view. Since, as per the Biblical worldview's presuppositions, only the Biblical approach can claim absolute epistemological accuracy, worldview apologetics teaches about other systems in terms of their divergence from the truth of scripture.
The final step involves training Christians to interact with people living in and seeing the world through these other (inferior) sets of lenses. Of course, the approach is more complicated than simply going up to someone and lecturing them about how mistaken their deeply held beliefs are. Worldview apologetics departs from most other confrontational evangelistic approaches, largely eschewing a Bible-thumping, in-your-face approach as unproductive. Instead, worldview evangelists seek to demonstrate that 1) the Christian worldview is in fact cohesive and epistemologically appealing; and 2) other worldviews, in comparison, prove unsatisfactory. The trick, then, is to know the other's (non-Christian) worldview better than the other person does, guiding the person conversationally through an exploration of that worldview, helping the person to see where the non-Christian worldview proves inconsistent ro contradictory (in Greg Koukl's words, showing people how and where their worldview "commits suicide").
This, as worldview evangelists will tell you, is no easy task. It requires training, research, conversational practice, and a willingness to explore--and if necessary repair--one's own faith.
I find much to admire in worldview apologetics of this sort. The openness to others--engage them on their own terms rather than hectoring them from afar--is a refreshing departure from the stereotypical "turn or burn" tactic (or, more gently, from the "if you died right now, do you know where you'd wake up?" gotcha questions of the Way of the Master). I also like how this approach resists the anti-intellectualism that even many evangelicals lament has long afflicted present-day evangelicalism. Worldview apologetics requires that the evangelist be well-read and well-equipped with an arsenal of rhetorical and critical skills. As an educator, I can hardly argue with the value of training people to recognize the difference between logical fallacies and strong arguments. Indeed, I see in worldview apologists the seeds of a new evangelicalism (recognizing, of course, that "the seeds of a new evangelicalism" get discovered by countless writers every day). Worldview evangelism, however, does in fact aim to be an articulation of Christianity that does not just survive but competes in the marketplace of ideas.
That being said, the notion of worldviews as so elaborated by Niles, Summit Ministries, and the like has some features I find less attractive...
More tomorrow,
JF
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Uneasy Reactions at a Wedding
So I just got back from the wedding of a friend of mine.
I think I don't like weddings.
I realized, first off, that this is the first wedding I've gone to in about five years. That one, in turn, was the first I had attended since my sisters some five years before that. In both of those affairs I was either so involved that I wasn't really watching it (the former) or the wedding itself was fairly untraditional (the latter). This seemed like the first traditional-type wedding where I was truly only a spectator. I was struck, first off, by just how many traditional ritual elements there were to the event and about how everyone seemed clued into these except me: when to stand, when to sit, when to applaud, when the cake gets cut, when the garter comes off, and on and on.
What really surprised me, though, was how the wedding celebration itself inspired a bit of, frankly, resentment in me. I'm pretty lucky; it is rare for me to feel keenly any of the various injustices associated with my sexuality. I can't give blood, but then, I don't really like needles (though of course I would if I could). I can't join the military, but then, I don't really want to. My work environment is quite liberal and accepting. My family is unnaturally cool. I know mentally that being gay means being part of an oppressed class, but I typically don't experience that oppression in a visceral way.
I usually have trouble, then, subscribing to the frustration that many GLBT activists feel toward marriage as a heterosexual privilege. Yes, I realize that heterosexuals alone get to be married in most places in the US, and yes, I think that inequality is wrong--but I don't begrudge people's wish to get married or people's having weddings. Indeed, I've always half-joked that I want a wedding myself for my partner and me. "Attention plus presents," I quip, "who wouldn't want that?"
I gotta say, though, that when the bride walked in and everyone ooo-ed and aaaahed, couples grasping each others' hands, eyes glistening, whispered reminiscences of their own--I felt, well, a bit left out, even a little resentful. This was not of course the couple's fault. The bride was beautiful, crying all the way down the aisle in her voluminous white gown. The groom read his wedding vows in her family's native language--no easy feat--while a groomsman held up English translations. Such moments were sweet, and I was and am happy for the couple.
But the event itself reminded me of how far away I am from my own partner, how our relationship doesn't get presents and attention and applause and adoration and an event all its own. It's crazy, this feeling, since I know that my friends, family, and co-workers would be more than happy to celebrate with my partner and I were we to throw a commitment ceremony shindig. It's crazy, also, because my partner is ethically opposed to our having a marriage ceremony.
In his scholarly work, he traces how marriage as a goal of the GLBT movement is a relatively new thing. Many of the gay and lesbian activists emerging in the sixties (especially after the Stonewall Riots) were actually quite opposed to gay marriage--not because they believed marriage was for heterosexuals alone but because they saw marriage as oppressive and GLBT politics as aiming at more than just-like-heterosexuality normalcy. They had a larger agenda on their horizon, not just an us-too/also-ran liberalism but a radical vision of a transformed society in which fundamental rights (e.g., access to health care, fair determination of child custody, access to loved ones) don't depend on the state's recognition or non-recognition of one's sexuality.
Marriage just wasn't part of this dream. Indeed, it was seen as an impediment to it. The notion of love as the raison d’être for marriage is historically quite new. Throughout most of recent Western history, heterosexual marriage has been not (or not primarily) a sign of enduring love between a man and a woman but a way of acquiring property, fomenting a subsistence workforce, cultivating a political lineage, or stabilizing tribal-familial-national relations. Women in such relations were considered property to some degree or another, unpaid labor to cook, clean, bear and raise children. It's not too long ago, remember, that courts in the US seriously pondered whether a husband forcing his wife to have sex could even be considered a crime, let alone rape (see here).
Of course, this history has gotten subsumed by the current gay marriage debate--on both sides. Anti-gay-marriage advocates idolize heterosexual unions as the bedrock of all of society (ignoring the fact that polygamy, not monogamous heterosexuality, has been the more widespread form of familial organization over the course of human history). The present-day GLBT movement has largely endorsed this wholesale idealization, averring that the right to have lifetime commitments of love between two people is just as important as the conservatives say, but that it works just as well with two men or two women as it does between a man and a woman. Gone are previous activists' passion for reformatting society in ways that might even better or more freely allow humans to interrelate. Gone are questions about whether, given its legacy of injustices, marriage is really the best mechanism for extending rights to GLBT people (see this blog by Nancy Polikoff).
All this history and all these issues I've known for some time. Usually, however, I can just say, "Yeah, but I still want a marriage, with my partner and I exchanging vows and my father giving me away..." Presents, tears, attention, a party--remember?
I'm not so excited by the thought just now, especially after hearing this couple's well-meaning but deeply conservative-evangelical pastor wax ungrammatical about the superhuman miracle that is heterosexual love, the unique image of the Divine that exists solely in the joining of male and female in holy matrimony, the grand model for human existence that rests in the strong man protecting and loving his submissive help-meet.
(Actually, lots of people rolled their eyes at the ode to female submission, which the pastor quickly qualified as being "a Christian thing, not a woman thing." Yeah, right. Go back in time 100 years, or even 50 years, and see if pastors, husbands, and wives would subscribe to that bit of spin.)
Even without that piece, though, the whole happy, rambling homily to Glorious Heterosexual Marriage (about which the pastor had apparently written a book) was a bit much. It was hard not to hear the echoes of marriage's ugly history resonating.
I suppose the pastor got to me also because his theology, while not explicitly anti-gay, reminded me of the one area of my life where I do most often feel the sting of exclusion--the church. To hear that--worse, to be part of a party dedicated to celebrating that--heterosexual unions uniquely reflect the image of Christ is to hear that I can never truly participate in the Divine. Ditto single people, divorced people, etc. (I mean, if marriage was all that, why did Christ marry? And don't give me that "Christ married the church, his bridegroom"--that's a metaphor, not a literal reality. I mean, when was the wedding? Who was the best man? Who was the bridesmaid? Who caught the bouquet?).
Again--I don't begrudge my friends their wedding. I'm happy that two people have so chosen to perform vows of their eternal love for each other. And I'd like to think that everyone deserves presents, attention, and a party now and then.
But... well... I'm not so sure I'm comfortable asking people to give me presents, attention, and a party just to mimic an institution like marriage.
More tomorrow,
JF
I think I don't like weddings.
I realized, first off, that this is the first wedding I've gone to in about five years. That one, in turn, was the first I had attended since my sisters some five years before that. In both of those affairs I was either so involved that I wasn't really watching it (the former) or the wedding itself was fairly untraditional (the latter). This seemed like the first traditional-type wedding where I was truly only a spectator. I was struck, first off, by just how many traditional ritual elements there were to the event and about how everyone seemed clued into these except me: when to stand, when to sit, when to applaud, when the cake gets cut, when the garter comes off, and on and on.
What really surprised me, though, was how the wedding celebration itself inspired a bit of, frankly, resentment in me. I'm pretty lucky; it is rare for me to feel keenly any of the various injustices associated with my sexuality. I can't give blood, but then, I don't really like needles (though of course I would if I could). I can't join the military, but then, I don't really want to. My work environment is quite liberal and accepting. My family is unnaturally cool. I know mentally that being gay means being part of an oppressed class, but I typically don't experience that oppression in a visceral way.
I usually have trouble, then, subscribing to the frustration that many GLBT activists feel toward marriage as a heterosexual privilege. Yes, I realize that heterosexuals alone get to be married in most places in the US, and yes, I think that inequality is wrong--but I don't begrudge people's wish to get married or people's having weddings. Indeed, I've always half-joked that I want a wedding myself for my partner and me. "Attention plus presents," I quip, "who wouldn't want that?"
I gotta say, though, that when the bride walked in and everyone ooo-ed and aaaahed, couples grasping each others' hands, eyes glistening, whispered reminiscences of their own--I felt, well, a bit left out, even a little resentful. This was not of course the couple's fault. The bride was beautiful, crying all the way down the aisle in her voluminous white gown. The groom read his wedding vows in her family's native language--no easy feat--while a groomsman held up English translations. Such moments were sweet, and I was and am happy for the couple.
But the event itself reminded me of how far away I am from my own partner, how our relationship doesn't get presents and attention and applause and adoration and an event all its own. It's crazy, this feeling, since I know that my friends, family, and co-workers would be more than happy to celebrate with my partner and I were we to throw a commitment ceremony shindig. It's crazy, also, because my partner is ethically opposed to our having a marriage ceremony.
In his scholarly work, he traces how marriage as a goal of the GLBT movement is a relatively new thing. Many of the gay and lesbian activists emerging in the sixties (especially after the Stonewall Riots) were actually quite opposed to gay marriage--not because they believed marriage was for heterosexuals alone but because they saw marriage as oppressive and GLBT politics as aiming at more than just-like-heterosexuality normalcy. They had a larger agenda on their horizon, not just an us-too/also-ran liberalism but a radical vision of a transformed society in which fundamental rights (e.g., access to health care, fair determination of child custody, access to loved ones) don't depend on the state's recognition or non-recognition of one's sexuality.
Marriage just wasn't part of this dream. Indeed, it was seen as an impediment to it. The notion of love as the raison d’être for marriage is historically quite new. Throughout most of recent Western history, heterosexual marriage has been not (or not primarily) a sign of enduring love between a man and a woman but a way of acquiring property, fomenting a subsistence workforce, cultivating a political lineage, or stabilizing tribal-familial-national relations. Women in such relations were considered property to some degree or another, unpaid labor to cook, clean, bear and raise children. It's not too long ago, remember, that courts in the US seriously pondered whether a husband forcing his wife to have sex could even be considered a crime, let alone rape (see here).
Of course, this history has gotten subsumed by the current gay marriage debate--on both sides. Anti-gay-marriage advocates idolize heterosexual unions as the bedrock of all of society (ignoring the fact that polygamy, not monogamous heterosexuality, has been the more widespread form of familial organization over the course of human history). The present-day GLBT movement has largely endorsed this wholesale idealization, averring that the right to have lifetime commitments of love between two people is just as important as the conservatives say, but that it works just as well with two men or two women as it does between a man and a woman. Gone are previous activists' passion for reformatting society in ways that might even better or more freely allow humans to interrelate. Gone are questions about whether, given its legacy of injustices, marriage is really the best mechanism for extending rights to GLBT people (see this blog by Nancy Polikoff).
All this history and all these issues I've known for some time. Usually, however, I can just say, "Yeah, but I still want a marriage, with my partner and I exchanging vows and my father giving me away..." Presents, tears, attention, a party--remember?
I'm not so excited by the thought just now, especially after hearing this couple's well-meaning but deeply conservative-evangelical pastor wax ungrammatical about the superhuman miracle that is heterosexual love, the unique image of the Divine that exists solely in the joining of male and female in holy matrimony, the grand model for human existence that rests in the strong man protecting and loving his submissive help-meet.
(Actually, lots of people rolled their eyes at the ode to female submission, which the pastor quickly qualified as being "a Christian thing, not a woman thing." Yeah, right. Go back in time 100 years, or even 50 years, and see if pastors, husbands, and wives would subscribe to that bit of spin.)
Even without that piece, though, the whole happy, rambling homily to Glorious Heterosexual Marriage (about which the pastor had apparently written a book) was a bit much. It was hard not to hear the echoes of marriage's ugly history resonating.
I suppose the pastor got to me also because his theology, while not explicitly anti-gay, reminded me of the one area of my life where I do most often feel the sting of exclusion--the church. To hear that--worse, to be part of a party dedicated to celebrating that--heterosexual unions uniquely reflect the image of Christ is to hear that I can never truly participate in the Divine. Ditto single people, divorced people, etc. (I mean, if marriage was all that, why did Christ marry? And don't give me that "Christ married the church, his bridegroom"--that's a metaphor, not a literal reality. I mean, when was the wedding? Who was the best man? Who was the bridesmaid? Who caught the bouquet?).
Again--I don't begrudge my friends their wedding. I'm happy that two people have so chosen to perform vows of their eternal love for each other. And I'd like to think that everyone deserves presents, attention, and a party now and then.
But... well... I'm not so sure I'm comfortable asking people to give me presents, attention, and a party just to mimic an institution like marriage.
More tomorrow,
JF
Friday, December 11, 2009
Strains and Drains and Letting Go
Ufta. It's the end of a looooong finals week, and today was particularly draining--partially because all I had to eat through most of the day were the sugary treats I bought for my class taking its final.
The other reason--the main reason--for the drain involved some difficult meetings with a student in crisis. I can't go into detail, even in this semi-anonymous environment. Suffice it to say this student is facing a potentially life-altering (even life-ending) challenge and is understandably unclear about how she'll deal with it. It's affected her work in classes this semester, and we (the faculty) have been forced to make various difficult decisions to protect the student as best we can as she faces her problem....
...or doesn't. Given the magnitude of the crisis facing her, the student has thus far made the decision not to do anything, convinced that she should continue to enjoy her life as best she can while ignoring the problem at hand. Her past experience (i.e., relatives facing similar situations) has convinced her that any proactive response on her part may just make the situation worse. She seems hopeless and resigned.
The emotional drain from today came from a small meeting between the student and the handful of her professors (me included) that know about her crisis. We had made the difficult decision--on the basis of the student's crisis and its apparent impact on her studies--that she should withdraw from extracurricular activities (i.e., productions) for a time. This is hard news for any theatre person, especially as theatre serves as a release, an escape, for many. But using theatre as that kind of escape does disservice both to the craft and to the people who practice it. The crisis would only get worse, and its impact would eventually affect any production she participated in. Thus we made the choice to enforce a pause.
All of us were worried how the student would take the news. All of us were worried just what we could say, what we could do. In such a situation, you (and I'm doing what I tell my students never to do, using you in a general sense) want to take the student and say, "You need to take X, Y, and Z step right now to address this problem before it becomes any worse." You want to argue with them, break down their defenses and convince them--batter them, if need be--into doing what you know is necessary.
But you can't. College students are adults; this student has the right to do whatever she wants--including ignore the problem. No matter how wise we think ourselves, theatre professors aren't gods. Heck, we aren't even psychologists. Who are we to tell someone how to navigate a personal crisis? Past asking whether there's an immediate danger to self or others (there is not), we can only listen.
So the meeting today consisted of the few of us cautiously probing, explaining, reassuring, trying to listen, and encouraging--all while reminding the student and ourselves that the student alone wields the power to decide on a next step.
I've been on multi-mile-long runs that were less exhausting than just sitting there, mostly being silent, exuding as much love and care and concern and support as possible, ever-sensitive to seeming too bossy or know-it-all, telling a student that we'll support her decision even though we desperately want her to do X or Y to save herself.
The strain of stepping back, of letting go, when the stakes are so high is extreme--not, of course, as extreme as the student's strain. It's tricky: you have to show that your hands are extended to support the student while making sure that you're not coercing the student down a path she may not want or be ready to take. I suppose it's a bit like a parent teaching a child to ride a bike. You run alongside the bike as the kid pedals, keeping a firm hand on the back of the bikeseat to make sure it doesn't topple. But eventually you have to let go, accepting the fact the the risk of falling must be the child's to face. Your job shifts from "keep him from falling" to "be there to cheer when he rides or to comfort when he falls."
I suppose (and here I exhibit my mother's tendency to insert God as cheesily as possible into a scenario), this is the position my faith imagines God as taking--letting go of God's children, giving them a space to fall or stand, to choose wisely or unwisely, even as God knows the stakes involved. And, similarly, I believe God is there to cheer our successes and join us in times of failure or (in this case) random disaster.
When I was young, I used to ask my father all the time what super power he would have if he could choose. He'd inevitably give the same answer: a magic wand that could make problems disappear. Boy howdy do I want that wand. It would make this letting go thing easier.
I wonder if God--God the Omnipotent Almighty Everlasting--wants a wand, too.'
More tomorrow,
JF
The other reason--the main reason--for the drain involved some difficult meetings with a student in crisis. I can't go into detail, even in this semi-anonymous environment. Suffice it to say this student is facing a potentially life-altering (even life-ending) challenge and is understandably unclear about how she'll deal with it. It's affected her work in classes this semester, and we (the faculty) have been forced to make various difficult decisions to protect the student as best we can as she faces her problem....
...or doesn't. Given the magnitude of the crisis facing her, the student has thus far made the decision not to do anything, convinced that she should continue to enjoy her life as best she can while ignoring the problem at hand. Her past experience (i.e., relatives facing similar situations) has convinced her that any proactive response on her part may just make the situation worse. She seems hopeless and resigned.
The emotional drain from today came from a small meeting between the student and the handful of her professors (me included) that know about her crisis. We had made the difficult decision--on the basis of the student's crisis and its apparent impact on her studies--that she should withdraw from extracurricular activities (i.e., productions) for a time. This is hard news for any theatre person, especially as theatre serves as a release, an escape, for many. But using theatre as that kind of escape does disservice both to the craft and to the people who practice it. The crisis would only get worse, and its impact would eventually affect any production she participated in. Thus we made the choice to enforce a pause.
All of us were worried how the student would take the news. All of us were worried just what we could say, what we could do. In such a situation, you (and I'm doing what I tell my students never to do, using you in a general sense) want to take the student and say, "You need to take X, Y, and Z step right now to address this problem before it becomes any worse." You want to argue with them, break down their defenses and convince them--batter them, if need be--into doing what you know is necessary.
But you can't. College students are adults; this student has the right to do whatever she wants--including ignore the problem. No matter how wise we think ourselves, theatre professors aren't gods. Heck, we aren't even psychologists. Who are we to tell someone how to navigate a personal crisis? Past asking whether there's an immediate danger to self or others (there is not), we can only listen.
So the meeting today consisted of the few of us cautiously probing, explaining, reassuring, trying to listen, and encouraging--all while reminding the student and ourselves that the student alone wields the power to decide on a next step.
I've been on multi-mile-long runs that were less exhausting than just sitting there, mostly being silent, exuding as much love and care and concern and support as possible, ever-sensitive to seeming too bossy or know-it-all, telling a student that we'll support her decision even though we desperately want her to do X or Y to save herself.
The strain of stepping back, of letting go, when the stakes are so high is extreme--not, of course, as extreme as the student's strain. It's tricky: you have to show that your hands are extended to support the student while making sure that you're not coercing the student down a path she may not want or be ready to take. I suppose it's a bit like a parent teaching a child to ride a bike. You run alongside the bike as the kid pedals, keeping a firm hand on the back of the bikeseat to make sure it doesn't topple. But eventually you have to let go, accepting the fact the the risk of falling must be the child's to face. Your job shifts from "keep him from falling" to "be there to cheer when he rides or to comfort when he falls."
I suppose (and here I exhibit my mother's tendency to insert God as cheesily as possible into a scenario), this is the position my faith imagines God as taking--letting go of God's children, giving them a space to fall or stand, to choose wisely or unwisely, even as God knows the stakes involved. And, similarly, I believe God is there to cheer our successes and join us in times of failure or (in this case) random disaster.
When I was young, I used to ask my father all the time what super power he would have if he could choose. He'd inevitably give the same answer: a magic wand that could make problems disappear. Boy howdy do I want that wand. It would make this letting go thing easier.
I wonder if God--God the Omnipotent Almighty Everlasting--wants a wand, too.'
More tomorrow,
JF
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Warren Speaks Out
Quick post today.
Well--here's a change. Rick Warren has apparently been convinced that his reticence to speak out against the proposed Ugandan bill is not the best course of action. He has released this video, which he describes as an "encyclical," aimed at the pastors of Uganda. There he unambiguously denounces any criminalization of homosexuality, particularly that which would result in executions.
I note only that, by addressing pastors in Uganda and not the Ugandan government, Warren technically stays true to his nuanced (and I do not use that term disparagingly) understanding of the role of pastors as distinct from those of politicians.
Who knows? Perhaps his strong statement may have some effect on the debate in Uganda. Some news media report that already (i.e., before Warren's video) revisions to the bill include removing the execution and long prison term penalties in favor of more "refined" punishments (not sure what that means). The bill, according to the report, will also include sections about the need for counseling in order to (in the quoted words of Uganda's Minster of Ethics and Integrity James Nsaba Buturo) "attract errant people to acceptable sexual orientation."
This could complicate things, making it trickier for US-based ex-gay ministries (and people like Warren) to speak as strongly against the bill. Ostensibly, Exodus et al. oppose coercive treatment/therapy. I would hope that they clarify this in their public commentary on the bill. The relief at having the death penalty removed--while palpable--ought not eclipse critical attention to whatever "refined" punishments the new iteration of the bill cooks up.
Warren himself makes no mention of therapy or ex-gay ministries in his message to Ugandan pastors.
More tomorrow,
JF
Well--here's a change. Rick Warren has apparently been convinced that his reticence to speak out against the proposed Ugandan bill is not the best course of action. He has released this video, which he describes as an "encyclical," aimed at the pastors of Uganda. There he unambiguously denounces any criminalization of homosexuality, particularly that which would result in executions.
I note only that, by addressing pastors in Uganda and not the Ugandan government, Warren technically stays true to his nuanced (and I do not use that term disparagingly) understanding of the role of pastors as distinct from those of politicians.
Who knows? Perhaps his strong statement may have some effect on the debate in Uganda. Some news media report that already (i.e., before Warren's video) revisions to the bill include removing the execution and long prison term penalties in favor of more "refined" punishments (not sure what that means). The bill, according to the report, will also include sections about the need for counseling in order to (in the quoted words of Uganda's Minster of Ethics and Integrity James Nsaba Buturo) "attract errant people to acceptable sexual orientation."
This could complicate things, making it trickier for US-based ex-gay ministries (and people like Warren) to speak as strongly against the bill. Ostensibly, Exodus et al. oppose coercive treatment/therapy. I would hope that they clarify this in their public commentary on the bill. The relief at having the death penalty removed--while palpable--ought not eclipse critical attention to whatever "refined" punishments the new iteration of the bill cooks up.
Warren himself makes no mention of therapy or ex-gay ministries in his message to Ugandan pastors.
More tomorrow,
JF
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
"Blood on Your Hands"? Richard Cohen and the Uganda Bill
Finals, finals, finals. Grading, grading, grading.
Let me pause on Rick Warren for a bit. There's more news on the ever-changing story about the proposed anti-gay Ugandan legislation and US ex-gay ministries' influence on it.
In particular, there's this interview between Rachael Maddow and Richard Cohen, a representative of the "International Healing Foundation" who sent a representative to Uganda to discuss the causes of homosexuality (from Cohen's perspective). Cohen's arguments were subsequently among those cited by the bill's supporters as proof that homosexuality can be cured, is not innate, etc.
I re-post the interview here:
(Transcript here). Some quick observations:
I don't watch a lot of cable news talk shows, primarily because they usually involve lots of yelling, posturing, and very little substantive, careful debate. Given those low expectations, I was pleased to see Maddow treat Cohen with a bit more respect, giving him time to explain himself.
That being said, however, I'm not convinced the interview is the rhetorical slam-dunk that other progressive commentators appear to think it is. Certainly the interview featured some "slam dunk" moments. Maddow confronted Cohen with several key quotes from two of his books and one of his newsletters--some of which he seemed surprised by (e.g., "race" as a possible factor contributing to same-sex attraction) and some of which he ignored (e.g., his multiple suggestions that homosexuals represent malign, threatening forces in culture; his use of research by the thoroughly discredited Paul Cameron). In these instances, Cohen's insistence that his work does nothing to fuel intolerance of homosexuals at home and abroad comes under some strain.
But Maddow herself engages in some less-than-fair argumentative tactics that unfortunately give some credence to ex-gay complaints that their work gets misrepresented by the liberal press. She quotes, for example, a passage from one of Cohen's books in which he suggests a number of general factors that (he argues) may contribute to developing same-sex attractions, including "[d]ivorce, death of a parent, adoption, religion, race." Cohen interrupts to dispute whether race is in there. Maddow shows him that it is, creating one of the evening's "slam dunk" moments.
Maddow expresses disbelief about the idea that, as she puts it, "divorce makes you gay." Cohen interrupts to insist that she's taking his words out of context. "No, I'm reading it from your book, dude," she says. Now--a petty point, perhaps, but as any first-year composition student should know, "in context" means something greater than just "from the book." Cohen insists that she read the rest of the passage, where he clarifies that homosexuality (in his view) is multicausal. Maddow does so, and as it turns out, the passage she quotes comes at the very end of a long and fairly detailed list. The context does in fact problematize a portrayal of his argument as "divorce causes gayness."
That exchange would actually count as a "slam dunk" in Cohen's favor; at the very least, it demonstrates that in this instance Maddow was straw-manning his argument. It's at this point that Maddow refocuses on the race issue--which Cohen appears ill at ease with--pushing Cohen finally to concede that race is not in fact an influence on same-sex attraction.
Cohen and Maddow also disagree about the "cure" issue. Maddow portrays Cohen as claiming that homosexuality is a choice and that gays can be cured. Cohen strenuously disagrees with this representation, saying that he never claims that homosexuality is a choice and that he never uses "cure" as a term to describe therapy. Maddow dismisses this clarification, citing the "change is possible" mantra he often invokes. To suggest that "change" and "cure" aren't the same, she says, is "semantics."
Yes and no. Yes, in that it's a semantic difference, but no if by calling the difference semantic she means that the difference is meaningless (semantic differences rarely are). Ex-gay ministries by and large are careful to qualify a range of meanings for change. Change might be a lessening or transformation of same-sex attractions, but it might also mean a simple re-prioritizing of one's life. I'm not saying I agree with this logic, but I have to recognize that it exists, that for ex-gays change does not mean cure.
By far the most serious disagreement between them, however, is the allegation by Maddow that Cohen has blood on his hands, that because some of the Ugandan bill's supporters cite Cohen's material, Cohen himself bears some responsibility for the bill.
As repellent as I find many of Cohen's arguments, Maddow's blood-on-your-hands argument is a non-starter.
On one level, there's the simple fact that Cohen himself speaks out repeatedly and unambiguously against the Ugandan bill, saying again and again that imprisoning and executing homosexuals is utterly opposed to his theories, which cite a lack of appropriate love as the main factor in creating same-sex attractions. He insists--and Maddow has no evidence to the contrary--that the speaker they sent to Uganda said nothing at all about imprisoning gay people, nor did any of the US ex-gay speakers have any inkling that Uganda was going to come out with this draconian legislation. As Cohen points out, Uganda has had anti-homosexuality legislation on the books since the 1950s; its government needed no help in becoming intolerant.
In fact, Cohen's ex-gay arguments--i.e. gays are people suffering from a developmental deficit and in need of understanding, not condemnation--represent a weird kind of step in the right direction. As Randy Thomas of Exodus, International, has argued, Ugandan conservatives sponsoring this bill are more likely to listen to arguments against this bill coming from ex-gays like Cohen than from liberals like Maddow.
On another, more basic level, though, the "blood on your hands" allegation wrongly suggests that authors have absolute responsibility for how their readers interpret and apply their words. Now, obviously, if Cohen had called for the criminalization of homosexuality or if he had outlined a program similar to Uganda's proposed legislation, then he might have some explaining to do. But, as he tries to point out, Cohen makes no such argument; indeed, a fair reading of his arguments--homosexuals are in need of love and understanding--militates against precisely the attitude the bill's supporters represent (i.e., "kill the gays").
In other words--the Ugandan bill's supporters are misinterpreting Cohen's work, using it selectively to support a stance that Cohen himself does not endorse. It is simply beyond his control if people misuse his work so.
It is true that Cohen, like other ex-gay groups and spokespeople, undercuts his message of understanding and love by coupling it with more standard religious-right rhetoric about the threat of the "gay lobby" or the "gay agenda." Maddow scores a definite hit when she castigates Cohen for using discredited (read: fabricated) research by Paul Cameron about gays being more prone to pedophilia than heterosexuals (Cohen insists he will excise the latter sections from the next edition of his book). These arguments certainly do not do anything to militate against fearmongering and hatemongering against gay people in Uganda. But neither are they explicit calls to pass laws such as the proposed bill.
As a matter of free speech, people are allowed to express strong, unpopular, even intolerant sentiments--even though those expressions might inspire a listener or reader to act violently on the basis of those acts. One person's statement does not equate to another person's action. Maddow herself has a reputation for making what some might consider provocative statements. Suppose, for instance, some deranged person were to take utterly literally Maddow's charge that Cohen has blood on his hands, using that allegation as a pretext to murder Cohen in retaliation. Would Maddow then be responsible for the murderer's actions? Would she have blood on her hands?
Why am I harping on this? I don't like Cohen's arguments. I don't support his take on homosexuality. I think it's important that people recognize (as Maddow stated) that Cohen's psychological and counseling credentials are not recognized by any major credentialing body. Why bother to defend him at all?
Because, frankly, there are people in this country who do explicitly argue that gay people should be imprisoned and put to death. Extremists like that exist. Cohen--while certainly non-progressive—is not one of these extremists. He's not even in the same ballpark. It’s unethical and plain sloppy argumentation to classify Cohen and other ex-gays as no different, really, from Fred "God Hates Fags" Phelps or a KKK vigilante or—yes—some supporter of a bill to execute gays. Doing so betrays a lack of ability (or gumption, or both) to imagine what makes non-progressives tick. It takes a whole swath of people who for whatever reason aren't comfortable with the idea of same-sex love and turns them all into the same species of irrational, immoral bigot--little Phelpses to be feared or dismissed.
If we as progressives ever hope to alter those people's discomfort (change is possible!), we at least need to do them the basic favor of listening carefully to what they are saying rather than lumping them all into one big category of "hater."
More tomorrow,
JF
Let me pause on Rick Warren for a bit. There's more news on the ever-changing story about the proposed anti-gay Ugandan legislation and US ex-gay ministries' influence on it.
In particular, there's this interview between Rachael Maddow and Richard Cohen, a representative of the "International Healing Foundation" who sent a representative to Uganda to discuss the causes of homosexuality (from Cohen's perspective). Cohen's arguments were subsequently among those cited by the bill's supporters as proof that homosexuality can be cured, is not innate, etc.
I re-post the interview here:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
(Transcript here). Some quick observations:
I don't watch a lot of cable news talk shows, primarily because they usually involve lots of yelling, posturing, and very little substantive, careful debate. Given those low expectations, I was pleased to see Maddow treat Cohen with a bit more respect, giving him time to explain himself.
That being said, however, I'm not convinced the interview is the rhetorical slam-dunk that other progressive commentators appear to think it is. Certainly the interview featured some "slam dunk" moments. Maddow confronted Cohen with several key quotes from two of his books and one of his newsletters--some of which he seemed surprised by (e.g., "race" as a possible factor contributing to same-sex attraction) and some of which he ignored (e.g., his multiple suggestions that homosexuals represent malign, threatening forces in culture; his use of research by the thoroughly discredited Paul Cameron). In these instances, Cohen's insistence that his work does nothing to fuel intolerance of homosexuals at home and abroad comes under some strain.
But Maddow herself engages in some less-than-fair argumentative tactics that unfortunately give some credence to ex-gay complaints that their work gets misrepresented by the liberal press. She quotes, for example, a passage from one of Cohen's books in which he suggests a number of general factors that (he argues) may contribute to developing same-sex attractions, including "[d]ivorce, death of a parent, adoption, religion, race." Cohen interrupts to dispute whether race is in there. Maddow shows him that it is, creating one of the evening's "slam dunk" moments.
Maddow expresses disbelief about the idea that, as she puts it, "divorce makes you gay." Cohen interrupts to insist that she's taking his words out of context. "No, I'm reading it from your book, dude," she says. Now--a petty point, perhaps, but as any first-year composition student should know, "in context" means something greater than just "from the book." Cohen insists that she read the rest of the passage, where he clarifies that homosexuality (in his view) is multicausal. Maddow does so, and as it turns out, the passage she quotes comes at the very end of a long and fairly detailed list. The context does in fact problematize a portrayal of his argument as "divorce causes gayness."
That exchange would actually count as a "slam dunk" in Cohen's favor; at the very least, it demonstrates that in this instance Maddow was straw-manning his argument. It's at this point that Maddow refocuses on the race issue--which Cohen appears ill at ease with--pushing Cohen finally to concede that race is not in fact an influence on same-sex attraction.
Cohen and Maddow also disagree about the "cure" issue. Maddow portrays Cohen as claiming that homosexuality is a choice and that gays can be cured. Cohen strenuously disagrees with this representation, saying that he never claims that homosexuality is a choice and that he never uses "cure" as a term to describe therapy. Maddow dismisses this clarification, citing the "change is possible" mantra he often invokes. To suggest that "change" and "cure" aren't the same, she says, is "semantics."
Yes and no. Yes, in that it's a semantic difference, but no if by calling the difference semantic she means that the difference is meaningless (semantic differences rarely are). Ex-gay ministries by and large are careful to qualify a range of meanings for change. Change might be a lessening or transformation of same-sex attractions, but it might also mean a simple re-prioritizing of one's life. I'm not saying I agree with this logic, but I have to recognize that it exists, that for ex-gays change does not mean cure.
By far the most serious disagreement between them, however, is the allegation by Maddow that Cohen has blood on his hands, that because some of the Ugandan bill's supporters cite Cohen's material, Cohen himself bears some responsibility for the bill.
As repellent as I find many of Cohen's arguments, Maddow's blood-on-your-hands argument is a non-starter.
On one level, there's the simple fact that Cohen himself speaks out repeatedly and unambiguously against the Ugandan bill, saying again and again that imprisoning and executing homosexuals is utterly opposed to his theories, which cite a lack of appropriate love as the main factor in creating same-sex attractions. He insists--and Maddow has no evidence to the contrary--that the speaker they sent to Uganda said nothing at all about imprisoning gay people, nor did any of the US ex-gay speakers have any inkling that Uganda was going to come out with this draconian legislation. As Cohen points out, Uganda has had anti-homosexuality legislation on the books since the 1950s; its government needed no help in becoming intolerant.
In fact, Cohen's ex-gay arguments--i.e. gays are people suffering from a developmental deficit and in need of understanding, not condemnation--represent a weird kind of step in the right direction. As Randy Thomas of Exodus, International, has argued, Ugandan conservatives sponsoring this bill are more likely to listen to arguments against this bill coming from ex-gays like Cohen than from liberals like Maddow.
On another, more basic level, though, the "blood on your hands" allegation wrongly suggests that authors have absolute responsibility for how their readers interpret and apply their words. Now, obviously, if Cohen had called for the criminalization of homosexuality or if he had outlined a program similar to Uganda's proposed legislation, then he might have some explaining to do. But, as he tries to point out, Cohen makes no such argument; indeed, a fair reading of his arguments--homosexuals are in need of love and understanding--militates against precisely the attitude the bill's supporters represent (i.e., "kill the gays").
In other words--the Ugandan bill's supporters are misinterpreting Cohen's work, using it selectively to support a stance that Cohen himself does not endorse. It is simply beyond his control if people misuse his work so.
It is true that Cohen, like other ex-gay groups and spokespeople, undercuts his message of understanding and love by coupling it with more standard religious-right rhetoric about the threat of the "gay lobby" or the "gay agenda." Maddow scores a definite hit when she castigates Cohen for using discredited (read: fabricated) research by Paul Cameron about gays being more prone to pedophilia than heterosexuals (Cohen insists he will excise the latter sections from the next edition of his book). These arguments certainly do not do anything to militate against fearmongering and hatemongering against gay people in Uganda. But neither are they explicit calls to pass laws such as the proposed bill.
As a matter of free speech, people are allowed to express strong, unpopular, even intolerant sentiments--even though those expressions might inspire a listener or reader to act violently on the basis of those acts. One person's statement does not equate to another person's action. Maddow herself has a reputation for making what some might consider provocative statements. Suppose, for instance, some deranged person were to take utterly literally Maddow's charge that Cohen has blood on his hands, using that allegation as a pretext to murder Cohen in retaliation. Would Maddow then be responsible for the murderer's actions? Would she have blood on her hands?
Why am I harping on this? I don't like Cohen's arguments. I don't support his take on homosexuality. I think it's important that people recognize (as Maddow stated) that Cohen's psychological and counseling credentials are not recognized by any major credentialing body. Why bother to defend him at all?
Because, frankly, there are people in this country who do explicitly argue that gay people should be imprisoned and put to death. Extremists like that exist. Cohen--while certainly non-progressive—is not one of these extremists. He's not even in the same ballpark. It’s unethical and plain sloppy argumentation to classify Cohen and other ex-gays as no different, really, from Fred "God Hates Fags" Phelps or a KKK vigilante or—yes—some supporter of a bill to execute gays. Doing so betrays a lack of ability (or gumption, or both) to imagine what makes non-progressives tick. It takes a whole swath of people who for whatever reason aren't comfortable with the idea of same-sex love and turns them all into the same species of irrational, immoral bigot--little Phelpses to be feared or dismissed.
If we as progressives ever hope to alter those people's discomfort (change is possible!), we at least need to do them the basic favor of listening carefully to what they are saying rather than lumping them all into one big category of "hater."
More tomorrow,
JF
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Clarifying Warren's Stance re: Uganda
I need to make a couple of corrections to statements I made yesterday regarding Rick Warren and the Ugandan anti-homosexuality bill. A story on Newsweek's website quoted him from two different contexts, one related directly to his stance on the bill itself and one (from Meet the Press) on an entirely different subject. The article noted that the two quotes came from different contexts; I overlooked that clarification in quoting him.
To be clear: the quote from Warren about Uganda is as follows:
That being said, placed side-by-side as they were in the article, the two quotes appear to be speaking about the same subject, giving the impression that Warren advocates a general stance of neutrality--at least on issues of homosexuality. The subtle suggestion in the article (which notes that Warren calls abortion "a holocaust") is that Warren's neutrality is selective and a shade disingenuous. I reacted strongly to this yesterday, wondering how a pastor like Warren could so advocate a stand-offish position.
Having checked the Meet the Press interview myself (transcript only here), I now think the Newsweek article misrepresented Warren's position--or at the very least that I got an incorrect impression of Warren's views from this article (which has been widely linked on gay religious-right watchdog sites).
In the Meet the Press interview, Warren is speaking broadly about his transition from the pastor of a single church (Saddleback) to being a national spokesperson whose opinions on a range of issues is regularly sought. The interviewer, David Gregory, presses Warren on a number of specific issues, from Proposition 8 to abortion to health care. In most cases, Warren acknowledges his (conservative evangelical) beliefs while declining to occupy the role of culture war pundit.
He expresses regret, for instance, about making a video for his church in which he elaborated on his views about gay marriage during the Prop 8 debate. Indeed, Gregory notes that Warren has been quite active on AIDS issues. He asks Warren if working with AIDS patients has caused Warren to think differently about homosexuality. A full quote of Warren's response here is appropriate:
I would like to think this quote similarly contextualizes Warren's views about the proposed Ugandan bill. From what I know of Warren's convictions, he himself, personally, would be against this bill. But in his public statements, Warren maintains a separation of church and state. It is not appropriate, in his view, for him to express an opinion as a pastor on a matter of internal Ugandan politics.
I'm not sure I agree with this stance, particularly on this issue, particularly as other Christian groups and leaders have decided that vocal resistance to this bill is appropriate. I respect, however, the fact that his stance is more complex than it has been portrayed of late, and I regret that I joined in the chorus of condemnatory voices prior to having a fuller context.
More tomorrow,
JF
To be clear: the quote from Warren about Uganda is as follows:
"The fundamental dignity of every person, our right to be free, and the freedom to make moral choices are gifts endowed by God, our creator. However, it is not my personal calling as a pastor in America to comment or interfere in the political process of other nations."The Newsweek article followed that quote with another, taken from Meet the Press:
"As a pastor, my job is to encourage, to support. I never take sides."Now, the article mentioned that in the latter quote Warren expressed a preference for a neutral stance "in a different context." I should have looked before I quoted. Mea culpa.
That being said, placed side-by-side as they were in the article, the two quotes appear to be speaking about the same subject, giving the impression that Warren advocates a general stance of neutrality--at least on issues of homosexuality. The subtle suggestion in the article (which notes that Warren calls abortion "a holocaust") is that Warren's neutrality is selective and a shade disingenuous. I reacted strongly to this yesterday, wondering how a pastor like Warren could so advocate a stand-offish position.
Having checked the Meet the Press interview myself (transcript only here), I now think the Newsweek article misrepresented Warren's position--or at the very least that I got an incorrect impression of Warren's views from this article (which has been widely linked on gay religious-right watchdog sites).
In the Meet the Press interview, Warren is speaking broadly about his transition from the pastor of a single church (Saddleback) to being a national spokesperson whose opinions on a range of issues is regularly sought. The interviewer, David Gregory, presses Warren on a number of specific issues, from Proposition 8 to abortion to health care. In most cases, Warren acknowledges his (conservative evangelical) beliefs while declining to occupy the role of culture war pundit.
He expresses regret, for instance, about making a video for his church in which he elaborated on his views about gay marriage during the Prop 8 debate. Indeed, Gregory notes that Warren has been quite active on AIDS issues. He asks Warren if working with AIDS patients has caused Warren to think differently about homosexuality. A full quote of Warren's response here is appropriate:
This passage more accurately contextualizes the second quote repeated in the Newsweek article, reflecting not a laissez-faire neutrality about political things but a nuanced view about the separate roles of church and state, pastor and politician.
Oh, oh, absolutely, much more sympathetic and understanding the pains and the reactions. I, I have understood that so many people today get stigmatized for different things. Now, of course, I have biblical beliefs on--about homosexuality. But when somebody's dying on the side of the road, you don't walk up to them and say, you know, "What's your nationality?" or, "What's your lifestyle?" or, "What's your, your gender preference?" or, you know, anything else. You just help the guy. And this is the, by the way, the difference--I was asked the other day about illegal immigration, things like that. The role of a pastor and the role of the government are different things. My role is to love everybody. I am called to love everybody. In fact, the Bible says love your enemies. I am forbidden to hate anyone, OK? So I can't--I am to love everybody. And if someone's hurting, I don't walk up and say, "Are you illegally here?" I just want to hurt--help the person. But the government does have a right to decide who's in and who's out and things like that.
I would like to think this quote similarly contextualizes Warren's views about the proposed Ugandan bill. From what I know of Warren's convictions, he himself, personally, would be against this bill. But in his public statements, Warren maintains a separation of church and state. It is not appropriate, in his view, for him to express an opinion as a pastor on a matter of internal Ugandan politics.
I'm not sure I agree with this stance, particularly on this issue, particularly as other Christian groups and leaders have decided that vocal resistance to this bill is appropriate. I respect, however, the fact that his stance is more complex than it has been portrayed of late, and I regret that I joined in the chorus of condemnatory voices prior to having a fuller context.
More tomorrow,
JF
Monday, December 7, 2009
Ugandan Bill: Warren Takes No Sides
Finals week=quick post today (I know, I said that yesterday, but...).
Major news entities are joining discussions and reactions to the proposed Ugandan "Bahati" Bill that would sharpen prohibitions against and punishments for homosexual behavior and related acts (e.g., the death penalty or life imprisonment for gay people, hard labor for those "aiding and abetting" homosexuals). I am pleased that my denomination has (finally) come out formally against the bill. So too has an Anglican canon in Uganda.
In odd contrast to these, evangelical super-pastor Rick Warren (The Purpose-Driven Church, Saddleback Church) has come out resolutely as not being against the bill. Warren had initially (back in October) distanced himself from the bill and some of its main pastoral supporters in Uganda with whom he and Saddleback had previously worked. Of late, though, Warren has taken a stance of no-comment on the politics of a foreign nation. He has refused repeated invitations to condemn the bill, most recently stating on Meet the Press that "As a pastor, my job is to encourage, to support. I never take sides." Update: This quote is taken from a context unrelated to the Uganda issue. See here.
I'm going to need to do a bit more investigating there because that just doesn't sound right. Generally counted among the most popular evangelicals in the US today, Warren occupies an odd place in the evangelical spectrum. While his book The Purpose-Driven Life made the best-seller lists, it's his model of "seeker-sensitive" or "new paradigm" church (outlined in The Purpose-Driven Church) that really won him fame.
In seeker-sensitive churches like Saddleback (Bill Hybels's Willow Creek Church in Chicago being the other main example), the main Sunday services aim explicitly at the non-churchgoer, whose likes and dislikes have been market-researched and focus-group tested by worship leaders. Using this data, church leaders re-create the service to appeal to "Unchurched Harry" (or "Saddleback Sam")--the generic niche consumer of church services. There's lots of music, multimedia, high energy, inspiring messages, and easygoing atmosphere. Conspicuously absent are high-church symbols like crosses, altars, pews, hymnals, offering plates, etc.
As Warren explains, the "seeker-sensitive" service is not actually the "true" worship service. It's bait, lure to attract people into membership. Once people actually join, they are expected to participate actively in the life of the church, typically through small-group "cells" that re-create in miniature the community atmosphere otherwise impossible in a church of 10,000+. Members have their own (authentic) worship service later in the week.
Warren's unorthodox approach extends to his inter-denominational politics. Saddleback is broadly evangelical and nondenominational, but Warren has distinguished himself as more willing than most other evangelical leaders to reach out to non-evangelical groups, especially on issues such as environmentalism. For many evangelicals, then, Warren is a traitor, a dangerously popular charlatan peddling a watered-down gospel. For others, he represents the next wave of evangelical leaders--doctrinally committed but willing to reach out. His influence, in any case, is not in question. He was, after all, the one who interviewed both presidential candidates about their faith and values in the last debate.
All of this makes his "I take no stand" rhetoric difficult. Warren has not been so coy about taking a stand on other issues in the past, though certainly he has largely steered clear of formal alignments with religious-right standards like Focus on the Family.
I'm sure I'm not alone here, though, in finding his newly stated neutrality in all things political... odd. Even un-pastoral.
More tomorrow,
JF
Major news entities are joining discussions and reactions to the proposed Ugandan "Bahati" Bill that would sharpen prohibitions against and punishments for homosexual behavior and related acts (e.g., the death penalty or life imprisonment for gay people, hard labor for those "aiding and abetting" homosexuals). I am pleased that my denomination has (finally) come out formally against the bill. So too has an Anglican canon in Uganda.
In odd contrast to these, evangelical super-pastor Rick Warren (The Purpose-Driven Church, Saddleback Church) has come out resolutely as not being against the bill. Warren had initially (back in October) distanced himself from the bill and some of its main pastoral supporters in Uganda with whom he and Saddleback had previously worked. Of late, though, Warren has taken a stance of no-comment on the politics of a foreign nation. He has refused repeated invitations to condemn the bill, most recently stating on Meet the Press that "As a pastor, my job is to encourage, to support. I never take sides." Update: This quote is taken from a context unrelated to the Uganda issue. See here.
I'm going to need to do a bit more investigating there because that just doesn't sound right. Generally counted among the most popular evangelicals in the US today, Warren occupies an odd place in the evangelical spectrum. While his book The Purpose-Driven Life made the best-seller lists, it's his model of "seeker-sensitive" or "new paradigm" church (outlined in The Purpose-Driven Church) that really won him fame.
In seeker-sensitive churches like Saddleback (Bill Hybels's Willow Creek Church in Chicago being the other main example), the main Sunday services aim explicitly at the non-churchgoer, whose likes and dislikes have been market-researched and focus-group tested by worship leaders. Using this data, church leaders re-create the service to appeal to "Unchurched Harry" (or "Saddleback Sam")--the generic niche consumer of church services. There's lots of music, multimedia, high energy, inspiring messages, and easygoing atmosphere. Conspicuously absent are high-church symbols like crosses, altars, pews, hymnals, offering plates, etc.
As Warren explains, the "seeker-sensitive" service is not actually the "true" worship service. It's bait, lure to attract people into membership. Once people actually join, they are expected to participate actively in the life of the church, typically through small-group "cells" that re-create in miniature the community atmosphere otherwise impossible in a church of 10,000+. Members have their own (authentic) worship service later in the week.
Warren's unorthodox approach extends to his inter-denominational politics. Saddleback is broadly evangelical and nondenominational, but Warren has distinguished himself as more willing than most other evangelical leaders to reach out to non-evangelical groups, especially on issues such as environmentalism. For many evangelicals, then, Warren is a traitor, a dangerously popular charlatan peddling a watered-down gospel. For others, he represents the next wave of evangelical leaders--doctrinally committed but willing to reach out. His influence, in any case, is not in question. He was, after all, the one who interviewed both presidential candidates about their faith and values in the last debate.
All of this makes his "I take no stand" rhetoric difficult. Warren has not been so coy about taking a stand on other issues in the past, though certainly he has largely steered clear of formal alignments with religious-right standards like Focus on the Family.
I'm sure I'm not alone here, though, in finding his newly stated neutrality in all things political... odd. Even un-pastoral.
More tomorrow,
JF
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Signs and Counter-Signs at Syracuse
I'm in the H-E-double-hockey-sticks that is end-of-semester grading currently, so my posts this week will likely be a bit short-and-sweet.
So--skimming over my news sites today, I ran into this blog post. The nitty-gritty? This picture:
Apparently, the woman with the "Homosexuality is a sin" sign showed up at Syracuse U (in New York), and one gay student responded with a sign of his own. The originating site quotes him:
I hope it's no secret to people who read this blog that I oppose the theology behind the woman's sign. Aside from the basic issues of the sinfulness and (presumed) curability of homosexuality, the sign is just an awful witness--bad activism. I wonder just what the lone protester hopes to accomplish.
There's actually a wide range of rationales behind demonstrations of this sort. For some, like Fred "God Hates Fags" Phelps, demonstrations are entirely mechanisms of conviction. Christians, in Phelps's theology, are called to be God's pointing finger of judgment, condemning the world (well, specific parts of it) for its sin and thus giving the reprobates "no excuse" for their sin when they inevitably face the Final Judgment. After all, they were told: God hates fags.
Alternately, other demonstrators really believe that signs such as the one in the picture might have some kind of transformative effect--if not immediately than cumulatively. A gay person might see that sign, consciously dismiss it, but unconsciously that message might join with any of a hundred other messages great and small, opening the door of their heart even a crack wider to the possibility that homosexuality is a sin and that Christ might have a better way. Eventually (goes this line of thinking), the Holy Spirit might enter in and begin working to help that person cease their sin, repent, and/or seek professional (read: pastoral) help in battling their sin.
Of course I disagree hotly with both of these possible rationales, both theologically and practically. The former is hyper-Calvinist, loveless fundamentalism that I have difficulty imagining as Christianity at all (Phelps thinks the same about people like me--well, really about everyone outside of his own enclave). The latter rationale's failure mirrors the empty activism I've criticized on the left; holding up a sign reassures the protester that they're "doing something" for their faith, but that affect of "doing something" outweighs the basic question of efficacy. If you believe homosexuals need to internalize the message of sin and redemption, is holding up a sign on a college campus the best way to do that? I suspect not.
Based on her sign, I wager she aligns more with the non-Phelpsian view. I'm only guessing, though; the piece from which I got the pic is silent as to her reasoning. For all I know she's an uber-liberal doing some kind of performance art or social experiment to see how people react to offensive messages. (If so, then experiment Win!)
I'm struck, though, by her expression. At a guess: Resigned. Used to this. Inured to abuse. Not even embarrassed at the fashion slight. After all, Christ said to expect abuse. The sign next to her confirms everything she's been taught about how homosexuals act, just as her sign apparently confirms everything that the counter-protester expects from conservative, anti-gay Christians.
It's worth pointing out, though, that the woman's sign here is not of the "God Hates Fags" variety. It is, as fundamentalist expressions go, fairly outreachy. The "Christ can set you free" message bespeaks a theology that pictures gay people as sinners, yes, but redeemable sinners caught by an addiction or disorder rather than (as is the case for Phelps) filthy animals beyond all hope of redemption, animals that--if the US knew what it was doing--would be rounded up and shot. In the extremely limited context of fundamentalist anti-gay-sign-protests, the woman's sign actually qualifies as being on the loving end of the spectrum. I would be surprised, in other words, if the woman didn't imagine herself as acting out of love for homosexual people.
Again, the fact that to most eyes the sign is manifestly unloving is a failure of activism; the message she means to send (at least, the one I imagine her meaning) isn't the one she's actually sending.
But I'm hardly more impressed by the counter-sign. Yes, on one level it's a clever turning (queering, perhaps) of the woman's sign, swapping the doctrine of church of Project Runway for the woman's fundamentalist beliefs. You give me offensive sincerity? I respond with surface glibness and ridicule. But, like most comic reversals, the counter-sign responds to one form of dehumanization with another, one that plays on tensions of socioeconomic class ("see how backward/white trash she is?") rather than sexuality. In that, the counter-sign is extremely effective activism. It gets the job done.
But, to be frank, the counter-protester's stated rationale ("I'll make her feel even more unwelcome") doesn't exactly rank well when compared to the protesters--which (as an educated guess) I'd say is something like "I'd like for gay people to be in heaven" (mixed, to be fair, with a bit of "I want to prove how good a Christian I am by witnessing to the gays").
I know this won't be a popular interpretation, but I read more loving intention in the woman's badly calibrated, unloving message/activism than I do in the guy's quippy, effective sign. He's not interested--so far as I can tell--in the other woman's well-being, eternal or otherwise. She attacked him, so he's hitting back and getting real and virtual kudos for doing so. Will his activism convince her that gays aren't hopeless addicts mired in their own fleshly desires? Nope. Is it even trying to do so? Nope. It wins by virtue of being the cleverer put-down.
It depresses me, this scene. There's so much distance between the two points of view, and so little hope of anything like meaningful interaction.
Can't we do any better?
More tomorrow,
JF
So--skimming over my news sites today, I ran into this blog post. The nitty-gritty? This picture:
Apparently, the woman with the "Homosexuality is a sin" sign showed up at Syracuse U (in New York), and one gay student responded with a sign of his own. The originating site quotes him:
"I decided that because this woman thought it was okay to make me feel uncomfortable in my home, I would retaliate and make her feel just as uncomfortable, if not more."He reports getting tons of support from passersby.
I hope it's no secret to people who read this blog that I oppose the theology behind the woman's sign. Aside from the basic issues of the sinfulness and (presumed) curability of homosexuality, the sign is just an awful witness--bad activism. I wonder just what the lone protester hopes to accomplish.
There's actually a wide range of rationales behind demonstrations of this sort. For some, like Fred "God Hates Fags" Phelps, demonstrations are entirely mechanisms of conviction. Christians, in Phelps's theology, are called to be God's pointing finger of judgment, condemning the world (well, specific parts of it) for its sin and thus giving the reprobates "no excuse" for their sin when they inevitably face the Final Judgment. After all, they were told: God hates fags.
Alternately, other demonstrators really believe that signs such as the one in the picture might have some kind of transformative effect--if not immediately than cumulatively. A gay person might see that sign, consciously dismiss it, but unconsciously that message might join with any of a hundred other messages great and small, opening the door of their heart even a crack wider to the possibility that homosexuality is a sin and that Christ might have a better way. Eventually (goes this line of thinking), the Holy Spirit might enter in and begin working to help that person cease their sin, repent, and/or seek professional (read: pastoral) help in battling their sin.
Of course I disagree hotly with both of these possible rationales, both theologically and practically. The former is hyper-Calvinist, loveless fundamentalism that I have difficulty imagining as Christianity at all (Phelps thinks the same about people like me--well, really about everyone outside of his own enclave). The latter rationale's failure mirrors the empty activism I've criticized on the left; holding up a sign reassures the protester that they're "doing something" for their faith, but that affect of "doing something" outweighs the basic question of efficacy. If you believe homosexuals need to internalize the message of sin and redemption, is holding up a sign on a college campus the best way to do that? I suspect not.
Based on her sign, I wager she aligns more with the non-Phelpsian view. I'm only guessing, though; the piece from which I got the pic is silent as to her reasoning. For all I know she's an uber-liberal doing some kind of performance art or social experiment to see how people react to offensive messages. (If so, then experiment Win!)
I'm struck, though, by her expression. At a guess: Resigned. Used to this. Inured to abuse. Not even embarrassed at the fashion slight. After all, Christ said to expect abuse. The sign next to her confirms everything she's been taught about how homosexuals act, just as her sign apparently confirms everything that the counter-protester expects from conservative, anti-gay Christians.
It's worth pointing out, though, that the woman's sign here is not of the "God Hates Fags" variety. It is, as fundamentalist expressions go, fairly outreachy. The "Christ can set you free" message bespeaks a theology that pictures gay people as sinners, yes, but redeemable sinners caught by an addiction or disorder rather than (as is the case for Phelps) filthy animals beyond all hope of redemption, animals that--if the US knew what it was doing--would be rounded up and shot. In the extremely limited context of fundamentalist anti-gay-sign-protests, the woman's sign actually qualifies as being on the loving end of the spectrum. I would be surprised, in other words, if the woman didn't imagine herself as acting out of love for homosexual people.
Again, the fact that to most eyes the sign is manifestly unloving is a failure of activism; the message she means to send (at least, the one I imagine her meaning) isn't the one she's actually sending.
But I'm hardly more impressed by the counter-sign. Yes, on one level it's a clever turning (queering, perhaps) of the woman's sign, swapping the doctrine of church of Project Runway for the woman's fundamentalist beliefs. You give me offensive sincerity? I respond with surface glibness and ridicule. But, like most comic reversals, the counter-sign responds to one form of dehumanization with another, one that plays on tensions of socioeconomic class ("see how backward/white trash she is?") rather than sexuality. In that, the counter-sign is extremely effective activism. It gets the job done.
But, to be frank, the counter-protester's stated rationale ("I'll make her feel even more unwelcome") doesn't exactly rank well when compared to the protesters--which (as an educated guess) I'd say is something like "I'd like for gay people to be in heaven" (mixed, to be fair, with a bit of "I want to prove how good a Christian I am by witnessing to the gays").
I know this won't be a popular interpretation, but I read more loving intention in the woman's badly calibrated, unloving message/activism than I do in the guy's quippy, effective sign. He's not interested--so far as I can tell--in the other woman's well-being, eternal or otherwise. She attacked him, so he's hitting back and getting real and virtual kudos for doing so. Will his activism convince her that gays aren't hopeless addicts mired in their own fleshly desires? Nope. Is it even trying to do so? Nope. It wins by virtue of being the cleverer put-down.
It depresses me, this scene. There's so much distance between the two points of view, and so little hope of anything like meaningful interaction.
Can't we do any better?
More tomorrow,
JF
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Two Interesting Church and State Pieces from the WaPo
A brief post today, due to end-of-semester busyness.
Two items of interest to my recent ruminations about church/state relations have appeared on the Washington Post website. First is a commentary by Asima T. Uddin, an attorney specializing in religious liberty issues. She tackles the Swiss ban on minarets, citing it as an instance of the French concept, laïcité (alas, diacritical marks don't come easily to this blog, so the term will likely appear as laicite here on out). Distinct from our "separation of church and state," laicite positions religion as not just different than public state functions but actively dangerous, meant to be contained in private spheres and invisible/undetectable outside of such spheres. It is laicite that fuels conflicts in France currently about whether young women may wear Muslim head coverings at school.
Uddin argues that laicite backfires, producing more rather than less religious-based influence/presence in public life. From the piece:
Religious right commentators (some of them, anyway) often point to countries that practice laicite as evidence of the dire ends that church/state separation policies create. Actually, I get the sense at times that some of these commentators look forward to such a faith-hostile government, awaiting with grim eagerness the day when they can martyr themselves in the name of their faith. Consider, for instance, the success of the Left Behind series and its imitators. There's an almost romantic fascination with the idea of the underground church that holds its prayer meetings on the sly or keeps its cross-shaped jewelry hidden.
Of course (and this is the point most religious right commentators gloss over), the US's tradition of church and state diverges from that of France. Any country with "In God we trust" printed on its coins or where Judeo-Christian professions of faith are obligatory for major politicians is a long way from laicite.
Laicite, Uddin notes, arose in France during the 1700s and 1800s as a means of checking the percieved influence of Roman Catholicism. Coincidentally, the other piece that caught my attention dealt precisely with the Catholic church's influence on Catholic politicians. Specifically, Joseph A. Califano, Jr. (a former cabinet member in the Johnson and Carter administrations) argues against what he calls "a sort of nuclear option"--the denial of the Eucharist to Catholic politicians who are pro-choice. Such an option was unthinkable, he insists, in previous decades.
Why, he asks, do Catholic Bishops so keen on denying Eucharist to pro-life politicians not also deny the Eucharist to pro-death penalty politicians or pro-Iraqi War politicians? Califano takes no stance on abortion himself in the piece. Rather, he contends, no politician can be expected to kowtow to any particular brand of faith-based ideological purity. To insist that politicians only make or vote for policy utterly consonant with one faith's doctrines is wrong. Yes, he concedes, politicians can and should allow their faith convictions to influence their policies, but he qualifies this concession nicely:
Nicely put, I think.
More tomorrow,
JF
Two items of interest to my recent ruminations about church/state relations have appeared on the Washington Post website. First is a commentary by Asima T. Uddin, an attorney specializing in religious liberty issues. She tackles the Swiss ban on minarets, citing it as an instance of the French concept, laïcité (alas, diacritical marks don't come easily to this blog, so the term will likely appear as laicite here on out). Distinct from our "separation of church and state," laicite positions religion as not just different than public state functions but actively dangerous, meant to be contained in private spheres and invisible/undetectable outside of such spheres. It is laicite that fuels conflicts in France currently about whether young women may wear Muslim head coverings at school.
Uddin argues that laicite backfires, producing more rather than less religious-based influence/presence in public life. From the piece:
"When faith and the faithful are denied full participation in civic life, they don't fade from it: instead, they seek alternative means to influence it. At its best, this takes the form of faith-inspired peaceful protest. At its worst, it takes the form of faith-inspired terror."
Religious right commentators (some of them, anyway) often point to countries that practice laicite as evidence of the dire ends that church/state separation policies create. Actually, I get the sense at times that some of these commentators look forward to such a faith-hostile government, awaiting with grim eagerness the day when they can martyr themselves in the name of their faith. Consider, for instance, the success of the Left Behind series and its imitators. There's an almost romantic fascination with the idea of the underground church that holds its prayer meetings on the sly or keeps its cross-shaped jewelry hidden.
Of course (and this is the point most religious right commentators gloss over), the US's tradition of church and state diverges from that of France. Any country with "In God we trust" printed on its coins or where Judeo-Christian professions of faith are obligatory for major politicians is a long way from laicite.
Laicite, Uddin notes, arose in France during the 1700s and 1800s as a means of checking the percieved influence of Roman Catholicism. Coincidentally, the other piece that caught my attention dealt precisely with the Catholic church's influence on Catholic politicians. Specifically, Joseph A. Califano, Jr. (a former cabinet member in the Johnson and Carter administrations) argues against what he calls "a sort of nuclear option"--the denial of the Eucharist to Catholic politicians who are pro-choice. Such an option was unthinkable, he insists, in previous decades.
Why, he asks, do Catholic Bishops so keen on denying Eucharist to pro-life politicians not also deny the Eucharist to pro-death penalty politicians or pro-Iraqi War politicians? Califano takes no stance on abortion himself in the piece. Rather, he contends, no politician can be expected to kowtow to any particular brand of faith-based ideological purity. To insist that politicians only make or vote for policy utterly consonant with one faith's doctrines is wrong. Yes, he concedes, politicians can and should allow their faith convictions to influence their policies, but he qualifies this concession nicely:
"But to have convictions of conscience and be guided by them is not a license to impose such convictions indiscriminately on others by uncompromisingly translating them into policy. If public policy is to serve the common good of a fundamentally just and free, pluralistic society, it must brew in a cauldron of competing values such as freedom, order, equity, justice and mercy. Public officials who fail to weigh these competing values serve neither private conscience nor public morality. Indeed, they offend both."
Nicely put, I think.
More tomorrow,
JF
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