I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians
By Janet Cosgrove Christian November 19, 2008 | Issue 44•47
Everybody has this image of "crazy Christians" based on what they hear in the media, but it's just not true. Most Christians are normal, decent folks. We don't all blindly follow a bunch of outdated biblical tenets or go all fanatical about every bit of dogma. What I'm trying to say is, don't let the actions of a vocal few color your perceptions about what the majority of us are like.
Like me. I may be a Christian, but it's not like I'm one of those wacko "love your neighbor as yourself " types.
God forbid!
I'm here to tell you there are lots of Christians who aren't anything like the preconceived notions you may have. We're not all into "turning the other cheek." We don't spend our days committing random acts of kindness for no credit. And although we believe that the moral precepts in the Book of Leviticus are the infallible word of God, it doesn't mean we're all obsessed with extremist notions like "righteousness" and "justice."
My faith in the Lord is about the pure, simple values: raising children right, saying grace at the table, strictly forbidding those who are Methodists or Presbyterians from receiving communion because their beliefs are heresies, and curing homosexuals. That's all. Just the core beliefs. You won't see me going on some frothy-mouthed tirade about being a comfort to the downtrodden.
I'm a normal Midwestern housewife. I believe in the basic teachings of the Bible and the church. Divorce is forbidden. A woman is to be an obedient subordinate to the male head of the household. If a man lieth down with another man, they shall be taken out and killed. Things everybody can agree on, like the miracle of glossolalia that occurred during Pentecost, when the Apostles were visited by the Holy Spirit, who took the form of cloven tongues of fire hovering just above their heads. You know, basic common sense stuff.
But that doesn't mean I think people should, like, forgive the sins of those who trespass against them or anything weird like that.
We're not all "Jesus Freaks" who run around screaming about how everyone should "Judge not lest ye be judged," whine "Blessed are the meek" all the time, or drone on and on about how we're all equal in the eyes of God! Some of us are just trying to be good, honest folks who believe the unbaptized will roam the Earth for ages without the comfort of God's love when Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior returns on Judgment Day to whisk the righteous off to heaven.
Now, granted, there are some Christians on the lunatic fringe who take their beliefs a little too far. Take my coworker Karen, for example. She's way off the deep end when it comes to religion: going down to the homeless shelter to volunteer once a month, donating money to the poor, visiting elderly shut-ins with the Meals on Wheels program—you name it!
But believe me, we're not all that way. The people in my church, for the most part, are perfectly ordinary Americans like you and me. They believe in the simple old-fashioned traditions—Christmas, Easter, the slow and deliberate takeover of more and more county school boards to get the political power necessary to ban evolution from textbooks statewide. That sort of thing.
We oppose gay marriage as an abomination against the laws of God and America, we're against gun control, and we fervently and unwaveringly believe that the Jews, Muslims, and all on earth who are not born-again Pentecostalists are possessed by Satan and should be treated as such.
When it comes down to it, all we want is to see every single member of the human race convert to our religion or else be condemned by a jealous and wrathful God to suffer an eternity of agony and torture in the Lake of Fire!
I hope I've helped set the record straight, and I wish you all a very nice day! God bless you!
Focus on the Family spent more than $500,000 to pass California's Prop. 8 gay marriage ban. The ministry announced this afternoon that 202 jobs will be cut companywide — an estimated 20 percent of its workforce. Initial reports bring the total number of remaining employees to around 950.
Focus on the Family is poised to announce major layoffs to its Colorado Springs-based ministry and media empire today. The cutbacks come just weeks after the group pumped more than half a million dollars into the successful effort to pass a gay-marriage ban in California.
Critics are holding up the layoffs, which come just two months after the organization’s last round of dismissals, as a sad commentary on the true priorities of the ministry. [The Colorado Independent]
Civil Rights are not a matter of "majority rule", they are "inalienable". In who's reality should civil rights be eliminated through popular vote? What do you think would have happened if the actions passed through the Civil Rights movement were to have been voted on?
California made history last week, to be sure, but not the kind of history we like and can be proud of and certainly not the kind of history we're known for. In 1948, California led the nation by becoming the first state to strike down bans on interracial marriage. In the Perez v Sharp decision that found marriage to be a fundamental right, the state Supreme court stated "the right to marry is the right to join in marriage with the person of one's choice" (emphasis added). Nearly 20 years later, the United States Supreme Court agreed that marriage was a "basic civil right" when it struck down anti-miscegenation laws all across the country.
Last Tuesday a very narrow majority of voters decided to make history again: California is now the first state in the nation to take away a currently existing civil right from a group of citizens. This national embarrassment by way of constitutional amendment is made all the more painful and unjust by the manner in which it was passed: the subjection of individual rights to a popular vote. [Prop 8 Makes Wrong Kind of History]
The ruling by the California Supreme Court earlier this year that sparked the signature campaign placing Prop 8 on the ballot spoke of the "overarching values of equality and human freedom," the "fundamental right" of marriage, the importance of giving same-sex unions "equal dignity and respect," and the constitutional obligation of the court "to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority." I've been wanting to get to this story for some time now and want to be clear that I am NOT here to make a theological statement. This is not a religious issue, but a constitutional one, and the constitution does not allow for this kind of infringement. The church can determine who it shall and shall not marry and God can decide who's bonds are held in His eyes, but the State should be in no business of withholding a minority's rights in accordance with fluctuating public opinion. The truth is not a democracy. The truth is not determined by a majority vote (Especially not 51 to 49). If anyone should know this it should be Christians. Congratulations to the Church for leading yet another movement in American history that will be on the wrong side of history.
Trading ambition for ideals, McCain made the mistake of aligning his campaign with the culture warriors instead of running as himself. The fatal flaw was exposed: because before God, America worships money, and culture wars call a truce when the economic woes reign supreme. Sure the tide has shifted in Evangelical circles to bring about more progressive tendencies, but on the whole the Almighty Dollar supercedes the Almighty God (and sometimes they're one in the same). The only thing evangelicals love more than God is money, and this ultimately marked the end of John McCain. He would have known this if he hadn't been such an outsider. Only a true evangelical would have known.
In the Washington Post today, Peter Beinart says Culture War just isn’t selling anymore, and that only 6% of voters now name “issues like abortion, guns and same-sex marriage” as a big deal:
The economic challenges of the coming era are complicated, fascinating and terrifying, while the cultural battles of the 1960s feel increasingly stale …. Although she seems like a fresh face, Sarah Palin actually represents the end of an era. She may be the last culture warrior on a national ticket for a very long time.
The relationship between prosperity and cultural conflict isn't exact, of course, but it is significant that during this era's culture war we've gone a quarter-century without a serious recession. Economic issues have mattered in presidential elections, of course, but not until today have we faced an economic crisis so grave that it made cultural questions seem downright trivial. In 2000, in the wake of an economic boom and a sex scandal that led to a president's impeachment, 22 percent of Americans told exit pollsters that "moral values" were their biggest concern, compared with only 19 percent who cited the economy.
Today, according to a recent Newsweek poll, the economy is up to 44 percent and "issues like abortion, guns and same-sex marriage" down to only 6 percent. It's no coincidence that Palin's popularity has plummeted as the financial crisis has taken center stage. From her championing of small-town America to her efforts to link Barack Obama to former domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, Palin is treading a path well-worn by Republicans in recent decades. She's depicting the campaign as a struggle between the culturally familiar and the culturally threatening, the culturally traditional and the culturally exotic. But Obama has dismissed those attacks as irrelevant, and the public, focused nervously on the economic collapse, has largely tuned them out.
Palin's attacks are also failing because of generational change. The long-running, internecine baby boomer cultural feud just isn't that relevant to Americans who came of age after the civil rights, gay rights and feminist revolutions. Even many younger evangelicals are broadening their agendas beyond abortion, stem cells, school prayer and gay marriage. ["Last of the Culture Warriors" - WashingtonPost.com]
Sarah Palin may symbolize the last Republican culture warrior:
They’re still out there, still angry and still illiterate. But there’s not enough of them to win elections anymore, and the new Great Depression has even knocked some common sense into a few of these people — this year, a lot of bitters sort of cleared the Rove Goo from their eyes and realized being permanently enraged about guns or Mexicans is not really the path to wealth and happiness.
Younger voters just don’t care much about race, they aren’t paranoid about homosexuals trying to do whatever it is they fear homosexuals want to do to poor dumb white people, and they’re very much in favor of the kinds of things Dingbat Palin mocks with such enthusiasm: environmental protection, alternative energy and government-backed health care.
And surprise, surprise, younger voters are going heavily to Obama and Democrats across the board. Older voters are surprisingly in the tank — that Medicare and Social Security is pretty good stuff, HENGHH? — and “that one” has the wealthy and the educated on his side. ["Palin Fighting 'Culture War' Nobody Cares About" - Wonkette.com]
Finally, much of what we think we know about values in America isn't really of much value:
The reason that recent presidential elections have been so close, and Congress so narrowly divided, is that voters actually share both a broad distrust of both political parties and government and a basic civic outlook. For example, in 2000, the Mother of All Red/Blue Elections, he found that exactly 62 percent of voters in red states and blue states should tolerate each others' "moral views." But finding neither team attractive, voters naturally split their votes about evenly between the two unpopular sides. That isn't polarization; it is simple sorting.
Noisy, persistent conflicts aren't a sign of civic rot, but of humans being human. Americans are indeed frustrated and challenged by a lack of community, by rapid social and technological change and by economic pessimism. But our values are not the problem. ["Five Myths About Values Voters" - WashingtonPost.com]
In the final days of this election campaign, a new message has emerged. For the entire political year, the overriding theme has been change—with each candidate competing to be the real champion for a new direction. With 80 percent of Americans unhappy with our country’s current direction, it seemed that no other theme could break through.
A new message has, and it is this: “Be Afraid— Be Very Afraid.” Most of that fear is directed at Barack Obama, the leading candidate with just days to go before November 4. Instead of being content to offer a competing policy vision to Obama’s, the Right has now focused on the man himself in an attempt to stir the fears of the electorate that “he” is not really like “them.” “Do we really know who Barack Obama is?” has been the refrain of partisan peddlers. A parallel and ugly national innuendo campaign stokes the fear. Is he a Muslim? An Arab? A pal of terrorists? Or maybe even a closet Socialist? Where did he grow up? Why such a funny middle name? Doesn’t his support come from those parts of the country (and those people) that deep down inside are anti-American? And, of course, what has quickly become a campaign classic—guilt by association.
The fact that Barack Obama is the first black nominee of a major party for president gives all the fear a decidedly racial undertone. YouTube has quickly become populated with video after video of the dark underbelly of American fear and racism. The innuendos and rumors have brought to the surface latent fears and thinly veiled biases that many had hoped were gone from our country. The message of fear is the same: Obama may look okay on the surface, but we don’t know what might lie beneath.
Regardless of whether one favors Obama or McCain, this development should be of concern to all Americans, and especially people of faith. There is now a new spiritual dimension to this election, and it is decidedly evil. Christians believe that “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out all fear…” (1 John 4:18.) There are, of course, good and decent motivations to vote either way in this election. Strong people of faith will be marking different boxes on Election Day, but for people of faith there will be a spiritual decision to be made as well. Will we put our trust in the power of fear or hope?
Conservatism did this with the bright and hopeful theme of “Morning in America” with the Ronald Reagan years. I disagreed with most all of Reagan’s agenda, but his appeal was to ask us all to choose hope, not fear. Similarly, the best of liberalism was seen in the power of John and Robert Kennedy’s appeal to build a “newer world.” Both conservatives and liberals can appeal to the better instincts of the American people, or to their worst—and each side has done both over the years.
Fear has always been the dark side of American politics, and we are seeing its resurgence in the campaign’s final days. Demagoguery has come from both the right and the left in America, and the most dependable sign of it is the appeal to fear over hope. Facts don’t matter when fear takes over. Fear covers over the debate on a candidate’s tax plans, the wisdom of their foreign policies, their experience and judgment to handle the economic crisis. Fear attacks character and lies with false prophecies of what a candidate would do if they are elected.
Some of the worst fear-mongering has sadly come from leaders of the Religious Right who are worried about losing their control over the votes of the evangelical and Catholic communities, especially a new generation of believers. Their apocalyptic rhetoric has been among the worst and most irresponsible. When religious leaders sound so desperate and seek to stoke fear and hate, they have lost their theological perspective by putting too much of their hope in having political power. It is that loss of power and control which seems to be motivating the current campaign of desperation and fear now being waged by so many conservatives. Instead, scripture points to a better way:
For “Those who desire life and desire to see good days, let them keep their tongues from evil and their lips from speaking deceit; let them turn away from evil and do good; let them seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.” Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you.” (1 Peter 3:10-15, emphasis added)
With that reminder that Christ is our ultimate hope, let us pray that, on November 4, the need for change will finally prevail over the appeals to fear. Pray that the voters will choose either Barack Obama or John McCain as the best agent of change, rather than submit to the tyranny of fear. It is always better to live (and to vote) in the light of hope than in the darkness of fear. It is always an act of faith to believe that, in the end, hope will prevail over fear. So pray, and vote.
"For the last year and a half, a team of psychology professors has been conducting remarkable experiments on how Americans view Barack Obama through the prism of race.
The scholars used a common research technique, the implicit association test, to measure whether people regarded Mr. Obama and other candidates as more foreign or more American. They found that research subjects — particularly when primed to think of Mr. Obama as a black candidate — subconsciously considered him less American than either Hillary Clinton or John McCain."
I scored the following: - Your data suggests no automatic preference for White people over Black people - Your data suggests a moderate automatic preference for Barack Obama over John McCain
The Systematic Theology of Modern Mainline Evangelical Christianity in America
*note: what you are about to read is a caricature based upon isolated realities. It is tounge-in-cheek and meant only to spur polemical debate, not to flame.
1. The Bible is a book of absolute statements (absolutely understood by the reader) to be read in piecemeal segments used to identify who is "other"** and what the other is doing wrong and to determine the physical and spiritual fate or should be fate of the other. It's secondary use is to help the reader feel better about themselves or "encourage" them in their current path. The only statements that should be read and taught are those that accomplish this goal and can be most easily understood and espoused by the reader (i.e., John 3:16, Phil 4:13, some of the 10 Commandments, or the ones about abortion, evolution and the gays).
2. The aforementioned minutia of Biblical teachings will make up 10% of one's belief system. 50% will come from the culture of your first 18 years of life (anything learned after these years is to be mistrusted, especially if it is learned in a college or university or other institution of higher learning [*Bible colleges excluded] & universities are solely useful as issuers of passports to privilege). 10% will come from Fox News, Drudge Report & talk radio (avoid NPR). 10% from music & television (top 40, Christian radio, & nu-country are excellent truth tellers). 10% from commercials & advertisements (Mama's got the magic of Clorox Bleach). The final source would be 10% from friends that share the previous 90%.
3. Any teaching that is presented that goes against one's personal happiness or belief should be regarded as relative, figurative or misunderstood. If these options are not possible then cognitive dissonance should be employed to dizzying effect (Anything that looks communistic or confronts one's ideas, interests, or allegiance to country should be discounted most quickly & Remember, self-sacrifice is Jesus's job...or the troops).
4. Doctrine can best be understood in bumper sticker form and is a sociological trend (see also #1).
5. The heart (or gut) is always to be trusted above the mind (see also #3). 6.The Gospel is understood as a personal decision that Jesus will pay your airfare to heaven upon death. If you believe this hard enough, repeat a mantra and don't screw up. Jesus will also pay for other things on earth for you...just don't mess up!!! Believe harder maggot!!
7. Salvation is limited to a person's soul and has no other broader ramifications. It only addresses the most "spiritual" aspects of life. God cares about nothing else going on in the world and neither should you unless it effects your personal happiness (God may choose to place a real "burden" on your heart for maintaining the status quo to your betterment).
8. Personal salvation is the single most important moment in one's life (keywords: single & moment). Again, don't mess up!! (but if you do, you can always "recommit" yourself).
9. A Pro-life stance only concerns the time in a person's life between conception to delivery.
10. Prayer is a tool to pursue happiness or to indicate your disapproval with a person or their behavior (i.e., "I will pray for you, _____").
11. Community most often refers to a neighborhood with a gate around it.
12. Unquestioning faith is second only to unquestioning nationalism (to the "pro-America" regions of the country***).
13. "Afterlife, Slavery to the Law, and Liberty to fully Pursue Happiness & Safety First" is the creed.
**(The "other" includes Jews with the dispensationalist exception of when it involves protecting Israel so as to encourage the return of Jesus.)
*** Pro-America regions are represented by the red and orange areas on the map.If I was an outsider looking in, from that perspective, this would be my 13-point assessment of the beliefs of American Evangelicals. What would you add?
America's REAL favorite domestic terrorist, James Dobson is baaaack. Prepare yourself, according to Dobson, an Obama presidency will force your boys to sleep with pedophiles in tents thanks to the Supreme Court and Boy Scouts. OH YEAH, he's that apeshit.
CHRISTIAN RIGHT INTENSIFIES ATTACKS ON OBAMA
AP,October 24, 2008 · Terrorist strikes on four American cities. Russia rolling into Eastern Europe. Israel hit by a nuclear bomb. Gay marriage in every state. The end of the Boy Scouts. All are plausible scenarios if Democrat Barack Obama is elected president, according to a new addition to the campaign conversation called "Letter from 2012 in Obama's America," produced by the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family Action.
The imagined look into the future is part of an escalation in rhetoric from Christian right activists who are trying to paint Obama in the worst possible terms as the campaign heads into the final stretch and polls show the Democrat ahead.
"It looks like, walks like, talks like and smells like desperation to me," said the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell of Houston, an Obama supporter who backed President Bush in the past two elections. The Methodist pastor called the 2012 letter "false and ridiculous." He said it showed that some Christian conservative leaders fear that Obama's faith-based appeals to voters are working.
Like other political advocacy groups, Christian right groups often raise worries about an election's consequences to mobilize voters. In the early 1980s, for example, direct mail from the Moral Majority warned that Congress would turn a blind eye to "smut peddlers" dangling pornography to children.
"Everyone uses fear in the last part of a campaign, but evangelicals are especially theologically prone to those sorts of arguments," said Clyde Wilcox, a Georgetown University political scientist.
UPDATE: In an ironic twist, the DNC Convention has record-breaking crowds and perfect weather and the RNC Convention is "blessed" with a hurricane and two days disrupted. There. is. a. God.
Focus on the Family wants you to pray to God for event-stopping rain to halt Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention. They've now pulled this video due to public outcry. (One example being comments left on their site like, "Focus on your own damn family.") But in the good old free internet it can still be found. Prepare to shudder.
"You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that takes his name in vain." - Exodus 20:7
POSTVILLE, Iowa — Back in 2002, before all the trouble, the Rev. Paul Ouderkirk retired from St. Bridget’s Roman Catholic Church here, his last station in 43 years of ministry. He built a home 35 miles away in a town along the Mississippi, and he indulged a passion for family history, tracing his lineage to an ancestor who had arrived in New Amsterdam with the Dutch East India Company.
Once a month or so, Father Ouderkirk drove back to St. Bridget’s to officiate at a wedding or baptize a baby. He savored those rituals, proof that the Hispanic immigrants who had arrived over the past decade to work in Postville’s kosher-meat plant were setting down roots. Some had bought homes. Their children had graduated from high school, even been selected for the National Honor Society.
Then came the morning of May 12, when both satisfaction and retirement ended for the 75-year-old priest. Federal immigration agents raided the Agriprocessors factory, arresting nearly 400 workers, most of them men, for being in the United States illegally. Within minutes of the raid, with surveillance helicopters buzzing above the leafy streets, the wives and children of Mexican and Guatemalan families began trickling into St. Bridget’s Church, the safest place they knew.
It was about that time, with several dozen cowering people inside the church, when Sister Mary McCauley, the pastor administrator at St. Bridget’s, found out that Father Ouderkirk was attending a ceremony for diocesan priests nearly two hours away in Dubuque. Unable to reach him directly, she left a simple, urgent message: “We need to see a collar here.”
...Us. We...Normal People." - Michael Savage Not them. Not the other. Not the stranger, the outcast, the sinner. Not the least of these. Or as Savage calls them, the "vermin."
On the February 26 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, after playing an audio clip of the beginning of singer Melissa Etheridge's acceptance speech at the Academy Awards in which she thanked her wife and four children, Michael Savage said: "I don't like a woman married to a woman raising children. It makes me want to puke. ... I want to vomit when I hear it. I think it's child abuse."
"27God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God." [1 Cor. 1]
Fear of 'the other' has rational roots in our physical nature. Ancient tribes seeking to survive needed to define and protect their religious, national, and cultural identity. The Israelites, for example, had been slaves in Egypt; they had wandered in the desert, subject to attacks from other tribes, starvation, and infectious diseases. They needed cohesiveness, separateness, and order in every aspect of their lives. Failure to form a tight-knit community could threaten their long-term survival.
Furthermore, connecting this example to the issue at hand, concern of productivity and separateness was made even more pertinent due to the exile of the Israelites at the time of their formulation. Since procreation was so vital to ancient Israel's survival, regulations that governed sexual relations in the biblical world were primarily intended to further biological productivity in all biblical periods, in view of the scarcity of population, demands created by the agricultural life-style, and the high mortality rate of women and children.
All of that to say, we are NOT there anymore. But even for ancient Israel, the command in the Torah was still one of love - love of God and love of the neighbor, love of the stranger. A perspective of justice with concern for the stranger is at the heart of the Torah, and God's judgment came when Israel strayed from this ethic. For the Christian the Torah is personified in Jesus, and there is no doubt that Jesus abolished the idea of the other and separateness under his banner. The poor and the outcast are closer to the Kingdom of God than the rich, the popular, the self-righteous, the Pharisee.
The message continues to be in every generation that certain people can be taken as less than full human beings. The same folks that have a fear or hatred of homosexuals are afraid of the angry black man, afraid of the immigrant, afraid of the Muslim, they're just afraid.
18There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 19We love because he first loved us. 20If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. [1 John 4]
That anyone calling themselves Christians ever got co-opted with right-wing hatemongerers like Savage or any of these other personalities is beyond me. There is no way to advocate the kinds of things they do and understand the gospel. The gospel that says,
"7Let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 13We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. 16And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. 17In this way, love is made complete among us.
The Savage Nation reaches more than 8 to 10 million listeners each week, according to Talkers Magazine, making it the third most-listened-to talk radio show in the nation, behind only The Rush Limbaugh Show and The Sean Hannity Show. Savage declares himself to be "To the right of Rush and to the left of God."
What if our preachers' sermons were picked apart and broadcast on the news in 10 second sound-bites? What if our conversations on the phones, over dinner, in private were made into sound-bites without context? Would anyone take the time to try and understand us? No. I've been to Black churches and have heard the style of rhetoric, the heavy handed liberation theology, the waxing prophetic. That's a part of the history and worldview that exists.
Martin Luther King Jr. himself, said in his speech at Riverside Church that "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today [is] my own government." And no one raises objection to "America's Saint" now, much less questions his patriotism, though I'm sure it was cut out and abused as a sound-bite in his time. To be clear, I'm not justifying everything Dr. Wright said in his sermons. Some things need to be objected to. However, in many African American churches in America the prophetic tradition of preaching is alive and well and this needs to be understood by the listener. Dr. Wright's oratory seeks to speak truth to power when justice isn't upheld by those in power. Seen in the proper light, most Christians could actually stand to embrace much of his sermon. After all Christians owe allegiance to God before country. Furthermore, his church puts words into action and has an amazing track record for serving its community (one that many white churches long abandoned).
I think Sen. Obama did the right, but harder thing by embracing the complexity and not sacrificing the man on his way to the top. He rightly recognized the limitations and unjustified aspects that hold communities like Wright's back but also stood up for the legacy that has promoted justice and continues to do so. I think you'll be able to see that in the full sermon context below. Also after the sermon notes, I included two links from NPR. One is a discussion on the controversy from African American professors of theology (well worth the listen), and the second a straight talk discussion "barbershop style."
As this whole sordid episode regarding the sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has played out over the last week, I wanted to understand what he ACTUALLY said in this speech. I’ve been saying all week on CNN that context is important, and I just wanted to know what the heck is going on.
I have now actually listened to the sermon Rev. Wright gave after September 11 titled, “The Day of Jerusalem’s Fall.” It was delivered on Sept. 16, 2001.
One of the most controversial statements in this sermon was when he mentioned “chickens coming home to roost.” He was actually quoting Edward Peck, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and deputy director of President Reagan’s terrorism task force, who was speaking on FOX News. That’s what he told the congregation.
He was quoting Peck as saying that America’s foreign policy has put the nation in peril:
“We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, Arikara, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism.
“We took Africans away from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism.
“We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel.
“We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenage and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard working fathers.
“We bombed Qaddafi’s home, and killed his child. Blessed are they who bash your children’s head against the rock.
“We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to pay back for the attack on our embassy, killed hundreds of hard working people, mothers and fathers who left home to go that day not knowing that they’d never get back home.
“We bombed Hiroshima. We bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye.
“Kids playing in the playground. Mothers picking up children after school. Civilians, not soldiers, people just trying to make it day by day.
“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff that we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.
“Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism. A white ambassador said that y’all, not a black militant. Not a reverend who preaches about racism. An ambassador whose eyes are wide open and who is trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised. The ambassador said the people we have wounded don’t have the military capability we have. But they do have individuals who are willing to die and take thousands with them. And we need to come to grips with that.”
He went on to describe seeing the photos of the aftermath of 9/11 because he was in Newark, N.J., when the planes struck. After turning on the TV and seeing the second plane slam into one of the twin towers, he spoke passionately about what if you never got a chance to say hello to your family again.
“What is the state of your family?” he asked.
And then he told his congregation that he loved them and asked the church to tell each other they loved themselves.
His sermon thesis:
1. This is a time for self-examination of ourselves and our families.
2. This is a time for social transformation (then he went on to say they won’t put me on PBS or national cable for what I’m about to say. Talk about prophetic!)
“We have got to change the way we have been doing things as a society,” he said.
Wright then said we can’t stop messing over people and thinking they can’t touch us. He said we may need to declare war on racism, injustice, and greed, instead of war on other countries.
“Maybe we need to declare war on AIDS. In five minutes the Congress found $40 billion to rebuild New York and the families that died in sudden death, do you think we can find the money to make medicine available for people who are dying a slow death? Maybe we need to declare war on the nation’s healthcare system that leaves the nation’s poor with no health coverage? Maybe we need to declare war on the mishandled educational system and provide quality education for everybody, every citizen, based on their ability to learn, not their ability to pay. This is a time for social transformation.”
3. This is time to tell God thank you for all that he has provided and that he gave him and others another chance to do His will.
By the way, nowhere in this sermon did he said “God damn America.” I’m not sure which sermon that came from.
This doesn’t explain anything away, nor does it absolve Wright of using the N-word, but what it does do is add an accurate perspective to this conversation.
The point that I have always made as a journalist is that our job is to seek the truth, and not the partial truth.
I am also listening to the other sermons delivered by Rev. Wright that have been the subject of controversy.
And let me be clear: Where I believe he was wrong and not justified in what he said based upon the facts, I will say so. But where the facts support his argument, that will also be said.
So stay tuned.
- Roland S. Martin, CNN Contributor www.rolandsmartin.com If you want to hear the full sermon yourself, click HERE
Barack Obama's pastor Jeremiah Wright is part of a religious tradition known as Black Liberation Theology. Two religious scholars discuss its foundation and contemporary meaning.
Barbershop regulars Jimi Izrael, Ruben Navarrette and Arsalan Iftikhar are joined this week by professor Lester Spence. The guys weigh in on Sen. Barack Obama's historic speech on race.
Galileo was persecuted for revealing what we now know to be the truth regarding Earth’s place in our solar system. Today, the issue is homosexuality, and the persecution is not of one man but of millions. Will Christian leaders once again be on the wrong side of history?
What if Christian leaders are wrong about homosexuality? I suppose, much as a newspaper maintains its credibility by setting the record straight, church leaders would need to do the same:
Correction: Despite what you might have read, heard or been taught throughout your churchgoing life, homosexuality is, in fact, determined at birth and is not to be condemned by God's followers.
Based on a few recent headlines, we won't be seeing that admission anytime soon.
Last week, U.S. Roman Catholic bishops took the position that homosexual attractions are "disordered" and that gays should live closeted lives of chastity. At the same time, North Carolina's Baptist State Convention was preparing to investigate churches that are too gay-friendly. Even the more liberal Presbyterian Church (USA) had been planning to put a minister on trial for conducting a marriage ceremony for two women before the charges were dismissed on a technicality. All this brings me back to the question: What if we're wrong?
Religion's only real commodity, after all, is its moral authority. Lose that, and we lose our credibility. Lose credibility, and we might as well close up shop.
It's happened to Christianity before, most famously when we dug in our heels over Galileo's challenge to the biblical view that the Earth, rather than the sun, was at the center of our solar system. You know the story. Galileo was persecuted for what turned out to be incontrovertibly true. For many, especially in the scientific community, Christianity never recovered.
This time, Christianity is in danger of squandering its moral authority by continuing its pattern of discrimination against gays and lesbians in the face of mounting scientific evidence that sexual orientation has little or nothing to do with choice. To the contrary, whether sexual orientation arises as a result of the mother's hormones or the child's brain structure or DNA, it is almost certainly an accident of birth. The point is this: Without choice, there can be no moral culpability.
Answer in Scriptures
So, why are so many church leaders (not to mention Orthodox Jewish and Muslim leaders) persisting in their view that homosexuality is wrong despite a growing stream of scientific evidence that is likely to become a torrent in the coming years? The answer is found in Leviticus 18. "You shall not lie with a man as with a woman; it is an abomination."
As a former "the Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it" kind of guy, I am sympathetic with any Christian who accepts the Bible at face value. But here's the catch. Leviticus is filled with laws imposing the death penalty for everything from eating catfish to sassing your parents. If you accept one as the absolute, unequivocal word of God, you must accept them all.
For many of gay America's loudest critics, the results are unthinkable. First, no more football. At least not without gloves. Handling a pig skin is an abomination. Second, no more Saturday games even if you can get a new ball. Violating the Sabbath is a capital offense according to Leviticus. For the over-40 crowd, approaching the altar of God with a defect in your sight is taboo, but you'll have plenty of company because those menstruating or with disabilities are also barred.
The truth is that mainstream religion has moved beyond animal sacrifice, slavery and the host of primitive rituals described in Leviticus centuries ago. Selectively hanging onto these ancient proscriptions for gays and lesbians exclusively is unfair according to anybody's standard of ethics. We lawyers call it "selective enforcement," and in civil affairs it's illegal.
A better reading of Scripture starts with the book of Genesis and the grand pronouncement about the world God created and all those who dwelled in it. "And, the Lord saw that it was good." If God created us and if everything he created is good, how can a gay person be guilty of being anything more than what God created him or her to be?
Turning to the New Testament, the writings of the Apostle Paul at first lend credence to the notion that homosexuality is a sin, until you consider that Paul most likely is referring to the Roman practice of pederasty, a form of pedophilia common in the ancient world. Successful older men often took boys into their homes as concubines, lovers or sexual slaves. Today, such sexual exploitation of minors is no longer tolerated. The point is that the sort of long-term, committed, same-sex relationships that are being debated today are not addressed in the New Testament. It distorts the biblical witness to apply verses written in one historical context (i.e. sexual exploitation of children) to contemporary situations between two monogamous partners of the same sex. Sexual promiscuity is condemned by the Bible whether it's between gays or straights. Sexual fidelity is not.
What would Jesus do?
For those who have lingering doubts, dust off your Bibles and take a few hours to reacquaint yourself with the teachings of Jesus. You won't find a single reference to homosexuality. There are teachings on money, lust, revenge, divorce, fasting and a thousand other subjects, but there is nothing on homosexuality. Strange, don't you think, if being gay were such a moral threat?
On the other hand, Jesus spent a lot of time talking about how we should treat others. First, he made clear it is not our role to judge. It is God's. ("Judge not lest you be judged." Matthew 7:1) And, second, he commanded us to love other people as we love ourselves.
So, I ask you. Would you want to be discriminated against? Would you want to lose your job, housing or benefits because of something over which you had no control? Better yet, would you like it if society told you that you couldn't visit your lifelong partner in the hospital or file a claim on his behalf if he were murdered?
The suffering that gay and lesbian people have endured at the hands of religion is incalculable, but they can look expectantly to the future for vindication. Scientific facts, after all, are a stubborn thing. Even our religious beliefs must finally yield to them as the church in its battle with Galileo ultimately realized. But for religion, the future might be ominous. Watching the growing conflict between medical science and religion over homosexuality is like watching a train wreck from a distance. You can see it coming for miles and sense the inevitable conclusion, but you're powerless to stop it. The more church leaders dig in their heels, the worse it's likely to be.
Oliver "Buzz" Thomas is a Baptist minister and author of an upcoming book, 10 Things Your Minister Wants to Tell You (But Can't Because He Needs the Job).
This post is going to be a collection of this month's stories of gross persecution of homosexuals. This all started this week with Sally Kern and her statements this week. Regardless of your stance on homosexuality, these positions & actions in the following media items are unacceptable and terrifying. The following stories are the end result of legislators like Kern that would move us to a fundamentalist-fascist theocracy. You see it with Ultra Orthodox Jews, with Islamo-fascist Muslims, and many theocrats in America would move us in this direction. I can't get over how disgusting this type of religious bastardization is. We're sadly almost desensitized to statements like Kern's when coming from fundamentalist pastors like Falwell, Swaggert, Dobson, or Hagee but that has to stop and it must be taken seriously because real life people are listening to them and it is bleeding into real life action. Thanks to Kern we can hear what some of the people we've elected to be our voice actually believe. Oklahoma and the rest of America regardless of your stance should send a message to Kern and others like her and remove her from office. This is unacceptable. In your government:
[please forgive the cheesy photo slideshow attached to the video and just listen to the audio]
In a private address to supporters, Oklahoma State Representative, Sally Kern talks about how 'The Gays' are indoctrinating our children at age two, and are "the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam." Oh and also gayness is a cancer that spreads just like life-threatening toe cancer.
Kern also has advocated as a Rep in the past for an advisory board to ban books in school libraries that teach other faiths, are positive towards homosexuality, or teach evolution and the scientific method. Nice. Crazy-Ass Kern is Texas university-educated and married to a Baptist minister in OK City. Go figure. Terrorism is alive and well in Oklahoma and this time it's not in the form of an explosion at a government building but in the rhetoric of one of its own governors.
"Every thinking citizen of this country should write to Rep. Chris Benge, Speaker of the House for the Oklahoma House of Representatives asking for censure of this terrorist. Free speech is not a license to incite hate and violence, and sadly that is what this ugly oration is all about. Today, in regions all over this country where ignorant people actually accept these stupid lies as having some basis in fact, school-aged boys and girls who may appear a little more feminine or masculine than Sally thinks is appropriate are going to be terrorized by peers who listen to this crap because their parents listen to this crap. And that's just for starters. This type of terrorism is the genesis of all hate crimes from name calling to murder.
George Bush may have had one thing right. The war on terror begins at home. But instead of profiling innocent Americans simply because of their ethnic background, maybe we should start profiling elected officials who make speeches without any academic or factual merit as a means to exploit and manipulate their uneducated constituents. If Oklahoma is where the wind comes sweeping down the plain, perhaps a big gust will sweep Sally Kern out of office and to a place where she can no longer promote hate, violence and bigotry." -kirk snyder
An 19-year old Iranian who dared identify as gay nervously awaits a court ruling that he says could lead to his execution. “Mehdi” was studying English in Britain, when he says he learned his boyfriend back in Tehran had been arrested, charged with sodomy and hanged in 2006. But before the boyfriend was killed, Mehdi says, authorities forced his partner to name past lovers. Days later, Mehdi’s family claims, Iranian police showed up at their Tehran family home with an arrest warrant. In an asylum claim submitted to Britain’s Home Office, Medhi said if he returns to Iran, he too would be executed.
Britain’s Home Office didn’t buy it. It turned him down – then Mehdi fled for Canada before British officials could deport him to Tehran. But he was stopped by border police in Germany and sent to the Netherlands.
He now sits in a Dutch detention center, where he waits for a judge to decide whether to grant him asylum, or carry out a British extradition request to send him to the U.K.
The British Home Office says it does not believe that homosexuals in Iran are routinely persecuted purely because of their sexuality.
Human rights groups say otherwise, citing that Iran's record is particularly shocking, having executed possibly thousands of gay men since the Islamic revolution. And in these cases Iranian controlled media reports fabricate official charges to reduce any public sympathy for the accused or to mask the killings.
In your backyard:
Nathan Feldman, 30, said Slavic protesters have shoved him and spit on him at gay-pride events. Feldman said he lost his job at a jewelry store after a Ukrainian co-worker discovered he was gay and lied to get him fired. That wasn't all. A vandal scrawled graffiti on a trash dumpster outside his apartment: "Nathan Feldman, Die for AIDS."
Satender Singh, 26, One punch was all it took. One punch to forever divide. One punch to kill a young man.
On a hot summer afternoon along a placid lakefront in the Sacramento suburbs, Satender Singh had come with a group of fellow Fijians to celebrate his promotion at an AT&T call center. Three married couples and Singh, a lighthearted 26-year-old, drank and hooted and danced a crazy conga line to East Indian music.
An innocent outing? Not in the eyes of the Russian family a few picnic tables away.
Andrey Vusik, 29, fresh from morning church services with his young children in tow, stared with disgust as Singh danced and hugged the other men while their wives giggled. To the Russian, Singh seemed rude and inappropriate, a gay man putting on an outrageous public display.
Angry stares led to an afternoon of traded insults. As the long day slid toward dusk, the tall Russian immigrant approached with a friend to demand an apology. Singh refused. Vusik threw a single punch.
Singh's head smacked into a concrete walkway. The joyful young man with the musical laugh died four days later of brain injuries.
Now, half a year after that angry Sunday afternoon at Lake Natoma, 15 miles east of the state Capitol, the case remains anything but resolved.
State Sen. Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) said in a newspaper opinion piece that "radical fundamentalists" have pinned a bull's-eye on the gay community. "Tragically now, the threat of violence has become reality, as manifested in this murder."
A recent Southern Poverty Law Center report said many of the region's most vocal Slavic activists are followers of an international anti-gay group called Watchmen on the Walls. Formed just a few years ago, the group has established a potent presence among Slavic evangelicals in the U.S. and abroad.
Using battle-tinged rhetoric, the Watchmen have called for evangelicals to step aggressively into the political realm to fight what they see as a gay agenda threatening the traditional family.
Larry (Lawrence King), 15, had said publicly that he was gay, classmates said, enduring harassment from a group of schoolmates, including the 14-year-old boy, Brandon, charged in his death. Larry asked Brandon to be his valentine and the following day the 14-yr-old came to school and shot Larry in the head.
“God knit Larry together and made him wonderfully complex,” the Rev. Dan Birchfield of Westminster Presbyterian Church told the crowd as he stood in front of a large photograph of the victim. “Larry was a masterpiece.”
'Why we can't wait'
Your vote this year has the power to save lives and will affect millions of homosexual people in this country. This is why the Matthew Shepard Act matters, and why a position against it as a Christian is not just debatable but unconscionable...
Hate crimes differ from conventional crime because they are not directed simply at an individual, but are meant to cause fear and intimidation in an entire group or class of people. All violent crimes are reprehensible, but hate crimes require additional emphasis in the justice system because they target a whole group and not just the individual victim. A violent hate crime is intended to "send a message" that an individual and "their kind" will not be tolerated, many times leaving the victim and others in their group feeling isolated, vulnerable and unprotected. Our justice system should then be able to "send a message" right back that there are not "less than human" unprotected members of society.
The Supreme Court ruled that, "bias-motivated crimes are more likely to provoke retaliatory crimes, inflict distinct emotional harms on their victims, and incite community unrest." And stated that, "When the core of a person's identity is attacked, the degradation and dehumanization is especially severe, and additional emotional and physiological problems are likely to result. Society then, in turn, can suffer from the disempowerment of a group of people."
If that all seems too heady, here's the more practical component. Hate crime legislation gives federal authorities greater ability to engage in crime investigations that local authorities choose not to pursue, and allow courts to consider and present motive in cases in which it previously went unheard. It supports appeals from cases dismissed due to local bias or foul-play. There are countless cases of crimes against individuals dismissed or lessened due to bias. Take the Jena 6 story right now. Without hate crime legislation, it is often harder for victims to have recourse when justice isn't served. This is not only sensible but completely necessary and it should undoubtedly apply to sexual orientation considering that 20% of hate crimes apply to it.
The church is moving forward in many of the arenas in which it has exercised poor judgment. The Catholic church recently unveiled its list of "social" sins declaring that the individual not only sins against him/herself but also systemically against portions of society in a globalized world. Even the leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention recently stated that on Global Warming that if it didn't change its stance that it would be disregarded as "uncaring, reckless, and ill-informed johnny-come-lately's just as it had during segregation and slavery and that the poor would be the first to suffer. But despite all of this understanding of implication, nearly everyone, even progressive Christian ethics groups like Sojourners are steering clear of "the gay issue" in America. Why? Why can Christian America love anyone except for their gay neighbor (or mexican one for that matter). Why do Christians in America so hate gays? Christians have to step up on this even if they don't agree with homosexuals. The Bible, both Old and New Testaments, demands care for the "other," and declares the ramifications for those who don't. Regardless of an individual's views on the issues, the church has to be out front on human rights abuses. Are murder, violence and abuse ever acceptable toward anyone? Even more fundamental: Is Love Conditional? These shouldn't be a question the church is allowing to go unanswered. You can't play neutral on this one and come out clean.
"I join the oppressors of those I choose to ignore, and that's not just murder, it's suicide."
Here’s an underreported story about the Republican primary race: Why has God been such a lazy campaigner for his candidate, Mike Huckabee? Sure, God is busy making humans, and the weather, and American foreign policy. But God made a commitment to Mike Huckabee when He endorsed him, and He has been almost as lazy a campaigner as Fred Thompson ever since. Because of this, Huckabee’s supporters are making a last-ditch effort to drag God out onto the campaign trail this Sunday via mass worship. The Pray for Huckabee effort does not mince words: “Join us February 24, 2008 as we pray for God to make a way for Mike Huckabee to become president.”
This canny political move puts the pressure on God, who is up for re-election himself in heaven, against Ronald Reagan, in 2010:
We believe Mike Huckabee is the best option to become president and we’re asking God to make that happen. We’re at a vital part in America’s history and we believe Mike Huckabee is the right man to face the challenges our nation currently faces. We know any time God is brought into the equation, big questions get asked.
Well, that last sentence sure sounds nice. But what does it mean? Fortunately, we have an FAQ’s section where these “big questions” do, in fact, get asked:
Q. Aren’t you shoving your beliefs down our throats? A. Unless someone has a gun to your head and is forcing you to this site, of course not. And if they have a gun to your head, duck! You’re free to pray or not to pray for Huckabee. You’re free to go post on a blog or message board about how dumb this all seems to you. This is America, you can do that. And we can decide to pray for the guy we like.
Uh… damnit, they beat us to the punch… this all seems very dumb to us?
Pat Robertson's endorsement of Rudy Giuliani for president is simply astonishing. Robertson - the television preacher who founded the 700 Club and once ran for president himself - has made opposition to abortion and same sex marriage his political north star and has been a relentless champion of traditional marriage and family values.
Remember Robertson's merciless attacks on President Bill Clinton's lapses of sexual morality with Monica Lewinsky? Or his comments about how the 9/11 attacks were the result of America's tolerance for homosexuals and abortion?
Now Robertson is for Rudy, a thrice married adulterous husband, who is estranged from his own children and is both pro-choice and pro-gay rights. According to Pat Robertson's twisted moral logic, forgiving the social conservative shortcomings of Republicans is a Christian virtue, so long as the same virtue is never applied to Democrats. But Pat thinks Rudy can beat Hillary, and Pat really cares about winning for the Republicans.
What exactly goes on in Pat Robertson's head has puzzled many of us for a long time. This endorsement ranks as one of the most unprincipled in recent political memory. Maybe principles never mattered much to Pat Robertson after all. Perhaps the pro-business economic conservatism of the Republican Party was always more important to the televangelist than saving unborn lives. Robertson's longstanding support of murderous Liberian dictator Charles Taylor and his diamond investments thanks to Zairian dictator Mobutu Sese Seko speak louder than words when it comes to Robertson's ethic of life. And that's not to mention the more than $400 million Robertson's empire made when he sold his International Family Network to Rupert Murdoch, after building it on tax deductible contributions of thousands of CBN donors, many of modest means. He has been putting profits over principles for years.
Richard Land, spokesman for the Southern Baptist Convention, has taken a more consistent position. Land has clearly said that he won't support Giuliani if he becomes the Republican nominee, explaining in a recent Newsweek interview, "I'm not willing or able to violate my moral conscience. It would be like asking an African American to choose between Strom Thurmond and George Wallace, or asking Abe Lincoln to vote for a pro-slavery candidate. I personally can't do it." Land predicts that many social conservatives will just sit out this election if the Republicans decide to run Rudy. That's called standing for principle.
Pat Robertson clearly has taken another position. His endorsement of Rudy Giuliani will seem to many to be unprincipled hypocrisy.
After a year of scandals in which celebrities such as Mel Gibson, Don Imus, and Isaiah Washington have reminded us that fame does not cancel out bigotry, Kathy Griffin last week became the latest public figure to make such headlines with her Creative Arts Emmy acceptance speech. Referring to the tendency of some of her colleagues to invoke divine sanction for their success, she said, among other things, that "no one had less to do with this award than Jesus." Her remarks were censored on the telecast, and at least one Christian public figure has since implied on CNN that her words were more offensive than Imus' racist comments about the Rutgers basketball players, or Washington’s homophobic remarks about Grey’s Anatomy co-star T.R. Knight. The questionable logic that led to this assertion is that "85% of Americans believe in Jesus," while only a minority are black, and a much smaller number are gay.
First of all, the suggestion that only the groups who are targeted in dehumanising rhetoric should be offended by them is absurd -- of course you don't have to be the victim of prejudice to be offended by it. It's understandable that people get offended when the names of religious figures are used in a derogatory fashion. It is also true to say that today it is more publicly acceptable to criticize Christianity than most other faiths. And sometimes it may be appropriate to protest this.
In the West, however, members of most other faiths and minority ethnic groups have had to put up with a disproportionate share of public insults for far too long. In a healthy society, we should be able to cope with the free exchange of views, including the possibility of upsetting each other. The suggestion that a comedian should be punished for religious mockery is disturbing and bears echoes of Christian imperialism. The point is sharpened by the fact that Griffin was making a commentary that many thinking Christians would agree with: a critique of the superficial celebrity spirituality that claims divine sanction for entertainment awards victories. It is, of course, entirely legitimate to be thankful to God for the blessings of a lifetime; this column is unlikely to win any awards, but if one came my way I'm sure I'd aim my gratitude in the same direction. But to suggest that Jesus is invested in who wins the Emmys is another indicator of a kind of spiritual decadence, akin to when boxers or football teams bow the knee mid-match, suggesting that they think God prefers them over their opponent.
It's striking also that the outcry over Mel Gibson, Don Imus, and Isaiah Washington's dehumanising and bigoted comments was not led by the church, but Griffin's remark at an awards ceremony has been met with the full opprobrium of some religious leaders. I think this indicates something troubling about the priorities of much public discourse by Christians -- and also the hamstrung picture of Jesus offered by much of the church. It seems that we believe in a Jesus who both needs us to defend him, and who couldn't handle a joke at his own expense. It is disturbing also that Mel Gibson's anti-semitic comments, made while drunk, did not really spark a debate about how to reconcile people from different religious traditions. Instead, the church was largely silent about (ostensibly) one of its own.
Griffin's comments were a veiled criticism of a culture of superficiality, in which God is constructed as a wealth-affirming, competition-endorsing elitist who likes to go to the Oscars. It was also a joke. We don't have to like it, but we should be able to take it.
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com
After meeting with the Baptist director today...(Baptists dig their own grave Pt. 2)
So we (a group of concerned students) met with James Porch, the Executive Director for the TBC today. Maybe you saw me on the news. (I sure hope not.)
Anyway, here are my afterthoughts expressed in an email to a TBC staffer:
Thanks,
It would be great to meet next Tuesday. I'll clear the time. Essentially, I would just like to discuss questions that were related to the heart issues behind the matters, questions on philosophy of action, biblical connections, questions on how the parties were communicating or not communicating, etc (which is really all students are concerned about anyway). James wouldn't go into any of that and in fact said it was irrelevant.
He was very hospitable, but not in the areas that mattered. We wanted him to be candid and prove that there was more to this than a shouting match and cold legality, but he wouldn't discuss any of it and was patronizing on top of it. He also divorced himself from responsibility and from the ethical and mission based questions, basically saying that his hands were tied, and that there were no choices but what was happening, cause effect, cause effect, etc, and that it's all in Belmont's hands and that there's no other reason we're here today except for Belmont's supposed betrayal of their trust. In fact, in response to questions raised regarding Paul's instruction in 1 Corinthians 6:1-8 he said, "I am well aware that Scripture says we should not sue. But sometimes circumstances and other parties leave no alternative." Scripture can just be sooo inconvenient sometimes, can't it Dr. Porch?
Now I understand that he's just the public voice to it and that the issues are mostly being decided by a consortium of pastors, but what disturbs me most is that individual courage and allegiance to scripture and mission seems to be so easily separated from "just business." Everything was directed as "this is just business"...issues driven business mind you, but still just business. He simply equated it to defaulting on a mortgage! And that's that! He went so far as to say in response to a student's question, that if we're concerned about the future of the university and its students we should take that up with Belmont and not them, b/c it won't be their fault if there are casualties.
I tell you, I realize the TBC has legitimate concerns and that some of our administration at Belmont is unfairly playing the victim and that both sides need to strive for reconciliation equally. However, based on what I've seen and heard in legal circles an in documents, I don't think you have a winnable legal case [http://www.tnbaptist.org/BRArticle.asp?ID=1486]& [http://forum.belmont.edu/umac/archives/005880.html](to cite a few), but I can't emphasize enough how much that is besides the point. There seems to be a bunch of religiosity divorced from the gospel; hearts held hostage by shallow compartmentalized faith that only reaches so deep. I want to hear your thoughts on these matters, the heart matters. Assuage my doubts. Let me know that a bunch of old men are not playing chess with other people's lives. Let me know that they're pondering both grace and justice in light of God's Word alone and not secular wisdom. Let me know that there is hope in joining the world of adults and not just more of which to despair. Since James Porch won't try to do this, are you up for giving the conversation a go?
thanks, matt
"When I was a child, I thought like a child; I played like a child; I was a child. And now, thanks to the adults, I've had to join the world of adults, and I am appalled-- by how easy they thought it was to bribe me." - Frederick the Wise (play on 1 Cor. 13:11) ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Just wanted to let you all know how I was feeling in retrospect. I'll be emailing Dr. Porch next week after a few meetings and time to get my head around things. I'll keep anyone interested posted (and since you read this far you must be interested).
grace and peace (two things very much so needed), matt
By Janet Cosgrove
After a year of scandals in which celebrities such as Mel Gibson, Don Imus, and Isaiah Washington have reminded us that fame does not cancel out bigotry, Kathy Griffin last week became the latest public figure to make such headlines with her Creative Arts Emmy acceptance speech. Referring to the tendency of some of her colleagues to invoke divine sanction for their success, she said, 
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful 
