Author: JOHN
To: Mostly Bob, and then Steve
Bob, your
“Views” series is truly amazing. Ironically, the force of it had the effect, I fear, of at least
temporarily disrupting our trialogue. There we were, shooting at each other with analytical BB guns for months
and months, and then all of a sudden you show up with a nuclear bomb and blow
us all to, if you’ll pardon the expression, Kingdom Come. It is truly
an inspiring, interesting, educational, and thought-provoking analysis. I guess we will have to forgive you for
saving the darn thing up in secret and then rolling it right over our poor
unsuspecting psyches. Please know that
it was well worth all the time and effort you put into it.
I have no
idea how you “found” some of the sources you found, but they are rare and
worthy gurus (yes, I’m imposing my term on ‘em, but ya know that’s high
praise). I’m referring to Hick, Weatherhead, Erskine, Fosdick, and
others, all of them are highly original, articulate, courageous, and wise
counselors. They deserve to be studied
by anyone who is interested in the meaning of this life and the possibility of
one to follow.
I can’t
begin to construct a comparable response that would cover all the things I
learned, thought, and reacted to while reading your multi-part analysis. I think the best I can do is to try and
respond to some individual issues, in no particular order.
First, I do want to ask Bob a
silly sort of question, the answer to which he probably assumes is
obvious. Maybe I’m thick, but something
isn’t absolutely clear to me, despite reading all his ‘views’ pieces not once
but twice. The question is: WHOSE ‘views’ are these that he
assembles and discusses so in-depth-ly? It IS obvious that most if not all the
principles that define the three views come from (or at least are present in
the works of) various writers and ministers, into whose work Bob has immersed
himself. But are we to conclude that
these writers thought of themselves as part of a particular “view” and
that, moreover, they too were cognizant of the other two contrasting views as
defined in Bob’s analysis?
I don’t really read Bob’s analysis
that way, but I could infer that these three “views” were already out
there and were known quantities before Bob investigated them and presented them
to us for our enlightenment and reading pleasure. The reason I could read it that way is that Bob, for some
reason (and that is the mystery here for me) never really lays claim to his
trichotomy as his own original analytical idea. From the beginning he writes as if he is simply describing a
situation that is out there for all to see, and he is merely bringing it to our
attention.
Well, I am all pretty sure that
his Views analysis is all highly original work, which deserves to be read by
millions of people and especially ought to be required reading for every single
person who bears the title “minister”. And I am hoping and even betting that eventually, one way or another,
Bob’s work will achieve exactly that, because it will be on the “latest
releases” table at Barnes and Noble.
I once described Bob as “a
Christian in search of a church.” I
don’t think he liked that description, but I still think it holds water. And now, having read his analysis, I will
take it a step further and proclaim that, having looked far and wide and deep
and not finding a church big enough in mind and deep enough in spirit to suit
him, bigolly Bob has gone and created his own church, and he is the
minister of it, and it is View Three. And again, I want a way for his church to open its doors and let about a
million people into it who have been out there wandering around hopefully, but
in frustration, for most of their lives. I wish this blog of ours could do that, but sadly the statistics on
readers don’t support that.
Now I am going to proclaim
something else, that Bob probably won’t cozy up to. And that is: in my
opinion, Bob’s View Three church, and now I AM referring to a church of bricks
and mortar, does already exist and has existed for a hundred years. It is my church, the Unitarian Church. Okay, not the whole Unitarian Church, but a
room in it. Probably 10 to 20 percent
of Unitarians describe themselves Christians, at least if the term is used
broadly (I believe I can assert with confidence that NO Unitarians are
fundamentalists or View Two types.) Even
some Unitarian ministers identify themselves as Christians. There are sub-groups, or interest groups,
within many Unitarian churches including my own, where those especially
interested in Christianity meet and converse and share and sometimes
argue. And I can guarantee you that
they would LOVE to get ahold of your analysis, Bob. (And I am going to try and help them do just that, in whatever
ways I can discover to do it).
Sadly, of
the Unitarian ministers that I have listened to during my own time in the
church, few of them have come close to being as interesting and convincing in
the pulpit as Bob has been in this blog. And in fact, ever since my favorite minister retired a few years ago,
I’ve felt the church just doesn’t offer me quite enough. But what I am seriously suggesting is
that Bob would make a wonderful minister in the Unitarian church, and I
actually wish he would consider pursuing that idea. And there would be an
advantage for Bob, in that he would find a ready and waiting audience for his
thinking, rather than having to argue his case and “work up to it” with a more
conventional Christian-church congregation. So, with that in mind, and pretending to be you, Bob, I have applied to
one of the two Unitarian seminaries in this country, been accepted, and Bob,
you start this fall. (don’t worry,
‘cause I tell ya what: your third year
thesis is already written; but maybe we better take it off the internet before the
seminary discovers it).
Regarding
the three Views, I don’t feel much need to address View Two, as I think
everything I have said in this trialogue to date shows my distaste for it. In my mind, View Two is the Christianity of
Christian talk radio, of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, of fundamentalists
and many evangelicals, of hell and satan, of original sin and eternal
punishment, of legalists and literalists, of people obsessed with their own
“sin” and the sins of others, and of those who wishfully think they are “saved”
and enjoy the idea that most other people are not. It is the sludge that I accused Bob of obsessing over in a
cartoon graphic (posting # 103) I did some time ago. (But now that I have read Bob’s analysis, I
understand why he was focusing so much on that form of Christianity for
awhile: in order to fully describe and
separate it from View Three.)
Regarding View Three, I identify
quite strongly with nearly all of what I found in Bob’s multi-part treatise. (I
know that I had some positive things to say about View One, as well, but that
was early on, before I could contrast it with View Three.) There is very little I could find to
disagree with in View Three. There
might be a few specific points Bob could further explore (example: differences
between View Two and View Three over the concept of the Trinity). And there were numerous times when I had an
objection or a question, but in each case as I kept reading I found it
answered.
Regarding View One, however, I
have to say, that I’m not sure it really deserves its own separate space. Although I understand Bob’s argument for
separating himself from it, personally I see it more as the “farthest-out”
faction of View Three.
One reason
I think Bob rejects the philosophy of what he describes as View One is the
issue of “personality” that we have disagreed on before. Perhaps a better word is “individuality” or
“personhood.” Bob rejects the idea that
at death, his personhood could be lost, whether in the sense of a drop
returning to the ocean, or in the sense of there being a great nothingness
after death, or in the sense that God ultimately “discards” lowly humans and
becomes “alone.” Let me consider those
ideas and others from View One just a moment.
Nothingness: I certainly agree that death does not result
in “nothingness.” I find it hard to
believe that the Buddha taught that either. And one of Bob’s sources pointed out that such a theory would not really
make sense within Buddhism, since the state of “nothingness” that is popularly
associated with Nirvana was supposed to be achievable in this life. I have to think that the nothingness idea is
a misinterpretation of what the Buddha meant, just as many things attributed to
Jesus have suffered from misinterpretation.
Loss of personality: Likewise, Bob also rejects the idea that we are like transient
waves thrown out by the ocean, only to return to the ocean and lose all sense
of individuality. Okay, I can agree
that we must retain something, and that there must be something to retain it. After all (and as at least one of the View
Three quotation states) it makes no sense for us to live and learn and suffer
and perhaps conquer “sin” if we are to then lose that experience and personal
history entirely. So, I can go that far
with Bob’s objection. However, I wonder
can Bob go a ways with me? I ask you,
Bob (I’ve asked it before, but this time I insist on a concrete answer): Do you think you will be MALE in the
afterlife? Do you Bob? Really, I want you to commit yourself on
this. And of course, I would dearly
love to hear Steve’s take on it, too.
I pose this
question because I think you will admit that your maleness is one heck
of a large part of your personality, your individuation, your personhood, your
ego, and your personal history. Yet I
find it hard to believe (don’t you?) that our gender continues after death. I believe it is a supreme example of a very
significant part of us that we must part with after death. And if/when we do, it will surely not be a
loss. We will not be something less,
but something more, by tossing off the limitations of maleness. (And I hope and pray that a lot of other
parts of myself will disappear as well, into something larger and better.
To put it in another context, this
personality we exhibit now will be revealed to be tantamount to a jail cell or
a straight jacket when death releases us from it, and there won’t be any
whining about it. Rather, there will be
celebration. But I agree that there
must be a celbraTOR. It won’t be the
Bob who is reading this right now, however. I don’t think you dealt with (or perhaps I should say you didn’t bother
to deal with) the idea that many Christians have that our actual physical
bodies will be resurrected and take part in the life to come. But I’m pretty sure you don’t believe that,
and therefore I’m betting you aren’t attached to the thought of being a male
. So what will you be? And Steve, what do you think? Anyway, my
point is that very large and important aspects of ourselves that are “real” in
this life, may not be in the next. I
think we must be prepared for a change in “personhood” the likes of which we
cannot imagine.
This is a trite and unoriginal
comparison, but perhaps we will see our lives, our egos, and much of our
personalities in a way similar in this life to remembering a dream. Dreams as we are experiencing them
are sometimes very intense, to the point of being either terrifying or
orgasmic. But upon waking, they quickly
fade and lose their power over us. We
may then remember the dream, and shake our heads at the power its intensity had
over us. We recognize them as something
that was unreal to begin with, and something subsequently relegated to a
memory of something unreal, making it doubly unreal.
I think it is very possible, nay probable,
that what you will shed at death will be a pretty darn significant portion – if
not practically all -- of the “personality” you now consider to be
“Bob.” You may remember it, in
fact you may be required to analyze it (God knows you oughta be a whiz
at that!) but it won’t be you any longer, any more than you are now the
babe that suckled at your mother’s breast.
Drop in the Ocean. As to the drop blending into the ocean, I
know you reject that, but I have no problem with it. Why would I want to be a tiny powerless drop if I could know the
power and vastness of the ocean? I
think that is where we see it differently: I see the ocean metaphor as knowledge or consciousness or experience gained
and you see it, and define it so in your View One, as lost.
Another perhaps trite example
might make my meaning clearer. Suppose
you have a very intense opinion about something. Let’s say you are a View Two Christian minister, and you feel
strongly that homosexuality is a sin. It is a strongly held belief and a serious element of your ministry (I
could be talking about Jerry Falwell). Then death comes and your little drop of consciousness blends into the
ocean of God’s consciousness. When it
does, you have access to the consciousness of a hundred thousand homosexuals. You remember their memories, know how they
felt, perhaps experience their desires, their conflicts, the effect of
society’s majority views upon them, etc. Surely that would be a transforming experience, and (at least to my
mind) a necessary and beneficial one. You would now intimately know both sides, or the many sides, of that
issue. You would know the truth of it,
whatever that truth might be, in a way you could never have known it under the
limitations of your previous earthly personality.
Now a View Two minister reading
this would probably say, “Yes, in heaven I will have my personal opinion
confirmed that homosexuality is a sin.” I of course doubt that. But the
point is that if he died and I died, we would each partake of the other’s beliefs
on that matter, and more importantly our beliefs would be vastly enlarged by
truths neither of us had the ability to access while alive.
Speaking of the now-late (hey,
there’s an oxymoron) Jerry Falwell, I trust you got a laugh out of the cartoon I
recently sent you by email. It pictured
Jerry at the reception desk of the afterlife, where he is told that
reincarnation is in fact the truth, and he for his next life he must can choose
between being a liberal, a feminist, or a homosexual. Hey, I say that could darn well be close to the truth!
____________________________________________________________________________
(And speaking of homosexuality –
let me inject something here before I get back to my View One complaints. I
recently listened to an hour-long “This American Life” program on public radio
about homosexuality that I found very eye-opening, and I want to share it with
you briefly in summary. Did you know
that homosexuality used to be considered a psychiatric disorder by the American
Psychiatric Association, but that in 1973 it was declared not to be? The APA is
the official organization representing thousands of psychiatrists. One of its many purposes is to continually
publish and improve a book of definitions of the numerous officially accepted
psychiatric disorders. For many years,
homosexuality was listed in that book, with a description of characteristics,
etc. But during the early 70s, some psychiatrists
engaged in a very interesting movement to reconsider that categorization. Some of those psychologists were in fact
homosexuals themselves, but were hiding that fact because to reveal it at that
time would mean losing their professorships at universities, etc. One of these brave souls embarked on a
strategy that I wish I could do justice to here, but I can’t (you can listen to
the whole program, and I highly recommend it, at
http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1188
The crucial moment for this
crusade came when this particular individual spoke at the yearly meeting of the
APA. To protect his identity, he wore a
disguise at the podium (consisting of a Richard Nixon rubber head mask and a
tuxedo three sizes too large, can you imagine that?). This appearance, along with a number of other strategies, opened
up the issue for true reconsideration for the first time, as previously it had
simply been taken as a fact that homosexuality was an illness. And a major finding that ultimately changed
the APA’s mind was something, in retrospect, any good researcher or
statistician should have seen: all of
the information upon which homosexuality had been characterized as a psychiatric
disorder had been taken from cases (hundreds of them) where the homosexuals
were already undergoing therapy for emotional problems. In other words, the only homosexuals from whom data had been
taken were those who were already seeing a psychologist for emotional
problems. A potentially much larger
cohort of homosexuals who did not feel they had problems was being
ignored. Further, it became obvious
that societal prejudice and pressures on homosexuals, rather than homosexuality
itself, could be the main reasons for the problems which brought them to
psychologist’s offices in the first place….a vicious circle.
Well, enough of that. But I highly recommend listening to the
podcast link given above (the full version), or at least checking out the
following related article: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1589/is_2002_Nov_12/ai_94598255
And I would like to hear what Bob’s View
Three might have to say about some specific hot-button issues that divide
Christians (both among themselves from non-Christians) such as
homosexuality and abortion.
_______________________________________________________
That was a digression, but one I felt I wanted to make. Now back to my comments on View One.
No Creator God. Another reason, Bob, you say you reject View
One is because you see no Creator in it. Well, I guess that may be true of Buddhism (at least one of its forms),
but surely not of all the practitioners of View One? Do you think Ken Wilbur and Ram Dass feel that way? Do you think the Christian Gnostics felt
that way? Or am I wrong in thinking
that those folks are View One? Again, I
feel you just need to create a little annex in your View Three for what you
describe as View One.
God within, not without. A complaint I have about your description of
View One: You say this View contends
that “It is a mistake to look for God outside ourselves.” I have to say I don’t think that assertion
is much supported. But more
importantly, I think we have a serious difference of opinion about what
constitutes “ourselves.” As I have said
a dozen times in this trialogue, I believe that what most people think of as
themselves is really an impermanent ego that will not survive death. And I believe most Buddhists and other
eastern religions would agree with me on that. So, they would say you’ve got it exactly wrong: It would be a mistake to only look for God
inside our “selves”. We must look
beyond that ephemeral, impermanent thing for God.
However, in the interest of
compromise, how about if I amend your statement to: “It is a mistake to look for God ONLY outside ourselves.” Truly, I think we have to look both outside
and inside ourselves.
Moving on to View Three. There were many quotes in
View Three that I really really liked. Here’s one of them:
Our present earthly existence is
described in the myth as man’s life after the fall. Man exists at a distance
from God’s goal for him, however, not because he has fallen from that goal but
because he has yet to arrive at it.” (John Hick, Evil and the God of Love)
This to me is the proper answer to what I consider the
mistaken idea of original sin. Yes,
Hick seems to say, we need and long for a spiritual evolution toward God, but
that is not the same as God having condemned us to suffering for something we
did to offend Him. Still Hick does use
the word “sin” in some of his writings, and I would like to know more about his
definition of that word.
Here’s another quote I liked:
“Why does an omnipotent God bring creatures into
existence who grieve themselves and cause grief to Him? I answer, God, in
making men, made creatures whom He desired to be good; goodness means choosing
to be good; they cannot be made good, they must choose it, and omnipotence
cannot do that without unmaking the man; wise and loving training must do it.
God desires the joy of seeing His creatures choose to be good, and the capacity
of choosing to be good implies the capacity of refusing to be good.” (Letters
of Thomas Erskine of Linlathen)
It
makes sense, and it answers the age-old question of why there is evil and
suffering in the world, and why it continues despite our obvious evolution in
many areas. I do think, however, that
if we are to assume God is good, then the suffering these experiences cause us
must somehow eventually be fully removed, relieved, and countered (i.e.,
when we evolve spiritually to the point where God deems us worthy of realizing
– in my view -- their unreality).
There is
one thing about this theory which bothers me, however; or perhaps I should say I think it should trouble you and Steve. Soulmaking sets up a kind of paradox. First of all, since some of the sufferings
in the world result in our deaths, then how are we to keep learning and
evolving? You of course know that my
own answer is the possivility that we live multiple lives…reincarnation. However, if we say that reincarnation is the answer, and we keep
being reborn and learning a little more and gradually evolving, then why
doesn’t the whole world get better as more and more souls evolve upward? And that leads to the questions of where these
souls of ours come from in the first place, where they go if they are reborn,
and whether there is a constant supply of “new souls” entering the world. One could argue that a soul that has
“graduated” from this world must be born in a different world the next time
around, one closer to God and less full of suffering. One could argue that all souls entering this world are new to
this world and have come from even a worse one. Perhaps earth is the fourth or
fifth grade of God’s school, and that planet astronomers have recently discovered (or for
that matter a planet in some other universe) is the beginning of middle
school.
This
schooling or training idea within soulmaking, and all its attendant questions
and paradoxes, finds a parallel within Ken Wilbur’s theories as Bob relates
them under View One. I had read some of
his transpersonal stuff many years ago. I like his eight steps of spiritual evolution as Bob summarized them. (Ram Dass in one of his books used a clock
image with a similar meaning. He described our human journey – away from
and back to God -- as a period of time, represented say by 12 hours
starting at noon. If I remember
correctly, he felt that we had just passed 6 o’clock – the farthest distance
from God – and were now heading up the long home stretch to the kingdom). Again, Bob, these gurus you relegate to View
One I feel belong in an expanded View Three.
Wilbur’s comments reminded me of
our own debate a long time ago in this trialogue, where we tried to answer the
question: “Is the human race spiritually evolving?” about which we had
differing opinions. The thing that struck me about Wilbur’s comments was his
assertion that, although we are evolving we don’t all evolve together, and
those who are stuck in a more primitive state (“pre-rational forces now rampant
in the world”) threaten the whole evolutionary process. How relevant that seems to the religious war
that is going on today between the Islam and the west. Wilbur articulated his theory some time ago
I assume, but it seems uncannily relevant right now. I see the Islamic extremists as a primitive reactionary cult,
trying to drag us all kicking and screaming back into perhaps the 11th
Century. And the scary part is that,
if Wilbur is correct, this fanatical religious war could be a fatal deterrent
to our spiritual evolution.
That segues me (well, I hope it
does) into something completely different that troubled me a little (but only a
little) about part of Bob’s recent analyses. And that is the fairly intense political views that Bob expressed in his
discussion of (actually an attachment to) his piece on the Golden Rule as the
Moral Compass of View Three. Previously, and with a few exceptions, we have pretty much kept this
trialogue focused on matters of religious belief. We have said relatively little about some truly earthshaking
events happening in the world around us, for example about 9/11, Iraq, al-Qaida, the Taliban, etc. Bob has
departed from that, with his strong disapproval of the Iraq situation. He presented a strong undisguised
condemnation of the Bush administration’s policies and actions.
I agree 100% with his feelings
about the U.S. invasion of Iraq. However, going down this road does open up a can of worms, if you don’t
mind the very mixed metaphor. For one
thing, if there were any View Two Christians still reading this blog, I think
we can kiss them goodbye now. I say
that because (a) evangelistic/fundamentalist Christians as a group are a strong
supporting element in the Republican party, and (b) my fairly extensive
experience listening to Christian talk radio convinced me that the typical
listener probably thought it was a moral imperative to open up Muslim countries
to Christianity. Now you might ask why
should I care whether any View Two Christians stay or leave this blog room;
after all, I would argue that I am the most “liberal” (regarding religion,
though Steve would call it most “flaky”) member of this blog. But isn’t part of Bob’s whole point to
hopefully influence some folks in View Two to consider View Three? Also, unless Steve steps forward in a very
unexpected way, then there is not going to be anyone arguing against Bob’s political views, as I suspect all three of us are in agreement when it comes
to Iraq and Bush.
Of course, the other side to all
that is, first of all, that spiritual values we hold dearly cannot be divorced,
nor should they be, from our personal, national, and global activities. And secondly, if evangelistic/fundamentalist
Christians are arguing (and some of them are) that the Iraq situation is God’s
will, then somebody darn well ought to be countering that argument, and why not
us? So, though I am somewhat troubled
by where Bob may have led us, I am willing to go there.
Actually, Bob’s venture into the
political realm brings up two questions: a specific one about the morality of the Iraq situation, and a more
general one about religion’s place in politics and government. And since we have always tried to be honest
about our thoughts here, I am going to honest about these areas.
My
View on Iraq
Based on previous personal
conversations, Bob and I actually disagree on certain aspects of Iraq. We ARE in complete agreement that it was a
horrific mistake made out of arrogance and ignorance, along with global politics
involving oil and other factors. I
blame George Bush and his neocons for the deaths of at least 80,000 people,
based on recent reports. What I have
remained torn about is what will in fact happen if/when we do pull out. Would the pulling-out result in many
thousands more deaths, as happened in Viet Nam, or would it change the
situation for the better? That's the problem: nobody knows. Sure, we do
know it would be better for our own soldiers and their families, no doubt about
that. But the question that haunts me
is what do we owe the Iraqi people now for our horrible mistake then. If there were an open and fair survey of
all the Iraqi people, asking THEM if we should immediately leave, I would
dearly like to know what their own answer would be.
Bear with me while I try and put
my concerns in an analogy and then hopefully get back to the spiritual
element: It seems to me that what we
have done in Iraq is something like a police sting gone horribly wrong. Based on some wrong information, the police
chief orders his men to storm a family’s house looking for drugs. They tear the place apart, but no drugs are
found. During the operation, several of
the family are either accidentally killed, or are killed because they resist
the police. The house is in shambles,
the power is out, the plumbing doesn’t work, the roof is full of holes, the
breadwinner is dead, the children are hungry, and all around there are crazed
and possibly evil neighbors, who didn’t like the family in the first place,
just waiting to loot whatever they can and possibly murder the rest of the
family. The police have realized
(though not exactly admitted) they made a mistake. They have quarantined the
house and posted guards to protect it and what remains of the family. But now the police themselves are very much
in danger, and in fact are being picked off my snipers and homemade bombs of
confusing origin. And this situation has gone on for a very long time.
The question is what to do now?
What is the right thing, the Christian thing, the Golden Rule thing to
do? Is it really to walk away? The police would like to be able to
do that; yes, of course they would. And
to do so would save some lives: the live of policemen, and of course their
families are understandably wanting that to happen. But what would View Three
say, what would Jesus counsel in this situation? My personal feeling is that we owe that family continued
protection and sufficient efforts and investment to stabilize the situation. Yes, even if it means more policemen are
killed.
The bottom line is that we have
done a horrible wrong, and not to do what needs to be done to fully right that
wrong is another wrong. I know my
analogy is simple compared to the much greater complexity of the actual
situation. Unlike policemen, our young
soldiers cannot quit the police force and get out of harms way, nor did many of
them realize they could ever be put in this kind of situation. Further, it is not at all clear how or IF
the situation can be stabilized, and I have nothing but contempt for the man who's ultimately in charge: our Commander-in-Chief But we have to ask ourselves if we have done all that we can and should
do. And I am not convinced that we
have.
I sympathize with the millions of Americans who at this point have
pretty much given up the whole situation as a total loss and want an immediate
pullout. I identify with the soldiers
who have remained for years in harms way and are dying every day (I spent 6
years in the Army Reserve during Viet Nam, teaching Nam-bound solders...some of whom I'm sure came back in body bags... how to
shoot machine guns, praying I myself would not have to go, and thanking God
that I didn’t. My old unit was in fact recently called up and sent to Iraq, where the guy in my old slot probably taught Iraqis to fire machine guns). But most of all I am
torn up about the American families, now more than 3,000 of them, whose sons
and daughters have come home in a caskets, and so many more who have come home
either physically or psychologically wounded, or both. Furthermore, I am an unashamed liberal
Democrat, and a majority of my fellows appear to want an immediate
pullout. And believe me, it pains me to
find myself agreeing with the likes of Bill Buckley. But I think this country
must do the right thing, even if the price for our mistake is tragically
high.
Having said all that, I also have
to admit that I have lost a good bit of my open-mindedness about Muslims,
because I don't feel they have done enough to stop their own extremists. Again, they are an example of Wilbur’s
pre-rationalists. And finally, I do not
necessarily support a continuation of the same old same old (with perhaps just
more soldiers) in Iraq. For example, I
don’t think sufficient political and other means involving other countries have
been tried, and that is probably again due to the arrogance of our leadership.
Something else that is depressing
about the whole Iraq situation, and which also makes the subject highly
relevant here is the harsh light it has cast on religion in general. It is hard to argue against those who point
to Iraq and say, “See? I told you! Religion just screws up the world!” There is no denying that extremist religious
factionalism in Iraq is a major cause of the violence continuing over there
now, and Muslim perceptions of the Christianized West undoubtedly contributed
to 9/11. One result of religious
aspects of Iraq, the “war on terrorism”, and the situation in Israel is
apparently a new surge of cynicism toward religion in general. There are about half a dozen fast-selling
books in stores right now which argue that all religion is not only
superstitious hogwash but is decidedly detrimental to world social and
political welfare. A recent New
Yorker article describes the authors as militant atheists who are all but
celebrating the current mess in the middle east, because it gives them leverage
to bring converts into their un-church.
John Lennon may have got it right,
it seems to me. In his song “imagine”
he called for an end to ‘country’ (Bob’s ‘nationalism’) but along with that he
also wanted ‘no religion, too.’ By that
I think he really meant organized, dogmatic religion. I know that ‘churches’ have done a lot of good in the world, but
only God knows if the bottom line in the calculation is a plus or a minus
overall. As the bumper sticker
asserts: Jesus, save me from your
followers.
Politics and Religion
Assuming,
however, that religion will persist in this world, a question I think relevant
to this trialogue is what is the proper relationship between religion and
politics/government? It is a question
that has surfaced prominently over the last 15 years or so nationally, with the
rise of groups like Jerry Falwell’s moral majority, the Christian Coalition,
Focus on the Family, and the right-wing conservative Christian wing of the
Republican Party.
A founding
principle of this nation is the Constitutional provisions forbidding the
government to establish a national religion, and guaranteeing citizens the
freedom to worship as they choose. However, a little jaunt through history actually seems to show (and I am
open to correction on this if I’m wrong) that relatively little objection was
raised by the populace for hundreds of years when their governmental leaders
called on God or Jesus in public speeches, Congessional debates, courtrooms,
etc. As far as I can tell, it is only
fairly recently that non-Christians, agnostics, atheists, and rights advocates
have objected to obvious religious leanings and posturings, or even to very
serious governmental actions based on religious beliefs. I happened upon some interesting examples of
this in some random reading I did recently. Here, for example, is a quotation from a speech during the Civil War by
Abraham Lincoln:
“…if God wills that [the war] continue until…every drop of
blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was
said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the
Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
And that was from a man actually known to be an
anti-clerical, anti-dogmatic skeptic. But that’s nothing. Give a look
to this quotation from President McKinley during the Spanish-American conflict:
“I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down
on my knees and prayed to Almighty God for light and guidance that one
night. And one night late it came to me
this way….There was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, [the
Philippines] and to educate the Filipinos and uplift and civilize and Christianize
them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow men
for whom Christ also died.”
Can you imagine the reaction today
if a government official, even an elected one, suddenly asserted such a
thing? He would be excoriated in the
media and probably removed from office. That’s exactly what happened recently, for example, with the southern
judge who defended the posting of the 10 commandments in his courtroom, and
with the entire Board of Commissioners of a Pennsylvania community who sought
to have creationism given equal time to evolution in the school system.
Just
because our leaders don’t talk like Lincoln and McKinley today, however,
doesn’t mean they aren’t (a) listening to and being persuaded by the arguments
of particular religious groups, (b) receiving monetary support directly or
indirectly from them, and (c) delivering the goods for these supporters and
interest groups, in terms of legislation, legal decisions, and possibly even
military actions. This is particularly
obvious with hot-button issues like abortion, homosexuality, stem-cell
research, etc. And of course, on a
given issue the individual citizen is often going to vote in accordance with
his deeply held religious views, whether he discusses them or not, and he has
the right to.
To some degree,
the power of the Christian Right appears to have faded during President Bush’s
terms, because of various factors not the least of which is Bush’s perceived
incompetence. Still, no candidate can
afford to offend or even strongly disagree with the religious attitudes of the
America electorate, the vast majority of which are Christian. (It always HAS been Christian, which I
guess is why, in the absence of such groups as the ACLU, Lincoln and McKinley
had no fear in speaking the way they did).
I find it
interesting that in the runnup to the next presidential election, the Democrats
appear to be unabashedly (though I am not saying insincerely) appealing to
Christians as well. A recent article in
the Washington Post showed with convincing anecdotes that Hillary, Obama, and
Edwards have not been shy about playing up their Christian upbringing.
Now somebody very wise has said: “spiritual
values we hold dearly cannot be divorced, nor should they be, from our
personal, national, and global activities.” Oh wait, that was me speaking, just a few paragraphs ago. But I really beg a pretty big question,
don’t I? And that is: What is the proper role of religion in
public commerce, in politics, in government, in military activity, even in
business, and so forth?
In Bob’s discussion of View
Three’s moral compass (the golden rule) he seems to believe in living by our
religious principles in all areas of human endeavor. And I can’t argue against
much of what he concludes, BUT: is that
because I happen to agree with most of his religious principles? And, at the risk of offending everybody in
the western world, is that not exactly what the extremist Muslims are doing,
with their violent Islamic jihad? (Suddenly I remember the trouble Bill Maher got into when he denied on
TV that the 9/11 terrorists in those jets were cowards.) And how does Jesus’ advice to “give unto
Caesar what is Caesar’s" fit into this? How does the idea of faith-based organizations being supported by
government funds fit into this? How about
public support for religious schools and colleges? Should ministers of churches be able to endorse candidates from
their pulpits? And then there are those
little things, again, like homosexuality, abortion, etc., the “sinful” nature
of which (according to most Christians) greatly affects their legality.
Well, I am not going to answer
those questions now; it took enough energy just to raise them. But it does seem something we ought to
explore. And I have a feeling there is
going to be (surprise, surprise) some disagreement about it. Oh no: what are people going to think if they catch us disagreeing in our
blog?
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