… the prophets remind us of the moral state of a people: Few are guilty, but all are responsible. If we admit that the individual is in some measure conditioned or affected by the spirit of society, an individual’s crime discloses society’s corruption. In a community not indifferent to suffering, uncompromisingly impatient with cruelty and falsehood, continually concerned for God and every man, crime would be infrequent rather than common.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets, p16.
Metchosin, Vancouver Island, August 2006
This is looking south over the Strait of Juan de Fuca in the late after noon. The sun is behind the camera. Why are the rays converging toward the horizon?
Friday, May 26, 2006
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Resergence of the religious liberal ...
An article on religious liberals getting into the game ...
Gary Bauer poo-poos it, even as he confirms and validates the essence of the religious right as being against gays and abortion.
I don't know whether there is any basis to religion any more -- that is, whether there actually is a god out there who cares -- but of this I am convinced: Jesus (divine or "just" human) would not be pleased with the evangelicals. The best you can say is that the rank and file may mean well; but they are distorting and debasing his message. The world is getting a much different picture from them of what he had to say than what is in the Bible. [If Jesus really is watching us from heaven as they say he is, then these smug religious people should be quaking in their boots, because Jesus said "... whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea."]
On the other hand, what are we to expect from the liberals:
Now that is comforting; just what we need is for liberals to pander to the "religious" just like the right wingers. What has become clear to me is that pandering is assymetric: when a right winger does it, singing God Bless America on the capitol steps, or flying at midnight back to Washington to sign the Terri Schiavo bill, it's perceived by the faithful to be sincere. When a liberal does it, it's pandering. I think the reason is that for most people who are politically conservative, it is the politics, the conservatism, that is most important in their lives. They use (it's not deliberate, it's unconscious) religion to justify and validate their conservatism.
Why do I say this? Well, they are always explaining away the hard sayings of Jesus ("Sell all you have and give to the poor"). They emphasize things that have little if any thing to do with them personally (gay marriage, abortion), while validating government actions that they perceive to benefit them personally (tax cuts "pro-family", even if it's only 6-figure income families that get them). If some of the things Jesus said are hard, if they contradict things in our own lives, then we need to critique our lives based on what Jesus said. But evangelical religion spends its time in validating middle class American lifestyle. It doesn't struggle with the scriptures. There is more struggle with the Bible in my "liberal" PCUSA congregation than there seems to be in the typical Southern Baptist Church or Lakewood. They already know exactly what the Bible is about (why, they believe it is inerrant and they take it literally, so their interpretation has got to be right).
Long overshadowed by the Christian right, religious liberals across a wide swath of denominations are engaged today in their most intensive bout of political organizing and alliance-building since the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements of the 1960s, according to scholars, politicians and clergy members.
Gary Bauer poo-poos it, even as he confirms and validates the essence of the religious right as being against gays and abortion.
"My reaction is 'Come on in, the water's fine' . . . but I think that when you look at frequent church attenders in America, they tend to be pro-life and support marriage as one man and one woman, and so I think the religious left is going to have a hard time making any significant progress" with those voters, he said.
I don't know whether there is any basis to religion any more -- that is, whether there actually is a god out there who cares -- but of this I am convinced: Jesus (divine or "just" human) would not be pleased with the evangelicals. The best you can say is that the rank and file may mean well; but they are distorting and debasing his message. The world is getting a much different picture from them of what he had to say than what is in the Bible. [If Jesus really is watching us from heaven as they say he is, then these smug religious people should be quaking in their boots, because Jesus said "... whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea."]
On the other hand, what are we to expect from the liberals:
"I can guarantee you that every Democrat running for office in 2006 and 2008 will be quoting the Bible and talking about their most recent experience in church," he [Rabbi Michael Lerner] said.
Now that is comforting; just what we need is for liberals to pander to the "religious" just like the right wingers. What has become clear to me is that pandering is assymetric: when a right winger does it, singing God Bless America on the capitol steps, or flying at midnight back to Washington to sign the Terri Schiavo bill, it's perceived by the faithful to be sincere. When a liberal does it, it's pandering. I think the reason is that for most people who are politically conservative, it is the politics, the conservatism, that is most important in their lives. They use (it's not deliberate, it's unconscious) religion to justify and validate their conservatism.
Why do I say this? Well, they are always explaining away the hard sayings of Jesus ("Sell all you have and give to the poor"). They emphasize things that have little if any thing to do with them personally (gay marriage, abortion), while validating government actions that they perceive to benefit them personally (tax cuts "pro-family", even if it's only 6-figure income families that get them). If some of the things Jesus said are hard, if they contradict things in our own lives, then we need to critique our lives based on what Jesus said. But evangelical religion spends its time in validating middle class American lifestyle. It doesn't struggle with the scriptures. There is more struggle with the Bible in my "liberal" PCUSA congregation than there seems to be in the typical Southern Baptist Church or Lakewood. They already know exactly what the Bible is about (why, they believe it is inerrant and they take it literally, so their interpretation has got to be right).
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
What $300 Billion gets you.
The cost of the Iraq War will sooon exceed 300 billion. The cost of the Kyoto protocol is estimated to have been about the same.
And the same numbers raise questions about the Bush administration's claim that the cost of the Kyoto Protocol would be prohibitive, causing (in President Bush's own words) "serious harm to the U.S. economy."
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