A New Day in Alabama

Sunrise on Orange Beach, Alabama (National Wildlife Federation photo by Pam Smith)

It was a closely watched election throughout the country last Tuesday. In Alabama, some of us were beginning to wonder if we could ever elect a Democrat again. When I first heard that Doug Jones was entering the race for senate, I was thrilled that such a decent, honorable and capable man was putting himself forward for a statewide office.

We have many citizens who proclaim that they are "a bright blue dot in a deeply red state," but the fact has remained that we are indeed a deeply red state. Last Tuesday's political upset that will send a Democrat to Washington has been an occasion of rejoicing for those bright blue dots scattered about the state.  

While I am glad that the Democratic candidate, Doug Jones, won the Alabama special election for senate, the graph below is a sobering look at where we are in this state. 72% of white men voted for Moore, 63% of white women voted for Moore! In a statistic elsewhere, a majority of college educated white voters voted for Moore. Evangelicals disregarded their own moral standards to back Roy Moore as well.

(source: http://www.cnn.com/election/2017/results/alabama-senate )

The Evangelical Factor

Elsewhere, an editorial in the premier evangelical publication, Christianity Today,  rightly took evangelical voters to task for their support of Roy Moore:

“No matter the outcome of today’s special election in Alabama for a coveted US Senate seat, there is already one loser: Christian faith. When it comes to either matters of life and death or personal commitments of the human heart, no one will believe a word we say, perhaps for a generation,” the editorial explained. “Christianity’s integrity is severely tarnished.”

I stated a similar sentiment in November of 2008 when in a blog post I lamented the corruption of both the evangelical Christian witness and the Republican Party. It was then that I wrote: “I have seen better examples of faith and better examples of political action than has been exhibited by the Religious Right and the Republican Party over the past few years.”  In that blog essay, I was appalled at the level of hate and fear coming from some of my fellow Christians. 

Moving Forward

Doug Jones, in a news conference on Wednesday, stated that “No matter whether you’re a United States senator, whether you’re a member of Congress, whether you’re a City Councilman, all the way down, all too often, we forget those people that did not vote for you, to put you in office. Those people can’t be forgotten.”

He seems to be a man of integrity who will take the high road and who will indeed represent everyone in Alabama. An article in the Religious News Service outlines some key factors in his life of faith and public service. Most notably, he has been an effective prosecutor for justice as a U.S. Attorney in the case of bringing the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombers to trial. Moreover, as a Methodist layman who attends church regularly, he believes in living his faith by caring for everyone, even “the least of these,” and treating people fairly.  Doug Jones can be a leader for all the people of our state, and a light in Washington, D.C. 

We will rejoice this day, but know that there is much work to be done, and it will be an uphill terrain from here onward. Let this day be our marker, and let us go forward, not backward in our efforts to pull our state out of ignorance and bigotry.

-

April is Poetry Month: Slowly God Arises

During the month of April, in honor of National Poetry Month, I am re-posting poems that I have written and shared on this blog. This one is from January 29, 2010.


I wrote the poem below back in 2002 after being troubled by the increasing reports of sexual abuse of children by clergy. My consolation then was, at least now we are aware of the problem and are calling people to account. In many ways, we are progressing in areas of ethics, enlightenment and compassion.

Recently, the airwaves have been so full of myopic shouting that I am thinking we take one step forward and two steps back. One thing is for sure, decisions made out of fear will not tend to lead us forward.

I am optimistic that our trend will continue to be upward, though we have witnessed some backward steps of late. I present this poem from eight years ago in affirmation of that upward trend.

Slowly God Arises

And slowly God arises

Arising, God turns

Pulling up tent stakes,

Cracking the foundation

And loosening the ties

Of a stagnant civilization.

One turn showed us not to enslave.

Another turn gave honor to women.

Yet another turn showed us

Not to send our children to factories and fields,

forfeiting their lives for illicit capital gain.

Now the turn shows us

To respect our children

And to protect them from harm.

And slowly God arises

Until a new awareness comes;

An awareness that children have been crippled

By the abusive actions of people we trusted.

No longer can we tolerate such abuse.

Slowly God arises.

Arising, God turns;

Cracking the foundation of tradition,

Breaking the bonds that held us.

With each turn

We are astounded.

Why did we not see this before?

How could we have let this happen?

Yet with each turn

We see that we cannot go back.

Astounded by sight

Loosed by light,

We walk at a new level

As slowly God arises

And rising, God turns.

The church did not show us.

Governments never called for justice

Until sight came upon the people

And scattered throughout the land,

"Just as the lightening comes from the east

and flashes into the west..."

But none can stop the rising

And the turning of a new day.

And slowly God arises.

Arising, God turns

Carrying the pain and the hope

Of broken bonds and shattered illusions.

Arising, God turns

To present us with the challenge of a new day,

To walk on a different level.

We are astounded by sight

And loosed by light

As slowly God arises.

                                                       ~ CK

-

Religion and Violence

We often hear the claim that religion is responsible fro promoting violence. This is one of the favored talking points among some of the “new atheists” who like to enumerate the ills that religion has brought upon society. Whenever there is a new terrorism threat, similar arguments will break out about the wars throughout history that have been fought in the name of religion.

Just this past week, I read an essay by Juan Cole of Informed Comment.  Cole opens his essay, “Terrorism and the Other Religions,” with the statement, “Contrary to what is alleged by bigots like Bill Maher, Muslims are not more violent than people of other religions. Murder rates in most of the Muslim world are very low compared to the United States.” He makes the point that though we think of Muslims as being responsible for most of the violence in the world, in actual fact, far more deaths and political violence during the 20th century occurred at the hands of those of European Christian heritage than from Muslims. He even has a handy pie chart to visually illustrate the fact.

Cole makes a good point. He seems to be emphasizing that Christianity is by the numbers more violent than Islam, but then he talks about religious terrorism being universal. "Terrorism,” he states, “is a tactic of extremists within each religion, and within secular religions of Marxism or nationalism. No religion, including Islam, preaches indiscriminate violence against innocents." 

Bill Maher’s Two Cents

I was surprised to see Bill Maher cast as a bigot when I thought he disdained all religions equally. I found online a report of the incident to which Cole refers (you can read it here). Maher was holding up a controversial Newsweek cover with the headline, “Muslim Rage” and did say that “most Muslims” think it is acceptable to kill someone they think has offended the prophet Muhammad.  Later in the discussion, the article states, “Maher joked that atheist beliefs would solve a lot of the problems.”

Recognizing Human Traits

When Bill Maher joked (was he joking?) that “atheist beliefs would solve a lot of the problems,” he was voicing what many critics of religion seem to believe. I think the actual truth is that violence is a human trait. Religion is a human trait. Those who imagine that they can eliminate violence and atrocity by doing away with religion are just as blind to human nature as are those who think that only Muslims foment terrorism. As Cole indirectly alludes to, religious teachings attempt to steer adherents away from violence, but there are all those other factors in human nature that bring about violence and destruction. Furthermore, those in power will co-opt religion or any other social institution to stay in power and often violence is the tool for holding onto power. 

Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing
Birmingham News photo

The Birmingham News has been running a series, “50 Years of Progress: 1963 to 2013” highlighting the city’s history in civil rights and looking at where we are today. In last Sunday’s article, “The New Hate: Does religion cause hatred, heal it, or both?” Greg Garrison looked specifically at the role religion has played in the civil rights struggle.  He states that many extremist groups twist theology to reinforce their beliefs and to fan the fires of ethnic hatred. Mark Potok, of the Southern Poverty Law Center is quoted as saying, “People of all faiths use religion to focus their violence when they feel their worldview is threatened.”  Rabbi Jonathan Miller of Temple Emanu-El in Birmingham observed that “Religion can be used to bring out the very best in us, as it often does, and it can often be used as a tool to bring out the very worst in us.”  Certainly during the civil rights struggle in the south, religious faith seemed to be a motivating factor for both sides of the struggle.

There are many factors to attribute to causes for conflict. Religion is just one of the sociological traits of humanity. If by some bizarre construct we could actually eliminate religion altogether, human beings would find other means to rally the masses into war and conflict. My opinion as to what contributes to the world's problems? I would choose "D - All of the above" rather than singling out religion.

Put more succintly, as I heard a Pentecostal preacher friend of mine say many years ago: "You hear people talk about this evil world, but there ain't nothin' wrong with this world – not a thing wrong with the world. It's the crowd that's in it that's givin' us problems."

Moving Toward Justice for All 

The solution? Don't try to eliminate one particular scapegoat thinking that will remove the problem.  Instead, careful attention to ethics and listening to the marginalized of society would be a good place to start. We must come to terms with the fact that we are stuck with our human traits. That doesn’t mean we cannot do better, it just means we need to get beyond the blame game. We must recognize our strengths as well as our weaknesses.  Let faith be a strengthening factor for people of faith, but let us always be subject to ethical standards to move us toward a greater realization of justice and integrity. 

*

Spirituality and Healthcare: By Who's Ethic?

I recently heard a very interesting lecture at the hospital where I work presented by Dr. Ryan Nash on "The Temptation of Spiritual Medicine: An Argument for Informed Respect.” He addressed the role of spirituality in medical care from a number of vantage points.  He made it clear that any spiritual care should be based upon the patient’s own values. One should also not expect the patient’s ethic to always be in line with standard medical practice. An example he gave was the efforts by medicine to make care as pain-free as possible. Most would probably agree, but a Buddhist patient who is hospitalized, even with a terminal condition, may not wish sedation and narcotic to numb him, thereby removing him from being able to be present to experience the last stage of life.

Dr. Nash also pointed out that people may live by different ethics and values. In referencing Herve’ Juvin’s book The Coming of the Body, he made note of what Juvin calls a post-modern culture which holds a tripartite ethic of “health, safety, and pleasure.” This in contrast to the humanist ethic of “liberty, equality, and fraternity.”  Juvin claims that we humans are not the same as we were 100 years ago, as evidenced by a narcissistic era in which the body is sacrosanct.

Which is the higher ethic for you? I find the rallying cry of "liberty, equality, and fraternity" to be a much nobler cause, but Juvin raises an important question (as does Dr. Nash).  When we look at healthcare today, by and large, people seem to be demanding health and safety, and most of us want to avoid any pain that would rob us of pleasure.

Of course, “liberty, equality, and fraternity” was the ideal for our founding fathers in the forging of a new nation of democracy in America. In a later conversation with Dr. Nash, he pointed out that even then, there was debate over who was to be included in “fraternity,” and that “equality” did not mean “egalitarian” as we usually understand the word today. Still, the ideals of “health, safety, and pleasure” were far from anything on the minds of our ancestors as a new nation was being forged.

It was fascinating food for thought for me. I agree that as healthcare providers, we must take the patient’s values into consideration in any care, medical or spiritual, that is provided. We should also be vigilant that we not assume that the values we hold are necessarily the same ones our patient holds.  

*

My Notebook (and things worth writing down)

I have a small notebook (5" X 7") which I like to carry with me to lectures and meetings because of its convenient and unobtrusive size. Today I had an appointment to discuss a project so I grabbed my little notebook on the way out the door. I found myself waiting alone in a small waiting area prior to the meeting, so I decided to thumb through the notes I had taken in past meetings and lectures. Here are some highlights:

From Daniel Sulmasy on medical ethics:

Spirituality is not ethics – they are distinct disciplines, though intimately related. They are often conflated in discussions about spirituality. Ethics is not solely based on religion/spirituality. There is the philosophical concept of ethics, and ethics can also be founded upon reason.

In a secular/pluralistic environment, religions can “fit in” when talking about ethics (war and peace, justice, medical ethics). Spiritual concepts of healthcare cannot be supplanted by bioethics. Hospitals are not happy places – relief is often the best one can hope for. Suffering and shadows prevail. Ethics alone makes no sense of suffering.

From Martin Marty on what goes wrong in church:

The huddle – you know an important conversation is taking place, but all you can see are the behinds.

From Wayne Flynt on mega churches:

They are “country clubs for the sanctified;” “Wal-Marts for selling Jesus-lite.”
Many twenty-somethings are leaving church because they are more tolerant and environmentally conscious than their church.

From Bishop John Shelby Spong on God and the church:

How to envision God: (1) as the source of life calling us to live fully, (2) as the source of love calling us to love wastefully, (3) as being – calling us to be our authentic self.

The job of the church is to free human beings so they can be fully human – not to rescue you from your sins, but to empower you to be you.

*     *     *     *     *

Some days it is good to go back to catch up and reflect upon things we once found important enough to write down.

*

"Somebody was wrong, and it wasn’t Jesus"

Wayne Flynt
Samford University Photo

I went back to my alma mater last Saturday to hear Wayne Flynt give a talk at the Samford University Library as part of the Homecoming events. He talked about what life was like when he graduated with the class of 1961. He then read an excerpt from his new memoir, Keeping the Faith: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives. The reading he chose related his experience of being challenged and seeing broader possibilities as he went from a provincial homogenous community to experience higher education and as he met people on his college campus from other parts of the world and other walks of life. I was especially taken by one quote in particular:

“It was not my parents, peers, school, or church that began to unshackle me from the chains of racism. It was the Bible. I was only a teenager in high school when the first tensions appeared between the teachings of Jesus and the teachings of John Patterson and George Wallace. Somebody was wrong. And it wasn’t Jesus.”

The reason I like that quote is that it resonates very much with my own experience. When I went to Samford University in the mid 1970s, I decided on a double major in English and Religion. One of my friends said at the time, “Not only will you have religion, you will be able to talk about it.” There may have been some truth to that. There has also been a lot of truth in Garrison Keillor’s remarks about English majors on his radio program, A Prairie Home Companion – which is why I ended up making a living as a registered nurse so I could continue to enjoy the fields of English and Religion.

My experience in the two departments became very enlightening and even liberating. The professors in the Religion Department were not the fundamentalist strand of the Baptist faith. "They all," as Wayne Flynt recalls, “held to the neo-orthodox theology as espoused by Paul Tillich, Karl Barth, and Richard and Reinhold Niebuhr; they were all theistic evolutionists; none believed in the plenary inspiration of scripture [i.e. inerrant and infallible texts directly dictated by God]. Those Baptists in 1958 were more liberal than half the country is today.” I indeed found that my professors were all caring people who wanted each student to really evaluate the concepts of life and faith in order to understand how it all works in the real world.  So many of us young Baptists had come to college having been steeped in folk religion, and this was our first opportunity to explore the faith more fully.

One particular professor, Karen Joines, was constantly being vilified by certain conservative students as a liberal bent on destroying faith. I found Karen Joines to be quite poetic as well as thought provoking. It occurred to me, since I was studying in both departments, that if Dr. Joines said the same things in the English Department that he was saying in the Religion Department, he would be hailed as a defender of the faith!  My love of literature helped me to see my studies in theology from a different perspective, and I suppose allowed me to be more open to new ideas than some of my conservative colleagues.

For me, it took most of my college career to really get to the point of being able to think through the concepts I was being exposed to (which is why I also believe in life-long learning – so many of us aren’t really at the stage to gain the most from our education while we are in our late teens and early twenties). By the time I finished college, I decided to go on to seminary. It was while I was at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in Mill Valley, California, that I saw a need to truly change my way of thinking.  Like Wayne Flynt during his high school and college days, I was reading the Bible, which I was conditioned to believe as the truth, and seeing a radical contradiction between the words of Jesus and the Old Testament prophets vs. the ethic of my Southern Christian culture.

The ironic thing was that Golden Gate Seminary, even though it was located in California, was more conservative than Samford University back in Alabama. The more I read, however, and the more I saw of society, the more I leaned toward a more liberal take on things. It is certainly possible to be just as fanatical and polemic as a liberal as are certain conservative fundamentalists. The important thing, rather, is to be open to learning. Openness to learning, openness to hearing another point of view, may lead to a conclusion seen as conservative by some. It may lead to a more liberal view. It is possible to be liberal in some things while being conservative in others.  Authenticity is the key.

My personal motto has become, “Honor Wisdom wherever you find it, welcome Beauty whenever it arrives, follow Truth wherever it leads.” I can thank caring instructors who had unswerving integrity for setting me on that path. I can also thank Wayne Flynt for reminding me of my great blessing in his talk last Saturday.

*