Celestial Lands

With my passions, my history, and my hopes for the future is was probably inevitable that I would spend this weekend tied to my television and computer, following the limited amount of information that is coming out of Iran. As a former intelligence analyst, I can trace the political and social patterns that are occurring in the country, and see the miscalculations and misapprehensions that are leading that country into such violence and bloodshed. As a Unitarian Universalist seminarian, I am fascinated by the choice, made by the people, to continue coming into the street knowing what it could (and has) cost them. As a veteran and future military chaplain, I have an almost visceral reaction to those wearing uniforms turning and attacking the people they should be defending.

Two images are burned in my mind. The first is of a crowd of protestors who, upon seeing the plainclothes militia coming upon them, all sat down. My heart skipped a beat. Many of them were women, calling for recognition and equality. They sent word down the line, and they all sat down in the street and sat in silence. The militia did not know what to do, and walked away. My mind went to the Civil Rights Movement here in the United States.

It did not take the militia long to figure out what to do, and the second image burned in my mind is of a woman named “Neda”, who was out protesting with her father when she was shot through the heart by riot police. The footage showed her lying bleeding in the street, with other protestors trying to save her life. In the video, we see her eyes close as she died. Upon seeing that image, my mind and heart went to Tiananmen Square.

“Neda” apparently means, “the Divine Calling”. It is doubtful that there is a more powerful image or symbol for the Iranian people.

Then, my television showed me the image of a series of U.S. politicians calling for the U.S. to insert itself into the situation in Iran. They were condemning the President for not speaking more forcefully, for not threatening the Iranian regime. One politician even admitted that doing so would be counter-productive, but that it was “Important for America” that he do so… that President Obama insert the U.S. even more into this situation.

What struck me about this was how blatant an expression of American Exceptionalism was the reaction of the politicians calling for the U.S. President to insert the United States into the situation in Iran. Even though it would be counter-productive and provide an excuse to the Iranian government, these politicians are so concerned that the U.S. play a central role in all world events that they are willing to give them that excuse in order to affirm their own national self-image.

One of the things I came to realize in my years serving in Latin America and in Europe was that the world really is much bigger than the United States. That is not something the majority of Americans can consciously conceive of. What understandings of the broader world most Americans can understand are either caricatures of foreigners (axis of evil, for example) or of “barbarians being converted by McDonalds”.

What we are seeing is a people (much more sophisticated than the caricature of them we had) standing up for their own rights, for their own equality, against their own government, for their own reasons and motivations, to create a new society based upon their own cultural imperatives… and our American Exceptionalism can’t stand that. Our understanding of the U.S. as a chosen society, as the world’s superpower, as the “city on the hill”… our own image just can’t stand the idea that what is happening in Iran is not about us.

If something is to be done by the international community, it has to be the international community… not an expression of American Exceptionalism (see, we claim two continents in our national name).

The world is growing past us, whether we want it to or not.

Yours in Faith,

David

For some obvious reasons, Clara Barton is one of my more inspiring religious ancestors.  One of my more important deep religious moments happened while I was reading a biography of her.  Her committment and dedication to taking care of soldiers is an inspiration to me. 

Today I visited (for coffee hour) the Universalist National Memorial Church in Washington DC, and their Music Director (Darryl Winston) shared with me a hand-written letter from Clara Barton which the congregation has in its archives.  With his permission, I share it with you all here.  It is a declaration that Universalism is not just the faith in which she was raised, but the faith of her heart. 

Glen Echo, Md.
March 12, 1905

Mrs. Norman S. Thrasher
Lakewood, Ohio

Dear friend and sister:

Your belief that I am a Universalist is as correct as your greater belief in being one yourself. A belief in which all who are privileged to possess it, rejoice. In my case, it was a great gift, for, like St. Paul, I was “born free”, and saved the pain of reaching it through years of struggle and doubt.

My father was a leader in the building of the church in which Hosea Ballou preached his first dedication sermon. Your historic records will show that the old Huguenot town of Oxford, Massachusetts, erected one of, if not the first - Universalist Church in America.

In this town I was born; in this Church I was reared. In all its reconstructions and remodelings I have taken a part, and I look anxiously for a time in the near future when the busy world will let me once more become a living part of its people, praising God for the advance in the liberal faith of the Religious world of today, so largely due to the teachings of this belief.

Give, I pray you, dear sister, my warmest congratulations to the members of your Society. My best wishes for the success of your annual meeting and accept my thanks most sincerely for having written me.

With sisterly love I am
Fraternally yours
Clara Barton

I came across this article reference while reading a 1946 Master’s thesis on the effect War has on religious and moral beliefs, and I fell in love.

The Power of this tendency to create myths has recently been demonstrated in the famous assurance that “there are no atheists in foxholes”. As near as the origin of this formula can be traced, it was first uttered by Lieutenant Colonel Warren J Clear in a story of Bataan’s final weeks, delivered during the “Army Hour” program over the NBC Red Network in 1942. Colonel Clear attributed the immortal observation to an unnamed sergeant who had shared a foxhole with him during a Japanese bombing raid. No pretense was made that there had been an official catechism of every man or that the sergeant was a trained theologian. It was simply meant to be an emphatic way of saying that all men in the moment of peril seek the support of religion.

Whether they do or do not is as much a question as whether it is creditable to religion to claim that they do, but neither question was widely agitated. For the populace the rhetorical flourish was a military fact, and for the papers it was news, however frequently repeated. At first it was only the foxholes of Bataan that were distinguished for their conversional powers, but as the war spread the manna was found in any sheltering declivity, and the trenches of Port Moresby and Guadalcanal delivered their quotas of converts.

There was no reason why divine favor should be confined to the infantry, and other branches of the services were soon touched with similar grace. By December 1943, according to an article in the Reader’s Digest, atheists had been pretty well cleaned out of cockpits (where God, it will be remembered, had been retained in the inferior position of the co-pilot); and Rickenbacker’s celestial sea gull drove them even from rubber rafts. A few skeptics may have gone on lurking in the glory holes of the merchant marine, but their enlightenment merely waited for the first torpedo.

There were, of course, dissenting voices. Poon Lim, a Chinese steward, who existed for one hundred and thirty-three days alone on a raft in the South Atlantic, stated, on being rescued, that nothing in the experience had led him to believe in a merciful Providence, Even though he too had had a sea gull. But then, he was a heathen to begin with.

The American Association for the Advancement of Atheism felt that the phrase was a reflection on the patriotism of their members and did their best to refute it. They managed to find at least one sturdy doubter in the Army who had his dog tag stamped “Atheist,” but, unfortunately, though he had once been run over by a tank, he had never been in a foxhole, and hence could not technically qualify. A better candidate, whom the A.A.A.A. overlooked, was E.J. Kahn, Jr. who in one of his articles in the New Yorker confessed that he was not a religious man and in another that he had dived into a latrine trench when Jap planes were overhead. Of course, an unbeliever in a latrine is not exactly an Atheist in a foxhole, but the faithful would probably have been willing to accept it as a reasonable facsimile.

– Evans, Bergen. “Don’t Believe All You Hear,” The Atlantic Monthly, pp. 71-72, April 1946.

Every few weeks I get an email or a call from someone in leadership of one of our Unitarian Universalist congregations asking how they can set up an outreach program to military veterans, servicemembers, and families. For a long while, I would send them the information I have on the UUniforms program conducted by the UU Church of Norfolk, Virginia. I still send that information when requested, but I do so with a bit more trepidation. Why? Three reasons.

First, I do not believe there is a lack of veterans in our congregations. As I have visited dozens of congregations in eight states, I have yet to have one where veterans of WWII, of Korea, of Vietnam, and of Desert Storm and Just Cause did not come up to speak to me afterward. What I have instead found is that these veterans within our congregations have felt for years that the stories of their military service (often the most formative years of their lives and their faith) are not welcome within the walls of their churches and fellowships. Often, after I am the guest preacher, they will come up and tell their stories to me, because a military chaplain candidate appearing in their pulpit seems to have given momentary permission for those stories.

These veterans have found their way to our congregations and to our faith, even if it means that there is a part of their lives that they feel they cannot openly bring forward on Sunday morning. There is something about our faith that is so attractive to them that they are willing to keep this part of their life story silent for fear of offending others and no longer being accepted in our faith. They choose not to challenge some of the assumptions about military people and life that are extant in our churches, because they fear being ostracized, or being defined solely by their military past.

Though it is better now than it was five years ago, I still regularly get the questions based around some of those prior assumptions about the military that many of my fellow UU’s hold. Here is a small sampling of those:

So, are those people in the military really able to understand Unitarian Universalism?

So as a UU military chaplain, do you get to help people become conscience objectors?

I didn’t think there were any military people in our churches. Are you sure?

(And, my personal favorite, and more an observation than a question)

Ahh, so you are going in the military because of how hard it would be for a veteran to be called to a UU church as a minister, right?

This small collection of questions I have received come from the more benign assumptions many UU’s have about military service. Five years ago people would directly challenge whether or not I am really a Unitarian Universalist because of my military service. Now I’m just exotic.

My point for sharing these comments is this: As a military chaplain candidate I cannot help but be a lightning rod for these questions, but the comments and commentary behind these assumptions are deeply ingrained in our congregations. The veterans in our pews know this, and in order not to offend, they leave part of who they are at the door. So, my second reason why I am reticent to help congregations with “outreach” efforts to military veterans is that I’m not sure we are ready to provide the kind of environment these veterans might need in a faith community. Those who are able to be in our pews seem to be finding ways to them without our help.

Outreach is an external act. Outreach programs are about bringing what a congregation has to offer to those outside the congregation. The motivations for outreach vary, especially in a faith that does not have evangelism as a faith imperative. In speaking with those who have contacted me about military and veteran outreach programs, the motivations have varied from seeing it as a way to increase church membership (and pledging units) to a desire to “save” these individuals from their reactions to combat.

This past two weeks, I have been studying the relationship between spirituality, combat resilience, and combat stress disorders (PTSD and others) at the National Defense University in Washington DC. In those studies, I came across a program by a group of Native American counselors and psychologists that uses Native American ceremonies and spirituality as a framework for helping people learn to cope with PTSD.

One of the primary ingredients in their formulae is a ceremony that formally recognizes that the veteran (warrior) has been deeply changed by their experience. The ceremony allows the veteran (warrior) to tell the story of their service, and that story is formally and officially taken in as a part of the community. The veteran (warrior) is honored for their service, and the responsibility for that service is spread among the entire community, so the veteran (warrior) does not have to carry it alone. The veteran (warrior) then formally re-enters the community as an honored and respected member.

Several psychological studies of PTSD have shown that how the community accepts and welcomes the military veteran back from war has a deep impact on the rates in which reactions to combat stress become a disorder that impairs social functioning. Anecdotally we can see this difference in the rates of acute combat stress injuries from WWII and from Vietnam, and make the connection between how the veterans of each of those wars was received by the communities to which they returned.

I believe many of our congregations are not ready to receive these veterans in the way they need to be received by a faith community. Some of the congregations that have contacted me have expressed motivations that made it clear they were not ready to hear the veteran’s stories and welcome them in the way they need.

So, if not outreach, then what? I applaud the energy that some congregations have shown around the issue of veterans, military families, and military servicemembers. I have written and spoken of my belief that this nation is about to face a spiritual crisis that makes the aftermath of Vietnam look mild. I believe that there is a salvific nature to Unitarian Universalist Faith that can play a deep role in the spiritual healing of some of those veterans, just as it did in my own life. But I also believe that our congregations are not yet ready for that role.

We as a denomination know how to get ready to play a positive role in helping our veterans, their families, and our nation weather the spiritual storm I see on the horizon, because we have done it before. I have begun to recommend (and develop resources for) our congregations to take a deep look at our own reactions, assumptions, prejudices, and relations to the military, to war, and to our veterans through something similar to the current Welcoming Congregation program for GLBTQ persons and communities.

We need to deepen our understandings of ourselves, of our own responsibility for the wars and conflicts our veterans have been sent to fight. We need to have a deeper understanding of the processes of recovery of those struggling with PTSD and other combat stress injuries, and to see how what might otherwise be an innocent and unthinking comment can be deeply damaging to a veteran’s recovery and to their trust in this faith. We need a commitment to a different balance between pastoral needs and prophetic impulses.

I think of a military spouse whose loved one was serving in Iraq, and her church kept asking her to go to protests against the war. When she said no, some people questioned her UU faith. Becoming welcoming for veterans and their families will require some re-evaluation of our priorities of faith.

We need a deeper understanding of the chronic nature of combat stress injury, and of how family members of veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are themselves showing signs of stress injuries (called secondary traumatic stress disorder) brought on by the immediacy of modern telecommunications and the manifestations of repeated deployments.

More than this, we need to deal with the feelings that many in our denomination have in relation to their own involvement in the spiritual crisis in the lives of our veterans and the life of our nation in the aftermath of Vietnam, a set of feelings that I have often perceived as including shame, regret, and denial. We have some healing to do ourselves, before we can really welcome military veterans and their families into our congregations.

The shame of our involvement in the aftermath of Vietnam is the third reason why I am reticent about supporting outreach efforts to military veterans. I know I am being controversial by even saying this aloud, but there is a spiritual and emotional “ghost” in our denominational system that has not yet been exorcised, and until it is brought into the light of day and we heal from it, we will continue to be motivated towards this kind of outreach for all the wrong reasons.

So, if you contact me for advice on outreach to military veterans, be prepared for me to turn the work back upon yourself. Rather than seeking to bring veterans to our congregations, let us first prepare our congregations to receive them. If we do that, those who need us will find us. I promise.

Yours in Faith,

David

I am well aware that there are those who view the term “Fundamentalist” as a positive label, and that they often are confused by the way that I use the term, and so it is probably appropriate that I be clear about what I mean by a fundamentalist. I have preached about this, I have included short versions of the definition in many different articles, but it is true that I have not dedicated a whole article to defining it for myself and the readers here at Celestial Lands.

As a Liberal Christian candidate minister who spends much of my time in non-liberal Christian settings, (even within my own denomination), I find that the issue of language is often one of the most compelling parts of my ministry. The post-modern aspect of much of liberal faith is affirmed by the reality of how words mean very different things to different people.

I believe that fundamentalism has little to do with what you believe, and much more to do with how you believe. In many ways, fundamentalism is the mirror image of what it means to be a liberal-for liberalism is also more about how you believe and not what you believe. Both are methodologies of belief and meaning-making, not beliefs or traditions themselves.

I also want to say that this is the definition I use for fundamentalism (I have written at length on the definition of liberalism, specifically in relation to progressivism). You are entitled to your own definition for fundamentalism in your own lives. This, however, is the definition that is operative here. I grew up in a religiously conservative family that was not overly fundamentalist, however many of those around us in church and community could have been described as fundamentalist.

First and foremost, a fundamentalist is someone who has a relationship with the concept of doubt that is negative. In other words, doubt is something that is to be feared and overcome. Doubt becomes a threat to faith, instead of an inherent aspect of faith (as in liberalism). Doubt is something to be overcome for the fundamentalist, and much of the practices and assumptions of a fundamentalist methodology are centered around this fear and need.

The primary method of fundamentalism for dealing with doubt is certainty. The spiritual practice of certainty is the personal commitment to something or things as absolute and unquestionable truth. Now, many will immediately think of those who believe with absolute conviction that every word of the Bible is literally true and the divine word of God… but there is another step for this to become a fundamentalist belief. I know many non-fundamentalists who believe with deep spiritual power in the inerrancy of the Bible. For such a belief to be fundamentalist, I believe two other ingredients are necessary.

First, the primary reason for this belief (whether understood by the individual or not) is to serve as a psychological defense against doubt. The second necessary ingredient is an inability to accept that others can and should be allowed to believe differently than yourself.

The inclusion of these three aspects of a methodology of belief is what I term to be “fundamentalist”: certainty as a defense against doubt that cannot allow for others to disagree. Often they cannot allow for others to believe other than they do (and remain in relationship to them) because someone believing otherwise reinforces the doubt that is at the center of the need for a fundamentalist methodology.

The creation of certainty requires certain tools and practices. First and foremost, it requires simplifying an infinitely complex world. The infinitely complex nature of the universe (and for my Christian readers, of God) in itself reinforces doubt in any understanding and sources of meaning that we limited humans can conceive of. Fundamentalists therefore often simplify our complex world into a binary understanding based upon the Good vs. Evil, Right vs. Wrong paradigm. Gradiations in value are threatening to many fundamentalists, because it reinforces the doubt that is at the core of the need for both a liberal or a fundamentalist methodology.

I have used Christian Fundamentalism as an example, (somewhat reticently) because it is what would be on most readers mind in discussing this topic… but fundamentalism is by no means limited to Christianity. Fundamentalism is a way of engaging with a set of beliefs or a religious faith, and it can be operable regardless of what belief-set or faith you choose. What Fundamentalist Christians, Fundamentalist Muslims, Fundamentalist Humanists, Fundamentalist Atheists, and any other kind of Fundamentalist tradition have in common is not what they believe, but how they believe.

Fundamentalism is not limited (by any means) to religion. In truth, Fundamentalism may be more common outside of religion than within religion. Many of the most ardent activists on a variety of issues are Fundamentalists. Though in Social Justice this is most common among “Single-Issue Activists”, it is not limited to them. Some of the most ardent Fundamentalists I have ever met have been peace activists. Many activists on both sides of the abortion issue are also Fundamentalists.

Fundamentalism can move beyond religion, beyond activism, and into anything that anyone can hold a belief in, from people to sporting teams. I have seen people hold fundamentalist beliefs in their own inerrancy, or in the power of capitalism, or in a political party or in one’s racial superiority. Remember the formulae I am proposing: Certainty as a psychological defense against doubt that cannot be in relationship with those who disagree. See if you do not also see this pattern repeated in the world around you.

Though I’m sure that my opinion on this methodology of belief is clear, I am freely willing to admit that this is a bias on my part. For many, this is the only productive way they can find to deal with the fear and danger of a universe that is as complex and as filled with doubt as the one we inhabit. Just as I cannot live as a fundamentalist, I fully understand that many cannot accept a liberal methodology that calls you to “cherish your doubts”. I would not take their fundamentalist methodology away from them, even if I could, simply because it is the way they have found to make meaning in the world.

There are two problems with this stance on my part as to the need many in our society have for a fundamentalist methodology, and I will point them out before my colleagues here at Celestial Lands do. First, whatever I might wish to do, there is an inherent aspect of the fundamentalist methodology that does not allow them to issue me the same courtesy. My adoption of a different methodology of belief is threatening, as it reinforces the doubt that is at the center of all of human relationships to belief.

The second problem gets to the other definition I promised with this essay, the definition of Extremist Fundamentalism. This definition is much, much simpler, and I believe it is on the rise throughout all the different types of fundamentalist belief-sets. Simply put, an Extremist Fundamentalist is someone who resorts to violence (or plans to resort to violence) in order to suppress, stop, or terrorize those who believe other than they do.

If you want to read the writings of a fundamentalist who took to extremism, I recommend to you the Unabomber’s Manifesto. Theodore Kaczynski was a fundamentalist in his belief that technology and modern society were destroying civilization. He became an extremist fundamentalist when he chose to send bombs through the mail to draw attention to his beliefs. His Manifesto is a case study in both fundamentalism and extremism… and it has nothing to do with religion.

Yours in Faith,

David

Within 24 hours of each other, one assassin walked into a church and shot a doctor who provided late-term abortions, while he was handing out orders of worship, and another assassin shot up a military recruiting center, killing a soldier right out of basic training, and wounding another. Both of them felt they were right, they seem to have had religious motivations for their action. Both of them attacked people who were fulfilling legal and even necessary roles in our society. Both of them were captured after their act.

I usually try to post only polished articles here on Celestial Lands. Usually I spend days if not weeks or months pondering an article before I even begin writing… and articles have sat on my computer weeks before being posted. This, however, is not one of those articles.

Extremism, Fundamentalism, and the motivations of an Assassin have nothing to do with any particular beliefs. Every single belief set (including those of liberal faith) can inspire certain individuals to extremist speech and actions. Extremist Christians who are today celebrating the death of a doctor in his church have more in common with Al Qaeda than with the rest of Christianity. The assassin who killed a young soldier in Little Rock today has more in common with Neo-Nazi skinheads than with the majority of adherents of whatever religion he claims.

Notice I have not mentioned the supposed causes of either of these individuals. That is not by mistake, nor is it because I am trying to cover them up. It is because I don’t think the stated causes of these individuals are the real motivation for their action, just as I do not believe that the claimed religious views of most fundamentalists have anything to do with why they are fundamentalist (including the liberal faith fundamentalists out there).

Fundamentalism has nothing to do with any belief-set or religion (those are just the medium) and everything to do with deep insecurities within the individual. When a man walked into my first UU Church and started shooting people last summer, he claimed it was because liberals were destroying the country, but it was really because he needed to feel powerful, important, and superior.

One man killed a doctor in his hospital yesterday because of his deep need to feel important. Another man killed one and wounded another young man in an Army Recruiting Center for the same reason. What they claim as their motives was just an excuse, one they were goaded into accepting by others in their communities and in the media. Though they might never have committed their action had they not found a justification for it, the need to commit such atrocities has nothing to do with the justification itself. It is deeper than that.

Before any of us on the liberal side of American politics get high and mighty, remember that the majority of attacks upon recruiting stations in recent memory have been by liberal anti-war fundamentalists. Remember the truth behind the phrase “Eco-Terrorism”. Remember that before Homeland Security issued their report on Right-Wing Extremist Groups, they issued on the Left-Wing ones. The hands of the left are not clean on this issue either, though we have been moving away as others have been moving toward accepting such criminal acts.

Fundamentalist Extremism is the issue… not whatever motives or issues they might claim.

 http://celestiallands.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=219

Yours in Faith,

David

Many of you know that I am currently in Washington DC on “Active Duty for Training” (ADT). I am actually at Ft. McNair at the National Defense University, doing some research on Spirituality and Military Ethics. Right down the street from my Visitors Quarters are the barracks and the HQ for A Company, (The Commander-in-Chief’s Guard) of the 1st Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard)… the longest standing Infantry unit in the U.S. Army. It is a place steeped in history and tradition, and it is that history and tradition that reminds soldiers how and why they are different than “contractors”. We are responsible to something other than pay.

Having lived here a week, my uniform back on, I had thought all week that on Friday night after my first week’s duty, I would go out to visit the war memorials on the National Mall. However, when Friday came, there was thunder and lightning, rain and more rain, and I almost did not go.

Then it hit me… most of the soldiers for whom we built these memorials were out there, in the rain, facing the thunder and the lightning (both natural and man made). So I went anyway.

I don’t think I ever want to visit those memorials except when it is raining… when my pants are soaked, and cold rainwater is sliding under my hood. When my feet are slogging through flowing puddles, and when lightning is reflecting off of the memorials. We should never be comfortable when we visit the memorials to all of those killed in the wars we have fought. Comfort makes us want to honor them… to honor war, but honor is not the point of those memorials.

The point is to remember, to never forget the cost of using the military force of this nation. The point of those memorials is not to name those soldiers heroes, but to remember that they are dead, and to remember the cost in lives that politicians decide to pay when they use military force. All soldiers ever buy is time, and they buy it in blood. It is up to us what we do with that time, and we cannot, we must not waste it.

Nowhere was this more clear than the Korean War memorial, where faces of those who are gone stare at us from behind a hard granite wall of separation. They stare at statues of a small military unit, in their rain ponchos, moving through brush.

Remember, and make sure the cost is worth paying before you do it again.

Yours in faith,

David

Some more photos:

“Each time I have to stand by the “Chaplain Corps” table strewn with religious and spiritual information for the National Guard Soldiers I support, I find myself yearning deeply for material that is representative of the open, diverse, nurturing, affirming and accepting ideas of the UU tradition…So many of our military service members are hungry for a community that allows them to develop and grow in a faith that fits who they are and what they believe.”

-Second Lieutenant Kelly Cummins, Chaplain Candidate

Not since 1942 has Unitarian Universalism provided resources to our service members or the chaplains who serve them. We are now seeking to publish a collection of materials that provides encouragement and comfort to Armed Service men and women in their times of need. Such a collection is an alternative to the usual religious literature that is readily and abundantly available to service members. Additionally, this collection would spread the word about our Unitarian Universalist values.

In order to begin publication of this handbook, we are seeking to raise $25,000 before June 30, 2009 to produce, manufacture and distribute 20,000 copies at no charge to service members, military chaplains, and military chapels.

So far, the UUA has raised $7,500 for this special project.
In honor of Memorial Day on May 25th, Click Here to Read More or to Donate Now!

http://www.uua.org/giving/donatenow/142432.shtml

 Click here for Access to my Memorial Day Sermon at the Northshore Unitarian Church in Deerfield Illinois this year:  http://celestiallands.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=122

Yours in Faith,

David

When I first learned of reports that certain high level government reports from soon after 9/11 had been framed using Judeao-Christian scripture, I was neither surprised nor outraged. Perhaps I have become desensitized, but it is little more than I have come to expect from that time in our nation’s history.

Perhaps it was not the brightest public relations move, but the attitude behind it was deeply imbued in our government during the last administration. It might not have been within a strict understanding of the separation of church and state, but the prior administration were not “strict constructionists” on that particular issue. It might have been contrary to the interests of our nation if we were perceived as “crusaders”, but I’m not certain that our top government officials of the day would have agreed with me on that. They might have thought there was a benefit to our being perceived in such a way.

One of the many things I have learned in seminary is that I can, if I wished to, find a section of biblical scripture and use it out of context to imply just about anything I wish. I can make the bible seem to support modern polygamy, slavery, hatred, homophobia, violence against women, violence against the other, and yes… even crusades against those who believe other than I do. Out of context, biblical scripture can be used to justify just about any atrocity or prejudice I might wish.

And we humans are great at justifying things.

Yet when such out of context uses of scripture are placed against the overall context of the message of Jesus of Nazareth, they often fail to live up to what it means to be Christian. When I place the “scriptures of hate” as John Spong put it, up against the overall message of honoring God, loving your neighbors, loving engagement with the other, and redress of hypocrisy… such out of context, small text uses of scripture seem what they are… disingenuous at best, and maliciously misleading at worst. They portray a caricature of the Christian Faith that is disconnected from the root teachings of Jesus.

To put it another way, such groups that use out of context biblical references to justify crusade, hatred, and atrocity are doing to Christianity the exact same thing that radical Islamacists are doing to Islam… portraying religions of peace and love as religions of war and hatred. This is the danger of a biblical or scriptural literalism that does not understand historical, societal, cultural, or even textural contexts for the religions themselves. This is the danger of believing that either the Bible or the Koran is the “Perfectly infallible Word of God”.

Even if that were true… even if any scripture were the perfectly infallible Word of God… that does not mean that we humans would always understand it perfectly nor does it take into account the continuing human tendency to seek justification for our baser selves. Even if God is perfect and unlimited, we humans certainly are neither.

As to the government administration that misused out of context scriptural references to justify a sense of “Crusade” they were already feeling, in the end the responsibility for that comes down upon the American People who elected them. And I don’t want to hear about the Supreme Court and Bush v. Gore… the American People, including myself, still bear responsibility for letting it even get that close. We elected individuals willing to misuse scripture and mislead millions of earnest Conservative Christians into believing that Jesus would have supported a political agenda involving fear and war instead of hope and peace… and that’s just not the Jesus I know. We knew that when we elected them the first time, and we certainly knew it when we elected them the second time. We can not now pretend outrage and shock at something so in character.

We can only remember the lesson, and commit ourselves to electing only those who will not misuse religion in such a way.

Yours in Faith,

David

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A few months ago, I sat in awe as I watched a young U.S. Army National Guard Infantry First Lieutenant violate Title 10 of the U.S. Code on the Rachel Maddow Show, by saying three words… “I Am Gay”. He said it knowing full well the consequences of that act, knowing that it would probably end his military career. He chose to violate “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Harass, Don’t Pursue” in about as public a forum as he could find… cable news. You could tell from Rachel’s reaction that she did not know what he was going to do (but she might have suspected).

All military officers have sworn to uphold the Constitution, and to obey the orders of those lawfully appointed over us… including this young First Lieutenant. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is legally binding law, and we all swore an oath to uphold it… even though as a Chaplain and as a Chaplain Candidate (and Chaplain Assistants, as well) confidentiality would bind me from “telling” anyone what a solider tells me, no matter what it is about. Whether or not I agree with a law or a lawful order given by those appointed over me is immaterial. Most of you could probably guess my personal opinion on this issue, but as a military officer I committed, for the privilege of serving, to certain restrictions upon my civil rights… in this case the right of free speech.

Yet there is a part of me that admired the young officer when he took his stand on the issue of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, knowing full well the consequences of that action. He appeared of the Rachel Maddow show again today, to tell her that the process of his being removed from the military has begun. The segment also carried the text of a note from our Commander-in-Chief stating his intent to work to change the law sent to another officer currently being removed from the military for a similar violation of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

One of the things my career soldier father taught me is that there are times a person may feel compelled to break a law, so long as they are willing to pay the price of that action. Now, in his mind this was more in the realm of “exigent circumstances” and not a stand for justice… but the principle applies all the same.

I don’t think I have ever followed my father’s advice, ever publically broken the law as an act of principle. Reaction to the idea of breaking the law for the excuse “exigent circumstances” was one of the seeds that eventually led me from being a conservative to the flaming liberal I am today… but I recognize someone who does follow this principle on issues of justice that they care passionately about.

As a military officer, I regret that this young man felt he had to end his military career by violating a direct order on national television.  As a UU Ministerial Candidate and the boy who learned at my father’s knee… I am in awe. 

Yours in Faith,

David