Category Archives: Religion

When Life Begins, or Not (Formerly Chao-chou’s Dog Has Puppies)

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I see that Lance Mannion has taken up the question of when “life” begins. I see that Shakespeare’s Sister mostly agrees with Lance; Jedmunds of Pandagon mostly doesn’t.

Now I want to confuse everyone by arguing that “when life begins” is the wrong question. It’s the wrong question because life doesn’t begin. Or, at least, it hasn’t begun on this planet in a very long time. However life got to Earth — between 3 and 4 billion years ago, I believe — once it established it hasn’t been observed to “begin” again. It just continues, expressing itself in countless forms. The forms come and go — in a sense — but not life itself.

It will be argued that fertilization marks the beginning of a unique individual and is, therefore, a significant moment in the life process — the point when a life begins. But let’s say a couple of weeks later the egg divides into twins or triplets. Did those individuals’ lives begin with the conception? Or, since they didn’t exist as individuals at conception, is the cell division something like an existential reboot?

Further, in the grand scheme of things, is any one moment really separable from all the other moments, the couplings, the countless episodes of cell mitosis going back to the first stromatolites and microbes and macromolecules to the beginning, which is beginningless as far as I know, considering that a stray enzyme at any point over billions of years would have resulted in you being a lungfish?

I don’t have an answer to that. I’m just sayin’ “beginnings” are way overrated.

The real question, seems to me, is when does an individual begin? Is there a clear, bright moment at which we can all agree, “yep, that’s Fred,” and be done with it?

Some argue that the product of pregnancy is a unique individual from conception because its DNA is different from its mother’s. But if unique DNA combinations are what make a unique individual, you’d have to conclude that the twins from the third paragraph are the same person, divided. And if we give you a transplanted heart, lung, and kidney, each with unique DNA combinations from their respective donors, does that make you four different people?

I don’t think science can help us with this one, people. Indeed, if you step back and look at human civilization throughout space and time, you might notice that “person” is a social construct that has been constructed in very different ways by different societies. At various times only men, or only people of a certain skin color, or only people from our tribe, or only people of a particular caste or class, were considered “persons.” We may think we have reached maximum enlightenment by considering all human beings “persons” (assuming we all do, which I question), but it’s possible our distant descendants will expand “person” to include, say, other primates, whales, dolphins, and border collies. You never know.

The argument made by many opponents to legal abortion is that the product of pregnancy is human life, and human life is sacred; therefore, it must be protected. There’s no question that a living human embryo is both alive and human, but when you call it “sacred” you’re throwing a religious concept into the mix. And the great religions of the world do not at all agree on the question of when (or even whether) “human life” becomes “sacred.” Some say at conception, some say at “quickening,” some say at viability, some say at birth. And some will tell you that everything and nothing are equally sacred, so stop asking stupid questions.

The reason we’re even having this discussion is to settle the question of abortion as a matter of law. But as a legal matter, the question of when humans are allowed to take the lives of other humans rarely has absolutist answers. Some kind of regulation about who can kill whom is necessary for civilization, since we can’t very comfortably live together in communities without some assurance our neighbors won’t throttle us in our sleep. But there are always loopholes. Through history, in many societies (even Christian ones), a noble could kill a peasant or slave without penalty. Today governments can order wars or impose a death penalty, and legally that’s not murder.

I tend to get impatient with people who argue that laws are based on morality, and abortion is immoral, therefore it ought to be illegal. As I said in the last paragraph, there are some laws essential to human civilization. These laws regulate who can kill whom and who can own what. They make commerce possible by imposing penalties for fraud. They make complex human enterprises possible by enforcing contracts. Exactly how law has regulated these matters has changed considerably over time; the important point is that, within a given society, there are basic rules everyone is supposed to agree to so that society can function.

The realm of morality, however, is separate from the realm of legality. There are all manner of things that we might consider immoral that are not, in fact, illegal; adultery is a good example. Such acts may have harmful personal consequences, but regulating them isn’t necessary to civilization. And I don’t see what’s immoral about, say, misjudging how many coins you should put in the parking meter. That’s why I tend to see the legal versus moral question on a Venn diagram. The diagram here isn’t entirely accurate since the blue area should be bigger — law and morality intersect more often than they don’t. I’m just saying that answering the moral question of abortion (assuming we ever will) does not tell us whether an act should be legal or not. In fact, since abortion is legal (with varying restrictions) in most democratic nations today with no discernible damage to civilization itself, I’d say the abortion question falls outside the blue area of the diagram.

On the question of morality I disagree a lot with Ezra Klein when he says “confused polling on abortion is evidence that Americans have confused views on abortion.” I think people are not so much confused as limited. Our conceptions of life or humanity or individuality or the self are to a large extent conditioned into us by our culture. It’s very hard to step outside of our conditioning and take a broader view. We’re all blind men feeling an elephant — our ideas about what an elephant is depend on what particular part we happen to be feeling (an elephant is like a a tree trunk? a wall? a fan?). Following this metaphor, there are all manner of people in America today who do not feel confused at all about that elephant. They’ve got hold of its trunk, and they are certain it’s just like a snake. End of argument.

If anything, most people aren’t confused enough.

Our notions of where a fetus fits on the morality scale depend very much on the angle from which we view the question. A fetus is human. But humans are sentient, and a fetus is (so science tells us) insentient. A fetus is like a parasite, or a lower life form. A fetus is God. A fetus is a baby. A fetus is not a baby. A fetus is a potential baby. A fetus is sacred. Nothing is sacred. Everything is sacred.

How about, All of the above?

In case you’re wondering, from a Buddhist perspective it might be argued that since a “person” is an aggregate of the five skandhas (form, sensation, perception, discrimination, consciousness) and an embryo or fetus has only form, it’s not a person. On the other hand, Buddhism teaches that each of us is all of us, throughout space and time. The cells of whatever is conceived contain all life forms, from the beginningless beginning to the endless end, perfect and complete. Interfering with life’s attempts to express itself is a serious matter.

So where does that leave us? It leaves us with individuals who have to make hard choices. Struggling with hard choices is a distinctively human activity. I think it’s something we need to do to be fully human. It helps us wake up. The decisions we make may be less important than the fact that we can make decisions.

I have written in the past (such as here) why I think abortion should be legal, at least until the fetus is viable. My opinion is based mostly on the effects of abortion law in the lives of women. You might notice I don’t spin my wheels much over the question of morality, since I’ve come to see that morality depends on the state of mind in which one acts as much as the act itself. People do “good” things for selfish reasons, and “bad” things for altruistic reasons. Judge not, lest ye be judged.

So, I say, ambiguity is good for you; don’t be afraid of it. Go forth and be human and work it out for yourselves.

[Note: The title of the post refers to the first koan of The Mumonkon. If it doesn’t make any sense to you, that’s OK.]

Taking the Bait

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Via Buzzflash — what they’re not telling us about the Mohammed cartoon controversy and why the violence is erupting now and not when the cartoons were first published in September 2005.

According to this blogger, the cartoon controversy erupted because of a classic rightie-style misdirection campaign perpetrated by the Saudis. The plan was to get people worked up about the cartoons to take public attention away from the deaths of 350 pilgrims at the Hajj.

These were not unavoidable accidents, they were the results of poor planning by the Saudi government.

And while the deaths of these pilgrims was a mere blip on the traditional western media’s radar, it was a huge story in the Muslim world. Most of the pilgrims who were killed came from poorer countries such as Pakistan, where the Hajj is a very big story. Even the most objective news stories were suddenly casting Saudi Arabia in a very bad light and they decided to do something about it.

Their plan was to go on a major offensive against the Danish cartoons. The 350 pilgrims were killed on January 12 and soon after, Saudi newspapers (which are all controlled by the state) began running up to 4 articles per day condemning the Danish cartoons. The Saudi government asked for a formal apology from Denmark. When that was not forthcoming, they began calling for world-wide protests. After two weeks of this, the Libyans decided to close their embassy in Denmark. Then there was an attack on the Danish embassy in Indonesia. And that was followed by attacks on the embassies in Syria and then Lebanon.

Many European papers, including the right-wing German Springer media group, fanned the flames by reprinting the cartoons. And now you have the situation we are in today, with lots of video footage of angry crowds and the storming of embassies and calls for boycotts of Danish and European products. [emphasis added]

What did I say about not taking bait?

Meanwhile the Right Blogosphere has gone foaming-at-the-mouth, hair-on-fire crazy over the cartoon controversy. They’ve worked themselves up to a screaming pitch about the mad dog Muslims who are fixing to massacre Europe. They have gone off the insufferable self-righteousness scale because most American newspapers will not republish the cartoons, and those newspapers and the State Department and, of course, liberals are all wussie sell-outs of democratic principles.

Can we say they’ve come unhinged? I think we can.

Michelle Malkin, who must have steam coming out of her ears by now, wants to know what the Left has to say. In the past couple of days a few leftie bloggers have offered opinions, including me. Here’s a sampler.

Via Roxie, Josh Marshall says,

… there is a hint of the absurd in this story, the way continents of people get swept up in reaction to some simple pictures. But this episode seems like a model for what I imagine we’ll be living with for the rest of our lives. There’s something peculiarly 21st century about this conflict — both in the way that it’s rooted in the world of media and also in the way that it shows these two societies or cultures … well, all I can think of to use is the clunky 21st centuryism — they can’t interface. The gap is too large. The language is too different. One’s coming in at 30 degree angle, the other at 90.

He’s not letting rioting Muslims off the hook:

An open society, a secular society can’t exist if mob violence is the cost of giving offense. And that does seem like what’s on offer here. That’s the crux of this issue — that the response is threatened violence and more practical demands that such outrages must end. … So liberal mores versus theocratic mores. Where’s the possible compromise? There isn’t any. On the face of it this gets portrayed as an issue of press freedom. But this is much more fundamental. ‘Press freedom’ is just one cog in the machinery of a society that doesn’t believe in or accept the idea of ‘blasphemy’. Now, an important cog? Yes. But I think we’re fooling ourselves to reduce this to something so juridical and rights based.

And it’s not just Muslims:

I don’t want to imply this is only a Muslims versus modernity issue. I know not all Muslims embrace these views. More to the point, it’s not only Muslims who do. You see it among the haredim in Israel. And I see it with an increasing frequency here in the US. Is it just me or does it seem that more and more often there are public controversies in which ‘blasphemy’ is considered some sort of legitimate cause of action — as if ‘blasphemy’ can actually have any civic meaning in a society like ours. Anyway, you get the idea.

The idea I get is that this entire clash appears to be happening on the Right end of the political scale. Muslim extremists and western wingnuts are whipping each other into a mutual hate frenzy. Liberals, for the most part, aren’t getting caught up in it. We’re not taking the bait.

This next paragraph of Josh Marshall’s is brilliant, so I’m going to quote it even though it stretches the scope of this post a tad.

Much, probably most of what gets talked about as the ‘war on terror’ in politics today is a crock — a stalking horse for political power grabs, a masquerade of rage and revanchism, a running excuse for why we’ve made so many stupid decisions over the last five years. In some cases, on a more refined plain, it’s rooted in intellectual or existential boredom. But beyond all the mumbojumbo about how we’re helping ourselves by permanently occupying Iraq and running the country’s finances into the ground, there is a conflict. There is a basic rupture in the world.

Wow, that’s good.

Anyway, elsewhere on the Left Blogosphere, Dr. Atrios says,

I’m not too sympathetic with the notion that anything under the cover of religion is automatically entitled to deference. On the other hand, “don’t be an asshole” about peoples’ religious beliefs when they aren’t trying to impose them on you seems to be reasonably good etiquette. The cartoons weren’t funny and the visual portrayal of Mohammed was done just to “be an asshole” without any larger point to it. It’s like parading around in blackface just for the hell of it. There’s no point other than “I’m doing this to see who I can piss off.” I certainly defend the right to piss people off, though not always the decision to do so.

Sensible. Shakespeare’s Sister takes note of Atrios, and adds,

I’m not totally sure I would classify radical Islamists as not trying to impose their religious beliefs. I believe that is, in fact, one of their primary goals, both religious and political, which makes me inclined to feel that commentary on those goals, even in the form of cartoons likely to offend, is fair game, and therefore defensible. (The flipside of that is that I find this response of radical Muslims, including calls to kidnap Danes and “cut them into as many pieces as the number of newspapers that printed the cartoons,” and assertions that this conflagration never would never had erupted “if a 17-year-old death edict against writer Salman Rushdie been carried out” because “then those lowlifers would not have dared discredit the Prophet,” indefensible.) I’m a bit concerned that in our attempts to rebuke the rightwing onslaught to denigrate all of Islam as fundamentally violent, we have begun to minimize the reality that there is indeed a segment of Islam that actively seeks to convert infidels and slaughter those who refuse. It strikes me as dangerously naïve to ignore the ambitions of an extremist Islamic element who, given the first opportunity, would happily impose their religious beliefs on the rest of us, and just because a jihadist hasn’t knocked on one’s door peddling their wares doesn’t make it any less true.

Steve Gilliard has a long post that I urge you to read. It includes an interlude by Steve’s blogging partner, Jen, who is more sympathetic to the Danes than is Steve.

Jazz at Running Scared links to and explicates a rightie blog post, and observes:

The bottom line is this: Shackleford is at least coming very close to admitting what many on the far Right clearly seem to believe, but are not willing to openly state. That is, we are not simply fighting terrorists and radical extremists, but are in fact engaged in a holy war against Islam.

This, IMO, gets to the heart of why the Right Blogosphere is obsessed with this story, the way they were obsessed with the recent French riots. They want a holy war against Islam. They are itching for it. Not that any of them would volunteer to fight, of course … See also Jazz’s post “The Bloodlust of the Unhinged Right Wing.”

The Green Knight sums it up:

There’s still the fact that the rioters are being idiots. Sometimes, there’s no good guy. A newspaper prints cartoons that are meant to “test the limits of political correctness” (i.e. to offend people on purpose, i.e. to be an asshole); the completely over-the-top result is riots around the world.

Nope. No good guy here.

Not that Malkin will ever link any of this.

See also a Muslim’s opinion.

Update: See also Amanda at Pandagon: “We’re All Batshit Crazy Crusaders Now.” Georgia10 asks, “Where the hell is Karen Hughes?” And Steve M writes to Michelle Malkin.

Update update: Malkin is still claiming the Left is “silent” on the cartoon issue. If you want to click on Malkin’s links to other rightie comments on the so-called “silence” of the Left, you see a whole lotta straw man arguments — e.g., “I’m hearing this argument – that only Muslims are fair game for criticism, and that editorial cartoonists never, ever savage Christianity or Judaism” — followed by examples of anti-Bush cartoons that skewer Bush’s religiosity. And one crude cartoon savaging Ariel Sharon and the Israeli Likud party is provided as an example of something “anti-Semitic.” The examples are all from the British press, btw; apparently the blogger couldn’t find examples from American media that were nasty enough to suit him.

Then the fellow goes on to say (in effect; I am, of course, paraphrasing) that because these British cartoons offended him, then American newspapers had better publish the Mohammed cartoons to defend freedom of expression. Yes, once again we see the foundation of all American conservative moral principles — they do it too.

Cartoon Karma

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I know some of you won’t be interested in this, but I’m gonna write it anyway …

The Right Blogosphere has become even more unhinged over the Mohammed cartoon riots as they did over the French riots. Just check out the links on Memeorandum.

Apparently the Danish cartoons came about because a Danish author was having trouble finding an illustrator for a book about Islam. Arthur MacMillan wrote for The Scotsman that publication of the cartoons was “intended to generate a debate about freedom of speech.” Well, it’s done that. Andrew Sullivan said that “The cartoons were not designed to ‘incite religious or ethnic hatreds.’ They were designed to protest such incitement – and we have the corpses of Theo van Gogh and Pim Fortuyn as useful proof.”

Whatever the original inspiration, most of the cartoons did not focus on the acts of particular Muslims but instead depicted Mohammed and Muslims in general as homicidal whackjobs. So some bad acts incited more bad acts, which incited violence among Muslims, which incited some Europeans to republish the cartoons to show they weren’t gonna let Muslims tell them what to do, and the violence got worse, and now the nice doggie’s readers are stocking up on ammo. I don’t know if anyone’s been killed yet, but if no one dies before this firestorm dies down it’s going to be a miracle.

It occurred to me that this episode is a textbook example of karma. I was taught by the Zennies that the Sanskrit word karma means action, in particular actions created willfully by both deeds and words. In other words, it’s all about cause and effect. Karma has its own law of physics; once set in motion, it tends to stay in motion. So, for example, Bill may have a hard day at work and come home and yell at Mary, who then loses her temper and takes it out on Junior, who kicks the dog. That bad temper being passed from one person to another is karma.

This cartoon flap is karma writ large.

I am repelled by violence, and I admit I am repelled by Muslims’ violent reaction to the cartoons. But the way to respond is not to work oneself into a self-righteous hateful snit, as our home-grown righties are doing, and use the violence as an excuse to hurl hatespeech back. The way to respond is, first, to refuse to be baited. Refuse to hate back. This is, I believe, what Jesus was reaching to when he said “turn the other cheek.” I’m sure it’s what the Buddha meant when he said,

Occasions of hatred are certainly never settled by hatred. They are settled by freedom from hatred. This is the eternal law.

Others may not understand that we must practice self-control, but quarrelling dies away in those who understand this fact. — The Buddha (the Dhammapada, Pairs 3-6)

The consensus on the Right is that “we’re better because we’re not rioting and burning stuff and issuing death threats. We are verbal haters only.” That won’t win ’em any Buddha points; thoughts and words create evil karma as well as deeds.

I’m not calling for toleration of lawbreaking and violence. As I said, I am repelled by death threats and acts of vandalism. I can’t control what people do in their own countries, but if Muslims in Europe don’t get control of themselves I suspect law enforcement will take control for them. I don’t see any way around that. Most western nations take a dim view of gangs of people using violence and threats to prevent citizens from personal and lawful activities. (The United States may be one of the few exceptions — the anti-abortion rights terrorists are getting away with shutting down abortion clinics all over the country. But that’s another rant.)

But the more I think about it, the clearer it is to me that newspapers that choose not to republish the cartoons are acting correctly. I agree with this Boston Globe editorial —

This was a case of seeking a reason to exercise a freedom that had not been challenged. No government, political party, or corporate interest was trying to deny the paper its right to publish whatever it wanted. The original purpose of printing the cartoons — some of which maliciously and stupidly identified Mohammed with terrorists, who could want nothing better than to be associated with the prophet — was plainly to be provocative. Islam prohibits the depiction of Mohammed in any way, whether the image is benign or not.

Other European papers reprinted the cartoons in a reflex of solidarity. Journalists in free societies have a healthy impulse to assert their hard-won right to insult powerful forces in society. Freedom of the press need not be weakened, however, when it is infused with restraint. This should not be restraint rooted in fear of angering a government, a political movement, or an advertiser. As with the current consensus against publishing racist or violence-inciting material, newspapers ought to refrain from publishing offensive caricatures of Mohammed in the name of the ultimate Enlightenment value: tolerance.

Just as the demand from Muslim countries for European governments to punish papers that printed the cartoons shows a misunderstanding of free societies, publishing the cartoons reflects an obtuse refusal to accept the profound meaning for a billion Muslims of Islam’s prohibition against any pictorial representation of the prophet. Depicting Mohammed wearing a turban in the form of a bomb with a sputtering fuse is no less hurtful to most Muslims than Nazi caricatures of Jews or Ku Klux Klan caricatures of blacks are to those victims of intolerance. That is why the Danish cartoons will not be reproduced on these pages.

I admit my opinion is based more on religious philosophy than political philosophy. Politically, the issue is more dicey.

Eugene Volokh is pissed at the Boston Globe because he couldn’t find condemnation of the famous “Piss Christ” photograph in their archives, possibly because the Jesus-soaked-in-pee photo was in the news in the late 1980s and the Globe online archives don’t seem to go back that far. As for the Brooklyn Museum’s display of “the Virgin Mary covered in feces” — I don’t believe that’s accurate. As I remember, the work in particular did not “cover” the image of the Virgin in feces; rather, the image was rendered in medium made partly of elephant dung. (Whether the art was disrespectful or not depends on the beholder, seems to me. I once saw a Zen student make a Buddha out of dog poop and set fire to it, as a demonstration that all things are buddha and also impermanent. The monks were fine with this.) Anyway, the Globe defended the art, which Volokh found inconsistent.

Maybe. Again I am guided by Buddhism, which teaches that purity of motive is essential to purity of action. From that perspective, if the Globe reprinted the Mohammed cartoons it would be an impure act, because they would be doing it only to “get back” at the rioting Muslims. The cartoons are not up to the Globe’s standards and would not have been published for any other reason. If the cartoons were something the Globe wanted to publish for their own sake, however, that would make publishing them an entirely different act even if the Muslims were rioting about them.

I know this sounds convoluted, but that’s how I see it.

Update: Juan Cole takes a stab at explaining the Muslim perspective.

Update update: See also Joe Gandelman: “…some editors don’t feel they have to publish them to maintain their right to publish them or show that they have this right.”

See also Editor & Publisher.

Update update update: A cartoonist’s perspective.

Happy Holy Day

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Today is the observance of the annual cease fire on the war on Christmas. Christmas wins, again. In celebration, people wallow waist deep in shredded gift wrap and prepare the armistice feast.

Once proper tribute is paid to the default holy day we take a moment to acknowledge the alternate choices on the menu, such as Hanukkah — a minor Jewish observance that got caught up in the Christmas gravitational pull — and Kwanzaa. Some Buddhist sects observe “Bodhi Day” — the anniversary of the enlightenment of the Buddha — in December also. But this is a day dedicated to silent meditation on the ephemeral nature of all physical things, so those who observe it like to get it out of the way early in the month.

A less rigorous way to observe Bodhi Day is to rent a copy of “Little Buddha” and watch Keanu Reaves re-enact the enlightenment of Prince Siddhartha. Although some Buddhists really hated this film, I was charmed by Reaves’s portrayal of the World-Honored One. Especially the part where the Prince gets flustered when his Dad says no, he can not go off into the woods and become a wandering holy man like all the other guys. Like, dude.

Some people knock Kwanzaa as a “made up” holiday, but then, so is Christmas. By now you’ve probably heard that the date, not provided in Scripture, was chosen to compete with the Roman Saturnalia and the pagan Yule. Recognition of December 25 as the day of Jesus’ birth dates from the fourth century or so, however, so it was made up a long time ago.

Then there’s the question of how much of the traditional Birth of Jesus story is true, and indeed, how much of the Jesus Is God story is true. This is a matter that needs to be taken on faith, since historians tend to be skeptical. Some scholars like to point out that the virgin birth-in-a-manger story was left out of the earliest gospel, Mark, indicating that when Mark was written (ca. 70 AD) the story wasn’t in circulation yet. The gospel of Luke, which contains the most complete virgin birth story, was written several years later, possibly as late as 130-150 AD. The process of the deification of Jesus was by then well under way.

(For a rollicking good read on how the process ended — including riots in the streets, political intrigue, and the alleged murder of one Church Father at the hands of another — I recommend When Jesus Became God: The Struggle to Define Christianity during the Last Days of Rome by Richard Rubenstein. If you liked I, Claudius, you’ll love WJBG.)

But in her book Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews : A Jewish Life and the Emergence of Christianity, Professor Paula Fredriksen of Boston U depicts the historical Y’shuah as a devout Jew who would have been appalled at the notion that he was God. Frederiksen and other scholars argue that Jesus was really about purifying Judaism, not starting a whole ‘nother religion to compete with it, and certainly not claiming to be a world redeemer or messiah. First-generation Christianity was considered to be a Jewish sect. I believe it wasn’t until after the destruction of the Temple (70 AD), when being Jewish was a tad, um, dangerous, that Christians drew a bright line between them and those other people. By then many of the members were Greek-speaking gentiles, and non-Jewish notions about who Jesus was and what he had been about were taking hold.

Then as now, people who feel the pain of life seek comfort in the sheltering arms of religion. But, once comforted, the religious have an unfortunate tendency to make others miserable for the sake of the faith. Human history is a long tale of sacrifice, oppression, inquisitions, war, and martyrdom in the name of religion. Religions themselves tend to follow the same trajectory — Once the Founder is gone, his original vision and teachings are quickly watered down by lesser followers. Sects form and begin to squabble with each other. Religious institutions and their leaders are corrupted, then reformed, then corrupted again.

So, it is not at all surprising that many grow hostile to religion. There is so much obvious hypocrisy and humbuggery in most religious institutions one might wonder why anyone with two brain cells to rub together gets taken in. But then there’s that pain of life thing, and the urge to look for someone or something more powerful than oneself to take the pain away.

And the fact is that religion can be redemptive. Yes, it has given us such loathesome creatures as Torquemada and James Dobson, but it’s also inspired Albert Schweitzer, Ghandi, and Aung San Suu Kyi. It may be that most of the popular beliefs of the major monotheistic religions — God, Lucifer, angels — can be traced back to ancient Persian folk tales, and much religious faith amounts to an emotional crutch. Yet an instant of pure experience — grace, epiphany, kensho — can be genuinely transformative. And I believe that beneath much of the fruitless hamster-wheel existance of modern life there is a deeply buried longing for a true spiritual path, a longing that modern Christianity rarely addresses. This same longing likely was felt by a Jewish fellow named Y’shuah who lived 2,000 years ago, and a king’s son named Siddhartha, who lived about five centuries earlier.

Instead of living the lives they’d been expected to live — one as a carpenter, and one as a king — both Y’shuah-Jesus and Siddhartha took off on their own difficult paths. Both struggled through a dark night of the soul (Jesus in the Wilderness, Siddhartha under the Bodhi Tree). And both seem to have found Something.

Jesus urged his followers to seek the Kingdom of Heaven. It was, he said, like a treasure hidden in a field; one who finds such a treasure will sell everything else he has to buy that field. Institutional Christianity, on the other hand, tries to replace the challenge of the spiritual path with easily digestible dogmas, comforting totems, and tribal identity. It’s spiritual distraction, not spiritual direction. And if there’s a better way to trivialize the life of Jesus than by whining that clerks in Target don’t say “Merry Christmas,” I can’t think of it.

But now it’s Christmas. We’ve got a day set aside to give each other presents and enjoy one another’s company, and there’s nothing wrong with that. And let’s remember Y’shuah, whoever he was, and honor his struggles, whatever they were. And if you ever feel an urge to do some spiritual seeking, I say heed the call and go for it.

May all beings find a true path.

Poor Babies

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Our friend Miki is back, complaining that I am not properly concerned about the persecution of Christians.

I can show instance after instance in which Christians are being suppressed. It is not just in our heads. People have been thrown in jail, Churches have been locked by government officials, children have been and are being harrassed in school because of their beliefs and those of their parents.

You’re on, toots. The only oppression of Christians in this country of which I am aware has been at the hands of OTHER Christians. Here’s an example. But if you can find a SINGLE EXAMPLE of Christian Americans being oppressed by non-Christians, or of any government officials at federal, state, or local level locking churches or throwing Christians in jail because of their beliefs — not for something they did, like break a law — then please tell us. Tell us here. Provide links. That goes for anyone else breezing through this blog. Put up or shut up.

Christmas Warriors II

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I am following up “Target Jesus” and “Christmas Warriors.” I want to respond at length to a commenter on “Target Jesus.”

Miki wrote,

I do feel like ,as a Christian, I’m being shoved into a little box. Where for hundreds of years Christianity was recognized as part of the national identity, now its as if we have become lepers to a small portion of the country so we must be bound, gaged and shoved into a small dark space out of the way. I’m not comfortable with that. I’m not for squashing anyone one elses religious freedoms because I dont want mine curtailed. That is the true problem here. Of course Christians are not quietly going into the closet without a struggle. Why on earth would you think they would?

I appreciate that the writer expressed her (or his) feelings honestly. She is getting into the true motives behind the Christmas wars, and I’d like to go into this a little more deeply.

I do feel like ,as a Christian, I’m being shoved into a little box.

The box you’re in is made up of your own ideas about who you think you are and how you think the world should be. It isn’t real.

Where for hundreds of years Christianity was recognized as part of the national identity,

We haven’t had a “national identity” for “hundreds of years.” In fact, many social historians don’t think we had much of a “national identity” until after the Civil War. I think you are imagining something that didn’t actually exist.

Thomas Jefferson wrote this in his autobiography, regarding the passage of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786):

The bill for establishing religious freedom, the principles of which had, to a certain degree, been enacted before, I had drawn in all the latitude of reason & right. It still met with opposition; but, with some mutilations in the preamble, it was finally passed; and a singular proposition proved that it’s protection of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word “Jesus Christ,” so that it should read “a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion.” The insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of it’s protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and infidel of every denomination.

In other words, in 1786, the Virginia legislature chose to keep Christ out of this document so as to respect the rights of the “Mahometan” and “Hindoo.”

It is true that the overwhelming majority of Americans have been Christian, but not being Christian never excluded anyone from being American. There have been Jews in North America for 350 years, for example, and Jews supported independence and fought in the Revolution. There have been Buddhists in America since the 1840s; today Buddhist Americans are getting themselves killed in Iraq.

This country is not the exclusive property of Christians. It never was.

“…now its as if we have become lepers to a small portion of the country so we must be bound, gaged and shoved into a small dark space out of the way.”

This is delusional. Christianity is the dominant religion. The amount of Christian-format television and radio broadcasts continues to grow; if you’ve got cable, you can watch Christianity on TV 24/7. What other religion in this country has television programming carried nationwide on cable?

Can you name a way that Christianity is being repressed, other than attempts by Christians to repress non-Christians? For example, trying to get Christian prayers recited in public school classrooms would be forcing non-Christians to observe Christianity, which many find annoying.

I’m not for squashing anyone one elses religious freedoms because I dont want mine curtailed.

How is your religious freedom being curtailed? How is it that you are prevented from believing and worshipping as you wish? Do you have any concrete examples? I’d really like to know, because I am not seeing anybody get in the way of Christian worship in this country. Well, except for other Christians.

What I am seeing, however, is that Christians are trying to use intimidation and sometimes the authority of government to force everyone else to kowtow to Christianity. News flash: This will not win you popularity contests.

Of course Christians are not quietly going into the closet without a struggle. Why on earth would you think they would?

Why on earth would you assume that I think they would? I am not anti-Christian. I think Christianity is a great religion. I just don’t think it’s the only religion, nor do I think it’s better or worse than other religions, including mine. I have no interest in feeding your victimization fantasy. If you want someone to put down Christianity so that you can indulge in feeling sorry for yourself, please go elsewhere.

I don’t want to end this on a snarky note. A couple of other commenters to the “Target Jesus” post defended the megachurches and felt they were being unfairly dissed. And, indeed, members of the megachurches have a right to observe Christmas any way they like. As I said in the Christmas Warriors post, normally I wouldn’t care whether the megachurches cancelled a Sunday morning service or not. It’s their business. But after all the CRAPOLA about some imaginary “war on Christmas,” the cancelled Sunday services just reeked of hypocrisy.

Christmas Warriors

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Laurie Goodstein writes in the New York Times that many Christian evangelicals are criticizing the megachurches that will be closed on Christmas.

Megachurches have long been criticized for offering “theology lite,” but some critics say that this time the churches have gone too far in the quest to make Christianity accessible to spiritual seekers.

“I see this in many ways as a capitulation to narcissism, the self-centered, me-first, I’m going to put me and my immediate family first agenda of the larger culture,” said Ben Witherington III, professor of New Testament interpretation at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Ky. “If Christianity is an evangelistic religion, then what kind of message is this sending to the larger culture – that worship is an optional extra?”

Frankly, I wouldn’t care if the megachurches cancelled a Sunday morning service, but combining that with the endless carping about the “war on Christmas” triggered the hypocrisy alarm, big time. Goodstein continues,

What some consider the deeper affront is in canceling services on a Sunday, which most Christian churches consider the Lord’s Day, when communal worship is an obligation. The last time Christmas fell on a Sunday was in 1994. Some of these same megachurches remained open them, they say, but found attendance sparse.

Since then, the perennial culture wars over the secularization of Christmas have intensified, and this year the scuffles are especially lively. Conservative Christian groups are boycotting stores that fail to mention “Christmas” in their holiday greetings or advertising campaigns. Schools are being pressured to refer to the December vacation as “Christmas break.” Even the White House came under attack this week for sending out cards with best wishes for the “holiday season.”

When the office of Gov. Sonny Perdue of Georgia sent out a press release last Friday announcing plans for a “holiday tree” lighting, a half-hour later it sent out another saying, “It is in fact a Christmas tree.”

What’s confusing to me is that the Christmas Warriors seem determined to make Christmas more secular, not less. For years Christians complained that Christmas was “too commercial” and that the emphasis on gifts and Santa Claus were a distraction from piety. But the Warriors have turned that around and are fighting to install the baby Jesus in our nation’s department stores. Church worship, however, is not so important.

Somebody needs to think this through, IMO.

However, closing churches on Christmas is nothin’ new. Adam Cohen wrote in the December 4 New York Times:

In 1827, an Episcopal bishop lamented that the Devil had stolen Christmas “and converted it into a day of worldly festivity, shooting and swearing.” Throughout the 1800’s, many religious leaders were still trying to hold the line. As late as 1855, New York newspapers reported that Presbyterian, Baptist and Methodist churches were closed on Dec. 25 because “they do not accept the day as a Holy One.”

I wonder what those Presbyterian, Baptist and Methodist pastors would say about canceling Sunday morning church service because of Christmas? The words hellfire and brimstone do come to mind.

On the eve of the Civil War, Christmas was recognized in just 18 states.

In the late 19th century, however, the whole presents-and-Santa Claus thing gained popularity.

By the 1920’s, the retail industry had adopted Christmas as its own, sponsoring annual ceremonies to kick off the “Christmas shopping season.”

Religious leaders objected strongly. The Christmas that emerged had an inherent tension: merchants tried to make it about buying, while clergymen tried to keep commerce out. A 1931 Times roundup of Christmas sermons reported a common theme: “the suggestion that Christmas could not survive if Christ were thrust into the background by materialism.” A 1953 Methodist sermon broadcast on NBC – typical of countless such sermons – lamented that Christmas had become a “profit-seeking period.” This ethic found popular expression in “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” In the 1965 TV special, Charlie Brown ignores Lucy’s advice to “get the biggest aluminum tree you can find” and her assertion that Christmas is “a big commercial racket,” and finds a more spiritual way to observe the day.

And now we’ve come full circle, with people claiming to represent Christianity fighting to put Jesus in Target but making excuses for closing churches on a Sunday because of Christmas.

Some commenters to an earlier Christmas War post concluded that I am anti-Christian. I am nothing of the kind. I am, in fact, defending the religion of Christianity from those who would cheapen and degrade it.

This post has gone on long enough; I’ll have more to say later.

Target Jesus

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How bleeped up is this? Rachel Zoll of the Associated Press reports that some big holy roller born again in-your-face-with-JEEzus megachurches will be closed for Christmas.

This Christmas, no prayers will be said in several megachurches around the country. Even though the holiday falls this year on a Sunday, when churches normally host thousands for worship, pastors are canceling services, anticipating low attendance on what they call a family day. …

… Cally Parkinson, a spokeswoman for Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., said church leaders decided that organizing services on a Christmas Sunday would not be the most effective use of staff and volunteer resources. The last time Christmas fell on a Sunday was 1994, and only a small number of people showed up to pray, she said.

“If our target and our mission is to reach the unchurched, basically the people who don’t go to church, how likely is it that they’ll be going to church on Christmas morning?” she said.

Among the other megachurches closing on Christmas Day are Southland Christian Church in Nicholasville, Ky., near Lexington, and Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas, outside of Dallas. North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, Ga., outside of Atlanta, said on its Web site that no services will be held on Christmas Day or New Year’s Day, which also falls on a Sunday. A spokesman for North Point did not respond to requests for comment.

The closures stand in stark contrast to Roman Catholic parishes, which will see some of their largest crowds of the year on Christmas, and mainline Protestant congregations such as the Episcopal, Methodist and Lutheran churches, where Sunday services are rarely if ever canceled.

Have I ever written that most of what passes for “Christianity” in the U.S. has nothin’ to do with either Jesus or worship? I believe I have.

This is stunning. Some of the same people who have their noses out of joint because clerks at Target say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” aren’t interested in a religious observance of the birth of Jesus. They want Christ in Target, not in church.

It’s not just Target in trouble with the Merry Christmas crowd. Alan Cooperman writes in today’s Washington Post that they’re pissed off at President Bush because of the White House Christmas cards.

This month, as in every December since he took office, President Bush sent out cards with a generic end-of-the-year message, wishing 1.4 million of his close friends and supporters a happy “holiday season.”

Many people are thrilled to get a White House Christmas card, no matter what the greeting inside. But some conservative Christians are reacting as if Bush stuck coal in their stockings.

“This clearly demonstrates that the Bush administration has suffered a loss of will and that they have capitulated to the worst elements in our culture,” said William A. Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.

Bush “claims to be a born-again, evangelical Christian. But he sure doesn’t act like one,” said Joseph Farah, editor of the conservative Web site WorldNetDaily.com. “I threw out my White House card as soon as I got it.”

I don’t know where in the Gospels Jesus said “Thou shalt be a judgmental, obnoxious asshole for My sake,” but I guess it’s in there somewhere.

Grow Up With God

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Following up the last post — Jason Felch and Patricia Ward Biederman write in today’s Los Angeles Times that the conservative National Association of Evangelicals has reached across the doctrinal aisle to support All Saints Church of Pasedena. The church is being hassled by the IRS for preaching that Jesus didn’t like war.

The evangelicals’ act is a welcome contrast to the juvenile gloatings of a couple of trolls; see this, this, and this. I want to point this out because I don’t believe all conservative Christians are pubescent, literacy-challenged Kool Aiders. It just seems that way because pubescent, literacy-challenged Kool Aiders tend to run things in Rightie World. But in this case the evangelicals are behaving like adults:

When Ted Haggard, head of the 30-million-member National Assn. of Evangelicals, heard about the All Saints case Monday, he told his staff to contact the National Council of Churches, a more liberal group.

Haggard said he personally supports the war in Iraq and probably would not agree with much in the Rev. George Regas’ 2004 sermon at All Saints, which was cited by the IRS as the basis for its investigation. But Haggard said he wants to work with the council of churches “in doing whatever it takes to get the IRS to stop” such actions.

For the record, even the Southern Baptist Convention was mightily pissed off by the attempt to exploit churches on behalf of the Bush campaign, as described in the last post.

Haggard’s act was welcomed by the National Council of Churches.

Robert Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, cheered when he heard of Haggard’s offer, which Edgar said represented a rare reaching out by the evangelical group to the council.

Edgar, a United Methodist minister, former Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania and ex-president of the Claremont School of Theology, said the IRS move against All Saints appeared to be “a political witch hunt on George Regas and progressive ideology. It’s got to stop.” He stressed that Regas did not endorse a candidate in the sermon.

The article goes on to explain the distinction between issue advocacy and candidate endorsement:

The tax code prohibits nonprofits from “participating or intervening in any political campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate for public office.” The ban includes endorsements, donations, fundraising or any other activity “that may be beneficial or detrimental to any particular candidate.”

Advocating for ballot initiatives, as many California churches have done in advance of today’s special election, is a separate issue, tax experts said. Churches and other tax-exempt organizations are allowed to engage in lobbying as long as “a substantial part of the organization’s activities is not intended to influence legislation.”

Savvy churches make sure they don’t draw unwanted attention from the IRS, church officials and others said.

When elections near, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles sometimes sends reminders to local parishes of its guidelines on political action. “We don’t endorse or oppose candidates, but we can endorse ballot propositions when there is a moral or ethical issue involved,” said archdiocese spokesman Tod Tamberg, who knew of no local Catholic churches under IRS scrutiny.

This weekend, during Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, Archbishop Roger Mahony endorsed Proposition 73, the state ballot initiative requiring parental notification before an abortion can be performed on a minor.

Seems to me that advocating for or against a ballot initiative is intended to influence legislation, but let’s go on … throughout American history, religions have been engaged in the nation’s hot-button issues. There was preaching both for and against slavery and secession, for example. Church groups worked to prohibit the sale of liquor and to stop child labor laws (yeah, you read that right; conservative churches wanted six-year-olds to work in factories). More recently, conservative churches have pushed hard to stop legal abortion. African-American churches were at the forefront of the Civil Rights movement. This is a role American churches and other religious institutions have played from the beginning of our history, and I think it’s a legitimate role. And I have no problem with treating churches as tax-exempt nonprofit organizations, as long as they are genuinely nonprofit and not fronts for something that would otherwise be taxed.

However, I agree that tax-exempt organizations should be prohibited from actively campaigning or endorsing parties or candidates. Otherwise, you’d soon have “churches” that were nothing more than fronts for political campaigns. Political parties could take over established churches through generous “donations” in exchange for endorsements and a compliant ministry. Ministers could find themselves serving two masters–God and the Party. The wall of separation so many conservatives want to tear down protects religious independence of politics.

Update: Don’t miss flaming idiot Don Surber’s comment to this post (here and here) and my response. You will laugh your butt off, unless you are Don Surber. And what is it with righties that they can’t read the bleeping posts they comment on?

IOKIYAR for Churches

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Remember last year, when the Republican Party used conservative churches to campaign for Bush?

The Bush-Cheney reelection campaign has sent a detailed plan of action to religious volunteers across the country asking them to turn over church directories to the campaign, distribute issue guides in their churches and persuade their pastors to hold voter registration drives. …

… The instruction sheet circulated by the Bush-Cheney campaign to religious volunteers lists 22 “duties” to be performed by specific dates. By July 31, for example, volunteers are to “send your Church Directory to your State Bush-Cheney ’04 Headquarters or give [it] to a BC04 Field Rep” and “Talk to your Pastor about holding a Citizenship Sunday and Voter Registration Drive.”

By Aug. 15, they are to “talk to your Church’s seniors or 20-30 something group about Bush/Cheney ’04” and “recruit 5 more people in your church to volunteer for the Bush Cheney campaign.”

By Sept. 17, they are to host at least two campaign-related potluck dinners with church members, and in October they are to “finish calling all Pro-Bush members of your church,” “finish distributing Voter Guides in your church” and place notices on church bulletin boards or in Sunday programs “about all Christian citizens needing to vote.” [Alan Cooperman, The Washington Post, July 1, 2003]

Here’s another one:

The Republican National Committee is employing the services of a Texas-based activist who believes the United States is a “Christian nation” and the separation of church and state is “a myth.”

David Barton, the founder of an organization called Wallbuilders, was hired by the RNC as a political consultant and has been traveling the country for a year–speaking at about 300 RNC-sponsored lunches for local evangelical pastors. During the lunches, he presents a slide show of American monuments, discusses his view of America’s Christian heritage — and tells pastors that they are allowed to endorse political candidates from the pulpit. [Deborah Caldwell, Beliefnet, 2004]

Well, folks, that was then, and this is now: Patricia Ward Biederman and Jason Felch of the Los Angeles Times write that the feds have a different standard for liberal churches.

The Internal Revenue Service has warned one of Southern California’s largest and most liberal churches that it is at risk of losing its tax-exempt status because of an antiwar sermon two days before the 2004 presidential election.

Rector J. Edwin Bacon of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena told many congregants during morning services Sunday that a guest sermon by the church’s former rector, the Rev. George F. Regas, on Oct. 31, 2004, had prompted a letter from the IRS.

In his sermon, Regas, who from the pulpit opposed both the Vietnam War and 1991’s Gulf War, imagined Jesus participating in a political debate with then-candidates George W. Bush and John Kerry. Regas said that “good people of profound faith” could vote for either man, and did not tell parishioners whom to support.

But he criticized the war in Iraq, saying that Jesus would have told Bush, “Mr. President, your doctrine of preemptive war is a failed doctrine. Forcibly changing the regime of an enemy that posed no imminent threat has led to disaster.”

Apparently the IRS has doctrinal issues with All Saints:

On June 9, the church received a letter from the IRS stating that “a reasonable belief exists that you may not be tax-exempt as a church … ” The federal tax code prohibits tax-exempt organizations, including churches, from intervening in political campaigns and elections.

The IRS offered All Saints a dispensation if it agreed to repent:

After the initial inquiry, the church provided the IRS with a copy of all literature given out before the election and copies of its policies, Bacon said.

But the IRS recently informed the church that it was not satisfied by those materials, and would proceed with a formal examination. Soon after that, church officials decided to inform the congregation about the dispute.

In an October letter to the IRS, Marcus Owens, the church’s tax attorney and a former head of the IRS tax-exempt section, said, “It seems ludicrous to suggest that a pastor cannot preach about the value of promoting peace simply because the nation happens to be at war during an election season.”

Owens said that an IRS audit team had recently offered the church a settlement during a face-to-face meeting.

“They said if there was a confession of wrongdoing, they would not proceed to the exam stage. They would be willing not to revoke tax-exempt status if the church admitted intervening in an election.”

The church declined the offer

What’s next? Thumb screws? Iron maidens?

Update: See Steve Clemons, “Religion, Wars, and the IRS: Pro-War Sermons Get Tax Privilege; Anti-War Sermons Not”

Update update: See Dave Johnson, “IRS Cracking Down On War Opponents” and John Aravosis, “Bush administration threatens liberal church for being anti-war.”