Let's play an economic game

Here are the rules. I am going to present two economic scenarios. After reading and thinking carefully about each scenario, I will ask you to make a choice. Whether you share your preference is up to you. This experiment is for your benefit, not mine. If have read my blog, you already know what my choice would be.


SCENARIO 1


Unemployment is a problem. There are too few jobs for the people that need them to provide for their families. A major employer, say the head of an agribusiness conglomerate or an energy company, is hiring workers. A Human Relations (HR) specialist named Peter goes to town at the crack of dawn to interview applicants. In a matter of minutes, the positions are filled.

On the way back to the office, Peter sees a line of disappointed applicants hoping there still might be a job opening. He calls corporate headquarters and explains that he filled the open positions, but there are others desperate for a job to support their family. The order from corporate is clear. "Hire them."

Peter had one question. "What will they be paid?"

"Same as those you hired first."

Peter signed up the rest. By the time the paperwork was signed, sealed, and delivered, it was past noon. He headed to a popular watering hole nearby for a well-deserved glass of wine, fruit, and cheese.

It is past 2 in the afternoon when Peter heads for his car. On the way he is surprised to find people still looking for work.

"We heard a rumor that you hired many people this morning and were hoping for work."

Peter reached for his phone, but knew what corporate was going to say. "Hire them and pay our standard living wage." And off he went to hire all he could find. It was almost midnight by the time he finally pulled into his driveway.

On payday, the people that were hired first and worked the most hours were angry that those with less seniority and hours were given the same salary. The grumbling reached corporate headquarters. Mary, the company's CEO, called a meeting of all employees.

She looked out over the crowded auditorium. "Are you receiving a fair salary for the work you are doing for this company?" Every hand went up, although some were less enthusiastic than others.

"For those hired first, count yourself fortunate to have had security of knowing your family would be able to live comfortably. Be happy for your neighbors that they too can live without fear.

After the meeting, Peter asked if this policy was a wise business strategy. The boss answered. "Yes. I want our customers, employers, and stockholders to be proud to be associated with this company. I would rather have more employees than I need than have people living on the street forced to steal from the company or its employees. I would rather we live in a town where no one goes without food, shelter, and medical care. It is the just and moral thing to do."

If the story seems familiar, you may have seen another version. Here is Matthew 20: 1-16 (a denarius was the living wage 2000 years ago):

1“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2 When he had agreed with the laborers for a [b]denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the market place; 4 and to those he said, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.’ And so they went. 5 Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did the same thing. 6 And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why have you been standing here idle all day long?’ 7 They said to him, ‘Because no one hired us.’ He *said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’

8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard *said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last group to the first.’ 9 When those hired about the eleventh hour came, each one received a denarius. 10 When those hired first came, they thought that they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they grumbled at the landowner, 12 saying, ‘These last men have worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day.’ 13 But he answered and said to one of them, ‘ Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? 14 Take what is yours and go, but I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. 15 Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous?’ 16 So the last shall be first, and the first last.”

SCENARIO 2


The CEO of large company stands before the stockholders. There have been rumors something big is in the works.

"Welcome everyone. I am happy to announce a bold new vision for our company. These moves are expected to bring us rapid growth in profit by slashing costs. We are closing our domestic plants and setting up in places where we can pay people pennies. You should see big increases in stock value and dividends within a year.

A hand in the audience goes up. "What about our current employees, some of whom have been with the company for 30 or 40 years?"

"They will be given a few weeks to find another job. They can keep what is in their pension fund unless we decide to use that money to sweeten an arbitrage deal."

Another hand goes up. "Closing the plants will have a devastating impact on local communities."

"That is not our problem. And if these communities do not agree to cut our taxes, we will move our corporate headquarters to some island. Don't worry about the publicity. We have hired the best lobbyists in the country to bribe politicians, media companies, and religious leaders to support our moves or we will 'go Galt' on them.

.
.
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Let's talk

Scenario 1 sounds good in theory, but impossible in practice because most corporations do not have CEOs like Mary and a corporate culture that is socially responsible. In other words, social capital (aka, people, communities, nations) does not matter to most corporations. And despite the fact that the parable by Jesus has spiritual and economic ramifications, many Christians in our society are being brainwashed into picking Scenario 2, even when it is not in their own best interests and the best interests of their family, friends, and neighbors.

Scenario 2 is bad for everyone except executives and investors. Only the brain dead and zombies believe it contributes to a fair and just society.

Some will say that the parable told by Jesus was just about grace in the spiritual world. Wrong. "On earth as it is in heaven."

The virtue of greed on display again

It is interesting to hear priests and other religious leaders heaping praise on the "free market." They claim unregulated capitalism will free us from want and evil. Greed and virtue go hand in hand. What a hoot!

Here is how unregulated capitalism works in the real world. In 1998, our glorious political leadership removed much of the regulation of banks. Since that time, there has been a steady stream of bad behavior, not to mention economic catastrophes. I guess the bankers and brokers did not get the memo that the knights of the free market roundtable are supposed to be paragons of virtue.

To wit, J.P. Morgan Chase announced that they made a $2 billion blunder in May. CEO Jamie Dimon claimed the mishap was the fault of a few bad apples and there was no need for any stinking regulation. A little over a month later, it turns out the loss is likely to be at least $9 billion. Whoops. And here is the kicker. Larry Doyle, a former J.P. Morgan securities analyst, is saying something smells funny about this mess.

So many questions. So few real answers. Neither the morning news shows nor the major media outlets seem to want to draw real attention to this reported quadrupled loss.

I am compelled to repeat my question posed back in early May, “how do you know if/when Jamie Dimon is not telling the truth?” Did somebody say, “when his lips move?”

The experts on worshipping Mammon and God claim that if priests worship Mammon, then corporate leaders will give wads of cash to churches and worship God. This all sounds so familiar. Here is some of what God told Jeremiah to tell the people (Jeremiah 8:10-11):

From the least to the greatest,
all are greedy for gain;
prophets and priests alike,
all practice deceit.
They dress the wound of my people
as though it were not serious.

What harm can possibly come from glorifying greed . . .

Christ, Nessie, and teaching children to love lies

Juicy, embarrassing stories travel faster than wind-whipped forest fires. Here is a case in point. Bruce Wilson published an article in Salon about the nonsense some Christian private schools are teaching children ("Shocking Christian school textbooks"), which appeared on June 19. Within days, Rachel Loxton picked up the story for the Sunday edition of The Herald Scotland ("How American fundamentalist schools are using Nessie to disprove evolution"). Renowned atheist Richard Dawkins had a discussion going on his website a few hours after Loxton's article appeared. Before long, people were mocking the Christian fundamentalists in America across the world.

An estimated 200,000 children across 13 states are being educated using these silly textbooks. And thanks to Bobby Jindal, these books will soon become something of a standard in Louisiana.

This 2012-2013 school year, thanks to a bill pushed through by governor Bobby Jindal, thousands of students in Louisiana will receive state voucher money, transferred from public school funding, to attend private religious schools, some of which teach from a Christian curriculum that suggests the Loch Ness Monster disproves evolution and states that the alleged creature, which has never been demonstrated to even exist, has been tracked by submarine and is probably a plesiosaur. The curriculum also claims that a Japanese fishing boat caught a dinosaur.

The issue is that is likely to spark the most controversy is than these private schools receive public funding.

And is not just the science textbooks that are dangerously stupid. The history texts are filled with bigotry and lies. A few of my favorites.

“God used the ‘Trail of Tears’ to bring many Indians to Christ.”

"Only ten percent of Africans can read or write, because Christian mission schools have been shut down by communists."

"The [Ku Klux] Klan in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross… In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians.”

The Great Depression was fabricated by socialists and unions are filled with socialists trying to destroy the American Dream given to us by the Great god of Capitalism. How much longer before we hear that slaves were really indentured servants rescued from Africa? Those Africans were loved, respected, given a job, and an acre to grow vegetables and raise a few animals. Only criminal acts were punished with whips, chains, and nooses.

Why should you care if children are taught to love lies? If they are not your children, then why should you care if someone else's are rendered incapable of functioning in what is quickly shaping up to be an overcrowded, ugly, poisoned, deadly, and savagely competitive future? If some Christians want their children to be dumber than boxes of rocks, so be it. If their children are not able to function in a hellish future, then what? Well, these children will suffer for the greed, dishonesty, and insecurity of their parents and community. They better be raptured or the future will eat them alive.

Not only will these children likely be playing in a future with the deck stacked against them, but they are likely to lose their religion when they discover how many lies and truly stupid things they were taught by their parents and teachers. Taught in the name of Christ, I might add. Most people throw out the faith baby with the corrupted religious bath water. Violations of trust do that to you. Betrayal does that to you.

And let's not forget the basic message in whitewashed history. Don't worry about your sins and those of previous generations. There is no need to repent and repair the harm. There is nothing Christian about refusing to walk with humility, contrition, and compassion. What do you think Jesus would say about lies in His name? Round of applause from the Lord? Not likely.

People who would be receptive to the message of Christ are going to be turned off by Christians teaching lies and crap. Think about what Gandhi said about Jesus and Christians: "I like your Christ, but I am not fond of your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." In other words, when people cannot see Christ in us, we make terrible witnesses for the Lord. Gandhi would have welcomed Jesus as a brother but questioned claims about His deity because His followers were taking the resources of India and treating India's people like dirt.

Some will benefit from all this. People selling textbooks, serving as curriculum consultants, or running private schools will get rich. Tourism to Loch Ness is going to pick up. Richard Dawkins and other evangelical atheists are going to have a field day mocking Christ because of deliberately ignorant Christians.

Just remember. There is every indication that the future is going to be complex and difficult. Why should God rescue us from overpopulation, dwindling natural resources, and lousy stewardship of this earth? Scripture teaches that actions have consequences. Many kids will be unprepared to compete in that turbulent world because their parents and teachers felt it necessary to pretend the world is a few thousand years old and the Flintstones cartoons were based on reality. We are looking at Christians that are choosing to drop out and dumb up rather than prepare for future that will require innovation and working together to solve big problems.

The Lord gets the last word (Matthew 24: 4-21):

Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.

“Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

“So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let no one on the housetop go down to take anything out of the house. Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again.

Poor get shanked in the Supreme Court ruling on the health care law

All the major provisions of the health insurance reform law will stand except one. The requirement for states to increase Medicaid spending for the poor was ruled unenforceable by the federal government.

Regarding the Medicaid portion of the act, the opinion held the expansion of the low-income health insurance constitutional, but said that the federal government couldn't withhold funds for the program from states that don't comply with federal provisions.

Chief Justice Roberts wrote in his opinion, "nothing in our opinion precludes Congress from offering funds under the ACA to expand the availability of health care, and requiring that states accepting such funds comply with the conditions on their use. What Congress is not free to do is to penalize States that choose not to participate in that new program by taking away their existing Medicaid funding."

In other words, the poor get bupkis if the state or Congress does not come up with the money to cover Medicaid costs.

"What you did not do for the least of my Kingdom, you did not do for me," said the Lord.

Bad fruit

In my home town, churches have been the target of theft, vandalism, and threatening calls. It is fruit of a poisonous tree.

In early May, the priest at local Catholic church issued a rousing sermon in support of the nuns of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR). A series of thefts began shortly afterwards, including thefts from donation boxes. And then someone defaced the entrances to the church with red paint.



None of the other Catholic churches in the area have been targets of theft and vandalism. Of course, they support the doctrinal reprimand of the nuns by the bishops. Perhaps it is just a coincidence.

The pastor of a United Methodist church received recognition for her work supporting full rights for homosexuals in the denomination. Shortly after the announcement, someone broke into the pastors office, stole her laptop, and left threatening messages related to her stance on social issues.

These are acts of intimidation. They are aimed at people who have challenged church policy on women's rights and homosexuality, the hot-button issues for the culture warriors.

It would be nice to write off such events as the work of a few bad apples. The trouble is that rotten apples seem to be popping everywhere.

Here is a recent exchange between conservative political radio host Jan Mickelson and Republican Congressman Tom Latham:

MICKELSON: There’s a bus full of nuns headed towards Washington to lobby against the Ryan plan. Do you guys, do you have any power to pull the Nuns on the Bus over and pistol whip them?

LATHAM: It’s always fun to be on your show. [Laughs]

Rush Limbaugh, another conservative political talker, called the nuns of the LCWR "feminazis" for daring to question the culture wars and advocating the ordination of women.

All is fair in politics, right? And when nuns dare promote social justice over the politically useful culture wars, it requires tough talk. More bad apples.

The real problem is not rotten apples. It is the trees responsible for them. Trees like these:

The rhetoric is pretty strong. Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, who leads the bishops conference, says the White House is "strangling" the church. The bishop of Oakland warns of "despotism." And then there was an April sermon by the bishop of Peoria, Ill., Daniel Jenky.

"Hitler and Stalin, at their better moments, would just barely tolerate some churches remaining open," Jenky says in the video, adding that the dictators would not allow the church to compete in education, social services or health care.

"President Obama with his radical pro-abortion and extreme secularist agenda now seems intent on following a similar path," he says.

Lori says the times call for blunt language.

"Sometimes prophets are thought to be unduly alarmist, and sometimes their speech is a little bit strong," the archbishop says. "But that's what prophetic speech always has been."

Bear in mind that these powerful religious authorities are talking about contraception. Claiming that a law that does not exempt religious organizations from health insurance coverage for contraception is tantamount to fascism is not prophetic speech. It is manipulative speech. It is political speech. It is deeply cynical speech. It is the kind of speech from religious leaders that fosters hateful speech and behavior among followers.

The idea that contraception is immoral is about power, not about God. No good tree bears bad fruit.

More and more people are suffering in our society and crying out for mercy. The Lord hears their cries. The Lord also expects us to lift their burdens. So why are religious leaders whipping up people into a frenzy over birth control and homosexuality? A frenzy that even fosters theft, vandalism, and intimidating speech.

Extreme poverty on the rise in America

Evan Soltas blogs about economic policy and data. He has a post that describes something that no one in politics and the media is discussing, namely the startling increase in the number of people living in extreme poverty.

The unambiguous statistical trend since 2000 has been large increases in the fraction of Americans at the extreme end of poverty, with little to no change in the fraction of Americans considered "near poor." The poor, in other words, are getting poorer -- or more precisely, poverty in America is becoming an increasingly extreme and unequal phenomenon.

Evan defines extreme poverty as people living on less than half of the federal poverty threshold.

To give you a sense of what that means, the awful extremity of extreme poverty: a single person under 65 must have made less than $5,851, and a family of four must have made less than $11,509.

The desperately poor. People with almost nothing to their name. Approximately 6.7% of Americans live in extreme poverty, the highest level in over 50 years. That is over 20 million people. That is one out of every 15 Americans.

Evan's take home message is that recessions take the greatest toll on the poorest of the poor.

Recessions, in fact, appear to affect disproportionately the extreme poor, rather than those closer to the federal poverty threshold or the "near poor," those whose income is less than twice the federal poverty threshold.

It is fascinating that politicians have responded to the budget shortfalls created by the Great Recession by cutting programs and benefits for the poor while creating new tax breaks for corporations. Never mind that there is no evidence that corporate welfare creates jobs or helps close budget shortfalls. However, what is certainly true is that the have-nots will suffer. It is also true that tax cuts for the wealthy do not trickle down to the desperately poor. Evan has a graph that nicely illustrates that the ride for the poorest has gotten even bumpier since the era of fraudulent "supply side" economics began in 1981.

Anyone seriously hoping for the return of Christ better think twice. He will not like what He sees. For example, we now have 20 million people living in desperate straits. Where are all the Christians falling all over themselves to help them? Apart from a few nuns on a bus, our religious leaders are too busy talking about contraception and homosexuality. Yes, pray with all your might and soul that Jesus does not return soon. He will be disgusted by many who call themselves Christians. I pray that God opens the eyes of our religious leaders.

Do you know Jesus?

Matthew 7:21-23

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

Do you call yourself a Christian? Good. Now what do you think it means to be a Christian? I ask the question because there is a lot of talk about salvation. You know. Salvation, where people with the golden tickets go to gold-plated heaven and those with the blood-red tickets will wake up in hell brimming with fire, brimstone, and sexually depraved demons. Salvation where Jesus is Willy Wonka of the spirit world. All you have to do is send a signed affidavit that you believe He died for you. Within a respectable number of business days, St. Peter will send you that coveted gold ticket to a mansion in the sky.

The problem for those selling "salvation culture" is explaining what Jesus meant by this:

Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

See the problem? Not everyone who call themselves a Christian will get a golden ticket. Hell fire. Damnation. Some who even perform signs and wonders in Christ's name will get a ticket to the sinners wienie roast. Oops.

I suspect that Jesus is really not going to be impressed with your belief in Him if you do not bust your butt to follow His teachings. Yeah, I am pretty sure Jesus expected you to pay attention to His teachings. And here is the funny part -- Jesus is not going to be impressed with your excuses.

His teachings are readily available. There must be at least 25 really good translations floating around in English alone, not to mention translations in every other common language as well. You can find the Gospels bound in books; read them on your computer or hot new swipe screen toy. If you do not know what he taught, you made no effort to know. You left it to your pastor to spoon feed you the good parts. Or you rocked out the Christmas-Easter-wedding-funeral circuit.

So you are no lukewarm Christian? Cool. Your faith is strong enough to work miracles. Nice. Good for you. So how come He did not give miracle workers a pass? Well?

The answer is simple. To know Him means a serious commitment to follow His teachings. You know, what you find in the Gospels. You have to love others. All others. Even your enemies or people you just do not like. You are required to show your love (and God's) to those that suffer from war, poverty, disease, disaster, or despair.  That means seeking peace, helping the poor, lift up the sick and the distraught. You are not to judge others but repent of your own sins. You are to forgive for every slight, no matter how large or small. You are to focus on Spiritual growth than material wealth. Those are not options. They are red-letter requirements.

A few more questions for you, Christian. Do you think Jesus would be pleased or flipping angry if He were to walk among us and see people living on the streets, eating out of garbage cans, and babbling incoherently because of mental illness? How about professed Christian politicians making excuses to cut programs for the poor, sick, old, and disabled in His name? How about Christian leaders that make big deal about abortion but do everything possible to increase the number of unwanted pregnancies by opposing contraception? How about Christians just itching to stone people for disbelief or sexual sins? How about the millionaire Christian entrepreneurs that sold self-help books, radio shows, television shows, seminars, amusement parks, investment products, and even snake oil and super food? How about the big men and women of Christ that sell politicians as endorsed by Jesus? How about Christians praising greed and the greedy?

Are you feeling lucky? Tell Jesus that you believe He was God in human form, but never bothered to follow His teachings and example. Does that ring true? Oh, you found loopholes to Jesus in the law of Moses or letters of Paul. You are telling the king you can ignore his laws because of what his servants wrote. Good luck with that.

Love God and love others without condition or exception. It is not complicated, but it is difficult.

Musings on our one track minds and butt prints in the sand

One of the more exciting trick plays in football is when a receiver gets the ball and throws to the quarterback. It is a role reversal that catches defenses off-guard if executed with finesse. Role reversal has a wow factor in sports. The same is also true in science.

One of the most interesting findings I have seen in a long time comes from a study just published in Science. Activation of neural pathways has always been thought to be a one-way street. The German and British research team lead by Tamar Dugladze found evidence of "back-propagation" under specific conditions. Instead of activity moving from axon to cell body to dendrites of one neuron to the axon of the next neuron, they found that signals could sometimes originate in the axon (typically the receiver) and move backwards to the dendrites of another neuron. More study is needed, but the findings indicate there are important exceptions to the rule that activation only goes in one direction.

The study in Science is fascinating for several reasons. Electrochemical signals were found to flow in the "wrong" direction during times of high levels of activation, such heightened arousal during intense concentration or "fight or flight" reactions. The researchers even identified the gating mechanism that normally keeps activation moving in "right" direction. The researchers suggest that it could revolutionize treatment of disorders like epilepsy. I could not help but wonder if the bigger revolution may come in treatment of psychiatric disorders like anxiety and mania which involve high levels of arousal. Perhaps the same gating mechanism fails and allows dysfunctional neural network activity, contributing to poorly controlled emotional states.

As a person of faith, I have always been astonished at the idea that science and faith are incompatible. Science can be thought as a gift from God to better understand the world around us, manage our limited natural resources, improve quality of life, and alleviate suffering. All too often, people of faith demonstrate profound ignorance in attacking science. If science challenges your faith, then your faith is weak or you simply do not understand how science works. We are all diminished by such ignorance.

During the 2012 meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, cancer survivor James McDonald described how going to the doctor was part of his active faith and an important part of the miracle of him becoming cancer free. To make the point, he modified a popular poem about footprints in the sand to "Butt prints in the sand."

One night I had a wondrous dream,
One set of footprints there was seen,
The footprints of my precious Lord,
But mine were not along the shore.

But then some stranger prints appeared,
And I asked the Lord, "What have we here?"
Those prints are large and round and neat,
"But Lord they are too big for feet."

"My child," He said in somber tones,
"For miles I carried you alone.
I challenged you to walk in faith,
But you refused and made me wait."

"You disobeyed, you would not grow,
The walk of faith, you would not know.
So I got tired, I got fed up,
and there I dropped you on your butt."

"Because in life, there comes a time,
when one must fight, and one must climb.
When one must rise and take a stand,
or leave their butt prints in the sand."

Rejecting the miraculous gift of science is a great way to make sure there are many butt prints in the sand. Applied sciences like medicine, technology, and engineering cannot move forward without basic sciences. Attacking science is a clear sign of immature or fragile faith. I call it backwards propagation. 

What is Christ-like about selling politics from the pulpit?

Reuters has a story about """"pastors"""" preaching politics from the pulpit. It is part of yet another false and cynical campaign about freedom of religion.

(Reuters) - Pastor Jim Garlow will stand before congregants at his 2,000-seat Skyline Wesleyan Church in La Mesa, California, on Sunday, October 7, just weeks before the U.S. presidential and congressional elections, and urge his flock to vote for or against particular candidates.

He knows such pulpit pleading could endanger his church's tax-exempt status by violating IRS rules for a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. A charity can take a position on policy issues but cannot act "on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office." To cross that line puts the $7 million mega-church's tax break at risk.

Garlow and other pastors celebrate "Freedom Sunday" each year by endorsing politicians and telling their congregation how they are to vote on election days. And just for good measure, these glorious men and women of gOd even videotape their stump speeches and send them to the IRS, hoping to provoke a fight over a violation of tax-exempt status. Not only do they want to be tax-exempt, they want to be law-exempt. This idea that laws do not apply to me because I am religious is becoming something of a fad. Perhaps, even an epidemic.

The IRS has been slow to react the provocations by Garlow and others. The tax collectors are hated and reviled just as much in America today as they were two thousand years ago in Galilee and Judea. Of course, Jesus hung out with the tax collectors (Mark 2:16), paid his taxes (Matthew 17:24-27), and advocating others do the same (Mark 12:13-17). He even chose a tax collector to be one of His disciples (Matthew 9:9). How odd that Garlow and his mob have excused themselves from paying taxes and want to pick a fight with a secular organization over the few rules that apply to that privilege. Fascinating.

Two things are clear about these little games. The beneficiaries of using the name of God to sell politicians are easy to spot.

The result of agency inaction, according to tax experts and former IRS staffers, will be a lot more electioneering by leaders of the faithful, in local races as well as national, and to the benefit of Democrats as well as Republicans.

It is the body of Christ that pays the price for praising Mammon in the name of Christ. I doubt the Lord will find all this nonsense amusing.

Of course, there is a great deal of Mammon at stake. The potential for income generation is enormous. You can create tax-free enterprise zones labeled as churches and sell all sorts of products and politicians. The trouble is that reduces churches to just another barker in the carnival marketplace.

If we truly love Christ, then we have to push back against the misuse of His name. The gifts of His presence, teachings, death, and resurrection are being cheapened by people like Garlow.

Donations to religious organizations slowly drying up

Giving USA has been tracking charity in America for 57 years. Their latest report should be viewed with concern by people of faith. For the second year in a row, donations to religious organizations declined while increasing in all other sectors.

Total charitable giving rose 4 percent in 2011 to $298.42 billion, while giving to religious causes declined 1.7 percent to $95.88 billion. Giving by individuals increased 3.9 percent to $217.8 billion, while corporate giving was essentially flat, declining 0.1 percent to $14.55 billion.

The economy improved. Corporate profits are at record levels. Donations to secular organizations rose while money going to religious organizations dropped. It is another wake-up call.

Robert Evans runs a consulting firm that specializes in religious fundraising. Here are his guesses why religious organizations are losing ground when it comes to charitable giving.

"Institutions doing bad things discourage giving," he said. "Donors at all levels feel they have to send a message to the powers-that-be that they don't like bad behavior, and they do it with their checkbooks."

But more problematic is the decline in attendance at churches, synagogues and other religious institutions: Attendance correlates with giving, Evans said.

Even though religious organizations "ask" more often, they are not as sophisticated as other fund-raisers, he said.

In other words, religious leaders have been behaving badly, failing to inspire the faithful, and making ham-handed requests for money.

The bottom line is that religious institutions are operating with less money than before the Great Recession. It also means that we will not be able to pick up the slack when our worthless politicians throw the poor, aged, and disabled under the bus.

We need to pray that the Lord does not return any time soon. Trees that do not bear fruit do not tend to fare well (Luke 13:6-9).

Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’

“‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’”

Evangelism, salvation culture, and the Gospel

I am familiar with Scot McKnight's work through his blog. He recently gave an interview with the Christian Post that was filled with many insightful and important points.

Professor McKnight highlights how much of what is called evangelism boils down to a "culture of salvation."

"The Gospel of salvation has produced what I call a 'salvation culture' – a culture marked by who's in and who's out. So a very strong sense of 'we are the in group and others are the out group.' ... A 'Gospel culture' is a culture shaped by following Jesus, by living under Jesus as King. A 'Gospel culture' includes personal salvation, but it includes so much more."

Preach it, brother. It is very much a "me" thing rather than a Jesus thing. Salvation culture can devolve into 'God loves me but you suck.' The whole Left Behind nonsense is a particularly malignant expression of salvation culture in which the "saved" are whisked off to heaven while the "lost" are left behind to experience hell on earth. It bears no resemblance to the teachings of Jesus.

He goes to explain that too many evangelical pastors are more concerned with encouraging people to make a decision to accept Jesus rather than to become disciples. A disciple is motivated to follow the teachings of Jesus which requires mature faith.

"The fundamental job of the evangelist is not to get people to feel guilty about sins, or to feel terrorized by an angry God. The central question of evangelism is, 'who do you think Jesus is?'"

Digesting the teachings and example of Jesus is what it means to be disciple of Christ. Interestingly, Jesus taught that he wants his disciples to focus on their own sins with the understanding that forgiveness is granted as long as you forgive others. Judgment and punishment were described but hardly the focus of what Jesus taught. The obsession with sin, particularly the sin of others, by some folks that label themselves as evangelical Christians has more in common with the Pharisees than Jesus.

Revivalism is part of the salvation culture. It is very me oriented.

"Pastors ... preach revivalistic sermons that precipitate decisions, that precipitate experience, and the result is, if I've had the experience, I'm in; if I haven't had the experience, I'm not in. But more importantly, if I've had the experience, I'm in and I know who else is in -- those who've had my experience. So all other people are basically off the map unless they've had the same experience. That's revivalism and that has created what I call a salvation culture."

Reform and spiritual renewal will be required to move away from a shallow salvation culture to a richer and more demanding discipleship for Christ.

If more evangelicals would embrace a Gospel culture, McKnight said, "we would become people who are for other people, not just conscious that we are unique saved ones. We would become people who are here to serve others, to show them the love of God. We would be concerned about fellowship with one another and a life of community that embodied the kingdom of Jesus."

Amen!

One of the people that commented on the article provides the perfect example of the spiritual immaturity of the salvation culture. This person mocked the criticisms made by McKnight, questioning what a "gospel culture" looks like.

Be nice, love one another, etc? Is that why He died, so we can make each other comfortable and happy?

Jesus taught that the two central commandments are love God and love others. Everything follows from these two ideas. So here is someone that is mocking the commandment to love others as little more than making others "comfortable and happy."

Scot McKnight is someone worth paying attention to.

Blessed are the peacemakers (in Beirut)

Religion is often accused of doing more harm than good. There is no doubt that religious people do terrible things, often in the name of God. And scandal attracts attention likes flies to feces. Everyone loves a scandal, especially when it involves bad behavior by those that call themselves morally superior, pious, and pure in heart. Unfortunately, the good is often overlooked in the process.

Here is a story that was not covered by major news organizations:

BEIRUT: A three-day Christian-Muslim summit kicked off in Beirut Monday, with participants discussing ways to achieve peace and justice between Muslim and Christian communities.

Christian and Islamic representatives from around the world are taking part in the summit which convenes under the theme “Christians and Muslims Building Justice and Peace Together in a Violent, Changing World.”

A major theme is respecting each other and avoiding tyranny of majority.

One of the Beirut summit’s principal areas of discussion is the plight of religious minorities throughout the world, with focus on how the Muslim minority is treated in the West, and how the Christian minority is treated in the East.

In other words, we need to love each other as we would wish to be loved. It should be fundamental, but is rarely practiced.

Progress, however, will require confession and repentance. Blaming bad behavior on extremists does not ring true.

“It’s clear that once faith is either removed from public life or is challenged as a guide for compassionate care of the other through the values of kindness and goodness, then a vacuum is created. When such a vacuum occurs, fringe elements from both religions corruptly reinterpret time-honored core teachings and religious values in order to support their own personal or political needs and desires.”

- Rev. John B. Chane, 8th bishop of Washington, D.C.

In the United States, Christians engage in hateful rhetoric and behavior towards Muslims far too frequently to be written off as just the work of "fringe elements." Perhaps too many Christians are afraid to confront our own extremists.

We are all God's children and it's time we acted like it. A dialogue like the one happening in Beirut is a good start.

Criminalizing the homeless is a sign of our moral failure

One of the things that I relish about Jesus is that he was simple and direct. He was not a fan of weasel words and deeds. We would do well to remember how he defined righteousness in Matthew 25:31-46.

In an article in USA Today, Yamiche Alcindor questions whether the crackdown on the homeless across the country is a sign of "compassion fatigue." That is a ridiculous way to frame the issue because it implies that we have been compassionate. Ha! The Jesus answer is that it is a sign of our collective moral failure and unrighteousness.

These initiatives criminalize sleeping in public places and even sharing food. Public officials pretend that these initiatives help the homeless along with improve public safety. That is nothing but a lie.

Let's be clear about the reasons people become homeless. At the top of the list is mental illness. Over the past 30 decades, our "compassionate" political leaders from president down to city council members have closed inpatient mental health facilities and cut funding for community health facilities. That was before the Great Recession. Since 2009, states have cut nearly $2 billion in funding for mental health programs and more cuts on the way. These policies mean that mentally ill with difficult to manage psychiatric conditions will be on the street with little or no treatment. It is cruelty writ large. Many of these conditions go hand in hand with substance abuse, another major factor contributing to homelessness.

By criminalizing living on the street without providing alternatives, you are deliberately turfing the homeless into the criminal justice system. This is short-sighted because it costs much more to house the homeless in prison than providing compassionate care in the community. Allowing them to live on the street is not compassionate. Sending them to prison is not compassionate.

See if you can spot the lie and hypocrisy in these weasel words:

Mark McDonald, press secretary for the city's mayor, Michael Nutter, said the measures are about expanding the services offered to the homeless, adding dignity to their lives and about ensuring good public hygiene and safety.

"This is about an activity on city park land that the mayor thinks is better suited elsewhere," he said. "We think it's a much more dignified place to be in an indoor sit-down restaurant. … The overarching policy goal of the mayor is based on a belief that hungry people deserve something more than getting a ham sandwich out on the side of the street."

The initiatives that criminalize sleeping in the street and giving food to homeless do not include expanded services for the homeless. The city of Philadelphia is not increasing the budget for social services for the homeless. The city is not building shelters and expanding feeding programs. The measures are not about expanding services. They are about turfing the homeless to the criminal justice system.

Let's cut to the chase. These measures to criminalize homeless came at the same time the state of Pennsylvania was gutting the budget for programs that serve that mentally ill and homeless. The governor is crushing the homeless because he wants another $275 million in tax cuts for corporations.

Please, Lord. Open our eyes, hearts, and minds, but do not do it gently.

‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

Televangelists stole my mother's faith

I love my mother. She also gets under my skin.

Religion has always been one of the biggest bones of contention between us. Despite having been graced with many extraordinary pastors and church communities over the years, she always preferred televangelists. I have no respect for them.

My mother likes them because they do not tell her to get out of her comfort zone to serve Christ. Their demands are simple. All you have to do is to send them money and they will spread the word of God for you. No one is going to push you to give your time, energy, and heart to minister to the broken and lost. No need to lend your shoulder to others or accept theirs when life deals a bad hand. No fuss. No mess.

Over the years, I encouraged her to turn off the television and truly join the body of Christ in the real world. Sometimes the nudge was gentle. Sometimes it wasn't. Sometimes I told her of their materialism and departure from the teachings of Jesus. Sometimes I just rolled my eyes and let my thoughts drift to more enjoyable pursuits while she sang their praises.

Holidays and birthdays usually meant at least book or video plugged by the clown princes and princesses of public piety for profit. At first, I read or watched the offering out of respect and a desire to better understand why this crap appealed to her. It was a waste of time and energy, not to mention a big freaking irritant. Now I just donate them in their original packaging to their first charitable resale shop I can find.

The spiritual junk food was not a problem for my mother until cancer entered our lives. My son developed neuroendocrine cancer five years ago. Because the tumors do not show up on scans until they get large enough to spread, you tread water if you are lucky and drown if you are not. It does not lend itself to the false hopes and promises sold by televangelists.

As my son got sicker over the years, my mother became more desperate to do something. When the televangelists promised a miracle or blessings would come her way if she had enough faith to give them money, she wrote big checks and put my son on their prayer lists. No matter how much she gave, my son did not wake up one morning without cancer. His surgeries and chemotherapy never brought anything more than a brief respite from symptoms. And I do not sugarcoat reality.

My son has a private blog where he posts updates on his condition and vividly describes his experiences with cancer and his reactions to being sick. The blog simplifies keeping family and friends posted without having to tell the same damn story over and over again. It draws and quarters denial, my mother's preferred emotional defense mechanism.

Over the last few months, my mother has experienced a deepening crisis of faith. It has become clearer and clearer that all the promises of health for her grandson made by the money changers on the "christian" networks were false. If you gave them money and believed their promises, God was supposed to hop into action. She gave lots of money and believed, but my son's cancer is still winning every battle and her faith is withering away.

The National Association of Evangelicals has proposed new ethical guidelines for pastors and other religious leaders.

The new code is a good starting point for ministers in a profession that can be individualistic and entrepreneurial, said David P. Gushee, a professor of Christian ethics and director of the Center for Theology and Public Life at Mercer University. 

“In some ways it’s the Wild West out there in terms of the context of preparation for ministry in the evangelical world,” he said. “Any effort to raise the moral bar and establish a minimal set of expectations for clergy — or any profession — is a very good thing.”

Although well-meaning, this new code of ethics will not change anything. It should go without saying that someone supposedly serving Christ will do their best to behave ethically and responsibly. The fact that it needs to be said is disturbing. Those who sign the pledge probably already abide by the standards. Those who want to parlay Christ's name into wealth, fame, and influence will not sign. Even if they sign, there are no consequences for ethical failure. The money changers have little to fear from toothless voluntary pledges.

The only consequence for stunting my mother's spiritual growth is that the money changers will not have her around to fleece. She finally stopped believing their lies. The trouble is that she is 80 and lost. Someone else will have to clean up the psychological mess they created.

Religious leaders have a long history of abusing their authority. In fact, the only people that sparked Jesus to verbal and physical aggression were the religious authorities of his day. And nothing has changed other than the media reach of modern technology is much, much greater and the rewards for false teachers are much, much greater.

The weather was nice enough to have the grill fired up this past weekend. As I waited for the coals to become white hot, I dug up the most recent inspirational book my mother received as a thank you gift.  I tore out each page and dropped it onto the glowing embers. Yes, I know I am supposed to love and forgive these televangelists. However, at that moment, I was having too much fun watching the pages burst into flame. Burn, baby, burn.

Sickness in the body of Christ

I was reading an essay in the National Catholic Reporter about how the repressive nature of the male-dominated Catholic hierarchy has turned this man off from attending mass and active participation in Church. The heavy-handed treatment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious was the last straw for him because the Sisters had always been one of his biggest inspirations.

Despite his dislike for the direction of the institutional Church, he still describes himself as Catholic.

This, at least, is how it looks to me -- not a theologian, leader or representative of anyone, but simply a 31-year-old American who loves the Catholic community and tradition, though connects with its formal expressions less and less.

To many, I would not be considered Catholic, primarily because I have shed the institutional Mass as a weekly practice. I’m certainly not Catholic in the way elder generations have been, nor in the way my more conservative young friends are. But I still experience a deep inner bond with Catholicism, I draw on the community and tradition in my prayer life, and I identify as Catholic.

What shocked me about this essay was the not the content, but the reaction. Too many of the responses were so hateful that the editors were forced to remove all comments and provide this comment:

Editor's Note: I was reviewing comments to this article on June 10. I found so many of the comments so vile, so contemptuous of another person's spiritual journey and seeking that I could not permit them to appear on this website. --Dennis Coday, NCR editor

In other words, there was nothing remotely Christ-like in many of the comments to this man's heartfelt essay. Remember what Jesus said about judging religious leaders by their fruit?

“You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? “So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. “A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. “So then, you will know them by their fruits. (Matthew 7:16-20)

This is very rotten fruit, wherever it came from.

Millennial generation turning away from religion

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has published its latest survey of religious belief and participation, which looks at the Millennial generation (currently 16-29 years old). The results document a clear trend away from religion for the Millennials relative to other age cohorts. In particular, 25% do not endorse any system of religious belief; 47% express doubts about the existence of God; 55% say that religion is not important in their lives, and 67% attend worship services infrequently or never. These are the lowest levels of belief, affiliation, and participation of any generation since the surveys began in the 1970s.

The results lend credibility to other surveys, books, and blogs that have raised alarm about a "lost generation." This is a valuable wake-up call, but the real question is whether their elders are listening. I doubt it.

The Pew study did not delve into why religion is losing favor among the young, but it does offer clues. Four major differences between the Millennial generation and older generations were found on social issues.

Young people are more accepting of homosexuality and evolution than are older people. They are also more comfortable with having a bigger government, and they are less concerned about Hollywood threatening their values.

These young folks are wise beyond their years. They are not buying the idea that homosexuality, science, and "Hollywood" (code for popular culture) are the root of all evil in our society. Instead, they are having to confront the reality of a much lower standard of living than previous generations. They are struggling to find jobs in an economy that has not created living wage jobs for over a decade. About half of recent college graduates are unemployed or have taken jobs that do not require a college education. They do not want an enemies list. They want practical solutions and help during tough times.

And who can blame them for not finding meaning and purpose in religion. In our society where Christianity is the dominant religion, the most visible displays of religiosity have been more likely to repulse than inspire. Jesus taught that we are to be beacons of love, mercy, compassion, forgiveness, humility, and spiritual wealth. Yet we find religious authorities that want to sing the praises of the sacred "free market" and stone anyone they deem sexual sinners.

Maybe we need to get back to basics . . .



The young have not lost their way. We have.

Love as a gift from God

Shari Johnson on why Christians should unconditionally love all, heterosexual and homosexual:

Love can’t be legislated, politicized, forced or faked. It comes from God. I have said many times that change will come one heart at a time, and only God can change a heart—if we will just get out of God's way.

That says it all. She was an evangelical Christian whose adult daughter came out as gay. Her understanding changed as she struggled to love her daughter and wrestle with church dogma.

I begged God to change her. But instead, God changed me.

God loves all. We need to do the same. That is why the Lord commanded his followers to do exactly that - love others as we would wish to loved. He even said this will be how his followers will be recognizable in John 13: 34-45.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Those who truly follow and love the Lord know that we must be beacons of love for all, including those our fellow Christians have found some excuse not to love. Bless you, Shari, for your witness.

Cardinal worries nuns are ruining about Catholic brand

Cardinal William Levada is concerned the Leadership Conference of Women Religious are not repenting of their doctrinal sins.

"Too many people crossing the LCWR screen, who are supposedly representing the Catholic church, aren't representing the church with any reasonable sense of product identity," Levada said.

Good thing he and the other bishops were on top of that pedophile priest scandal before it damaged the product identity of the Catholic church. If he hadn't, lots of dioceses would be financially ruined or in serious trouble, and the Catholic brand would have been disastrously tarnished.

Christian candy canes

Sometimes I wonder about Christians. Short-sighted Christians have pursuing the "candy case" all the way to the Supreme Court. Thankfully, the high court declined to hear the case.

Here is the core of the case:

The case, Morgan v. Swanson, kicked off nine years ago in the Plano Independent School District as principals prevented self-described evangelical students from distributing religious literature on school grounds. 

In one instance, principal Lynn Swanson stopped third-grader Jonathan Morgan from distributing a Christian-themed bookmark at a winter break party. The boy wanted to hand out candy-cane shaped pens along with a card purporting to explain the holiday treat’s Christian roots.

The small-minded Liberty Institute thought they could ride this case to glory before the Supreme Court and vindicate proselytization in public schools. Many Christians were also looking at this case as an infringement on their rights. I wonder if any of these people thought about the real implications. If they were to "win" this case, then you can bet non-Christians and atheists would have their children passing out tracts and candy on the playground.

So, do you want your young children being handed materials that mock belief in God or encourage them to abandon Christianity for a different set of beliefs? That will be the outcome if the Liberty Institute were have to "won" before the Supreme Court. The high court could not grant special status just to Christians. They would have to have opened the playground to all forms of religious persuasion.

This is where loving others as you would wish to be loved comes into play. If you do not want your children handed candy with the message that God does not exist, then you should not expect to have your children handing out candy with your beliefs.

Please, Miss America, don't stop with the children

Laura Kaeppeler is the new Miss America. I am not interested in pageants so her celebrity escapes me. However, what caught my eye was the cause she is going to promote during her tenure. From the Washington Post:

But the glamorous appearances go for a most unglamorous cause. As someone who saw her father hauled off to prison for a white collar crime, Kaeppeler uses her high-profile platform to shine a spotlight on the 2.7 million, largely unseen kids who have an incarcerated parent.

She is thinking small. She is going to focus on restoring funding for the Mentoring Children of Prisoners federal program. She is thinking very small.

The problem we face in this country associated with our penal system is not just children of the prisoners. The big picture problem is we have a larger percentage of our population behind bars or under state supervision than any other nation, developed or not.

There are only two explanations why we have so many Americans living in cages. One is that we are an inherently evil bunch, prone to ignore laws to get what they want. That is an amusing image but probably not true. The second is that we are a vindictive society. Any violation of rules needs to be punished harshly. Disobedience will not be tolerated. Dissidence will not be tolerated. Color within the lines or we will kick the snot out of you. Merciful is not an adjective you can use to describe America in the 21st century. Adam Gopnik described our penal mania this way on the pages of the New Yorker:

For most privileged, professional people, the experience of confinement is a mere brush, encountered after a kid’s arrest, say. For a great many poor people in America, particularly poor black men, prison is a destination that braids through an ordinary life, much as high school and college do for rich white ones. More than half of all black men without a high-school diploma go to prison at some time in their lives. Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today—perhaps the fundamental fact, as slavery was the fundamental fact of 1850. In truth, there are more black men in the grip of the criminal-justice system—in prison, on probation, or on parole—than were in slavery then. Over all, there are now more people under “correctional supervision” in America—more than six million—than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height. That city of the confined and the controlled, Lockuptown, is now the second largest in the United States.

So, Miss America, don't stop with restoring existing funding for the mentoring program. Let's face facts, $49 million over an 8 year period is the drop in the bucket when you are talking about 2 million children of prisoners. That works out to be about $20 per child per year. Woo hoo.

For Laura Kaeppler, this fight is personal since her own father was arrested and imprisoned when she was younger. She knows that the real needs of children with incarcerated parents go beyond a mentoring program. However, she probably sees restoring funding for the federal mentoring program is a reasonable goal for the next year. And she is right. That is a large, but manageable focus while on the road for the better part of the coming year.

Miss America, I plead with you to add one more thing to your list. Please. Pretty Please. Talk about our need as a country to become at least as merciful as the the rest of the world. Lend your voice to calls for us to become less vindictive and more merciful. Because of your celebrity, people will listen to you.

Think about, Miss America. After all, if there were fewer Americans behind bars, there would be fewer children at risk because of the incarceration of a parent. 

Trivializing worship (and God)

Rabbi Rick Jacobs makes an interesting observation about how entrenched the trivialization of God has become in our culture. From Reform Judaism:

The God-talk we hear most is hardly worth emulating. Watching athletes pointing to the heavens to acknowledge their savior after scoring a touchdown, you’d think God actually cared about which team won. While I hope God’s presence can be felt in all places, including football stadiums, I find it offensive to reduce the Almighty to a football mascot in the sky.

The Rabbi is correct. The spectacle of athletes making ritualized displays of "gratitude" for meaningless acts of physical prowess should be something everyone of faith questions.

No doubt some will want to say that any display of faith has value. Not if it sets a bad example.

Consider the athlete. What are they giving thanks and "glory" to God for? Having the physical ability to play a game? Being showered with wealth for performing acts that do nothing to enrich human existence? Gratitude for blessings does not require an audience. It is little more than performance art when a play or game goes their way. Or an act of superstition they hope will bring them even more successes in the future. More glory to me than to God.

Not to be outdone by overpaid athletes, politicians have also gotten into act by announcing that they have been "called" by God to run for office. In other words, I have been endorsed by God so you should vote for me. Even the disgraced politician cannot resist the temptation to invoke the sacred to plead for sympathy and mercy.

Rabbi Jacobs goes to the heart of the matter:

If this is what passes for religion these days, it’s no wonder that so many of us have trouble finding God in our midst.

Two thousand years ago, another Rabbi warned his followers against public displays of piety (Matthew 6).  God is found in the still, small voice we only hear when our mouths are closed and hearts are open.

A Good Samaritan story in Iraq

The Iraq war is an ugly chapter in American history. Not only did we lie about the threat posed by Iraq, powerful so-called Christians claimed it was the will of God. We had a president who told Muslims that God told him to invade Iraq and depose Saddam Hussein. We had prominent religious authorities blessing the Iraq war as just. And so we invaded a country that had no means to defend itself, wrecked the infrastructure, inflamed religious and ethnic divisions in its society, had its leaders executed, and even rewrote its laws to make its resources available to multinational corporations. Huzzah.

That is the backdrop for a retelling of the Good Samaritan story.

The Gospel of Rutba recounts the story of generosity by Muslims towards Christian peace activists who traveled to Iraq help those harmed by the conflict. The book was written by Greg Barrett, a journalist who decided to follow up on rumors he kept hearing about a real Good Samaritan story in Iraq. Muslims played the role of the Good Samaritans, taking Christians injured in a car accident to a doctor. And just for good measure, these beneficent Muslims happened to live in the town of Rutba, where our mighty coalition had just smart-bombed the local hospital into rubble.

Here is a first hand account by Jonathan Wilson-Hargrove, a member of the Christian Peacekeeper Team that was on the road to Rutba.

During the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Leah and I traveled with the Christian Peacemaker Teams to Baghdad, believing that the way of Jesus called us to interrupt the unjust war our country was initiating. Three days after U.S. planes bombed the hospital in Rutba, our American friends’ car hit a piece of shrapnel on the highway outside of town and landed in a side ditch. Iraqis stopped by the roadside, took our bleeding friends into their car, and drove them to a doctor in Rutba. “Three days ago your country bombed our hospital,” he said, “but we will take care of you.” He sewed up their heads and saved their lives. When we asked the doctor what we owed him for his services, he only said, “Please, go tell the world what is happening in Rutba.”

Given how this war was sold by people calling themselves Christians, isn't interesting that there were signs that there was nothing Christian about this war. The Good Samaritans of Rutba provide one such sign. 

Unholy Trinity

Trinity Episcopal Church over by Wall Street needs the services of a ghostbuster or exorcist. The place reeks.

Anyone who has been to Manhattan has probably seen the massive gothic spire of the church. To the unsuspecting, it might seem like an outpost of ethics and compassion in a sea of greed. Sadly, the only impressive things about Trinity are its architecture and address.

Lest you think me harsh, consider the rector Rev. James Cooper. He does not have to sell the gospel of prosperity. On the contrary, all he has to do is tell the prosperous that they are good people and deserve rewards in this life and for eternity. He is compensated handsomely for the privilege of serving the privileged.

Press accounts make Cooper sound like the modern Episcopal version of a Borgia pope. He received compensation of $1.3 million in 2010, awarded himself the supplementary title of CEO, and picked out a $5.5 million SoHo townhouse for himself, paid for by the church.

And Cooper learned a few tricks from the casino capitalists. Kick the downtrodden and leverage your assets for even larger returns.

... he shuttered Trinity's homeless drop-in center in 2009, then announced plans to borrow church money to build luxury condos on top of a palatial renovation of the church's offices.

Let the poor find shelter and a meal elsewhere. We have real estate to lease and sell. The unwashed tarnish the buzz.

And then there is the flock that Rev. Cooper shepherds.

An analysis of Trinity’s vestry (the governing board that manages the parish’s affairs) lends some significant weight to these concerns. Marked as up-to-date as of May 6, 2011, the vestry list reads as a who’s-who of the rich and powerful in New York, including Wall Street bankers, media and real estate executives, and in the most telling case, a former executive vice president of Brookfield Properties, the company that owns Zuccotti Park.

Even some of these titans are put off by the shenanigans of Rev. Cooper.

Cooper's excesses were too much even for some of his high-flying vestry, and they asked him to resign. When he refused, many quit. They've since been replaced by members more aligned with Cooper's way of doing things.

Can it be that some of these folks have a conscience or are they just jealous that Rev. Cooper gets to play in their sandbox completely tax free? It does not matter. He found fresh soulless blood.

Which brings us to why Trinity is in the news. You may remember the Occupy movement. They took up residence in Zuccotti Park to call attention to the obscene concentration of wealth at the top of the economic ladder and shrinking opportunities for everyone else. When the protestors were evicted from Zuccotti by tycoon Mayor Bloomberg, some of the protestors fled to an empty plot of grass and trees known as Duarte Square. Guess who owns Duarte Square. Why, Trinity church, of course.

And what did Trinity Church do with those protestors, including an Episcopal bishop, chanting and drumming on the sacred lawn? Had them arrested, of course. And Trinity's response to calls to drop the charges? No mercy, of course. They even lied, claiming the matter was out of their hands. Not quite. They have to agree to testify against the protestors and the church's lawyer intends to do just that. Of course. You can find Cooper's smarmy response here. (Gee, Rev. Cooper, do you really want to call protestors on the lawn "seizure of private property?")

After losing many cases in court over the Occupy movement, the NYC District Attorney is doubling down on prosecuting those arrested in Duarte Square. Recent protests in front of the church have included people on hunger strike. Their goal is to call attention to the hypocrisy of the church.

Some of the protestors have been carrying signs that read, "who would Jesus prosecute?" The answer can be found in Matthew (21:12–27), Mark (11:15–33), Luke (19:45–48, 20:1–8) and John (2:13–16). He took a whip to the money changers in the Temple and turned over tables.

I doubt Jesus would find much to like about Rev. Cooper. In a bygone era on the shores of the Mediterranean, Cooper would have been a Pharisee or Sadducee in good standing.

Praise the Lord and pass the derivatives and collateralized debt options. J'accuse! J'accuse!

Does Heaven matter?

Take a moment and imagine life after death. How do you see the place and those around you?  I doubt you had to work very hard to conjure up a few images. Most of us have indulged in a fantasy or two about Heaven.

Hold on to those heavenly thoughts for a moment or two.

Virtually all the people that claim to believe in God also claim to believe in life in after life. At the heart of many religious traditions is that Heaven is the prize for believing in God. That makes Heaven the linchpin in making sense of these various religious traditions - a very big freaking deal.

There is a growing movement among biblical scholars to question popularly held views about Heaven and the afterlife. The latest book by theologian N. T. Wright (“How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels") debunks many pie-in-the-sky misconceptions about life after death. During in interview published in the Washington Post, Wright makes clear that many Christians have the wrong idea.

“An awful lot of ordinary church-going Christians are simply millions of miles away from understanding any of this.

Wright and fellow theologian Christopher Morse have independently written recent books about what the Jews of the first century and the first followers of Christ thought about Heaven.

“It’s the recovery of the Jewish basis of the Gospels that enables us to say this,” Wright said. “We are so fortunate in this generation that we understand more about first-century Judaism than Christian scholarship has for a very long time. And when you do that, you realize just how much was forgotten quite soon in the early church, certainly in the first three or four centuries.”

Heaven matters as the promise made in John 3:16. In Wright's words, Jesus was given to us “so that everyone who believes in him should not be lost but should share in the life of God’s new age.” Heaven is that new age.

I have no reason to doubt the scholarship of Wright and Morse. If their previous work is any gauge, then they paint a much clearer picture of Heaven though the eyes of the early followers of Jesus. I only wish they had taken the discussion one step further.

All conceptions about Heaven have one thing in common - they are all wrong. Even the most fertile imagination cannot picture life after our earthly existence. It is beyond anything we can comprehend. There is simply no basis in our experience to picture any of it. Every attempt to flesh out Heaven falls short, even that of the early followers of Jesus.

Jesus understood Heaven but never spent much time talking about it. My guess is that he knew that no matter how he tried to explain the afterlife, it was never going to get through our thick skulls.

Instead, Jesus focused on how we should live this life. Rather than dwell on heaven, you are just going to have trust God enough to believe that it will be worth your while to live as Jesus described. In a word, you are to love. Without exception. Love family, friends, strangers, even enemies. And love means more than just not hurting others, the traditional definition of sin in the Torah (first five books of the Old Testament). It means that it is also a sin to neglect the suffering of others even when that suffering was not your fault. It means mercy and forgiveness rather than rushing to judgment. It means revenge is left to the Lord. It means sincerity in worship matters more than stale rituals. Believe in Jesus enough to do these things and you will be welcomed into the paradise to come.

The real trouble with dwelling on heaven is that is nothing but navel gazing. It is counting the angels on the head of a pin. Jesus said you have work to do. You have to be an effective witness for God's love. Consult the Sermon on the Mount for pointers on how to do that.

And if you want hear God laugh, then fantasize about Heaven as a gated community with you in one of the biggest McMansions. Fantasize about God loving you more than others so you are even spared death and suffering. The whole Rapture Ready nonsense has God laughing out loud. If you want to be first in the Kingdom of Heaven, you better put yourself last in your earthly coil (Matthew 19:30; Mark 10:31; Luke 13:30). My God, some people are clueless.

Thoughts of the afterlife are a source of comfort when you imagine your loved ones in paradise. It is perfectly understandable. Thoughts of the afterlife with you in paradise and your enemies roasting in the flames of Hell are a sure sign you still have spiritual work to do. You just flunked Forgiveness 101.

It is not what you understand about heaven that matters. The real spiritual gold is in what you understand about how to love others. That is the only real test.

Thou shall not speak truth to power

The Archbishop of Canterbury gave an interesting sermon during the service at St. Paul's Cathedral marking Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee. The theme was service to God and country. As befitting the occasion and the audience, Archbishop Rowan Williams touched on the importance of focusing on the common good and avoiding the temptations of greed. You can find the full text of that sermon here.

What is fascinating is to see how the sermon was covered by the media. The BBC and Guardian  focused on the Archbishop's discussion of how the Queen's service to country brought joy to her subjects as well as herself. The naughty bits were just ignored.

For example, the Archbishop defined honor as serving others rather than self.

‘Outdo one another in showing honour’, says St Paul. Compete with each other only in the generous respect you show to one and all; because in learning that respect you will find delight in one another. You will begin to discover that the other person is a source of nourishment, excitement, pleasure, growth and challenge. And if we broaden this out to an entire community, a nation, a commonwealth, it means discovering that it is always in an ever-widening set of relations that we become properly ourselves. Dedication to the service of a community certainly involves that biblical sense of an absolute purge of selfish goals, but it is also the opening of a door into shared riches.

He also touched on the common ills as a counterpoint to the common good.

Moralists (archbishops included) can thunder away as much as they like; but they’ll make no difference unless and until people see that there is something transforming and exhilarating about the prospect of a whole community rejoicing together – being glad of each other’s happiness and safety. This alone is what will save us from the traps of ludicrous financial greed, of environmental recklessness, of collective fear of strangers and collective contempt for the unsuccessful and marginal – and many more things that we see far too much of, around us and within us.

The Daily Mail, by contrast, highlighted those passages and accused the Archbishop of "hijacking the ceremony to preach a sermon on city greed, the environment, and immigration." Nothing could be further from the truth, but the mere mention of these issues is taboo in some circles. Dr. Williams was doing his job. There is no shortage of scripture that condemns greed and commands compassion "for the unsuccessful and marginal" in the words of the Archbishop and "for the least of my brethren" in the words of Jesus. Likewise, people of faith have been calling for responsible stewardship and care for God's creation instead of reckless environmental exploitation. 

The Archbishop dared speak truth to power. Whether the powerful will heed the call remains to be seen. However, the media is certainly taking a stand to marginalize the message by either ignoring or condemning it. That leaves the public deaf, dumb, and unlikely to demand more from their leaders.

Southern Baptist Convention's curious approach to accountability

A Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) panel investigating unethical conduct by Richard Land, head of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, handed down its judgment on Friday. For racist comments, baseless accusations, and plagiarism, Land gets two sternly worded letters of rebuke and loses his radio show. He will remain the high profile head of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. On what planet does this make sense?

There has been plenty of buzz about the "fix being in" after the head of the panel investigating Land abruptly resigned 10 days before the final ruling was to be delivered. After spending 6 weeks leading the investigation, we were supposed to believe that retired pastor Steve Faith resigned "to spend more time volunteering at the church where he is a member." Of course, his replacement was described as a strong supporter of Land and gave this glowing assessment to a reporter:

“I am a fan of Dr. Land. I am in his corner through this process and want to see him succeed and hope that he can continue in his ministry.”

After the ruling was announced, Land humbly gloated:

"I have said on numerous occasions that I believe in trustee oversight and governance. I am under the authority of the trustees elected by the Southern Baptist Convention. This whole process was conducted in a Christian manner by Christian gentlemen. 

I look forward to working with them and their fellow trustees and the ERLC staff as we seek to continue to minister the Gospel of our Savior across our great land.

I cannot imagine why more and more people are walking away from organized religion. 

Religious liberty versus reproductive freedom

The U.S. Constitution specifies religious freedom in devilishly simple terms in the First Amendment.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

While it is clear that the founders wanted to the avoid persecution of religious minorities that plagued Europe, the ambiguity of what constitutes "the free exercise" of religion continues to spark controversy. The tension between different views of religious freedom are evident in reproductive rights for women.

No woman in this country is required to terminate a pregnancy or use contraception. If abortion or contraception goes against your religious beliefs, no one interferes with your ability to follow your conscience. There are no boundary conditions or constraints for your religious and reproductive rights.

The trouble comes when abortion or contraception do not violate your personal beliefs and you want to do something that religious authorities oppose. That is when you can clearly see how disingenuous the discussion of religious liberty has become in our society. To hell with free will.

Religious conservatives have come out of the woodwork in recent years to push legislation that limits the ability of a woman to have an abortion, affordable access to hormonal contraceptives, and even accurate information about contraception. And they have been remarkably successful in imposing their beliefs on the freedom of sexually active women to make choices about if and when they get pregnant.

Another popular gambit is to have health care professionals refuse to prescribe contraceptives or fill prescriptions based on their religious beliefs. In other words, their beliefs trump the rights of women who do not share their beliefs.

Here is recent example. A physician in Oklahoma refused to provide emergency contraception to a female rape victim.

“I will not give you emergency contraceptives because it goes against my beliefs,” the doctor allegedly told the rape victim and her mother, Rhonda. “She knew my daughter had just been raped. Her attitude was so judgmental and I felt that she was just judging my daughter,” Rhonda told the news station.

When someone can impose their religious beliefs on your behavioral choices, then religious liberty becomes a farce. Under those circumstances, it is more accurate to talk about religious privilege and control rather than liberty. So-called "conscience" clauses have become a very effective method for taking away a woman's right to make choices for herself.

And here is the devilishly ironic twist in this controversy. Since men cannot get pregnant, their personal rights and beliefs are never at risk beyond the impact on their sexual partners. Funny how that works. Men can even get medication to increase sexual performance to counteract the effects of age and disease without raising a peep from the morality police. Yet women have to fight upstream to gain access to the most effective forms of contraception.

Catholic bishops in America are also playing the religious liberty card as they seek to impose their values on access to contraception. They have joined with other religious conservatives in attempting to prevent insurance coverage of hormonal forms of contraception.

 As noted by constitutional law professor Douglas Laycock, the Catholic bishops are not content with having an exemption for the contraceptive coverage requirement by health insurance companies. They want nothing less than repeal of the law covering everyone, whether working for a Catholic institution or not.

Many of these same bishops were personally responsible for playing a shell game with pedophile priests for decades and decades. Let's also not forget that Archbishop Dolan, current leader of the US Catholic bishops, lied about making payments to pedophile priests when interviewed in 2006. Yet now these men are supposed to be taken seriously as moral authorities? What was it Jesus said about those without sin casting the first stone?

Survey after survey has found that the vast majority of Catholic women use contraception in defiance of Church leaders. In fact, a 2011 study by the Guttmacher Institute found that 98% of Catholic women of child bearing age had used contraceptives. Interestingly, the only major difference among religious groups in contraceptive use was that Evangelical women were far more likely to opt for sterilization after having children. There is an enormous divide between pulpit and pew on contraception. Most women do not believe that sex has to have a procreative potential in order for it to be morally acceptable.

The likely consequence of trying to pass off religious privilege and control over society as religious liberty is backlash.

The bishops claim liberty for themselves, and for the large institutions they control, while also fighting to restrict the liberty of others with respect to abortion, emergency contraception, and same-sex relationships. Persistent opposition to the liberty of others makes enemies; many Americans on the other side of these issues now view the bishops as a powerful force for evil. Why should anyone who disagrees with the bishops on sexual morality respect their broad claim to religious liberty? That is the challenge that defenders of religious liberty must answer.

One form that backlash will take will be growing opposition to any federal or state funding for Catholic institutions. Since Catholic charities, education institutions, and hospitals rely heavily on pubic funding, it will be a very tempting target for opponents of the Church. A few examples of those calls to end all public financing of Catholic organizations can be found here, here, here, and here. Those calls are certain to grow in number and volume.

The bishops are playing a cynical game. They have already petitioned and lost court fights against state mandates for contraception coverage in New York and California. The precedent for those cases was one set by none other than Justice Scalia. The snake is going to have to swallow its tail.

Both the New York Court of Appeals and the California Supreme Court relied on a U.S. Supreme Court decision holding that the First Amendment right of free exercise of religion does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a "valid and neutral law of general applicability on the ground that the law proscribes (or prescribes) conduct that his religion prescribes (or proscribes)." In that decision, Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith (1990), Justice Antonin Scalia quoted Justice Felix Frankfurter's eloquent exposition of the boundary between free exercise of religion and government regulation: "Conscientious scruples have not, in the course of the long struggle for religious toleration, relieved the individual from obedience to a general law not aimed at the promotion or restriction of religious beliefs. The mere possession of religious convictions which contradict the relevant concerns of a political society does not relieve the citizen from the discharge of political responsibilities."

Even more dishonest than religious organizations taking public funds while demanding exceptions from public policy, religious groups have been at the forefront of attacking secular organizations like Planned Parenthood. Whatever arguments can be made about the rights of religious organizations being forced to provide contraception, they do not extend to secular organizations. The attacks on Planned Parenthood indicate how extreme some groups have become in imposing their beliefs on the entire society. It only serves to demonstrate how this fight is more about the exercise of religious privilege and control rather anything remotely resembling freedom of religion.

As a person of faith, I cannot help but wonder in sad amazement over the truly convoluted talk of religious freedom, especially as it applies to reproductive freedom. It is impossible to take seriously people that oppose terminating unwanted pregnancies on one hand and work hard to limit access to contraception on the other hand. It is hypocrisy writ large. A big fat scarlet H.

As a man, I hope and pray that women take a larger leadership role in our political system and in religious organizations. It is the only hope for democracy and religion in our society.