Catholics and Obama

I've been enthralled by this article from the National Catholic Reporter: "I'm Catholic, staunchly anti-abortion, and support Obama." I read it this morning and simply can't stop thinking about it!

Here is my favorite part of the piece:

"There's another distinction that is often lost in the culture-war rhetoric on abortion: There is a difference between being pro-choice and being pro-abortion. Obama supports government action that would reduce the number of abortions, and has consistently said that "we should be doing everything we can to avoid unwanted pregnancies that might even lead somebody to consider having an abortion." He favors a "comprehensive approach where ... we are teaching the sacredness of sexuality to our children." And he wants to ensure that adoption is an option for women who might otherwise choose abortion.

Obama worked all of that into his party's platform this year. By contrast, Republicans actually removed abortion-reduction language from their platform.

What's more, as recent data show, abortion rates drop when the social safety net is strengthened. If Obama's economic program will do more to reduce poverty than McCain's, then is it wrong to conclude that an Obama presidency will also reduce abortions? Not at all."

Now, I'm a Christian woman who DOESN'T think fetuses are people, so not all of this applies to me (i.e., I don't think of abortion as "an unspeakable evil") but I really like this person's ability to incorporate his Catholic doctrine with real-world understanding. Unlike a lot of evangelicals, he realizes that abortion isn't something you can stop with a law— that women who don't want their babies will keep getting abortions regardless. And he recognizes that in order to stop abortion, you need to make societal changes, starting with a reduction in poverty.

All in all, a pretty interesting article. I love when people are able to use their brains when thinking about their faith!

What Paul Meant, Part 1

I've been reading What Paul Meant by Garry Wills, which my church's adult forum was apparently reading this past summer. I picked up the book from my fiancé, who is hoping to become an Episcopal priest and who enjoys reading about the Bible as much as I do. Of course I stole the book before he got a chance to read it himself, and have refused to return it until I'm finished. I've found it interesting so far, so I'm probably going to be bringing up some of the things it discusses for the next few days.

I found an interesting Biblical quote here that I seem to have missed during any of my seven or eight straight-through readings of the Bible:

I would rather speak five intelligible words in the gathering, to be understood by others, than speak thousands of words in tongues. (1 Cor 14.18-19)

Now, isn't that interesting? Paul is speaking to the glossolalists of Corinth here, and he seems to be insisting that their speaking in tongues act is all schtick and no substance.

This particularly calls to mind a film I've loved for years: "Hell House", which documents the insanity of an evangelical megachurch in Texas. In this documentary, these evangelical folks make much of the Bible's infallibility, and take the entire text literally and word-for-word. But they also appear to adore trying to speak in tongues, claiming that when one engages in this sort of behavior, it is like "a language that only God can understand."

Hrm. Seems to me that this Bible verse indicates that speaking in tongues is a waste of time. Intriguing, no?

Purity, schmurity.

This article interested me very much, as I have been intrigued by the concept of purity balls for some time now. In fact, I wrote a poem for my thesis on the subject, and continue to explore the concept as often as I can through articles, websites, and first-hand accounts.

For those who don't know, purity balls are a recent phenomenon in which a young girl (who can be as young as 2 or 3 and as old as a college student) goes with her father to a formal event whose theme seems to be a cross between a wedding and a debutante ball. The girls wear white dresses and the fathers wear suits; they stand at a cross or altar while the fathers pledge to protect their daughters' "purity" until those daughters marry.

I find this an interesting practice, particularly in light of the fact that we've known for months now that abstinence/virginity pledges actually encourage riskier sexual behavior. Why would anything think this could work?

Of course, I'm equally concerned with the damage these events can do to a girl's mental image of herself. In the above article, an 18-year-old girl tells the author that on her wedding day, her father will quite literally give her heart to her husband-- he has a key to a locket she wears, and will relinquish that key only when she is married. "It's a symbol of my father giving up the covering of my heart, protecting me, since it means my husband is now the protector," she says.

That makes me want to cry-- doesn't she think she's strong enough to protect herself? How does it make her feel, being nothing but a valuable prize to be given away to the strongest knight at the tournament? And what about her husband-- what if he needs a little protecting now and then? How will he feel, being asked to be a knight in shining armor instead of a contributor to a lifelong partnership?

Personally, I don't think God gives a whole lot of thought to "purity." I think God cares most about how we treat and respect others-- and I don't think he's peeping in through the keyholes of our bedrooms, waiting to pass judgment on our sex lives.

I'm a Christian woman. I believe that Jesus was divinely inspired, I believe that he loved everyone, and I believe that he died for that love. But I think the lesson of Jesus' death is NOT that we are sinful and bad and wicked and dirty and broken-- I think it's that we need to treat others lovingly, and to think for ourselves, unlike the blind masses that called for Jesus' death because they didn't understand his teachings.

And I believe that having sex before marriage is one of the best choices I've ever made. It's so nice to think that on my wedding night, I'll know exactly what my fianc likes, and I'll know exactly what I like, so I can really enjoy myself. It seems like a shame to waste such a most romantic night worrying about it being your first time, and having such intense pain in your genitals that you just lie there and wait for it to be over.

And you know what? I talk to God pretty regularly, and he's not mad at me. In fact, I think he's pretty proud overall of how I've turned out.

Plugging Someone Else, For a Change

Everyone: go read clairelight's short post on the subject of hateful anti-gay churches, entitled "Dykes Go To Hell." It's entertaining and insightful, and it has some very good observations on these churches' nasty behaviors. Go read, now!

Joe Biden and Religion

It's interesting that the Catholic faith of Barack Obama's newly minted running mate, Joe Biden, is considered somewhat of a liability. I'm not quite sure what the objections to the Catholic church in politics are anymore; back when Kennedy was running, people feared that a Catholic president would be a puppet of the Pope, but since it seems that evangelical presidents are puppets of conservative evangelical leaders anyways (GWB, cough cough), I don't understand how that charge could be uniquely Catholic in nature.

Well, I suppose that being a Mormon was ultimately what torpedoed Mitt Romeny's campain, since I think people feared that the Mormon church would have undue influence if he became president. So there's that.

Joe Biden's approach to religion seems to be my kind of thing:

"The six-term Democratic senator from Delaware also has offered to shove his rosary down the throat of the next Republican who tells him he isn't religious."

Sounds like something straight out of my book— except, y'know, it'd be an Anglican rosary instead of a Catholic one. I own two Anglican rosaries, so I'm sure I could spare one for such a noble purpose. :P I do sympathize with his annoyance, though, even if he phrases it in a slightly un-Christian way. I hate how everyone assumes that if you're not a member of some megachurch parish that meets in a warehouse and speaks in tongues and hates gay people, you're not a religious person.

Really, we shouldn't worry too much about the influence of Biden's religion, considering that, for the first time, the majority of the American public wants religion to stay out of politics. It might not be that big a deal. As long as he keeps it personal, he should be fine in the polls. But I'm going to be interested to see how this plays out in the media— and how people end up treating his professed Catholicism.

A Short Post On Prayer

Recently I've been thinking a lot about prayer, and how it works. I kind of object to the way a lot of people seem to be insisting that prayer can cure cancer or grant your every demand. I don't think prayer is a request-receive system; I don't think God sits around picking up the Prayer Telephone at random intervals and then zapping down whatever was desired to the appropriate supplicant.

Thus, I've always felt very uncomfortable praying for specific events to happen or for certain material goods to fall into my lap. I don't think that's how it's supposed to go. Rather, I prefer to request spiritual or emotional gifts, things like patience, bravery, cleverness, and willpower.

I can’t quite bring myself to ask for things, like “Please God, let me get this job,” or “Dear Jesus, please cure my friend’s illness.” I tried praying that way when I was younger, and it didn’t work; I tried praying for my grandpa’s life when I was thirteen, and all that did was make me angry with God for not delivering. I think the best approach is to pray for guidance and strength; thus, that first example becomes “Please God, help me stay calm during this job interview, so that I can prove I’m the right person for the position,” and the second becomes “Dear Jesus, please comfort my friend during her illness, and help her to feel how much we all love and support her.”

And mostly, I don’t ask for anything at all— I just say thanks. Only when I’m in serious trouble (recent economic events come to mind) do I ever implore God for emotional assistance. Most of the time I’m just thanking him for everything he’s given me, like my wonderful family and my fine education and my intelligence and my writing gifts and my adorable kitty and my awesome friends and my loving husband. It’s nice to be able to thank him for those things, because when I concentrate on them I can sort of forget about any negative things going on around me.

I think praying like this actually makes me feel better. It also doesn’t put God in the position of not being able to explain to me why he couldn’t produce instant results.

The Camel and the Needle

Okay, we need to talk here about Christianity and wealth. I thought I'd covered this pretty well in my post about poverty and God, but clearly I'm not getting through.

The Republicans are running some new ads this week, attacking Sen. Obama for saying he wants to "spread the wealth" while assuring people that McCain wants to let you "keep what's yours." And if they really believe that, that's fine— but then the Republican Party doesn't get to pretend like they're some sort of bastion of Christianity. In fact, they'll have to declare that they're a secular party with no use for Christian belief, because such talk is actually contrary to everything that Jesus said and did in his ministry.

Consider one of my favorite passages, wherein Jesus discusses the rich and their responsibility to the poor:

Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, "Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?"

 "Why do you ask me about what is good?" Jesus replied. "There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments."

 "Which ones?" the man inquired.

  Jesus replied, " 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother, and 'love your neighbor as yourself.'"

 "All these I have kept," the young man said. "What do I still lack?"

 Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

 When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.

 Then Jesus said to his disciples, "I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." [Matthew 19: 16-24, NIV]

This story is told in several forms throughout the Gospel, but it is always the same basic storyline: a young man comes to Jesus and asks how he can be saved, and Jesus tells him to give everything he has to the poor. The implication in the camel/needle statement is that the rich aren't welcomed by Jesus because they're not sharing their wealth with the poor.

And here's a passage from Luke:

He told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.'

"Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.'"

"But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?'

"This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God." [Luke 12: 16-21, NIV]

What's the message of this parable? That this man, who horded things without stopping to consider the needs of others, didn't get to use what he had horded as soon as he died. If you can't take it with you when you leave this earth, why not live simply and give excess to those who have nothing?

All of this, of course, counts as "spreading the wealth"— Jesus believed that if one man had a lot of money and another man had very little, the man with lots of money should give some of his money to the poor man. This was just obvious to Jesus, and obvious to his followers: the rich have a responsibility to the poor, just as the healthy have a responsibility to care for the sick, or parent has a responsibility to watch out for a child. Those who are up must care for those who are down— and nowhere does Jesus suggest that you ought to "keep what's yours." That statement has no place among Christian people.

So if John McCain and the Republican Party truly believe this, then that's fine by me— I've never been one to say that everyone must believe what I believe. But if they want to preach this selfish mantra, then they can't do so while attempting to be the "moral" party, the "traditional" party. They can't sit around and pay lip service to Christianity if they're going to stand in direct opposition to Christian values.

Jesus wanted us to spread our wealth. That's just how it is, guys. If you don't like that, then you need to shop around for a different religion.

Hug Me, I'm An Episcopalian!

I'm a little late here, but did you know that today (Friday the 6th) in National Hug An Episcopalian Day?

So go out and hug your favorite Episcopalian/Anglican right now. Well, maybe not right now, since it's eleven at night, at least here in Ohio— but maybe observe the holiday tomorrow instead. And while you're at it, maybe check out the incredibly awesome Episcopal Church.

Christian Tolerance

I found this article quite heartening-- despite a recent rise in Christian fundamentalism in the US, between 65 and 70 percent of Americans today believe that religions other than their own could lead to heaven and eternal life.

In July, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life put out a study that said that 70% of adults in the US felt this way; evangelical leaders insisted that the study was a fluke, so in August the Pew did the study all over again, this time with more pointed questions that would be sure to clear up any confusion the original questions caused. This time, 65% said that belief in their religion was not necessary for eternal life.

The above article lists several explanations for this cheerful outcome. One way to explain the results is to assume that most Americans just want good things to happen to good people:

"As Alan Segal, a professor of religion at Barnard College told me: 'We are a multicultural society, and people expect this American life to continue the same way in heaven.' He explained that in our society, we meet so many good people of different faiths that it’s hard for us to imagine God letting them go to hell. In fact, in the most recent survey, Pew asked people what they thought determined whether a person would achieve eternal life. Nearly as many Christians said you could achieve eternal life by just being a good person as said that you had to believe in Jesus."

The second explanation is that many Christians (like me!) just don't view their religion as inflexible and absolute:

"According to Pew’s August survey, only 39 percent of Christians believe that the Bible is the literal word of God, and 18 percent think that it’s just a book written by men and not the word of God at all. In fact, on the question in the Pew survey about what it would take to achieve eternal life, only 1 percent of Christians said living life in accordance with the Bible."

This makes me very pleased, indeed. I'm tired of hearing from other people that all Christians are outdated, pushy, Bible-thumping, mean-spirited jerks. Some of us aren't crazy, you know. A large percentage of us don't care to impose our religious views on other people who don't share our faith!

So the next time you meet a Christian, don't just assume that he or she is a hate-spewing bigot who despises gay people and thinks that evolution is a Communist conspiracy. Take some time to ask them what they believe and why they believe it. The answers just might surprise you!

More Whiny Anglicans...

And in my ongoing engagement in the current schism splitting my church apart...

Before now, the dissidents who split from the Episcopal Church joined up with Anglican dioceses in Africa and South America. Now, it appears, they want to set up their own rival North American diocese.

I just don't get it. If you don't agree with the principles and values of the Episcopal Church, then don't be an Episcopalian. There are about a million different denominations of Christianity— pick a new one, and leave. And if you don't want to leave because you love the Episcopal Church, then stay and make your voice heard in the Anglican communion. But how can you justify leaving the church and then trying to create a NEW EPISCOPAL CHURCH?! Either you're an Episcopalian, or you're not.

It's so childish to say, "Well, we disagree, so I'm going to go take my toys and play over there." What mean-spirited people. The Episcopal Church sometimes interprets scripture differently than I do, but I don't go off in a huff about it, do I? Why whine about this stuff? Why not just talk it out and explain how you feel and see if you can't persuade others?

Sheesh. If they're going to act like this, then I say good riddance to bad congregations.

Pastor Preaches Sexy Time

WARNING: Explicit discussion of sex and marriage is contained within this post.

This video from CNN caught my attention: the pastor of a non-denominational Baptist church in Texas (I know, I know, you can see where this is going already, right?) is preaching that his married congregants should have more sex. While you'd think I'd be all about this sort of preaching, I have incredibly mixed feelings about this video, particularly regarding our society's attitude towards both sex and marriage.

First off, I'm disturbed by the dual nature of our sexual views. Listen to the way both the interviewer and the preacher discuss sex: it must be sensual and loving and deeply emotional (involving "looking deeply into one another's eyes") or else it's somehow not right. Both the entertainment media AND a large percentage of religious institutions in this country promote this view; sex in films and television these days is either loving and gentle and sappy (the "moral" kind of sex) or rough and dirty and quick (the "immoral" kind of sex). We hardly ever see people in films or TV shows enjoying sex without pouring their hearts out or without having already fallen in love with one another. The latter kind of sex is the kind we see characters having when they feel bad about themselves, when they have self-esteem issues, when they're cheating on a spouse or having sex before they're ready.

Is this really the only way we can think about sex? I'm married, and I'm not always in the mood for candlelight/bubble bath/scented massage oil type sex. Sometimes I like to have some fun, and I don't see that there's anything wrong with lighthearted sex.

Secondly— okay, this is something that has always bothered me, but the video finally helped me articulate it a little bit more clearly than before. It seems like it works like this: the religious right doesn't want people to have sex before marriage, and then they're surprised when two married people who didn't try one another out before marriage find that they don't enjoy sex with one another because they're not sexually compatible. I just don't get this mindset. The best way to ensure that you have a happy, healthy sex life during marriage is to MAKE SURE YOU ARE COMPATIBLE BEFORE MARRIAGE. Hey, you don't have to have sex before marriage if you don't want to, but then you don't get to complain about not having sex when you ARE married.

Honestly, while I think stress and business can account for a little bit of this lack-of-marital-sex thing, I don't think that's really the problem. Adam and I are busy and stressed, and, well...it's not like we're frigid on the sex thing. I think part of the problem is that telling people that it's virtuous to wait to have sex until after marriage ensures that plenty of married people run headlong into marriage without knowing a thing about how well the other person will be able to satisfy them.

I've seen all kinds of evidence of this on The Nest, where we have a name for people like that: SRVs (self-righteous virgins). About 40% of the people on the site waited to have sex before marriage, and every single one of them seems to follow the same trajectory: when they first start posting on the boards, they say things like, "While it's your choice if you want to have sex before marriage..." or "I don't judge people who didn't wait..." and then proceed to ramble on about how THEY chose to do the bidding of the Lord, how THEY are going to be entering marriage as "pure souls," and how they're SO GLAD they waited because "now sex will be truly special for us."

About two months later, they stop talking about sex altogether.

About three months after that, the questions start to come in. They leave multiple messages on the Sex and Relationships board: "How come I can't have an orgasm?" "How do I give a blow job?" "Why can't my husband have an orgasm without watching porn?" "I don't understand how to put on a condom." "Is this normal?"

About three to four months after that, they leave messages on the Trouble in Paradise Board: "My husband doesn't understand how to turn me on." "I never want to have sex anymore." "My libido is too high or something, because I totally can't get enough and he always acts like he doesn't want to do it."

Now, I don't advocate sexual activity for people under 18, because most of the people I knew when I was a teen were barely ready for their driver's licenses, let alone for sex (although I suppose it depends on the individual, because nothing is right for everyone). But I don't advocate marriage for people under 18, either— and I think once you're old enough for marriage, you're old enough for sex. If you can't handle one, I dunno if you can handle the other.

If sex isn't that important to you, that's fine! I think different couples have different priorities. But I think that if sexual satisfaction IS going to be a factor in your marriage, you should know something about your partner before you move forward. It's perfectly fine to wait until marriage, but if you do, you should be aware that you may not click sexually, and you should be prepared to encounter surprises and difficulties. A lot of people seem to think that if they love someone, sex will be great, no matter what; they seem incredibly surprised (and dismayed) to discover that sex can be more or less satisfying based on your partner's physical and emotional characteristics. Don't complain about the product if you CHOSE not to test drive it beforehand.

In short: if you want to try out your mate before you're married, do it. If you don't want to, that's cool, but be prepared to encounter fetishes or techniques or sexual mindsets that you might not enjoy or feel comfortable with.

My motto? Be prepared. :)

Ten Things For Which I Am Thankful...In No Particular Order

1. My family— my awesome husband Adam, my kind and wonderful parents, my great sisters Tati and Sarah, my grandparents, my in-laws, and my aunts and uncles. I love them like crazy!

2. My friends. They are all so smart and beautiful and nice and sweet and I love them all so much!

3. My kitty, Charlotte Brontë. She is oh so cuddly and cute, and makes for excellent company!

4. My...well, my whole self, really. I mean, I'm thankful for who I am— that I'm smart and relatively okay-looking and not a complete spaz.

5. My apartment. It's cozy and warm and in a fairly nice neighborhood.

6. My health. I'm so lucky to be healthy and happy and trim and fit.

7. My skills. It's nice to be good at writing and good at meeting people and good at figuring stuff out.

8. My material goods. I have food and clothes and a TV and blankets and lots of stuff that other people don't have.

9. The random acts of kindness that have befallen me. My benefactor, Shelby Davis, didn't have to send a complete stranger to boarding school and give her $10,000/year to attend Vassar, but he did. Those Vassar people didn't have to give me all that financial aid, but they did. People are so nice sometimes!

10. My life. I'm so thankful to be alive right now, living when and where I do.

Yom Kippur

So I'm fasting for Yom Kippur today, which might seem a little weird, since I'm not Jewish. I'm sure that people at work will act confused about it, just like people at work were confused by my Christian seder. I hope no one is offended by my tendency to engage in religious traditions that aren't really mine.

But hey— atonement is always a good thing, right? And really, I've just always wanted to fast before. It seems like such a good test of patience and endurance, and such a good reminder of what we all take for granted. I like how a day of fasting works, too: it's an intense experience, but it's also not as friggin' long as Lent, which means I'm much less likely to forget that I'm fasting over a single day than, say, completely forget that I'm supposed to be giving sugar up for Lent, and only remember AFTER I've eaten a plate of chocolate chip cookies.

Sigh.

Waiting For God

One of the reasons I find it so hard to understand the Christian right is because we really are working from two completely different ways of looking at the world. We may read the same Bible (although we clearly take different passages to heart), but liberal Christians like me see morality and theology and society in such vastly different ways than fundamentalists do, and it can make it hard to relate to one another.

Take marriage, for example. Today I happened to be enjoying, with a kind of horrified delight, the website of the dreadful Duggars, a family of eighteen children (by the way, they're expecting their nineteenth soon). As I browsed their website and the website of their son and daughter-in-law (who recently married and are now expecting a child as well), I found that in many instances I had a really hard time understanding what they were talking about. Like, I don't just mean I didn't understand their political and religious opinions— I mean I literally couldn't understand what they were trying to say when they typed out the words.

Part of the misunderstanding, I think, tends to be due to language; I hate to make a sweeping generalization or anything, but I often find that Christian fundamentalists have difficulty with precision and accuracy of language. They use phrases that sound positive or attractive without actually stopping to think about what they're really saying: "radiant purity," or "purposeful singleness,” or this sentence (an excerpt from a description of a teen book about "staying pure"): “Sarah Mally challenges young ladies to turn to the Lord for fulfillment, to guard their hearts and minds, to identify and avoid the world's thinking, and to shine brightly in this generation.” What the hell does “shine brightly in this generation” even MEAN? Sounds to me like someone wanted to finish off the book description quickly, and was searching for something with a general air of upliftedness without thinking about what the words would mean when they were placed together like that. Generic feel-good sentences may sound wholesome and all, but they don’t really hold a lot of meaning; the problem with clichés is that they lose their value with senseless repetition, and it seems that no one managed to tell this to the Promise Keepers.

But beyond the language issue, I think fundamentalists tend to look at things in a way that is completely outside my realm of experience. Take Pamela’s Prayer, a film suggested by the Duggars, and one that is easily accessible by way of YouTube. The film is basically an episode of Mystery Science Theatre waiting to happen, but beyond the 1980s hair and clothes (the film was made in 1998, by the way) and the absurd dialogue (“Do you know what a Christian film library is?”), the film sets forth some of the more disturbing ways in which fundamentalist Christians think about sex and marriage.

Because, you see, sixteen-year-old Pamela isn’t just being told not to have sex before marriage— her father forbids her from dating, or from kissing, or basically from sharing the same room with a boy alone. Pamela’s job is to listen, unquestioningly and adoringly, to every single thing her father tells her, and to obey his every command (or else bad things will happen to her— like a boy at school will tell everyone she’s a Kiss Slut!) At its heart, Pamela’s Prayer reveals the way in which many fundamentalist Christians view marriage, not as an equal partnership, but as a transfer of responsibilities and authority from father to husband. It’s about keeping the men in control, and really, it relegates hundreds of years of hard-fought gender equality to the No Man’s Land of “evil popular culture.”

When Frederick, the enterprising young man who works for Pamela’s father, wants to ask Pam to come for a drive with him in his car, does he ask HER if she’d like to do that? No, he asks her father— with the careless caveat “if it’s okay with Pamela” thrown in to appease her delicate feminine pride. When Fred wants to marry Pam (neither of whom apparently want to attend college or have rewarding careers after their high school graduation), he seems to barely know her. And in any case, he doesn’t ask her to marry him— he asks her dad if the marriage is okay. And when the proposal is finally made t Pam herself, she can’t even squeak out a “yes, I’d like that very much,” without waiting for daddy’s nod of approval. Even on her wedding night, we see Pam calling her dad up for one last over-the-phone prayer, as though she needs his blessing for the transfer of his power over her to be complete.

Of course, this film is extreme, and I doubt there are too many Christian parents who would truly begrudge their children a little high school smooching. But, as with the abortion law I discussed a few weeks ago, the problem I have is not that this extremism is widely accepted, but that its fundamental values— the values of patriarchal control and sexual subjugation— are the source for many of the religious right’s seemingly milder beliefs. No, not a lot of Christian parents are screening Pamela’s Prayer for their kids— but the recently popular phenomenon of purity balls, which feature young girls in white gowns pledging their purity to their fathers, draw on the same logic and belief system as this amusingly backwards little film. The film's message may seem extreme, but really, it’s a lot like what a world dominated by Christian fundamentalists would look like, if their values were allowed to be carried to their logical conclusions.

And you know, it’s not just about patriarchal control of the family; the ways in which the fundamentalist patriarchy asserts control doesn’t just stop with individual families or even larger societies. To my mind, the issue of allowing oneself to be controlled is something that I think is mirrored in the fundamentalists’ relationships with God, as well. Listening to evangelicals talk, I hear a lot of things like “surrender to God,” “offer it up to Jesus,” or “let God do the talking.”  Reading the story of Joshua and Anna Duggar, I was a little concerned by how often they each talked of waiting for God to tell them who to marry, of remaining static and inactive while God sent them the perfect partner instead of looking for him/her on their own.

But I mean— is that really how God works? Every day, millions of children who think they understand how praying works pray for things they’ll never get: ponies, baby brothers, new parents, PlayStation games. Meanwhile, their parents pray for things they need but don’t know how to find: jobs, food, shelter, health. From a fundamentalist’s perspective: if God doesn’t give us what we ask for, what does that mean? If we “leave it up to God” and pray for the perfect partner, and then God never “sends” us someone to love, is it because we didn’t pray hard enough? Is it because we didn’t deserve it? Is it because God doesn’t want us to be happy— because our need for companionship doesn’t fit in with God’s all-knowing, seemingly perfect plan for the world?

As I’ve said before, I don’t believe praying for things makes them happen. I believe prayer is a means of comfort and understanding, not a way to make things happen, or to even ask them to happen. And part of the reason I think that is this: my relationship to God could never be one in which I simply “submit,” like a kicked dog with a broken spirit, and wait for good things to happen to me. Sometimes, when I’m scared or confused or disappointed, I’ll remind myself that opportunities can be hidden, and many wonderful things can be waiting down a dark and lonely road. But in the end, I can’t just wait for things to happen, because God doesn’t just give you things. As far as I can figure, he doesn’t work that way, and I’m glad, because if this was all a matter of waiting for the inevitable, where’s our free will? And with it, our will to live, and to hope?

Adam is fond of saying, “God doesn’t make things happen— he simply provides the opportunity for things to happen.” God doesn’t save people from plane crashes or send angels into burning buildings, for the same reason he doesn’t kill babies in third world countries or send men out to die in horrible wars. All of these situations, and all of those results, were created by people— the airplanes, the guns, the well-placed fire escape or poorly timed elevator ride. But God gave us our minds, so that we could figure out how to overcome the challenges of our confusing and evolving world, and he gave us our hearts, so we could learn how to help one another instead of waiting for pillars of fire to light our way. And he gave us this universe— its glorious roominess, its solid matter, the wonderful framework of space-time through which we’re all sailing every day— to work out how to do things better, or how to appreciate them more, whether or no we believe in him or even like him.

So I’d say: don't just “offer it up” or “leave it to God” and then forget about it, assuming that it’s resolved. You have two hands, and a voice box, and a heart that, no matter who you are, usually wants to do the right thing, so use them. And use your head, too, because God never just tell us what to do; he gives us some confusing and contradictory hints, and then left us to figure them out ourselves. It may be comforting to believe that we can just leave everything up to God, but it's not practical, and it's not fair to God, either. What you do, whom you love, how you live your life, has everything to do with figuring out your own relationships, and nothing to do with being taught the “right” way to live and executing those directions flawlessly. I need God, but you might not, and that’s okay, because I believe we all have the capacity to find our own happiness, our own contentment, in our own time and through our own methods.

Although really, it might be better for everyone if those methods didn’t include calling your dad on your wedding night. EWWW.

Go Lutherans

A New Philosophy would like to give an official thumbs up to the Lutherans, who voted today to allow openly gay and lesbian ministers to serve in their church! Previously, the church had only allowed gays and lesbians to serve if they remained celibate, but now the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has voted to allow gays and lesbians who are sexually active (i.e., within a committed relationship) to enter the ministry.

The end of the above article made me really happy and proud:

"The Rev. Katrina Foster, a pastor in the Metropolitan New York Synod, pointed out that the church has ordained woman and divorced people in violation of a literal interpretation of scripture.

'We can learn not to define ourselves by negation,' Foster said. 'By not only saying what we are against, which always seems to be the same — against gay people. We should be against poverty. I wish we were as zealous about that.'"

Right on, Rev. Foster-- and right on, Lutherans!

Cheering on the Church!

I'd like to give a big old shout-out to the Episcopal Church for taking two big steps at the General Convention this week! First of all, we began the process for creating service templates to bless same-sex unions; secondly, we ended that silly moratorium on consecrating new gay bishops, which we'd put upon ourselves at the last Convention.

The moratorium was stupid; it pissed off the majority of the Episcopal Church, and it didn't even appease the small minority that it was meant to appease, because they won't be appeased unless we rescind the right of gay people to become priests altogether. And obviously we won't do that, because that would be pretty stupid and mean, not to mention petty.

So I'm glad we did what we did. But what really got to me was this quote from Zach Brown, a delegate to the conference from the Diocese of Upper South Carolina who urged the delegates NOT to lift the moratorium:

"Please don't vote in a way that makes more conservatives feel the way I do now: like I'm the only one left."

And it occurred to me that what bothered me was the "I" in the statement. How did this guy take an issue about other people's happiness and turn it into something about HIM— how HE feels, what HE wants? If you're not gay, IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU. If you're straight and you don't like the idea of gay people serving Jesus, then THAT'S YOUR PROBLEM. DEAL WITH IT.

Anyways, I applaud the Convention's decision, and I'm especially happy that the vote tally didn't seem close at all. It was an overwhelming affirmation of gay rights, and I'm proud to be a member of such a church.

But I'm getting kind of sick of all this posturing in order to appease the Archbishop of Canterbury. He doesn't actually have any power in the Episcopal Church; he's the head of the Church of England, not our church. So where does he get off telling us what to do? You know what, Mr. Archbishop? We don't actually NEED you to function. Go ahead, kick us out of the Anglican Communion. We have over two million members, dude, and plenty of cash. We'd love to be your friends, but we're not going to oppress other people in order to impress the Cool Kids in the Communion.

If you don't like us anymore, Mr. Archbishop, that's fine. We'll just keep loving you— and loving our gay brothers and sisters, as well. We have enough love to go around!

We All Have Work To Do

Jimmy Carter has quit the Southern Baptists, and says it because some Southern Baptist leaders use Scripture to subjugate women.

In his statements on the subject, Carter made a number of wonderful points, and explained that the repugnant use of religious texts to justify the oppression of women isn't unique to Southern Baptists, or even to Christianity— that it can be seen in almost every religious tradition.

Here's my favorite quote from the statement:

"Although not having training in religion or theology, I understand that the carefully selected verses found in the holy scriptures to justify the superiority of men owe more to time and place - and the determination of male leaders to hold onto their influence - than eternal truths. Similar Biblical excerpts could be found to support the approval of slavery and the timid acquiescence to oppressive rulers."

Carter's position on female empowerment made me think about my own faith. While most Episcopalians are pretty freethinking types, there are still a few stubborn old coots who resent the fact that the Church ordains women, and that our elected spiritual leader (Katharine Jefferts Schori) is a woman. In thinking about these sexist attitudes, I'm reminded that we ALL have work to do, in every faith tradition, to ensure that we keep moving towards equality and love. Even Episcopalians, who have certainly come a bit further than some other traditions I could name, have our fair share of work to do.

It's important to keep challenging, keep questioning, and keep insisting on equality.

Undercover In Jesusland

While I surely resent him for having written a much-anticipated book while still in college, I also really have to admire Kevin Roose for going undercover at Liberty University in order to write The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University.

In order to better understand Christian fundamentalism, Roose took a semester off from his studies at Brown and took courses at the Jerry Falwell-founded university— including Evangelism 101 and History of Life (a creationist biology course). He took part in extracurricular activities, including dropping in on a support group for chronic masturbators. And, of course, he abided by Liberty’s student code of conduct, which forbids drinking, smoking, dancing, cursing, R-rated movies— and hugs lasting longer than three seconds. Sheesh— I couldn’t LIVE without bear hugs!

What’s interesting, though, is that Roose really did seem to want to understand fundamentalism— not just make fun of it. I always love an open, honest look at the Christian right; after all, one of my favorite films ever is Hell House, a fairly unvarnished documentary about a Texas church that tries to scare people into believing in Jesus.

Not only do these things speak for themselves (like in Hell House, where all you need to know about some of these folks’ worldviews is told by their inability to distinguish a Star of David from a pentagram), they also help people to understand that not all Christians think alike. It’s important, I think, for non-religious folks to be able to recognize that religion in and of itself is not this evil, corrupting thing. When you see nice people doing nice things in these documentary books and movies, you begin to think, "Hey, maybe they're trying to do the right thing, even if they're failing at it spectacularly."

See, religion can be a vehicle for great suffering, like with the Inquisition and the Taliban and all those silly parts of Leviticus that try to insist that wearing garments made from two different types of cloth makes you unclean for seven days. But religion can also be a vehicle for kindness and compassion and social change: my church’s soup kitchen, Desmond Tutu, my husband’s journey from aimless, womanizing party boy to serious, loving, responsible husband and priest.

Yes, religion is a crutch— but the effect it has on the world depends on the one who wields it. In the hands of someone who is already cruel, it becomes a prop for misinformation, for fear, for division. In the hands of someone who loves, however, it supports that love, sustaining a sickening body or a disillusioned heart where nothing else could have managed.

I don’t mean to minimize the evils that have been done in the name of God— those evils are many, and every person of faith should know them and recognize them and work hard to ensure that they never happen again. But I do get tired of hearing that religion is this horrible thing that corrupts everyone it touches. People who misuse religion are opportunists; people who do terrible things in the name of God are using that God as their excuse, not their inspiration. If they didn’t have religion, they’d use something else— government, brute strength, technology.

And so I’m interested to read this book, because it sounds like this guy really understands these things. He really does seem to realize that within Christianity, there are some useful concepts, a few things that DO make the world a better place— love thy neighbor, do not kill, let he who has not sinned cast the first stone.

Roose made an effort to understand the world of Liberty University, and I salute him. If only more conservative Christians would make an effort to understand his world— and the world that us liberal Christians inhabit— we might all be able to find common ground, after all.

And all this makes me want to write a book.

Polish Priests and Sex?

Get this: a (celibate) Polish priest has just published sex manual entitled Sex As You Don't Know It: For Married Couples Who Love God. The guy claims that, although he's never actually HAD SEX, his experience with marriage counseling and running his own sex advice website for a year have given him the necessary insight into such a topic. Right.

Now, I'm cool with this guy emphasizing healthy sexuality in marriage. He's correct when he says that too many people automatically imagine sex in general as immoral and married sex as dull and infrequent, so while I'm skeptical about his credentials (I mean, how would he like it if I wrote a manual about how to be a good Catholic priest?), I'm willing to overlook them on the basis of his seemingly good intentions.

THIS is what actually bothers me about the book: in it, this priest discourages the use of contraceptives within marriage, saying that they "lead a married couple outside of Catholic culture and into a completely different lifestyle."

Um...what?!

Okay, I understand why these folks dislike advertising condom use in general; they seem to think that encouraging such use will foster sexual relations between unmarried persons, and the Catholic Church dislikes that sort of thing. Now, that argument is kind of weird, given the fact that 1) people have been having sex since the dawn of time and you're not going to stop their biological impulses with a bunch of dour looks, and 2) every study EVER has shown that encouraging condom use does NOT promote an increase in sexual activity. But at least I understand their logic, even if I think that logic is Ayn Rand-esque.

But here's where I can't even follow this type of thinking at all, because that logic (such as it is) doesn't transfer over to married couples. How can the supposed ability of condoms to promote increased sexual activity be a bad thing if you're writing a book that ENCOURAGES SEXUAL ACTIVITY?

Furthermore, if his line of thinking means that condoms could conceivably encourage infidelity outside of marriage— how does that speak for the importance, stability, and sanctity of the institution? C'mon— if your marriage is so weak that wearing a condom is going to make you yell, "Yesss! Now I can go plow other chicks!" or "Yay, now my husband won't get that disease I'm going to contract from sleeping with my ex!", your marriage is pretty damn weak.

And most importantly, it makes the Catholic Church's (admittedly fragmented and controversial) disapproval of same-sex marriage seem even sillier. How can you claim that heterosexual marriage is the stable rock upon which society is built if it's so unstable that a simple "Honey, I want to get an IUD" can tear it to shreds? In this context, wouldn't same-sex marriage be the IDEAL marriage: the marriage that results in zero unplanned pregnancies without the use of a single birth control pill?

Personally, I always thought that a big part of Christianity was responsibility— to your neighbor, to your community, to the poor, to God. And using birth control is RESPONSIBLE— certainly more responsible than having a million kids you can't afford. Tell me Jesus would have a problem with that.

Or alternatively, tell it to my great-grandmother, a devout Catholic who raised nine kids on a coal-miner's salary. She disliked her husband (they were married when she was only 16— she'd never met him, and she'd only agreed to the arranged marriage if he'd pay her way to America from Slovakia— and they married on the pier where she disembarked without ever having set eyes on one another before), and she disliked having so many children. My grandfather was poor ALL THE TIME; eventually, he dropped out of high school to lie about his age and dig ditches for the CCC, although he was caught within a few months and sent home to return to school. They had dirt floors and not enough to eat, and it was definitely not the sort of experience you'd wish on any of your kids.

My great-aunt Lucy once told me about how my great-grandmother didn't really want those last few kids, but they kept showing up anyways. She was tired of being a mom, but she had no way to stop it; if you were married, that meant your husband could have sex with you whenever he wanted, and you couldn't do much about it. As Catholics, they were expected to have sex within marriage, but they had no way of stopping the flow of children, even though each subsequent child made things worse for the previous ones.

To me, my great-grandmother's story isn't just a reminder of why you shouldn't marry strange men who offer you tickets to faraway countries; it's also a reminder of how important it is not to hide your head in the sand when it comes to other people's lives. Priests see suffering all the time; they are often placed in situations where they are surrounded by the poor, the sick, the hungry, the lonely, the trapped. And if you have the opportunity to make life better for someone, then I assert that, if you are also a Christian, it is your God-given duty to try and help him or her out. You can't just do the stuff that feels safe and ignore the stuff that makes you uncomfortable, either, because Jesus is all about moving you out of your comfort zone, and forcing you to recognize the world for what it really is. If condoms can help people, USE THEM.

So here's my message to this Polish dude: nice idea, but maybe you're not the best person for the job. Maybe leave that to an Episcopal priest. After all, they're allowed to 1) have sex 2) with condoms. They're also allowed to be WOMEN, which means they might have a teensy bit more insight into the fears and dangers that accompany a potential pregnancy. Oh, wait— there are lots of denominations like that, not just Episcopalians.

I'm waiting for a sex manual from the Episcopal Church. It'd probably be titled, "Sex: Do Whatever You Want, As Long As No One Gets Hurt, But Make Sure To Include Some Wine, Because We Like Wine...Mmmmmm, Wine."

Maybe I'll write it myself. :P

Seders and Easter Eggs

The first annual Walker-McCluskey Family Seder Meal went so well! Since I grew up celebrating seders (I'm not Jewish, but we lived in Squirrel Hill, a Jewish neighborhood in Pittsburgh, and my parents were always into celebrating with the neighbors), I've always jumped at the chance to enjoy them, and so Adam made me a seder-inspired spread last night for Passover!

 

Clockwise, from far left: salad made from romaine lettuce (a.k.a., our interpretation of maror), celery (for the karpas), and hard-boiled egg (beitzah); homemade matzoh; the apple and cinnamon and nuts stuff (I forget what it's called but it's AWESOME); lamb shank (z'roa; why just use the bone when you can EAT THE WHOLE LAMB?); and a delicious dipping sauce for the matzoh.

Adam worked so hard to make this dinner for me! He's so cute.

And of course, we had to dye Easter eggs beforehand. :)

Surprisingly, I actually got crap for this from someone at work today, who huffed, "I thought you were a Christian," and then seemed awfully shocked when I explained that I had been raised by my parents to be open to all sorts of religious experiences, and that as a child I had participated in many different religious traditions just because I wanted to know them better.

It's like, really? Is this really so surprising to so many people? For one thing, even Wikipedia acknowledges that in recent years, many Christians have been celebrating Passover as a way to get in touch with the cultural roots of their religion. After all, Christianity was originally just a sect of Judaism— the only holiday we ever see Jesus celebrating in the Bible is Passover, and if it was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me.

But more importantly— who cares what you celebrate? I'm so thankful to have been raised by parents who left the religious decisions up to me and me alone, who refused to force me into any faith I didn't want to explore. Indoctrination isn't faith— it's brainwashing. You can't really have faith unless you've chosen it, and if there's only one option presented, that's not much of a choice.

That's what I want for my son or daughter— the ability to question, to experiment with spirituality, and to struggle to know God. How can you have solid faith if you've never really thought about what you believe— and how can you really think about your faith without questioning it?

My kid will be allowed to pray any way he or she wants— or to skip prayer, if he or she wants to do so, because my child will be allowed to be an atheist, too. Yes, my husband's a priest, and I'm a devout Christian— but those were OUR choices, not our child's. Everyone is different, and I'm not about to go making those sorts of choices for my baby.

Of course, with my husband's line of work and all, church will be a big part of my son or daughter's life— and that's fine, because churches can provide a great atmosphere for kids. However, I'm always going to be clear about the fact that these are things that mommy and daddy believe, but that some people think differently, and that my son or daughter is going to have to make up her/her own mind someday.

Philosophy Walker: Poll Respondent

Last week, I finally fulfilled a dream I've had since I was a young child:

I participated in a major nationwide news/opinion poll!

That's right: have you seen that new Newsweek poll? The one that apparently heralds the end of religion in America? I was SO TOTALLY PART OF THAT.

Interestingly enough, they called me at work, but I wasn't about to let temporary employment prevent me from living the dream. So I answered all the questions calmly and promptly, even if I had the urge to scream "TOO MUCH INFLUENCE!" when asked about the effect of the evangelical movement on the Republican Party.

It was nice to have my voice heard, particularly as people are always talking about those mouthy born-agains and ignoring the fact that there are LIBERAL CHRISTIANS out there. Y'know, people with a liberal social agenda, who want to help the poor and the lonely and the sick and the marginalized— since that was kind of the POINT OF JESUS' MINISTRY and all. It's so nice that they finally got to include a liberal Christian in the mix— even if it apparently led them to conclude that there are now more atheists than Episcopalians in this country. Um, yay for being a religious minority, I guess?

The best part was when the pollster asked me what I religion I follow, and I answered, "I'm an Episcopalian," and she was quiet for a second and then said, "Um, is that, like, a Christian?"

And I was tempted to say, "Of course not! We like the gays and know that fetuses aren't people, so naturally, we're heretics, and we run around baying at the moon and painting our bodies with the blood of virgins." But in the end, I went with: "Yes."

"Is that a Protestant denomination?" she continued.

"Well, it's Anglican," I said. "I mean, we're not Catholic, but we're not part of Martin Luther's crowd. We left that party with Henry the Eighth, remember? Anne Boleyn? Elizabeth I? Heads being chopped off and all that?"

"Sooo...Protestant?"

I sighed. "Sure," I said. "Sure. Protestant."

(It's actually an interesting poll, and an interesting article. You should check them out— and not just because I was a part of them. :P)

I Am An Episcopalian

Since I'm pretty open (and somewhat loudmouthed!) about my religion, a lot of people have asked me about being an Episcopalian— what it means to be one, how you become one, and what it's like to be involved with the church.

Thus, I direct you to I Am An Episcopalian, a new site set up by the church to help people share their love of our religious community.

I particularly like the text that accompanies the videos:

The Episcopal Church is a big, colorful, vibrant church. We hope you will see that in the wide spectrum of its members represented here on this site.

In our Church you may touch ancient traditions and experience intelligent inquiry. It is an expansive Church, a loving Church, with strong ties to our roots as a nation. We are a thoughtful, inquiring, freedom-loving and welcoming body, and we thrive not only in the U.S., but also throughout Latin America, Asia and Europe.

We invite you to see and hear the very personal reasons we choose to be Episcopalians. Our controversies and conversations have been public. Our governance is transparent. You are free to see our imperfections, as well as share our joy in that which unites us - our openness, honesty and faith.

One of the things I love about my church is the openness— the ability to ask questions. In fact, questioning and debating and differing aren't just encouraged; they're practically required.

Last week, we had a "supply priest" (like a guest rector), since our usual priest just retired. The priest's sermon was basically this: "A lot of things in the Bible aren't literally true, since that worldview (that women are chattel, that the sun revolves around the earth, etc.) has been disproved. That's why Christ came— to bridge the gap between old and new. Now, we have to find a way to bring the love of Christ into this new century in a way that works with science and compassion and reality. How should we do this?" He ended with that question.

I love a sermon that ends with a question. That's why I'm an Episcopalian.

The "Battle" Over Christmas?

I really cannot think of a sillier thing about which to be concerned than whether or not a sales clerk says "Merry Christmas."

Apparently there are people— people who claim to be Christians but who can't have ever actually read the Bible or paid attention to Christian history— who become severely irritated if people say "Happy Holidays!" instead of "Merry Christmas”. There are even, it appears, women who raise thousands of dollars each year in order to put up billboards saying, "I miss hearing you say 'Merry Christmas' —Jesus".

This is silly, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is this: Jesus was Jewish, so he wasn't likely to say anything other than "Happy Chanukah!" back in the day. Of course, he also would have probably wanted those women in the above article to put all that money towards feeding the poor instead of towards putting up exclusive billboards that pretty much seek to make certain people feel bad during the holiday season.

It is also silly because Christmas is one of the youngest Christian holidays, and most certainly was never celebrated by early Christians. When they DID begin celebrating the birth of Jesus, they did it in September, anyway, even though Jesus was most likely born in April or May. In fact, many Christians refused to even celebrate Christmas in the early days of Christianity, as it was 1) eventually moved to December only so that it could co-opt an ancient pagan solstice ritual called Saturnalia (and thus many Christians felt Christmas to be much too rooted in paganism), and 2) because people just didn't celebrate birthdays back then. Death days were what people celebrated— the birth of Jesus was always considered to be less important than his death. To this day, in most denominational Christian churches, Christmas is definitely less important than Easter, or even than Pentecost.

And y'know, Christmas was actually outlawed in most places in America in the 17th and 18th centuries, and who did the outlawing? THE PURITANS. In fact, in 1600s Boston, anyone caught exhibiting Christmas spirit was fined five shillings. Christmas only became a popular Christian holiday in the early 1800s.

I say all this to illustrate that saying "Happy Holidays" in no way defies Christian tradition. In fact, "Happy Holidays" is far more inclusive of the Christian calendar; when I say "Happy Holidays!" to a Christian friend, that statement can include Christmas, Epiphany, and the entire season of Advent. It can also include other, more secular American holidays, like Thanksgiving and New Year's, which makes my greeting more festive; and of course, it can also include holidays of other faiths, like Chanukah, which makes my greeting more appropriate to the season, as it wishes merriment to everyone, regardless of creed.

In fact, that is the real point of Christmas. Yes, it's a celebration of Jesus' birth, but as Jesus wasn't actually born on December 25th, I think we could afford to allow Christmas to also be a celebration of the birth of Jesus' MESSAGE: that everyone is equal in the eyes of God, that everyone is loved by God, that everyone is welcome in the Kingdom (or Republic!) of Heaven.

And I think saying "Happy Holidays!" conveys that sentiment well enough.

Anyways, my fellow Americans: the next time you get miffed about something silly like this, read this opinion piece and distract yourself from your misplaced indignation by remembering how relatively happy and comfortable we all are. The true meaning of Christmas is love and contentment, and has nothing to do with stores or shopping or what the salesperson says as you walk out the door.

And say whatever you like by way of a holiday greeting— but don't get pissy when I wish you a heartfelt "Happy Holidays!" I hate to be the kumbaya girl here, but can't we all just smile and say, "thank you!" when someone says something nice? Be thankful that anyone is offering you a cheerful wish at all, and be polite enough to respond in kind.

EDIT: Actually, this is the silliest thing to be thinking about this season.

Suing God

Well, it seems Nebraska state senator Ernie Chambers has a sense of humor— he's actually filed a lawsuit against God, alleging that God has caused "death, destruction and terrorisation" in his state. The judge threw out the suit because, apparently, a defendant must have a mailing address in order to be served legal papers, and this is impossible in this case since we don't have an address for God. The senator countered with the statement that, since God is omniscient, he should just KNOW that the trial is going on, and therefore papers aren't necessary.

*laughs for ten minutes* Hilarious!

And yet...there's something a little poignant about the senator's lawsuit. Who among us wouldn't want to get God up on the witness stand and question him/her about why things happen the way they do? Who wouldn't like to tell God, face-to-face, what we all think about some of the things going on in our country, in our world? Who wouldn't like to demand an explanation for suffering, for pain, for anger, for hate?

If the trial went forward, I think we'd all like to be in the courtroom to see if the defendant showed up, after all. The proceedings would be very, very interesting.

Spellcheck is free, you idiots.

I am rapidly losing patience with the apparent inability of radical Christians to use proper spelling and punctuation.

For example, on Facebook, almost every Jesusfreak group [and I use that term, not to describe loving, caring, accepting Christians, but rather the radical asshats who feel it's their duty to convert everyone to their image of Jesus, no matter how screwed up that image may be] has a name that contains at least one typo or poorly worded phrase. Take, for example, "*Christianity is not a relgion...Its a LIFESTYLE*". How hard is it to check that you're spelling "religion" right when setting up a Facebook group? And is there some sort of punctuation shortage that has forced them to remove the apostrophe from "it's"? Then there's "Let's see how many Christians there is at facebook !!", a truly appalling failure to recognize the plural nature of "Christians." I mean, why don't they read these things out loud before they post them on the internet? Would they actually say things like this?

And this isn't just Facebook-- it's a trend I've noticed everywhere on the internet, and even in printed literature (books, pamphlets, etc.) Like, do these people really need to be contributing to the stereotype that we all have of them? I already think extremist Christians are illiterate, inbred hillbillies-- I don't need any more confirmation of this image, thanks very much.

Of course, what I really hate is how they corrupt the name of Christianity, how they force others to associate extremism and poor education with the blanket term "Christian." I'm a Christian, too, but clearly in an entirely different way than these folks are "Christians". I'm so tired of these people making me feel embarrassed to tell others I'm an Episcopalian, because I don't want anyone to connect me with the same idiots who spell righteous as R-I-T-E-O-U-S.

This Just In: The Archbishop Is a Sissy

So I'm an Episcopalian, and I daresay you've heard that us Episcopalians have been having some problems lately with gay-hating zealots who'd like to do away with all that love-you-neighbor stuff that Jesus taught. Well, this past month, all of the members of the Anglican communion (of which the Episcopal Church is a part, along with the Church of England and every international branch thereof, such as the Anglican Church of Canada, the Anglican Church of South Africa [where Desmond Tutu was a Primate!], etc.) got together for the Lambeth Conference, a meeting of bishops and archbishops that takes place about once every ten years in Lambeth, England.**

Now, I spoke with the Bishop of Ohio (the Rev. Mark Hollingsworth) right before he left for the conference, and apparently he had expected a bunch of trouble— 200 of the African and South American bishops had refused to attend, and had instead set up their OWN conference at the same time just so they could talk trash about the bishops at Lambeth. Because, of course, that's what Jesus would have done. Sheesh.

Anyways, we knew they'd cause a scene, but the Rev. Hollingsworth had confided to me that he still hoped that the hundreds of bishops actually in attendance at the conference would really be able to come together and talk honestly, openly, and prayerfully about the future of the Anglican Communion— a future that, no matter how the bigots feel about it, must include gays and lesbians, since they're not just going to evaporate into the air if we ignore them.

And yet, it seems that as of the last day of the conference, the Archbishop of Canterbury (who isn't the "head" of the Communion, really, but rather the "focal point") cracked under the strain of having those 200 mean bishops refuse to sit with him in the lunchroom, because he urged Anglican leaders to impose a ban on consecrating any new gay bishops for awhile. Not forever— just until we can work this out. Because this whole thing will totally blow over if we just stop granting people their rightful place in society. That ALWAYS works.

I am rapidly losing patience with the Anglican movement, and would like to see the Episcopal Church break away entirely. We're fine on our own, and we really have nothing in common with those homophobes in the African and South American Anglican dioceses, anyways. Let's just do our own thing! We already have our own head of the Church (the presiding Bishop, who is currently Katharine Jefferts Schori, an awesome lady), we already have our own infrastructure— why do we need the Anglicans? The rest of the Anglican Communion seems to have more in common with the Catholic Church than with us Episcopalians. So why not hang out with them instead? Plus, it's not as though the Anglican Communion folks LIKE us at all. They've been trying to get us to leave ever since we decided that church is the last place on earth where you should be discriminating against people. They've even threatened to kick us out a couple times. Why not save them the trouble, and just leave peacefully?

 

 

**Consequently, this is a major factor in my urging Adam to work on becoming Bishop of Ohio. He keeps saying, "But I don't want that job! I want to work in a small parish and help the poor!" To which I naturally respond, "Too bad— I want to go to England for a month!" :)

Only Nazis Hate Books

I'm fascinated by this story: it seems that in Egypt, the Coptic Christian community has become very irritated by a fiction book that, according to Bishop Abdul Massih Bassiut, seeks "to Islamise Christian beliefs" (whatever that means) and "takes the side of heretics."

This whole thing also calls to mind the recent torpedoing of “The Jewel of Medina"— a book that was cancelled for publication because of its racy depiction of Aisha, Mohammad’s youngest wife (although if you read the “racy” excerpts, they seem more like silly, trashy romance novel bits— perfectly harmless stuff).

These two stories make me wonder: why would the adherents of major, well-established religions give two hoots about what some fiction writer scribbles down? I mean, if you believe your religion is divine and awesome and all that, why would a simple fiction book be able destroy it? How does that even make sense?

I’m a Christian woman, and did I feel threatened by The Da Vinci Code? No! Just because someone imagined a world where Jesus had a child doesn’t mean it’s true. It might be true, for all I know, but writing about it doesn’t MAKE it true. It’s FICTION, people. It’s not real.

I must agree with Helmi Namnam, the literary critic quoted in the first article: “The allegation that a literary work can shake a solid heavenly religion reflects weak faith in this religion, because no work of art can discredit a divine religion.”

How silly these people are. Let’s all just enjoy novels and poems without worrying that they’ll destroy everything we stand for, shall we?

God and Poverty

In recognition of Global Blog Action Day, I'm writing a post about this year's topic: poverty. And I'm writing it here, in this section about religion and spirituality, because I find it too hard to believe that, in a country that professes to be as spiritual and religious as we do, half the population of the earth still suffers from poverty.

This is also a perfect time to explain why I am an Episcopalian.

The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church is Katharine Schori, a former oceanographer who seeks to heal the divide in the Anglican Communion without seeking to negotiate anyone's right to become a member of our priesthood. She's a cool lady, and I remember reading this interview with her in Time Magazine when she was first elected. Here are some of my favorite moments in that interview:

"Our focus needs to be on feeding people who go to bed hungry, on providing primary education to girls and boys, on healing people with AIDS, on addressing tuberculosis and malaria, on sustainable development. That ought to be the primary focus."

"Chapter 61 of Isaiah is an icon for me of what Christian work should be about. That's what Jesus reads in his first public act. In Luke, he walks into the synagogue and reads from Isaiah. It talks about a vision of the reign of God where those who are mourning are comforted, where the hungry are fed, where the poor hear good news."

"[My prayer for the Church is] That we remember the centrality of our mission is to love each other. That means caring for our neighbors. And it does not mean bickering about fine points of doctrine."

I remember feeling so proud that this woman was leading my church, that I was a member of a faith that was honored by and serious about its responsibility to the poor and hungry. So imagine my surprise when, a week later, an angry letter to the editor was published OPPOSING everything Schori had said:

"I was saddened by your interview with Katharine Jefferts Schori, the Presiding Bishop--elect of the Episcopal Church of the U.S.A. [July 17]. When asked about her focus as head of her church, she mentioned feeding people, providing primary education, promoting sustainable development and healing people with AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. She made no mention of God, let alone Jesus Christ. Her answers would have been more fitting coming from the head of the Gates Foundation than a national religious leader. For 2,000 years the church has taught that our works must flow from our faith. Sadly, Bishop Jefferts Schori spoke only of works and of a church whose focus doesn't include God.
(THE REV.) CANON FRANCIS C. ZANGER
Charleston, S.C."

I was horrified. What exactly does this minister think saying "God God God Jesus God" is going to DO? Jesus told us to love our neighbors as ourselves, not to repeat his name at every opportunity in order to prove we're Christians. I have difficulty understanding how these people can insist that we don't have proper faith if we're doing WHAT JESUS SAID TO DO. *frustrated sigh*

Anyways, I digress: my intent was to illustrate that faith is nothing if you don't use that faith to help others. People are eager to show off their "devotion" to their faith by lecturing others, by trying to legislate people's private lives, even by crashing airplanes into buildings— but none of this exhibits any faith in a God of love and strength and caring, which is precisely the God that many major religions profess to follow.

The fact that there are so many people living in abject, sickening, backbreaking poverty means that our famously religious nation has failed in its faith. Loving Jesus doesn't mean spreading fear and violence and division— it means giving to the poor, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, loving those who hate you, even smiling at the person who was a total asshole to you in the line at the grocery store. It's hard, I know— much harder than yelling slurs at gay people or standing outside abortion clinics with tape over your mouth. It's hard for me not to write The Rev. Zanger a nasty letter detailing exactly how wrong he is and how stupid he's being. It's hard not to yell at the lady whose six children keep running into my cart at the store because she can't keep a hold on them. It's hard to be good and kind, and I often (in fact, usually) fail completely.

But every Christian knows that following Jesus isn't supposed be be easy, just as every Muslim and every Jew and every Hindu and every Buddhist know that with their faith, with their beliefs, come difficult and frustrating challenges. Faith is supposed to be hard, at times. The whole point of having faith is to believe that things work a certain way for a reason. And I believe that, like government, religion should be a way for people to come together and do great things that they never could have done individually.

We don't all have to quit our day jobs; we don't all have to give away everything we own. We don't even all have to be Christians, and that's the best part: atheists and agnostics can join with Catholics and Protestants and Anglicans and Muslims and Jews and Mormons and Amish and Hindus and Buddhists and Baha'is and every other person of faith, because this is something we can all do together out of love, either for our God or for our fellow man— it doesn't matter, so long as it's love! We just have to do it little by little, inch by inch— donate money, knit socks for cold feet, take a few cans of soup to a food pantry, volunteer at the free clinic. Anything.

We all just have to lift out heads out of the sand and TRY.

(To send a letter to your government about poverty, go here. To help build houses for poor people, go here. To donate food to a food bank, go here. To donate clothing, see this page. And for a great sermon by Katharine Schori, go here.)

Episcopalians at the Inauguration!

Remember how so many of us were irked at the selection of Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation?

Well, now they're having an Episcopal bishop, our very own Bishop Robertson of New Hampshire, give a prayer as well! Well, not at the actual ceremony, but at one of the events, anyways.

Did I mention that the Rt. Rev. Robertson (mmm, alliteration!) is the first openly gay bishop in the Church, and is pretty much the reason the conservative congregations got mad and left us?

So this should balance things out a little more: an anti-gay preacher and an openly gay bishop, both praying for the same reason, in the same spirit of celebration.

And Robertson is doing his best to be inclusive:

"Robinson said he doesn't yet know what he'll say, but he knows he won't use a Bible.

'While that is a holy and sacred text to me, it is not for many Americans,' Robinson said. 'I will be careful not to be especially Christian in my prayer. This is a prayer for the whole nation.'"

Yet another reason why I love the Episcopal Church. :)

The Religious Case For Gay Marriage

Finally: Newsweek published a story entitled Our Mutual Joy: The Religious Case For Gay Marriage.

AT LAST. I'm not the only one who has actually studied the entire Bible! I'm not the only one who thinks it's hypocritical to claim that you interpret the Bible literally and that homosexuality is an abomination and then turn around and do all sorts of things that Leviticus says are also sins! I can't tell you how many people are willing to keep gay people from marrying, but not willing to stop eating pork and shellfish, or to wear garments made from only one kind of material, or to sell their daughters in order to pay off their credit card debts.

The Old Testament is exactly that, folks— OLD. God gave us Jesus because he wanted to change the way we thought about the idea of God, the way we thought about spirituality and our place in the world. Just as society changes on earth, just as animals evolve and change, so God watches us and gives us new information, new teachings, as we become ready for them. He gave us Jesus because, as an omnipotent God, he knew that we were about to change, to move away from a lawless, nomadic society and become capable of new heights of justice, kindness— even greatness.

Feel free to comment, but ONLY if you've read the whole Newsweek piece. I hate it when people read the subject line or the first few sentences of my posts and then comment with points that have already been refuted either in the linked article or in the post itself.

So please— if you want to comment, do read the article above! :)

First On the List Of Stupid Things That Don't Matter

How hilarious is this: a Kentucky legislator is apparently freaking out because the state's Homeland Security department forgot to credit God in its last report.

Are you kidding me? Can you think of something that God cares about less than whether or not his name is mentioned in a bureaucratic report? I can't.

I'm pretty sure that God cares about suffering and poverty and physics and watching how the universe is unfolding— stuff like that. And I'm also pretty sure that the only person who cares about the 2008 Kentucky Homeland Security report is the guy complaining about the absence of God in said report.

And if I were God, I'd be laughing at that silly idiot right about now.

Religion, Community, and Niceness

Since it's Sunday...let's talk about atheists!

Courtesy of Olivia, here's an article about the scientific correlation between religion and niceness. Basically, there's this weird dual nature within that relationship. See, studies show that when people think about God, they assume he's watching them, and so they're more likely to do things like give money to poor people or donate blood; the article explains this as an "evolutionary imperative to care about one's reputation." So somehow, religion can make people behave nicely.

But this doesn't quite correlate to what we know about religious countries as a whole: Sweden and Denmark, which are highly atheistic nations, are also societies with lower rape and murder rates than our insanely religious nation, and have a strong commitment to social equality with their health care and welfare programs. The article even exhibits a 2005 study that shows that countries that are more atheistic have lower violent crime rates and lower rates of abortion and teen pregnancy than more religious nations.

So the conclusion that the article draws (and with which I must agree) is that it is the community aspect of religion that benefits society. After all, the Swedes and Danes mostly do identify as "Christian" even though they don't believe in God: they marry in churches and have church funerals and feel close to their local church communities and all that jazz. In fact, the article likens Scandinavian Christians to "American Jews, who are also highly secularized in belief and practice, have strong communal feelings, and tend to be well-behaved."

The conclusion is the best part:

"The sorry state of American atheists, then, may have nothing to do with their lack of religious belief. It may instead be the result of their outsider status within a highly religious country where many of their fellow citizens, including very vocal ones like [Laura] Schlessinger [who said that morality requires a belief in God], find them immoral and unpatriotic. Religion may not poison everything, but it deserves part of the blame for this one."

I'm sure I've been guilty of this a few times. While I try never to shove Christianity at anyone who doesn't want it, I do often write these articles on the assumption that the majority of my readers are interested in Christianity (at least from an anthropological standpoint) and are familiar with basic Christian tenants. I don't ever assume that atheists can't be moral (after all, most of my extended family is atheistic, and they're all very moral people), but I *do* assume that a lot of my readers will want to read about my interpretation of Christianity, and I hope that this hasn't made any of my atheist readers feel left out or ignored.

As an attempt at some level of reparation, I will feature some atheistic thinkers and websites in my posts this week. Sound good, guys?

A Lenten Meditation

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, a day that begins the Christian season of Lent. Lent is a season that is usually difficult for me— mostly because I'm terrible at being somber. Funny biblical passages make me smile, hymns with awkward words make me titter, and I have been known to spontaneously burst into tears during prayer. In short, I'm a passionate and intense person, and the muted colors and quiet inward reflection of Lent have always made this season a struggle for me.

This year, my difficulty is doubled, as I have actually chosen to give up something for Lent. In the Episcopal Church, Lenten fasting or abstention is completely optional; you can make your own fasting rules, or you can forgo the whole thing altogether. This year, my mom is giving up alcohol for Lent; my husband is giving nothing up, but three years ago, his Lenten abstention from cigarettes helped him quit for good.

Me? I'm giving up chocolate. It sounds like a small thing, but you've got to remember that I normally eat at least a small amount of chocolate every single day— I love the stuff! I have it in my coffee, my cookies, my candies, my cakes...everything. And of course, yesterday, on the first day of my choco-fast, someone at work gave me an entire bag of Dove chocolate eggs. BAH! Those little foil-wrapped delights now torment me daily.

But I think this will be good for me— not because God wants me to suffer or anything, but because it never hurts to remember how fortunate I am. I mean, there are some people in the world (many of them!) who have never even tasted chocolate; they've never had anything but what they could steal or beg from someone else, and not very much of that, even.

We Episcopalians give up for Lent to improve our self-discipline (rarely a bad thing), but more importantly, we give up for Lent to remind ourselves of how much work we still have ahead of us as Christians: how there is always someone sadder, colder, hungrier, lonelier, angrier, or more frightened than we are, and how it is our duty to try and help them. And during this scary economic crisis, it's ever more important to remind ourselves of the blessings we DO have, instead of longing for the things out of our reach.

Lent is a humbling experience, and God knows I could use some humility.

Monk Fight!

It's the battle of the monks!

Apparently, Greek Orthodox priests clashed with Armenian Orthodox priests at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem today as the Armenian priests attempted to march around in honor of some 4th century cross they claim is the actual cross upon which Jesus was crucified. Of course, this totally makes sense considering how many Christian relics are TOTALLY BOGUS. Sheesh.

Six different sects control the Church, and according to the above article, they never seem to get along:

"The Israeli government has long wanted to build a fire exit in the church, which regularly fills with thousands of pilgrims and has only one main door, but the sects cannot agree where the exit will be built."

C'mon, guys. This is the stuff that makes sensible people say, "See? Religion is just a force for violence and division." Jesus doesn't care who owns some stupid piece of wood, folks. He DOES care when you punch someone in the face over said piece of wood, and I don't think he likes it very much. Whatever happened to turning the other cheek?

EDIT: Oh, and since I brought up the silliness that is the Shroud of Turin...here's a fabulous paper by my uncle, Dr. Steven Schafersman, one of the world's foremost experts on the Shroud. It's a detailed account of why the Shroud is totally and completely a big fat fake!