American Common

I am in love with the word ‘commonplace’ and I wish for more of it. In the 1950s this word slipped into the pejorative, as an antonym to ‘remarkable’ or ‘extraordinary,’ but that was never its intent. The commonplace is what we share in common and sometimes it is an actual place. The village common typically found in the center of many old New England towns is a good example. The common is where we can come together socially or politically and somehow the place holds us all together and keeps our diversity from tearing us apart.

The commonplace is also what keeps fear away from every individual doorstep. This is where we become no longer strange to one another, but familiar. In time, by instruction from our elders and from our own experience, we begin to understand our diverse eccentricities, realize where each individual is coming from; acknowledge not only their fears and concerns, but also their beliefs and hopes. We don’t mind hearing from people different than us. We may smile, shake our heads and even grimace but we would never do without each other. These diverse individuals enlarge us and we are grateful for it. This, anyway, is why I love the word. We are much closer to one another when we appreciate the commonplace.

Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery” casts the village common in a particularly bad light and with it, the commonplace. The story, and the masterful way she tells it, moves the reader’s empathy through fear away from the commonplace and toward the extraordinary. I don’t know how it is today, but in my day her tale was almost universally studied by high school and college students and, I believe, had the effect of disparaging what is common in my generation, and perhaps others.

My criticism of Ms. Jackson and her story is not intended to be disrespectful. "The Lottery" has a valid historical and psychological point of view and we benefit from reading it. Like "The Crucible" it was written during a period of American history when Americans were withdrawing into individual homes and, more and more, homes were seen in the image of a fortress. The notion of a common place in American history was being covered up by the village elders and their betrayal, packaged as patriotism, was being broadcast into these singular units we were then calling “home.”

The effect of this betrayal—known as the McCarthy hearings—was to turn the American attention away from what we held in common, toward the singularities of diversity and to baptize us in fear. It is not a coincidence that the monster Americans were told to fear was Communism—the idea of holding some things, perhaps all things in common.

Joe McCarthy and others wanted to attach an adjective to an idea and the adjective that was chosen was ‘alien.’ The idea was to proclaim an idea to be somehow foreign and its adherents, by implication, alien as well—no matter how deeply and historically American they once had been. All of this had the chilling effect of removing the citizenry from the common place, on one hand, isolating them in their individual homes and, on the other hand, creating a powerful distaste for the word ‘commonplace’ among those who were eccentric enough to hold to that idea and were now seen as foreign themselves. In time, isolated in family fortresses, Americans lost familiarity with one another and became distrustful of other voices, a nation that focused on our eccentricities rather than shared common values and interests. Exalt or damn differences, the result were the same. Americans lost interest in the commonplace. Arthur Miller and Shirley Jackson represent those artists and eccentrics who, returning the national compliment, began to view the village common with suspicion, unable any longer to distinguish congress and the media from the thoroughly American idea of the common.

In the long run, however, you cannot divorce people from ideas. History will not let you. In many small towns, the village common still exists as an American relic. Christian scripture still describes the founders of our religion as those who held all things in common. Sooner or later, people wake up to what is happening. They realize that alienation is a social and psychological process rather than a natural reality, and that their own spiritual forefathers were communists, not totalitarians, concerned with the particulars of a Christian society. When the hearts of the children are turned toward the fathers, the walls of partition crumble between the children as well. Ideas once again become less threatening and there is hope that we may yet again meet in a common place and renew our appreciation of all that is commonplace.

We need to make our towns and churches welcoming places again. We must both find and rebuild the common. That, to me, would be Zion. My church does not own it, but is a part of it. Zion is to be a people who love what is common and treasure what is not; people who reach out from their location and invite others in, wanting them to bring with them the best of their cultures, the best of their faiths, the best of their perceptions and the best of their love. It is a place that holds these things in common for the good of all. That sounds to me like the old and the new American dream.

The Emergent Church and Latter-day Saints: Thoughts on Reading Brian McLaren's New Book

Writing as a pastor, Brian McLaren explains his own disillusionment as a Christian living through the final two decades on the 20th Century.

A large number of both Catholic and Protestant leaders had aligned with a neoconservative political ideology, trumpeting what they called “conservative family values,” but minimizing biblical community values. They supported wars of choice, defended torture, opposed environmental protection, and seemed to care more about protecting the rich from higher taxes than liberating the poor from poverty or minorities from racism. They spoke against big government as if big was bad, yet they seemed to see big military and big business as inherently good. They wanted to protect unborn human life inside the womb, but they didn’t seem to care about born human life in slums or prisons or nations they considered enemies.

His list goes on, but already his point is made. Christianity was being high-jacked at the close of the century and the takeover and makeover of the faith made it difficult for many Christians to identify with a religion that had become a conservative political movement. Some principles were being pounded so hard that they became swollen and exaggerated. Other principles, often more basic and important, were being systematically ignored by those now at the wheel and had become dry and shriveled on a vine that seemed no longer connected to God.

Brother McLaren goes on in his book—and I take the liberty of calling him brother and see him as such—to describe his own day-to-day experience of waking up to “the brutal tension between something real and something wrong in the Christian faith.” His book is a documentary of how he worked through and is still working through those tensions. I think it is an account that quite a few Latter-day Saints would identify with.

I do not say all Latter-day Saints because critical thinking is not given an edge in Mormon culture. We do not even understand the word correctly in its context. Criticism is always seen something negative in our culture; we cannot begin to fathom the existence of something known as critical appreciation, for example. It seems to be an oxymoron. We’ve gone on and contracted the sickly habit of subserving thought to authority, conscience to office, and personal revelation to corporate dominion. We are not, however, a spiritually dead people. We know the difference between something that is real and something that has gone wrong, between the ideal once proclaimed from the pulpit, and the day-to-day betrayal of the archetype.

It seems to me that very worst thing spiritual people can to is to idealize the shortfall into a true substance, to speak for something wrong as if it were something real and thus betray the genius of their faith. This is almost always done by converting the spiritual gifts of God into an office that—in effect—bypasses the mantel. As in the saying, “The King is dead. Long live the king” without thought or prayer. In the secular world, few of us see George Bush as our Washington or Barak Obama as our Jefferson. Americans are far more likely to apply the skills of critical thinking and realize, along with Joseph Smith, that “every man lives for himself” and must, therefore, be his own person and make his own record.

But we contradict ourselves in spiritual realms and always see the President of the Church as “our Moses” or our Joseph Smith. We talk about mantels when the President of the Church passes away, but these mantels falling off their hooks are a dime-a-dozen in Church History and so many of us rise to proclaim supposed visions even before the signature is dry upon a death certificate. As is often the case, our eagerness to get behind a process invalidates our witness. When our own sacred experiences always seem to validate the status-quo, our own loyalty has perhaps slipped a little, like a mantel from off of our shoulders. We have switched the more public mantel, so-to-speak, from the right shoulder of God to the left holder of office—in the blinking of an eye.

I think it is safe to say that, while we’ve always had both liberal and conservative trends among us—as we’ve had liberal and conservative church leaders—we also did see, in the closing decades of the twentieth century, a conservative takeover and makeover of our faith. While the makeover is visible in various offices of the church-wide leadership, a more profound sea change is felt in the more subterranean offices the Mormon curia—the mid to lower management levels of church hierarchy. Here we see the same “conservative family values” have all but replaced “biblical community values”—those that Jesus referred to as the weightier matters of justice and mercy. In taking up the same old conservative platform as did the Evangelicals, we coveted “that which is but the drop” and neglected these more weighty matters.

The gospel that Jesus restored through Joseph Smith clearly put the weight back upon “biblical community values.” It does not leave the other undone, but with clear purpose it sets forth a liberal social agenda that far outstripped any Christian social enterprise envisioned in Smith’s century. One can debate ‘isms’ to a point. Is the Law of Consecration, for example, socialism or communism? But no fair reader of the Restoration’s scriptural texts or of the historical documents can mistake it for unbridled capitalism—indeed, as capitalism at all. Restoration scriptures damn and curse social inequality and call upon men to see themselves as stewards of God’s material blessings, not owners. All of us are commanded in the Book of Mormon to impart of these blessings freely. God made it clear through Joseph Smith that his intent was economic equality—a thing unheard of in capitalism. He did this by applying the imagery of Isaiah’s valleys and mountains to the present day poor and rich. “The poor shall be exalted,” he proclaimed, “in that the rich are made low.”

For too long, Christians who have felt in their heart a commitment to the weightier things of the Gospel, have sat on their hands in church classes and said not a thing. We have not raised our voices when we had the opportunity and we have allowed others to minimize these weightier values. We are in danger of letting Mormonism also become a conservative movement when it should have been the emergent church. I’ll tell you where I have seen the prophetic mantel fall. It has fallen upon us and we are shrugging it off.

____________

Brian McLaren's "A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith" is published by HarperOne, 2010, New York, New York.

The Hickory-Dickory-Dock of Capitalism ~ A Homily Based on Philippians 1-3

To be a Christian is to come up against Capitalism because Christianity runs counter-clockwise to the hickory-dickory-dock of conservative economics. For example, there is St. Paul's exhortation to the church at Philippi. Because King James butchers the translation, we will quote from the respectable New Revised Standard Version, but any reliable translation will be in accordance.

"Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit," Paul advises while acknowledging that some Christians even preach Christ in such a fashion. But, rather, "regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others." Not only is this a counter to capitalistic dogma, which depends upon and excites self-interest as its chief motivating factor, but, according to Paul, it comes reflects perfectly the mind of Jesus,

"who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptying himself,
took on the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of
death—
even death on a cross.”

One would have a very difficult time painting a more contradictory path of discipline than this is to Capitalism.

• We must set aside our own interest in preference to the interest of others.
• We must not exploit our own talents or the assets of those who we know and network with.
• We must empty our own coffers for the sake of those in need, doing so even to the point of death.

John the Baptist makes it clear that our own increase is not the point. “He must increase,” John says, speaking of Jesus, “but I must decrease.” How serious is this doctrine to Paul? He tells the Philippian saints to count every temporal gain as a loss within the Christian brotherhood and all things lost as rubbish or dung compared to this vision of what is in the mind of Christ. He wants to be like Christ, to be emptied of all things, and to share in his sufferings, that he might also know and share in his resurrection.

None of this is to say that Christians cannot be capitalists, only that insofar as they are they are greatly hindered thereby. “Some proclaim Christ from envy and rivalry,” Paul says, “out of selfish ambition. What does it matter? Just this, that Christ is proclaimed in every way, whether out of false motives or true; and in that I rejoice.” But if we are to do more than proclaim him—if we are to follow him—we must set our faces counter-clockwise, against the hickory-dickory-dock.

A Way to Avoid Herod ~ Extracts from a Sermon on Epiphany by William Sloane Coffin

"Those who first beheld the Christ went back to what they were doing [that is, back to their routine]. The shepherds went back to their sheep. And of the wisemen we read, 'They returned home another way."

"That was, you remember, because they were warned in a dream to avoid Herod.

"There is an important contrast to be made between the authority of Christ and the power of Herod, or perhaps we should say, the authoritarianism of Herod. Spiritual authority has the power of conviction. Authoritarianism has the power of coercion. Whenever the church tries to coerce, it robs itself of spiritual authority.

"Each Christian, within the institutions of our society, must...become an institution embodying at all times and in all places the humanity we see in the face of Christ. It is Christ who defines us, not Herod. To redeem the routine, we must return home another way.

"Christ redeems the routine first and foremost by telling us not what to do but how to be--full of wonder, peace and care, and concern for one another, eager even as God is eager to make humanity more human.

"There are really endless possibilites for those who, like the wisemen we recall today, follow a star. The wisemen were wise because they had a cat-like ability to see in the dark, to see in the night a bright light of hope. 'They returned home another way.' God grant us that we too after Christmas may return home another way. To business as usual? No, to business as never before!"

Modern Mormonism: We won! Now what?

"Well, President Monson, we got what we prayed for. Johnston's Army is gone, and so is Brigham. Persecutions are over, unless we instigate them. And we can all shop 'til we drop. The Church is a Fortune 50 juggernaut, Utah is ours to command, and Mitt waits in the wings. We won ! Now what?"

Read Ed Firmage's wonderful Opinion Piece in the Salt Lake City Tribune. Copy and paste this link into your Internet address box.

http://www.sltrib.com/ci_14342435?source=most_viewed

Haiti and the Jubilee Year

As one begins to look into Haiti and tries to understand how it is that Haiti became so poor, a few things become clear. First, it is important to know that Haiti was a French slave colony that won its independence by agreeing to reimburse slaveholders for their "property." The debt this new nation took on was enormous. For over one hundred years, from the mid-19th century through the mid-20th century, Haiti continued to make burdensome payments to France. They were able to get out from under that debt only by refinancing it through a multitude of other nations, the United States and Great Brittan among them. Their leadership--corrupt or otherwise--has continued to find it necessary to refinance that debt. As any homeowner knows, one never gets to the principle this way and interest continues to accrue.

The IMF is now offering relief in the form of continued loans--another opportunity to rebuild its hourse upo n sand. France, however, has called for international forgiveness of debt--irony of ironies. I'm all for that. I'm all for France returning the blood money they extracted from these poor people. I believe in the jubilee year of debt forgiveness for poor nations. We have played a part in continuing Haiti's poverty. I think this is the morally correct response and also an essential home security response. We cannot continue to create conditions that breed anti-American terrorism.

I urge all of my friends to fully study this issue. You can begin here. http://www.jubileeusa.org/ This is a real an opportunity to put our Judeo-Christian values to work in a way that lifts people up and lets the oppressed go free. It is a chance to work toward the prophetic vision of the Old Testament seers. Christians can stand on the correct side of our nation's pocket book and it is way past time for us to do so. Help Haiti begin to rebuild upon a solid rock.

Political Questions

Recently, a young man I knew "back in the day" wrote me a letter and asked me several political ad religious questions wanting to renew our aquaintance and start up a friendly conversation. What follows was my response, which is of such a general character that I thought I'd add it to this blog.

Dear _________

You express yourself well and we’re obviously not on such different levels, but we do have a set of different beliefs. To understand my politics, you first have to understand my religious position, which you may think is weaker than your own. I posted “My Semblance of a Testimony” on facebook a couple of weeks ago:

“I live in a community where many people say they know things beyond a shadow of doubt. They whisper into a microphone about sacred experiences had in sacred places that they cannot deny. For some, this knowledge is limited and often specific, but for others it is quite expansive, seemingly as large as the human will.In my old age, I find that I live within the shadow of many doubts. My spiritual experiences have not removed me from the world, nor distinguished me from the common lot of man. To be honest, the Presence of God has been no more than a haunting in my life, a persistent sense of holiness that seems to imply a holy being. I am a Christian because the sacred books of Christianity are--in my experience--also haunted by that Presence. I happen to be a Latter-day Saint because, at one time in my life, I experienced that divine sensibility reading the Book of Mormon. These days, I'm more likely to experience it in the Bible, but I try not to be biased by what is current.I know only what I have experienced; or, more precisely, what I remember experiencing and what I am today experiencing. That is the whole of my testimony. Like other people, I make deductions and sometimes follow spiritual direction, but these deductions are weaker than experience, fallible, often embarrassingly so. Since I do not find my experience superior to that of Catholics and Protestants, I try not to make claims I cannot back up. My experiences have convinced me that Christianity is the best vessel for truth, but my experiences cannot and should not convince others, who are liable to their own experiences. Often, I am at odds with my Church. I wish this wasn't true, but it is. My experience leads me to different conclusions about a multitude of issues, political and sacred. I find more in her past than in her present that I am able to identify with, but there are very troublesome issues within her past as well. Nevertheless, the ties that bind are tied tightly and I appreciate being tolerated, even when my ideas and views are not welcome. What is a trial for me, I know, is also a trial for her. We've been together for a long time and I'd like to continue the fellowship.But what is most important to me now is the continued sense of God's presence--his haunting of the world. This is what I feel to be most true and what one should be true to.

I’ve inserted this because your religious presumptions are different than mine and so it only seems natural that our conclusions on these issues will be as well. So, I’ll get on with it and respond.

What role does government or should government play in continuing the notion that this is a Christian nation? I’m not sure what defines this term and I’m not sure that the United States qualifies as such. I’m just don’t think it is fair for Conservatives to promote our country as such when applying what they perceive as some of the moral principles of our faith and the abandon that position when it comes to taxes. Whatever role government plays, it should be consistent. Christianity should never become a weapon a weapon of social reform and not, at the same time, be allowed to be a blessing in social reform. I personally believe that government is an appropriate vehicle when it is the most effective vehicle.

Should government meet Christian obligations, or should the people meet their Christian obligations separate from government? (Obligations - I refer to not as protecting peoples rights, and treating people with respect and dignity - to me that is a given. But more in a sense of taxation, in order to develop and fund programs.) The Doctrine and Covenants teaches us “that governments were instituted for the benefit of man,” and by that I understand not that all governments that have ever existed were instituted for the benefit of man (an obvious and historically demonstrable fallacy), but that the tools and skills of government were instituted by God for the benefit of man. It therefore follows that government is one of many means that Christians may use to promote Christian works. Few would really disagree with this; hence we enjoy public libraries, neighborhood fire and police departments, social security, disaster recovery, medical care for seniors and so on. The questions we are debating today are not—or they shouldn’t be—concerned with whether or not there is a proper role for government in these matters, a question long sense asked and answered. The question should properly be whether or not government is the most effective way to do so.

If we the people mold the government to meet all Christian obligations, from your viewpoint, does that take away any freedoms, including the freedom of choice? Many things impinge on our freedoms, including religious vows and covenants. Citizenship comes with similar obligations and these obligations also impinge on our freedom. (Jury duty would be an affirmative example, keeping laws and ordinance a more passive one.) Paying taxes is one such obligation. The idea of a social contract includes taxation, but also representation. Most Americans willingly accept this idea, but then the quarrels start. At this point, an issue other than a program’s effectiveness is raised—how much taxation is appropriate and are different percentages appropriate for differing incomes. Also issues of bureaucratic waste and priorities. Again, for me, it is an issue that should find its answer in the democratic process rather than by liberal or conservative dogma.

After Christ came to the Americas, the people were blessed, and they "had all things in common". They truly lived and took their Christian obligations seriously. In large part, was this accomplished by their government or by their Church? My understanding is that for most of that time frame, the Church was the government and that it was not until the church became “divided into classes,” rich and poor and so on, and with the rise of civil unrest, there arose the necessity of civil government separate from the church. I think Peter Gomes, minister of the Harvard Memorial Church expressed the situation now (and by implication) the situation then when he wrote,

"Our little systems have their day, and yet even our system of Christian capitalism is inadequate. The rising tide does not lift all boats without putting some people at risk, and because we are not yet good enough to share, we devise reasons why it is somehow God's will that the poor get poorer and the rich get richer."

We would agree with each other, I think, that civil governments will never be capable of replicating the order found in Acts and 4 Nephi, but there is no doctrine in Mormonism, that I am aware of, that prevents society in doing what they can to move in that direction. Joseph Smith once said that he never heard of a man being damned for believing too much, and I believe that America is capable of becoming a Christian nation truly, only if it accepts the responsibilities as well as the appellation.

Over the years, there have been several quotes from General authorities regarding socialism. Conservatives like to bring up (it seems) that most programs developed by Liberals are socialistic, and that Liberals are turning our Free-Market, Capitalistic country into a socialist system. What are your thoughts? Where is that line? My political and economic beliefs are an outgrowth of my religious beliefs, as hard as that has been for most of my co-religionists to accept; which is another way of saying that don’t give a fig for either socialism or capitalism as political parties or economic ideologies. That having been said, I think that honesty impels me to admit that most Latter-day Saints, hearing me out on economic issues, would consider me a full blown socialist. (I am not a communist for the simple reason that I believe what true communists are attempting is only achievable by the grace of a God they do not believe in.) Consequently, I am under the necessity of responding to those quotations you refer to. My response is twofold, one historical and the other relates to my written testimony above. I would first point out that the Church’s road to becoming a conservative and capitalist icon is tied in with the accommodations the Church made with the social morals of American society over a long period of time (1880-1940). The Mormons surrendered not only their “twin relic of barbarism (plural marriage),” but also economic independency from Wall Street. Interpreting Jesus counsel to make friends with the manna of unrighteousness in way that seemed relevant, Church Presidents from Wilford Woodruff onward (but especially through Heber J. Grant), courted the powerful, and hoping to make friends of influence where the real power was, in the world of business. Over the years, in my opinion, that influence became more powerful within the church than was originally intended. More and more, the economic views of the apostles became more reflective what was acceptable in America than what is found in the formative teachings to the Church. And so I see those statements you refer to as the political and economic opinions of men and I am stubborn enough to disagree.

So those are my initial responses and your comments and criticisms are more than welcome.

In friendship,

Doug

Patriotism & History

Patriotism is a willingness to stand against the natural tendency that conforms history to a national ideal through the development of a myth. A deep-rooted patriotism will not allow us to escape the ideal through the cheap pretense of having achieved it.

America has lynched a good many black men and women, pacifists and other dissenters in it’s time. The origin of that word is instructive. During the American Revolution, Colonel Charles Lynch of Virginia developed the practice of hanging people he considered Loyalists—pacifists and such—by “by their limbs from a walnut tree in his yard until the screamed, ‘Liberty forever!’”* Ideals die when they are mortified by hypocrisy. Patriotism is sure to keep stories like this alive as part of our history—stories that remind us we are not yet who we wish to be.

When Martin Luther King spoke of the national ideal as a promissory note America had not yet redeemed, as a check it had yet to cash, he was being a patriot in this best sense of the word. When he insisted upon the truth, he refused the myth, kept the ideal alive and promulgated it into my generation. The black man knew that Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation did not free a soul. The black woman knew that she was not equal with her white sister. She and her husband could not vote, were together kept in stark poverty and lived in fear of what Colonel Lynch began in 1776. But history, covering up many unpleasant American truths, had forgotten them and often covered up their bodies.

In her book, “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek,” Annie Dillard offers a harrowing narrative about watching a frog among the stones on the bank of that creek. She writes grimly of seeing it suddenly collapse into itself, a victim of some invisible predator that inserts a needlelike appendage into live reptilian bodies and instantly sucks out its innards.

The real revisionist history is the history that is written first, in the full blush of our guilt, to make some national sin palatable, some war just. It is this myth making process that sucks truth out of the ideal and, left unchallenged, leaves a hollowed skin in its place. What we today call revisionist history is most often an attempt to get to the truth of what happened. It is written not to tarnish the ideal, but to keep it from collapsing in upon itself so that the ideal can travel the distance between generations unmolested.

.

In the 1950s, myth-making had all but overcome the American conscience and paved the way to a Disneyland digest of the American ideal. Patriots refused the substitution. They paid attention to the terrors and horrors of American life and the history that led to them. Men like Martin Luther King refused to let America escape its ideal through the cheap pretense of having achieved it. The need for this kind of patriot is as desperate today as it was then. We are looking for new incarnations. God grant that they may arise.


* Mark Kurlansky, “Nonviolence: Twenty-Five Lessons from the History of a Dangerous Idea” © 2006 Modern Library, New York, page 82

Some Thoughts on Ideology

This post was originally published on a now defunct Blog last August. I woudn't want to lose it.

There are those who confuse ideology with principles, so let me illustrate the difference. Once there lived a prophet who made the following observation. “The things of God are of deep import; and time, and experience, and careful and ponderous and solemn thoughts can only find them out.” He went on to describe a mind stretching as high as the utmost heaven as well as contemplating the darkest abyss—the area he called “the broad expanse of eternity.” This is also how we obtain principles. One by one, we gather them into our souls as we travel through time and gain our experience.

Ideology, on the other hand, is bought with a single, seemingly inexpensive purchase. We buy a party line. We become a Republican or a Democrat. We accept a manifesto or a political platform. Thoughtful people—especially devout and thoughtful people—see that at this point a bargain is being struck with the devil. All ideology results from a compromise that God’s children make with evil. The devil permits us some good with which to comfort and cloak ourselves so long as we agree to accept and promote some evil that he intends. No better illustration of this bargain can be found than in the respective ideologies of Conservatism and Liberalism—which is to say the déjà vu of the Republican and Democratic platforms.

I recently read an essay by Wendell Berry and found there a convincing description of the evils these apparently combative ideologies promote.

"The comedy begins when [conservatism and liberalism] confront each other. Conservatism strongly supports “family values” and abominates lust. But it does not disassociate itself from the profits accruing from the exercise of lust (and, in fact, of the other six deadly sins), which it encourages in its advertisements. The “conservatives” of our day understand pride, lust, envy, anger, covetousness, gluttony and sloth as virtues when they lead to profit or political power. Only as unprofitable or unauthorized personal indulgences do they rank as sins, imperiling salvation of the soul, family values, and national security.

Liberalism, on the contrary, understands sin as a private matter. It strongly supports “protecting the environment” which is that part of the world that surrounds, at a safe distance, the privately-owned body. “The environment” does not include the economic landscapes of agriculture and forestry or their human communities, and it does not include the privately-owned bodies of other people…The left believes that and individual’s body is a property belonging to that individual absolutely: the owners of bodies may, by right, use them as they please, as if there was no God, no legitimate government, no community, no neighbors, no posterity. This supposed right is manifested in the democratizing of “sexual liberation”; in the popular assumption that marriage has been “privatized” and so made subordinate to the wishes of individuals; in the proposition that the individual is “autonomous”; in the legitimation of abortion as birth control—in the denial, that is to say, that the community, the family, one’s spouse, or even one’s own soul might exercise a legitimate proprietary interest in the use one makes of one’s body. And this too is tragic, for it sets us “free” from responsibility and thus from the possibility of meaning." (From Rugged Individualism in Wendell Berry’s The Way of Ignorance, Counterpoint, 2005)

Principled men and women become extremely uncomfortable when confronted with the “either/or” dilemma of conflicting ideologies. Spiritually on edge, they long for but cannot find a more principled way to participate in the political life of the community. In the end, they find themselves surfing back and forth through the decades, riding the conflicting waves, trying to measure threats and do the least amount of harm. But not so the ideologues, who would ride their adopted tsunami well beyond the shorelines and into the homes of their community, making society a mere backwash to the interests of some political party.

I once heard Phillip Roth remark that you cannot see through an ideology because your ideology sees for you; and it is true that a kind of blindness comes upon Israel with the introduction of parties and ideologies. Many Christians are being enticed from principle into ideology as they find their faith being threatened by the insecurities of life. All of European history might be summarized in that sentence. Now, as we once again watch our national political drama take shape, it seems that we too are succumbing to the pull of ideology. We surrender to the forces of ideology when no good can be found in a political opponent and no criticism can be tolerated of our own standard-bearer. In this way, governments descend slowly into various kinds of tribalisms. Mass murder becomes a real possibility because ideology spawns tribalism and tribalism, genocide.

I maintain hope when I remember R. S. Thomas’s poem, A Line from St. David’s, wherein it is written, “…the way back / is not so far as the way forward.” To travel further along the road of ideology is to lose those precious principles with which the American people were once endowed—principles that were obtained by those careful, ponderous and solemn thoughts that constituted our national experience. Wisdom insists that we do not travel so very far away that the way back no longer remains close at hand.

The Jubilee Year of American Politics

This post was originally posted in September on a now defunct Blog. I felt it worth saving.


Today I want to remember a meeting held on the evening of December 5, 1955 at the Holt Street Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. This meeting marks the eve of the modern Civil Rights Movement in America, although the overflowing congregation had no way of knowing that. The cause of this meeting was the arrest of a member of their church—Rosa Parks—for the crime of failing to relinquish her seat on the bus to a white man, “which was a much resented customary practice at the time,” as Ms. Parks later wrote. That morning, she had been found guilty of violating the segregation laws of her state.

The purpose of this meeting was to form the Montgomery Improvement Association which would be responsible for organizing their community’s protest of Rasa Parks’ humiliating arrest and subsequent conviction. These were deemed to be a clear violation of her civil rights as described and guaranteed in America’s founding documents. The community had previously decided upon a boycott of the Montgomery bus system and the Reverend Martin Luther King was elected to serve as president of the association.

That evening he delivered an eloquent call-to-arms that deserves to be read by every patriotic American, but my purpose here is to focus upon his definition of justice and to argue for its continual application in our political process. I believe this application to be the particular civic duty of all participating Christians. Whenever we speak of patriotism, his definition of justice should not be far from our thoughts and reflections.

These are the relevant sentences spoken that evening by Dr. King. They should not be overlooked.

“Let us be Christian in all our actions; but I want to tell you this evening that it is not enough for us to talk about love—love that is one of the pivotal points of the Christian faith. There is another side called justice, and justice is really love in calculation. Justice is love correcting that which revolts against love.”

Too often we think of justice as mere punishment for wrong doing; something that is opposed to mercy. But Martin Luther King had a more correct and comprehensive view of this matter: justice and mercy are both arms of God’s love. I think this definition offers a particular help to Latter-day Saints as they contemplate the relationship between love and mercy as it is describe in the Book of Mormon.

We find in that book two passages which, on the surface, seem to contradict one another. The first is found in Alma 42:25 wherein this question is asked and answered:

Do you suppose that mercy can rob justice? No, not one bit. If so, God would cease to be God.

Earlier, however, a seemingly different claim is made. In Alma 34:15. There we are taught that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ overpowers justice with mercy. For years, I owned the notion that justice stood aside in awe of such love. This was how a dear friend of mine reconciled those two passages. I see now that that was a partial truth at best. It is better not to separate Mercy and Justice into conflicting entities. Rather, we should say that mercy, while it cannot rob justice any more that we can rob our selves, can nevertheless overpower justice in the same way that we have been overpowered by our own emotions. Love, for instance. How many of us have not been overpowered—smitten, if you like—by love? Justice and mercy, then, are two of the attributes of God and, as the Gospel proclaims, God is love.


By Dr. King’s definition, in harmony with the Book of Mormon, justice is love in correction and mercy is love in preservation. Simply put, justice corrects while mercy saves. This concept, I believe, is of critical importance when Christians consider candidates for political office. It is critical because—as the prophets have shown us—a nation is held accountable for justice in its own society. Our nation will either be corrected or preserved depending on how we as Americans handle the nagging questions of justice and mercy that are still being asked of us.


Here are some of the nagging questions that we face:

Economic Equality. In a wonderfully ignored passage of scripture, the Lord says that it is not given that one man should possess too much above another and that, because of this, the world lies in sin (see Doctrine and Covenants 49:20). This seems to be a nice summation of Old Testament prophetic teaching. In our day, the middle class is being erased and the inequality between the rich and poor is beginning to threaten the fabric of our democratic society.
War. Here I am listing war as an issue of social equality rather than a moral issue in its own right. The question is, shouldn’t the generation that decides to make war pay for it? America is now engaged a war being fought on two fronts, but we are not paying for it. Instead, we are borrowing money from other nations—China, for example—and shouldering our children and grandchildren with a debt that will exceed 1.5 trillion dollars. We went into this war being told by the Administration that the war would pay for itself through oil production; but that hasn’t and was never going to happened. We should also ask if it is right to wage a massive war with an all volunteer army that is filled. The burden of this war is being borne unfairly and this is a concern America must address in this election.

Health Care. It seems clear that Jewish and Christian scripture hold society accountable for the treatment of the sick and afflicted among us. It is simply unjust to insist that all Americans pay their own way to save their own lives while, at the same time, we allow our economy to sweep its middle class into poverty. Is affordable health care a right or a privilege that belongs to fewer and fewer Americans as corporations surrender their health insurance policies to the demands of the new global economy?

Global Warming and Environmental Degradation. It may come as a surprise to most Latter-day Saints to learn that we do not in fact believe in private property, but that is the case. We believe in stewardship and one cannot be an owner and a steward of the same thing at the same time. We hold the earth in trust. It is not ours to do with as we please. And yet, that is what we have done and as a result our planet is in imminent danger of an ecological catastrophe unrecorded in human history. As stewards who hold the land in trust, we have not only been burying our talent but also toxic and radioactive waste. We have been poisoning the earth’s atmosphere for generations and pretending that when the landowner returns he will save us. But that’s not the way the parable goes.

Corporate Power. There was something fundamentally unsound about the concept of incorporation in the beginning; I would almost say antichrist. The sole reason for incorporation is the avoidance of personal responsibility and accountability. Men and women with an idea to make money want to get rich, but should things go wrong, they do not want to lose the money they have garnered. And so they come together and incorporate themselves; in other words, they create under law a fictitious individual who does not exist in reality. They then siphon off corporate profits annually into their individual bank accounts. When children start dying from cancer downwind; when women become infertile because of the side effects of their product; or when a bridge collapses due to faulty materials that were used in its construction, not one of these individuals can be held accountable in a court of law—only the comparatively threadbare corporation. Now, in our lifetimes, corporations have become fantastically global, owing no allegiance to the core principles of anything so old fashioned as a nation state, to say nothing of a community or a neighborhood. The only imperative that is left for many of them is to win and to increase the wealth of their investors. The power of the individual ballot becomes anemic as corporations continue to inject the steroids they demand from our elected officials—the tax breaks and laws of special circumstance.

Over the next few weeks, I hope to bring the scriptures together in an order that will address these concerns—God willing. But I end today’s column grateful for C. S. Lewis, who pointed out to me in his slim but wonderful book, Reflections on the Psalms, that there are those who are anxious for justice in this world; not only those who cower in its face. He points out that the typically Christian image of judgement puts us in the dock as defendant, as is demonstrated in the parable of the sheep and goats. There is another image, however, typically Jewish but also sanctioned by our Lord. Here we are seen not in a criminal case as before, but in a civil trial. Here we are the plaintive, as in the parable of the Unjust Judge. Here the difficulty faced by a widow is not to avoid the courtroom but to get into it. On the Day of Judgment, Lewis assures us, “hundreds and thousands of people who have been stripped of all they possess and who have right entirely on their side will at last be heard.” Our duty as Christian voters is to try to see to it that they will not have to wait that long.

We must try, as Dr. King and the widow in this parable tried, to ensure a recalculation of God’s love during the jubilee year of American political life; a redistribution of God’s blessings over which many claim ownership, when in truth we are merely stewards. In a democracy, it becomes our responsibility to thus heed the call of the prophet Micah, to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God.

Breaking Down the Walls of Partition

This post was originally published on a now defunct Blog last August. It's one I thought worth saving.)

A few weeks ago, I listened in horror as an older sister made an aside during her talk in Sacrament meeting. She had been speaking about an ancestor who had not joined the Church. She said that this man, who lived in Columbus, Ohio, was a very shrewd business man. She therefore believed that he, “must have had some Jew blood in him.” She repeated this phrase twice more in connection with the management of his business affairs and being shrewd with a dollar.

Now, I admit that I’m given to over reaction. The classic anti-Semetic pamphlet “The Protocol of the Elders of Zion” was not distributed as we left the chapel and I saw no men in brown shirts. But I was deeply saddened to see that this racial stereotype still exists in my church and that no one else seemed to be affected by it or to have glimpsed its significance. This bit of anti-Semiticism has been around for a long time. You come across it, for example, in the Shakespearean character of Shylock in “The Merchant of Venice.” In the 1930s and 1940s, this and other similar stereotypes greased the wheels of Adolf Hitler’s war machine and were to some degree responsible for the extermination of ten million Jews and other ”racially inferior” human beings. I don’t for a moment, of course, believe that this sister, who is old enough to have been an adult when these things occurred, aligns herself with the holocaust. At least I hope not, but the fact remains that she was nonetheless comfortable with this bit of Nazi propaganda.

I said I listened with horror, but I was not surprised. In the last ten years, I have witnessed more blatant racism than I ever did in the 48 years that preceded it. In the late 1990s, I watched as a black man was denied a computer technology job that he was fully qualified for, solely because of the color of his skin. The man who denied him the job, a good man in most ways, a member of my church, washed the sin from his own hands, of course. He simply said to me, “Our customers would never accept him.” Quite recently, within a one week period, I heard a church members refer to rock and roll as jungle bunny music, a supervisor explain an Hispanic employee’s Monday morning absence as a hangover (both men are active church members) and a mid-management church leader discuss with the president of my company the dangerous implications of “a Canaanite in the White House.” (Both of these men were confused and mildy offended when I laughed out loud and tried to explain to them that Barack Obama’s opponent is actually the one whose name means “a son of Cain.”)

No one, I suspect, would like me to lengthen this list. All of this, of course, contradicts biblical Christian teaching. Be patient as I ask you to consider two passages taken from the Apostle Paul’s letters to the Galatians and Ephesians.

Here is the first. “Ye are all children of God by faith in Christ Jesus There is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:26, 28).” Racial, class and gender distinctions lose their significance in Christianity. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ established equity. And should any future Christian seek to establish some sort of “separate-but-equal” doctrine, Paul tried to make sure they had no room to do so. Carefully ponder this description of Jesus’ atonement.

“Now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off were made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; having abolished in his flesh the enmity…to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace (Ephesians 2:13-15).”

The spiritual significance of the atonement consists not only in making us one with God, but also making us one with each other. That the veil separating us from God in the temple was ripped open is an historical fact. Unfortunately, that every generation since that Good Friday has tried to repair those walls of partition between us, walls that Christ died to break down, is also an historical fact. How sad that the people of God, who rejoice in their free access to God through the temple veil, should be so stubbornly persistent in erecting walls and partitions between themselves and others.

Thus, when Barack Obama spoke in Berlin about tearing down walls, he was not peddling fluff instead of substance, as some have said. He was renewing the age old, clarion call of Christianity which, I would think, devout Christians in all churches would respect. But what are we given instead from the pretentious ideologues that form part of the Christian right? We see them pointing fingers of scorn; displaying attitudes of mocking that erupt in childish You-Tube videos like “Obamessiah.” Too many Christians, captured by ideology, have forgotten the Christian significance of tearing down those walls that divide us. If prejudice and discrimination fester in our churches, how can they not affect our political discourse as a nation? Logically, Senator Obama can lose this election and America can rise above intolerance and bigotry. Just as logically, Barack Obama cannot win if we do not. However we chose to vote, let us first seriously examine and then re-examine ourselves as to where we really are regarding this fundamental question.

Considering Chapters: Notes on Eduardo Galeano's "Open Veins of Latin America"

A few months ago on my son's Facebook page, a thread of conversation had us discussing a book that Hugo Chavez of Venezuela had rather publicly presented to President Obama. Most commentators seemed to think the presentation was an arrogant act. Certainly it was given in the middle of Chavez's bombastic three day tour-de-force of rhetoric directed against capitalist imperialism. This, anyway, is how I remember Tim's correspondents viewing it.

The book, "Open Veins of Latin America," was written by Uruguayan journalist and author, Eduardo Galeano. It soon became clear that, despite the heat and passion of our comments, all of us were more or less ignorant of the book. My son suggested that we should all read it. The book suddenly became the number 2 best seller on Amazon.Com, and so only after a long delay I have at last begun to turn and mark its pages.

I ordered the book because, Chavez's rhetoric not withstanding, I think that he gave the book to President Obama because he thought that here, at last, was a President who just might read it. Clearly, this is a book that must be read if we wish to understand why it is that so many Latin Americans look at the United States with a mixture of mistrust and aversion. Galeano is a powerful advocate whose advocacy is more vigorous because of his immense poetic skill, a talent that, in this case, survives and flourishes in translation.

I propose to share my notes and reflections as I read each chapter of the book, beginning today with the introduction. I would ask my Facebook friends, if they feel so disposed, to comment either on my Facebook page or on this Blog entry itself. I will try to incorporate your comments into my notes.

Introduction

"This book," the author writes, "which seeks to chronicle our despoliation and at the same time explain how the current mechanisms of plunder operate, will present in close proximity the caravelled conquistadors and the jet-propelled technocrats; Hernan Cortes and the Marines; the agents of the Spanish Crown and the International Monetary Fund missions; the dividends from slave trade and the profits of General Motors." He makes his creed and mission statement clear. Galeano believes that, while epochs may have changed, the greed of economic exploitation remains as potent as ever south of the border.

"We are no longer in the era of marvels when fact surpassed fable and imagination was shamed by the trophies of conquest--the lodes of gold, the mountains of silver. But our region still works as a menial. It continues to exist at the service of others' needs, as a source and reserve of oil and iron, of copper and meat, of fruit and coffee, the raw materials and foods destined for rich countries which profit more from consuming them than Latin America does from producing them."

He closes this argument with an aside that is awful to contemplate. "The taxes collected by the buyers are much higher than the prices received by the sellers." Imagine that for a moment! The taxes collected are more than the prices received--not higher than the profits received, but higher than the prices! A little later on, he sustains this argument with comparative statistics that almost makes this reader fear the rest of the book.

He moves on to write two or three damning paragraphs reflecting upon our government's role and motives in promoting birth control in Latin America. He underscores and expands his argument by including Rockefeller and Ford Foundation's corporate sponsorship of militant birth control programs--all based, he asserts, upon the thinking of Lyndon Johnson's plain statement: "Let us act on the fact that less than $5 invested in population control is worth $100 invested in economic growth."

His conclusion? "Now that the Alliance for Progress is dead and buried the Imperium proposes, more in panic than in generosity, to solve Latin America's problems by eliminating Latin Americans; Washington has reason to suspect that the poor peoples don't prefer to be poor. But it is impossible to desire the end without desiring the means. Those who deny liberation to Latin America also deny our only possible rebirth, and incidentally absolve the existing structures of blame. Our youth multiplies, rises, listens: what does the voice of the system offer? The system speaks a surrealist language. In lands that are empty it proposes to avoid births; in countries where capital is plentiful but wasted it suggests that capital is lacking; it describes as "aid" the deforming orthopedics of loans and the draining of wealth that results from foreign investment; it calls upon big landowners to carry out agrarian reforms and upon the oligarchy to practice social justice."

He then demands his readers answer this questions: "Is everything forbidden us except to fold our arms? Poverty is not written in the stars [and] underdevelopment is not one of God's mysterious designs." It is that last remark that justifies this book's consideration on a Blog dedicated to considering matters the intersect God and Caesar. Our rush to judgment concerning Chavez's gift to Obama may reveal our deep desire to ignore its symbolism. In truth, our rush to judgment may have a symbolism and significance of its own--a failure to heed the cry of the poor as well as the cry of Isaiah.

No matter how long or loud or often you pray,

I'll not be listening.

And do you know why? Because you've been tearing

people to pieces, and your hands are bloody.

Go home and wash up.

Clean up your act.

Sweep your lives clean of evil doings

so I don't have to look at them any longer.

Say no wrong.

Learn to do good.

Work for justice.

Help the down-and-out.

Stand up for the homeless.

Go to bat for the defenseless.

~Isaiah 1: 15-17 The Message Bible

Perhaps in reading this book, we might begin in earnest to listen to the cry of the poor.

There But For Fortune

I remember a particularly stormy Christmas Eve. I had volunteered to work the only evening shift that could not be dispensed with. I had to drive into San Francisco, make a pick up at a mailroom almost under the Bay Bridge and drive back to San Jose. It was raining hard when I made my right turn out of the parking lot. There were many puddles reflecting the yellow city lights. I stopped at a red stoplight wanting to make another right hand turn, but I couldn't do it. Two people stepped into the crosswalk and were crossing in front of me, very slowly.

I was impatient. I had a family to get home to, a traditional story to read to them before bed, and wanted to spend some of that traditionally sacred time with my wife. I said something out loud. "Would you idiots hurry up." It wasn't under my breath but I didn't think it was loud enough for them to hear it either. Unfortunately, I had rolled down the window a bit so my windshield wouldn't fog up. They were just getting past my van, but not quite.

The woman stopped still, peered at me through the rain and came up to the driver's window. "Don't call us that," she said with some force. "Our parents called us that and we hate it!" She took her brothers hand and walked away. I suddenly realized what I had done. I called a mentally handicapped brother and sister idiots the night before Christmas. Their gift from me was to awaken a painful memory for them on the night Jesus came into the world.

I was full of remorse, wanting to do penance and to somehow cleanse a soul that was suddenly filthy on Christmas Eve. I was was a grown man, 29 or 30 years old, and I too was full of pain, sobbing and wiping away tears as I drove onto the Bayshore Freeway.

It was lesson that I need to learn over and over again. I had a home beaming with Christmas lights and little children to comfort me. They had each other and probably an old dingy apartment. What was sending me home to a house of love and them not? Fortune--pure and simple. And yet, for that impatient instant, I thought that I was the god born into this world--the one on whom Christmas depended. I was congratulating myself on my act of charity; saying to my soul, "Soul, what a fine man you are." And that's when my dagger struck.

Ecclesiastes tells us that "the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and circumstance happen to us all." In other words, fortune and fate.

One of my favorite folk songs is Phil Ochs' "There But for Fortune." Here are a couple of verses.

**************************************************

Show me a prison, show me a jail

Show me a pris'ner whose face has grown pale

And I'll show you a young man

With many reasons why

There but for fortune, go you or I

Show me an alley, show me a train

Show me a hobo who sleeps out in the rain

And I'll show you a young man

With many reasons why

There but for fortune, go you or I.

**********************************************

And that's the truth of it. We can talk about our pre-mortal valor and their pre-mortal squalor if we want to, but the Lord laughs if we do and holds us all in derision. The truth of it is we have a tremendous obligation to those who are less fortunate, both as individuals and as a society. It ought to make us think twice when we notice that those who complain about government taxes coercing charity turn out to be the same ones who assume their own pre-mortal valor. It ought to make us think twice when those same people defend government enforced construction, destruction, killing and so forth. But so very often, the truth is we do as a people have an obligation and that government is often the very best way to meet it.

As a Christian, I very much worry about my Christmas sin. I think we should all worry that as a society, too often we're not only failing to meet our obligations, but sometimes rather flippantly inflicting pain and sorrow.