Largest Lutheran Denomination Votes to Ordain Non-celibate Gays and Lesbians

Another moment of note for gays and American Christianity:

After an emotional debate over the authority of Scripture and the limits of biblical inclusiveness, leaders of the country’s largest Lutheran denomination voted Friday to allow gay men and lesbians in committed relationships to serve as members of the clergy.

The vote made the denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the latest mainline Protestant church to permit such ordinations, contributing to a halting sense of momentum on the issue within liberal Protestantism.

By a vote of 559 to 451, delegates to the denomination’s national assembly in Minneapolis approved a resolution declaring that the church would find a way for people in “publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous same-gender relationships” to serve as official ministers. (The church already allows celibate gay men and lesbians to become members of the clergy.)

Conservatives members of the church reacted in the same manner as conservative members of the Episcopal church, with threats to leave the denomination:

“I think we have stepped beyond what the word of God allows,” said the Rev. Rebecca M. M. Heber of Heathrow, Fla., who said she was going to reconsider her membership.

Conservative dissenters said they saw various options, including leaving for another Lutheran denomination or creating their own unified body.

[...]

Before the vote but sensing its outcome, the Rev. Timothy Housholder of Cottage Grove, Minn., introduced himself as a rostered pastor in the church, “at least for a few more hours,” implying that he would leave the denomination and eliciting a gasp from some audience members.

“Here I stand, broken and mournful, because of this assembly and her actions,” Mr. Housholder said.

Of course they will cite to the Bible, and to non-orthodox interpretations of it as their justification for talk of leaving, but of course non-orthodoxy doesn't seem to be a huge issue until it involves gays and gay rights. I'm bound to offend someone with this comparison but to me, that argument seems vaguely reminiscent to arguments that the Civil War was really about "states' rights."

Not impressed with your "manly" Jesus either

Xanthippas sent me this article entitled "Who Would Jesus Smack Down?" a while back and I've been letting it ripen (although I hope it hasn't become overly ripe!) to try to get some thoughts worth sharing together. The gist of it is this:

At a time when the once-vaunted unity of the religious right has eroded and the mainstream media is proclaiming an “evangelical crackup,” Driscoll represents a movement to revamp the style and substance of evangelicalism. With his taste for vintage baseball caps and omnipresence on Facebook and iTunes, Driscoll, who is 38, is on the cutting edge of American pop culture. Yet his message seems radically unfashionable, even un-American: you are not captain of your soul or master of your fate but a depraved worm whose hard work and good deeds will get you nowhere, because God marked you for heaven or condemned you to hell before the beginning of time. Yet a significant number of young people in Seattle — and nationwide — say this is exactly what they want to hear. Calvinism has somehow become cool, and just as startling, this generally bookish creed has fused with a macho ethos. At Mars Hill, members say their favorite movie isn’t “Amazing Grace” or “The Chronicles of Narnia” — it’s “Fight Club.”

Now, this offends me. It's a silly theology, and thoroughly unpleasant, but more importantly, I don't want a bunch of Christians claiming one of my favorite movies as their own. Obviously they don't get the message, or just don't care.

I better back up. I'm going to assume that most readers of this blog, even if they're American Christians, while possibly knowing the name John Calvin and even having heard of Calvinism, have no idea what it really means. No reason they should. But if you want to know a lot more about Calvinism, check out the Wikipedia entry. As Wikipedia says:

A distinctive issue in Calvinist theology that often is used to represent the whole is the system's particular soteriology, its doctrine of salvation. This doctrine holds that humans are incapable of adding anything to obtain salvation and that God alone is the initiator at every stage of salvation—including the formation of faith and every decision to follow Christ.

Do you get that? You can't work your way to Heaven, nor can you be saved and get to Heaven. You're either going to Heaven or you're not, based on God's decision alone. Which begs the question, why bother? Why bother with anything if you're already saved? Well, as with most denominations it's not really about the details of the theology as much as how comfortable a fit a person finds the church, and evidently this church appeals to a lot of the "edgier" crowd.

In the lobby one Sunday not long ago, college kids in jeans — some sporting nose rings or kitchen-sink dye jobs — lounged on ottomans and thumbed text messages to their friends. The front desk, black and slick, looked as if it ought to offer lattes rather than Bibles and membership pamphlets. Buzz-cut and tattooed security guards mumbled into their headpieces and directed the crowd toward the auditorium, where the worship band was warming up for an hour of hymns with Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run.”

But what really makes this kind of church so appealing? Not it's Calvinist theology, surely, nor the fact that face jewelry is acceptable (since it's far easier not to go to church in the first place), but rather its "manlification" of Jesus (I know, that's not a real word).

New members can keep their taste in music, their retro T-shirts and their intimidating facial hair, but they had better abandon their feminism, premarital sex and any “modern” interpretations of the Bible. Driscoll is adamantly not the “weepy worship dude” he associates with liberal and mainstream evangelical churches, “singing prom songs to a Jesus who is presented as a wuss who took a beating and spent a lot of time putting product in his long hair.”

What really grates is the portrayal of Jesus as a wimp, or worse. Paintings depict a gentle man embracing children and cuddling lambs. Hymns celebrate his patience and tenderness. The mainstream church, Driscoll has written, has transformed Jesus into “a Richard Simmons, hippie, queer Christ,” a “neutered and limp-wristed popular Sky Fairy of pop culture that . . . would never talk about sin or send anyone to hell.”

Transformed? Here's your problem, guys: the Jesus of the Bible is not presented as some kind of brawny, hairy-chested anti-feminist, bare-knuckled boxing bringer of the message of God. Nobody had to "transform" him into the guy who fed the thousands with the loaves and fishes, or tell everyone that they were to love each other, or showed endless compassion by healing the sick. If you're going to accept the truth of the Bible, well, that's the truth. Even in the churches I grew up going to, which were the completely non-liberal kind where the pastor spent a solid hour yelling at us about damnation and the fires of hell and the Bible is the written word of God, there wasn't any doubt that Jesus was a man of peace and love. It was God who'd send you to hell unless you accepted Jesus into your heart. In other words, the emasculation is all on you, not Jesus. If Jesus doesn't work for you, you're going to have look somewhere else, like the Vikings.

But hey, what do I care about their doctrine? It's not like it's going to affect me one way or the other. People inside the movement may feel the need to justify it or elevate it in comparison with other "softer" versions of Christianity that are out there, but I really think that, as always, it's a matter of exclusivity. There are always some people who don't feel comfortable belonging to "the mainstream". You start seeing this in high school. Everybody wants to belong, but some people want to belong to the fringe crowd instead of the main group. No reason church should be different, although the idea of Jesus coming back at the rapture and kicking people's asses while knocking back cold ones seems pretty silly to me.

The other reason that this kind of Calvinism is appealing is because it makes more sense in one regard at least: God is responsible for the bad stuff happening too.

Traditional evangelical theology falls apart in the face of real tragedy, says the 20-year-old Brett Harris, who runs an evangelical teen blog with his twin brother, Alex. Reducing God to a projection of our own wishes trivializes divine sovereignty and fails to explain how both good and evil have a place in the divine plan. “There are plenty of comfortable people who can say, ‘God’s on my side,’ ” Harris says. “But they couldn’t turn around and say, ‘God gave me cancer.’ ”

I guess it's the logical conclusion of the idea that "bad things happen for a reason". Obviously, that reason is because God said so. This really makes sense in the context of believing there's a God who's omniscient and omnipresent. If you were a believer, you could really find that comforting.

If you've read some of my blog posts before, you know I don't believe in that kind of thing. I don't need some manly Jesus to strengthen me in my masculinity. I don't need to believe that everything happens for a reason to cope with living in a world where insane and unfair things happen every day, and I certainly don't feel the need to blame it on some cruel god who predestines us to heaven or hell without any regard to what we do in our lives. But hey, I'm not a joiner anyway. I was the guy who rebelled against rebelling in high school by wearing stuff that kept me from being identified with any cliques whatsoever. I guess this is what counts for "cool" with Christians. Which, to me, makes it about as pathetic as the kids desperately trying to be cool in high school, but if that's what helps you sleep at night, whatever.

Highlighting Professionalism in the U.S. Military

Now I don't link to these stories to bag on the military, so much as I link to them to bag on the right-winger Christians and bigots in the military. Item #1:

After posting his resume on online job site CareerBuilder.com, Corey Andrew was contacted by an army recruiter about a job.

The email exchange between Andrew and the recruiter, Sergeant Marcia Ramode, quickly turned hostile when Andrew revealed that he was a homosexual.

"You are definitely unqualified," wrote Ramode. "Now take you gay self [sic] back to someplace else we do not tolerate gay people like you in any part of the military."

"Her response was appalling," Andrew told CNN.

The email exchange grew more heated, with Ramode suggesting that Andrew should, "go back to Africa and do your gay voodoo limbo tango and wango dance."

One reprimand, coming up. And then there are these yahoos:

Al Jazeera has posted a video alleging to show American soldiers trying to proselytize in Afghanistan -- which would be a clear violation of the military code and, potentially, the U.S. Constitution. More from Crooks and Liars here.

[...]

The video shows, among other things, a prayer circle of evangelical soldiers discussing how and whether to distribute a set of bibles in Afghanistan. If the soldiers ended up doing it, that would be a clear violation of military rules and a great way to earn enmity in a crucial corner of the world. But the video doesn't show that. Rather, what it shows is the soldiers talking about whether such behavior would be kosher or not, acknowledging clearly that proselytizing is wrong. One of them wonders aloud whether it's OK to distribute the bibles as "gifts" as a way of getting around the rules, and the prayer leader quickly cuts him off, saying "Alright, let's talk about it. What do you think?" The video shows no conclusion being reached.

One moment that is slightly greater cause for concern (but not necessarily damning) shows Afghanistan's chief of chaplains -- Lt. Col. Gary Hensley -- telling a congregation of military personnel that every Christian is commissioned to be a "witness" that "hunts people for Jesus...get the hound of heaven after 'em so we get 'em in the Kingdom...That's what we do, that's our business!" To those not in the know, this is boilerplate evangelical rhetoric that's to be expected in such a service. The problem is that for soldiers, it's not clear who exactly they should be trying to convert.

So, draw your own conclusions, but let's just say there are many, many Christians who don't see any problem with invading a predominantly Muslim country and then trying to hand out Bibles and convert people.

Christians and Torture

Yesterday Ilya Somin at the Volokh Conspiracy blogged about a recent NY Times article about increased atheist "activism." The comments following were mostly a discussion of the usefulness of atheist activism, but naturally, some commentators could not pass without condemning atheists as having no basis for morality (unlike Christians, who can always trace their morality back to God.) Not unexpectedly, the conservative Christian who is quick to condemn the atheist for his/her lack of morality seems to share a different definition of morality form the atheist and less avowedly religious:

The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.

More than half of people who attend services at least once a week -- 54 percent -- said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is "often" or "sometimes" justified. Only 42 percent of people who "seldom or never" go to services agreed, according to the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified -- more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did.

I hesitate to draw too general a conclusion from the study, but it seems rather obvious that the more outwardly religious you are, the more likely you are to support torture, and the less outwardly religious/more secular you are, the less likely you are to support torture (naturally, someone can attend church on a fairly regular basis and be completely opposed to torture.) I have my own uncharitable explanation for this of course. It seems that those inclined to more simple-minded religious beliefs, are also inclined to the sorts of old-fashioned notions of tribalism, xenophobia and human rights that our society has gradually moved away from. It would not at all surprise me if those who are quickest to condemn atheists as immoral, are also great supporters of torture. Of course, our current political climate probably has done quite a bit to move the numbers up in recent years; twenty years ago evangelicals and fundamentalists might've had something very different to say on the subject of torture, before it was in vogue on the right again as it is now.

Morning Links

Stuff you should be reading this morning:

1. Iraq: another article on the gradual upswing in attacks, and the largely unabated violence in one of the last bastion's of the insurgency, Diyala Province.

2. Congressional watchdogs lament the lack of transparency and oversight regarding the handout of TARP funds. Economist Joseph Stiglitz condemn's the Obama administration's approach to the crisis on Wall Street, characterizing it as "ersatz capitalism, the privatizing of gains and the socializing of losses." Paul Krugman's saying the same, of course.

3. In a surprise move, AG Holder dismiss the Stevens indictment and says there will be no new trial. The Stevens conviction has fallen apart in the face of allegations of prosecutorial misconduct.

4. The World Health Organization warns of an impending "explosion" in cases of drug-resistant tuberculosis.

5. Michael Gerson at the Washington Post says Obama is losing Catholics over the issue of abortion, but unsurprisingly fails to note that American Catholics are as divided on the issue of abortion as non-catholics. As is typical among media pundits (especially those of the conservative ilk) an entire group is said to be represented by it's conservative members.

6. ADP, a payroll processor, reports that 724,000 jobs were lost in March.

7. The Economist opens it's new theme park, Econoland (h/t Josh Berthume.) All the horror of the modern world, only funnier.

8. In honor of the day, the top 10 greatest April Fools pranks in modern history.

9. The tabletop wargame Battletech celebrates it's 25th anniversary. Not that that's anything special to us, ahem.

Slavery Split Churches Too

Andrew Sullivan and Damon Linker both have excellent posts on Rod Dreher and Christian opposition to gay marriage, and homosexuality in general. I recommend reading both in full. I only have on minor point to add, and it's in regards to this statement that Dreher makes:

Sex, especially homosexuality, is a big deal because how one comes down on those related questions has a lot to do with how you view the authority of Scripture and Tradition. There's a reason why the churches today are breaking apart over homosexuality, and it has to do with the plain fact that there can be no compromise on this issue, as it goes to the heart of how believers understand ourselves, our relationship to God, and to the nature of truth. This stuff matters. It matters a lot.

Linker deals with Dreher's retreat to Biblical literalism (in sum: why do Christians retreat to the Bible only when it suits their argument?) but Dreher misses something else. The struggle for gay rights is frequently paralleled to the African-American struggle for civil rights, for obvious reasons. But the civil rights movement, starting before even the Civil War, also had the effect of dividing American churches against themselves. Just like today, church-goers of all denominations in the 19th and 20th centuries believed that there could be "no compromise" on the issue of slavery and civil rights. Southern church-goers frequently cited to the Bible as a defense of slavery. But how many arguments between denominations do we hear about the correctness of civil rights, or slavery now? Not only was there eventually compromise on these issues, the anti-slavery and pro-civil rights forces won. There is simply no argument about these issues in mainstream churches anymore, and that despite the fact that at one point in time, a substantial number of Christians in America believed that the Bible offered literal support for racist slavery. 

Rod Dreher is right that the issue of homosexuality divides churches because of intense feelings on both sides. But Dreher's citing to the divison of churches over the issue of homosexuality is not the compelling evidence of the importance of the issue that he thinks it is.  And he's wrong to say that no compromise is possible. In fact, it's quite easy to predict that the gay rights movement will track the civil rights movement in this manner too. It's just not that likely that, one hundred years from now, Christians of all denominations will be arguing over what the Bible thinks of homosexuality. And that's what I think people like Dreher fear the most.

Christianity in Science Fiction Films

Two quick thoughts about this article by Benjamin Plotinsky about Christian allegory in science fiction (via Cliff Pickover's Twitter.) One, Plotinsky is mostly talking about science fiction on screen, not science fiction as a genre of literature. I would hardly consider myself a scholar of science fiction cinema, but as a genre, most of its products are either entirely derivative of sci-fi literature, or not derivative at all in that they are merely more or less thoughtful action movies set in the future or using technology in a manner that's particular appropriate to works on the big screen (for bigger explosions, CGI robots, sweeping space vistas, etc., etc.) For that reason, one can hardly consider sci-fi cinmea to be representative of science fiction in particular, let a lone a stand alone genre, so to write an article that talks about both but at the outset fails to distinguish between them is in my opinion a gross error.

Second, while Plotinsky's article is even-handed it's clear he welcomes Christian influences in sci-fi films in general. But the movie he references are hardly evidence that this trend has done anything to improve sci-fi films. The Matrix trilogy was widely panned for it's completely unoriginal deneoument, where the hero Neo sacrifices himself in an Christ-like manner for the good of those he is trying to save. The new Star Wars films also suffer for Christian influence; the reference to Anakin's "virgin birth" is criticized as being illogical and inconsistent with prior explanations of "the force" in earlier films. And while I'm not sure how much this opinion is shared by fans of the show, I believe that the recent incarnation of Battlestar Galactica suffered greatly from its overtly religious overtones, which were frequently ham-handed and over the top.

Without a doubt there's room for Christianity in science fiction. Try reading someone like Gene Wolfe if you don't believe me. And religion in general has been deeply mined by science fiction authors like Frank Herbert. But science fiction filmmakers have, for reasons that I believe are largely related to the medium itself, failed to handle Christianity or religion in general nearly as thoughtfully or convincingly. It would seem to me that sci-fi films are largely in need of a break from ham-handed Christian allegory.

Nonbelievers Go To Heaven

Interesting (via Cliff Pickover):

In June, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life published a controversial survey in which 70 percent of Americans said that they believed religions other than theirs could lead to eternal life.

This threw evangelicals into a tizzy. After all, the Bible makes it clear that heaven is a velvet-roped V.I.P. area reserved for Christians. Jesus said so: “I am the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” But the survey suggested that Americans just weren’t buying that.

The evangelicals complained that people must not have understood the question. The respondents couldn’t actually believe what they were saying, could they?

So in August, Pew asked the question again. (They released the results last week.) Sixty-five percent of respondents said — again — that other religions could lead to eternal life. But this time, to clear up any confusion, Pew asked them to specify which religions. The respondents essentially said all of them.

And they didn’t stop there. Nearly half also thought that atheists could go to heaven — dragged there kicking and screaming, no doubt — and most thought that people with no religious faith also could go.

My childhood faith in God began to erode when I was told by someone I had great respect for, quite bluntly, that non-Christians cannot get into heaven. That in fact, no matter how decent and good they were, they would be condemned to hell for the accident of having been born in of a different faith. Even as a child that struck me as being so grossly unfair that it could not possibly be true, and if it wasn't true, then what else about Christianity wasn't true? As I grew up, I eventually rejected the idea of God in general, and Christianity in particular.

In recent years though, I've acquired a more nuanced view towards religion and Christianity. I am glad to hear that much of the country has done the same, if from a different direction. 

In Ye Olden Days

Given that Christmas music these days can get a little repetitive, I've taken the opportunity the last few Christmases to become more familiar with Christmas music of the late middle ages and the renaissance. In that vein, here's an enjoyable version of the Castellian Villancico "Riu Riu Chiu" from the 16th century. An English translation of the lyrics can be found here. 

Warren Not Conservative Enough

Another group of people unhappy with Rick Warren is other evangelical Christians:

The pastor chosen by President-elect Barack Obama to give the inaugural invocation backed Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in his home state of California. But he did so belatedly, with none of the enthusiasm he brings to fighting AIDS and illiteracy.

When other conservative Christians held stadium rallies and raised tens of millions of dollars for the ballot effort, there was no sign of Warren. Neither he nor his wife, Kay, donated any of their considerable fortune to the campaign, according to public records and the Warrens' spokesman.

In fact, his endorsement seemed calculated for minimal impact. It was announced late on a Friday, just 10 days before Election Day, on a Web site geared for members of his Saddleback Community Church, not the general public.

He has spoken out against the use of torture to combat terrorism. He has joined the fight against global warming and, encouraged by his wife, has put his prestige and money behind helping people with AIDS. The Warrens have done so at a time when a notable number of conservative Christians still consider the virus a punishment from God.

"If you want to save a life, I don't care what your background is and I don't care what your political party is," Warren said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. "I think some of these humanitarian issues transcend politics, or ethnic or religious beliefs."

While many religious conservatives openly condemn Islam as inherently evil, Warren reaches out to the American Muslim community. This past Saturday, he gave the keynote address at the convention of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, based in Los Angeles.

"His social consciousness is somewhat left of center, but his theological, ethical stance is right of center," said the Rev. William Leonard, a critic of the Southern Baptist Convention and dean of Wake Forest Divinity School in North Carolina. "That's the thing that makes him potentially a bridge person."

Warren's outlook has come at a price. Many from the Christian right don't trust him.

The fact that the true homophobes, bigots and authoritarians on the religious right don't trust him definitely raises his standing my eyes.

Rick Warren For the Invocation

A minor affair no doubt, but given the magnitude of Obama's victory on Nov. 4th, is it really necessary to reach out even to the not-so-crazy evangelicals? I'm with Klein: our nation is filled with any number of progressive Christian religious leaders, all whom would probably be more appropriate than Rick Warren.

The Fate of a New Province

Earlier this month we learned of the plans by conservative Episcoplians to establish a new province in America. Rev. Phillip Cato, a retired priest of the Washington diocese, thinks that such an idea isn't likely to survive for long:

In this province, as proposed, we find strident Evangelicals, Charismatics, Anglo-Catholics, those who allow for the ordination of women to the priesthood and those who regard this as a metaphysical and theological and Biblical impossibility, those who were ordained and consecrated in the canonical ways of national churches in the Anglican Communion and those who have received express consecration in total disregard of any canons, those who are conflicted over the theological issue of Baptismal regeneration, those who have flirted with Rome and those who are of a radical Protestant bent, and a notorious collection of massive egos, unlikely to concede much in the way of theological, ecclesiastical, or Biblical views. All have shown complete disregard for their ordination vows and canonical obligations, and lay claim to property they do not own.

In your most generous imagination, can you conceive of such a coalition surviving? I cannot.

As I've learned the rejection of the ordination of gays as priests or bishops in the church is not the only motivation for a new province (though of course a new province would never have been proposed absent that development) and this loose alliance consist of groups that left the Episcopal church long ago over matters having nothing to do with who is or isn't ordained. Can a group that appears united mostly in their desire to not be mainstream Episcopalians survive for long? I suppose we'll find out.

"Negative Virtue"

Fred Clark at Slacktivist is an amazingly good blogger who doesn't get as much attention as he deserves. In addition to all the other writing he does, he's spent years analyzing and critiquing in painstaking detail the Left Behind books from a liberal Christian perspective. Having finished that epic project, he's turned his sights on the movie adaptations, and in this post he theorizes that the star Kirk Cameron's adoption of the sort of Christianity espoused in the books is exactly what has made him such a poor actor in those movies. That sounds silly, but it's actually a very thoughtful post and I think he makes a good argument. That being said, there's one passage Clark writes that really caught my attention where he discusses how Cameron pulled away from his fellow actors on the show Growing Pains after his conversion to evangelical Christianity:

Cameron became more concerned with being a role model than he was with his role because he had found a spiritual home in a branch of Christianity that had an almost entirely negative concept of virtue. According to this form of religion, being good means not doing certain things -- not doing a lot of things, actually. And being really good, I suppose, means doing almost nothing.

According to this view, being morally good doesn't take any work. It's not something you have to learn, or study, or practice. It comes by fiat, through God's intervening grace. We saw this idea of moral goodness in the book Left Behind: say the magic words and God will transform you into a good person.

Clark goes onto to explain how this belief led Cameron to think that was no need to work to improve his acting skills, but there's another point to be made here. As Cameron explains in his own words, he became concerned with the idea of being a good role model. But as his colleagues on the show explain, he withdrew from them. Cameron wanted to be a positive role model, but he passed up a chance to be a role model to the very people he worked around and knew the best. Instead, he seemed to want little to do with them, presumably because he felt he wasn't like them anymore.

Now, this is a phenomenon that I've personally witnessed. To be fair, I understand the motivation to pull away, at least in some sense. As anyone who has ever tried to turn their life around can tell you, sometimes you have to get away from the people who are part of that old life and who would-intentionally or unintentionally-drag you back into that life if you gave them a chance. But that's not always the convert's motivation (and here, we can be referring to a recent convert of any religion or particularly strong belief system.) To one degree or another, that convert is willing to dismiss their friends and family who don't convert with them from their lives. Maybe they're afraid of being given a hard time about their beliefs, maybe they're afraid of a weakening of their beliefs after having their beliefs challenged. Maybe they're no longer interested in people who don't believe what they do, or share their strong feelings of joy. Maybe they think it's wrong to associate with "sinful" people. Maybe they think they're better than those people now. But whatever the reason, people who follow this route make a deliberate decision to exclude those who don't believe what they do, no matter how long or how well they know them, and embrace only those who do. This is another iteration of this "negative concept of virtue" that Clark discusses, an exclusion of those to one degree or another who don't share the same strong beliefs. Instead of desiring to share their beliefs, or live comfortably in their beliefs around those who don't share them, this particular type of convert runs away to the comfort of those who think like he or she does.

In this sense also then, being good doesn't require any work. Or at least, not as much work as it might to continue being a good colleague, good friend, or good family member. And it sends a terrible message to those who knew this person; that Christianity is exclusionary, that Christians are not open to others, that Christians are fearful of the larger world and prefer to retreat from it than attempt to change it personally in their lives, that Christians value the words of those they've only recently met over the words of those who have known them and cared for them the longest. Which, one would think, is pretty much the exact opposite of the message the evangelical Christian hopes to send to the unconverted.

Now obviously, most Christians are not like this. And after an initial conversion, an evangelical Christian may return to the social circles he or she once roamed in, more comfortable in his or her beliefs or more willing to attempt to bring others on board with his or her words and deeds. I've experienced that outcome personally as well. But it was years in the making.

I hardly know enough about theology to make some argument about what being a "good" Christian does or doesn't entail. But I do know those who are most likely to make a positive impact, those who are most likely to change the world, are those who are not afraid the world and the people in it who aren't like them. And I would imagine that no beliefs are stronger than those that have been put to the test and survived. It's unfortunate that many who believe strongly that they have a positive message to share with the world, don't feel the same.

Conservative Episcopalians to Establish Rival Province

Conservative American Episcopalians, no longer content to put themselves under the authority of African and South American bishops so as to avoid having to tolerate gays and women as priests and bishops, now intend to found a rival denomination to the American Anglican church:

Conservatives alienated from the Episcopal Church announced on Wednesday that they were founding their own rival denomination, the biggest challenge yet to the authority of the Episcopal Church since it ordained an openly gay bishop five years ago.

The move threatens the fragile unity of the Anglican Communion, the world’s third-largest Christian body, made up of 38 provinces around the world that trace their roots to the Church of England and its spiritual leader, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The conservatives intend to seek the approval of leaders in the global Anglican Communion for the province they plan to form. If they should receive broad approval, their effort could lead to new defections from the Episcopal Church, the American branch of Anglicanism.

In the last few years, Episcopalians who wanted to leave the church but remain in the Anglican Communion put themselves under the authority of bishops in Africa and Latin America. A new American province would give them a homegrown alternative.

And almost certainly lead to more diocese and churches breaking from the "official" Anglican Communion, as they would no longer have to take the extreme step of putting themselves under the authority of bishops on other continents with whom they share an ideological viewpoint but otherwise not much else.

Conservative leaders in North America say they expect to win approval for their new province from at least seven like-minded primates, who lead provinces primarily in Africa, Australia, Latin America and Asia.

These are the same primates who met in Jerusalem over the summer at the Global Anglican Future Conference and signed a declaration heralding a new era for the Anglican Communion. Most of these primates a few weeks later boycotted the Lambeth Conference, the international gathering of Anglican bishops in England held once every 10 years.

Bishop Duncan and other conservative leaders in North America say they may not seek approval for their new province from the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, or from the Anglican Consultative Council, the leadership group of bishops, clergy and laity that until now was largely responsible for blessing new jurisdictions.

Bishop Martyn Minns, a leading figure in the formation of the new province, said of the Archbishop of Canterbury: “It’s desirable that he get behind this. It’s something that would bring a little more coherence to the life of the Communion. But if he doesn’t, so be it.”

As this article makes clear in more detail, the conservatives intend to found a new province of the Episcopal church that would remain under the authority of the Anglican Communion. How what would work if the Anglican Communion doesn't approve of the new province is beyond me, and I assume that dioceses that join this new province will no longer be under the authority of provinces in South America and Africa but will elect their own leadership instead.

I find it remarkable that members of the Episcopal church, long one of the most progressive Christian denominations in America, are willing to tear the church asunder over the issue of women and gays in leadership positions in the church. Yes, I know that when asked the conservatives will say that they prefer what they consider orthodox Christian practices and beliefs, but no one was revolting until an openly gay man and a woman were made bishops of the church.

Fort Worth Diocese Leaves

I was quite disappointed to hear over the weekend that the Fort Worth diocese of the Episcopal Church voted to leave the national church and realign itself with a conservative Anglican province based in Argentina. The move was hardly a surprise as the Fort Worth diocese, led by Bishop Jack Iker and largely conservative, has been making noises for some time that it was unhappy with the direction of the Episcopal Church, which has moved in recent years to ordain women and openly gay men as priests and bishops. Five of the dioceses' fifty five congregations have voted to stay with the church. As has been the case with other dioceses, the Episcopal Church will likely sue to retain ownership of church property.

"The Idolatry of America"

Scott Horton references Reinhold Niebuhr's concept of "the idolatry of America" in an effort to explain why Sarah Palin gains no favor among moderate Christians for her aggressive and overtly-religious conception of America as a "shining city on a hill":

For the mainstream Protestant, Palin is engaging in what Reinhold Niebuhr calls “the idolatry of America.” As Niebuhr would have it, an American Christian may be patriotic and love his country, but he must also remember that his true home rests outside of these bounds fixed by geography and time and in an eternal community with Jesus Christ. The Christian’s commitment to his faith must come first, and it must transcend a commitment to the nation-state. This means that patriotism is, in the mainstream Protestant view, a fairly complicated matter. In particular, again in the Niebuhr tradition, a Christian must guard against the risk that vanity, haughtiness and hatred towards the balance of mankind enter into his heart under the guise of patriotism; he must retain a skeptical and critical attitude which recognizes the imperfection of human works. The perspective of Religious Right figures like Palin that elevates America—as their political blinders conceive her—to some sort of sacred object is therefore little short of an act of idolatry. Jesus Christ, as Charles Marsh reminds us, “comes to us from a country far from our own” and requires that believers lay their “values, traditions, and habits at the foot of the cross.” Or, as John Calvin says, “the heart is a factory of idols,” and a primitive noncritical form of patriotism can be a particularly troubling and entrenched idol.

In other words, Christ first, country second. This is not as frightening as it sounds at first. America is not a nation filled with Christians waiting to betray the nation in the interest of their faith. If anything, this proscription against mixing faith and country too closely is an admonishment to Christians not to concern themselves too greatly with the political affairs of the nation. No man can be expected to involve himself in politics without carrying into his involvement his own particular beliefs; of course a Christian will be guided morally by his faith. And his faith should instruct him that men are flawed, and any system created by men-such as a government, or a nation-is equally flawed. America cannot always be right when compared to the dictates of faith, and faith must come first. Consequently, a Christian with this in mind will enter politics only reluctantly, or with a healthy dose of skepticism about the limits of what he can achieve, or what his country can achieve. Of course, the exact opposite is true for the nationalist Christians who flock to Palin. To them it is not at all incongruous to mix the flag and the cross, even though one is a symbol of God and the other is a symbol of man, because what the flag represents has been blessed and ordained by God. The "shining city on the hill" becomes not an admonishment by God to act in humility, but a sign of God's blessing.

That being said, I noticed something else that I found interesting about Niebuhr's idolatry of America, from the chapter by that name in his book "Love and Justice." In this chapter Niebuhr is interested less in American foreign or military policy, and more in American economic policy. Here's an excerpt:

The pious layman wants good Christians to be socially minded, but he doesn't want them to be coerced to do justly, for 'man's individual behavior as a social being cannot be forced on people...Social qualities come from within' he declares, 'and can therefore only be cultivated.' One is reminded of the day when Herbert Hoover opposed unemployment insurance on the ground that it destroyed the good old American way of voluntary aid to the unfortunate.

Thus Christian sentimentality is made a cloak for a corrupt form of lasseiz-faire politics...Our present prosperity is actually creating a mood among our lay Christians that approximates the uncritical Christian adoration of the 'free enterprise system' before the rise of the social gospel that challenged it. The social gospel was frequently itself too moralistic, but one might be grateful now for some of its emphases, however inadequate.

So, another "idolatry of America" is the raising of free market capitalism above the "social gospel", the desire to alleviate the problems of poverty, injustice and immorality in America. Unfortunately, it would appear that Niebuhr's way of thought is not much adhered to by modern Christian conservatives. Here for example is Al Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, discussing our present economic crisis:

The big debate in Washington is over the extent of government intervention. Prudence would indicate that the less government intervention, the better. Adam Smith was confident that a "hidden hand" within the economy would rectify excesses and punish bad actors. I think he is basically right, but the government is, like it or not, one of the actors in this economic system.

So watch the debates in Washington with interest and consider how a Christian should understand the economy and our economic lives. The free market is not perfect, but capitalism has brought more wealth to more people than any other system. It rewards investment, labor, and thrift and rises on innovation. Better ideas and better products push out inferior ideas and inferior products. Given the reality of human sin, we should not centralize economic control in the hands of the few, but distribute economic power to the many. A free market economy distributes power to multitudes of workers, inventors, investors, and consumers.

Nowhere in any of that do I see questioning of the fundamentals of the economic system that we live under. Everything Mohler says sounds quite reasonable, and he counsels the Biblically-approved of traits of thrift and hard work. But where in the Bible is it said that less regulation is better? Suppose Mohler is taking a pragmatic approach; this approach to economic regulation brings more wealth and prosperity to all, alleviating poverty as we are admonished to do by Christ. But it can hardly be argued that our economic system rewards some with vastly greater amounts of wealth than others. And yet it is no surprise that Mohler is similarly opposed to taxation as a means to redistribute wealth. But where does Christ counsel Christians to vote for lower taxes? Perhaps Mohler values freedom in general, something that all Americans can appreciate. But where does the Bible say that Christians are free of their obligation to care for their fellow man?

Just as Palin's version of Christian patriotism has become indstinguishable from nationalism (or more accurately, nationalism is embraced by the Christian patriot) so too has unquestioning acceptance of the free market sytem and lasseiz-faire economics become the Christian right's economic system. A book could be written about why this is so (and surely many have been) but it's really no surprise that men should seek to make the message of Christ, who dictates that families will be divided and set against each other by his teachings, somewhat more palatable to our modern inclinations. Few systems of belief can be less challenging than religious teachings which approve of an unwillingness to pay taxes and the desire to profit and live in comfort, and it should hardly come as a surprise that laymen who believe as much and powerful business interests have found a home in the same party, and can each equally justify the other's essential selfishness with Biblical passages. 

It would appear than that Niebuhr was right to fear the ascension of free market Christianity. But for the religiously inclined, the present economic crisis we are enduring-and the fundamental flaws it has exposed in our economic way of life-could be a sign that God does not favor the free market as much as some of his followers do.

Schism

Back in July I discussed the schism in the Episcopal Church of the United States over the ordination of openly gay men (and eventually, women) as reverends and bishops of the church. The conflict is back in the news, as the Pittsburgh diocese has become the second diocese to break away from the national church to ally itself with a more conservative form of the Anglican church in Latin America. I had a chance to listen to Terri Gross interview Katharine Jefferts Schori, the first female bishop to preside over the church, regarding this development. Naturally she discussed the repercussions of the split on the church, both legally and spiritually, but what I found most intriguing was a tidibt of an interview Terri Gross conducted back in 2004 with Bishop Robert W. Duncan, who led the secession by the Pittsburgh diocese. Terri Gross was direct with Rev. Duncan, asking him what it meant to his opposition to homosexuality, recent studies which seemed to indicate that one could be genetically predisposed towards homosexuality. In response, Rev. Duncan characterized homosexuality as a "disorder" that those who are afflicted with it must seek to overcome so that they may live according to the word of God (I quote his exact word.) Naturally, I thought back to a couple of blog posts that Nat-Wu and I wrote last year on the subject of homosexuality and whether or not it would make a difference to those who are opposed to homosexuality, that homosexuality might be biologically ingrained. Here's what I had to say at the time:

...religious conservatives will not recognize that homosexuals deserve equality based on some inherency of their sexual identity; they will expect them to battle their homosexuality to lead a "moral" life. And homophobes, with or without religious justification, see homosexuals as morally inferior despite the fact that homosexuals may have no choice in who they are. It simply doesn't matter that they were made that way.

Here's Nat-Wu, discussing a question that was asked during one of the primary debates:

...does it matter whether or not it's a choice? I suppose there might be some folks who would agree that if homosexuality is not a choice, homosexuals shouldn't be penalized for being themselves. But for the most part, it won't matter to those who are either just plain homophobes or those who back their position with the Bible. And of course, those of us who are willing to give gays equal rights and treatment under the law don't care why people are gay. So who does it matter to? Gays themselves? Is that why Melissa Etheridge asked the question? If so, I'm not going to fault her for it, but if the point is to gain wider acceptance among the straight people, well, it just doesn't matter.

In other words, both of us acknowledge that there are strong arguments to be made for homosexuality (or a tendency towards) being a biologically inherited trait, but when it comes to assuring equal rights for gays in our country, it doesn't matter. As I've analogized in the past, the situation is similar to the way our white ancestors felt about blacks; they were inherently inferior by virtue of their skin color, but that hardly absolved them of their own moral blame for failing to rise above their (supposedly) inferior character traits and intelligence. And for some people, that skin color was merely an excuse to hate them regardless of the fact that blacks had had no choice in the matter of what skin they were born with. Such hatred was also Biblically justified. 

It's unfortunate to recognize such a view in the likes of Rev. Duncan, a man clothed in the vestments of one of the most progressive church traditions in America. Rev. Duncan and his allies argue that the word of God is law, and that each person is born with limitations that they must somehow rise above to live up God's teaching. This is true yes, but homosexuality is not like a foul temper, or a tendency to lie. Nor is it a "disorder" like schizophrenia, for which the victim is essentially innocent of the acts he commits. Sexuality is a fundamental element of the make up of a human being, and it is a cruel God indeed who would permit people to be born to desire that which He himself has forbidden as a mortal sin. Fortunately many other Americans seem to feel the same way, as both homosexuality, equal rights for gays and gay marriage are becoming more acceptable and commonplace. Unfortunately there will remain those like Rev. Duncan and his supporters who cling to the Bible against all reason as a justification for discrimination. 

Some Churches to Challenge IRS Restrictions

NPR reports today on a movement afoot in conservative churches to resist IRS challenges to their tax-exempt status:

Two weeks ago, more than 100 pastors squeezed into a hotel meeting room in Washington, D.C., to learn about the Pulpit Initiative, a brain child of the conservative legal group, Alliance Defense Fund. Attorney Erik Stanley walked them through it.

"If the IRS chooses to come after these churches, we will sue the IRS in federal court," Stanley said.

Stanley says pastors are fed up. In the past four years, the IRS has stepped up its investigations of clergy. It sent letters to 47 churches, including some liberal ones — not just for explicit endorsements, but also for using code words like pro-choice or pro-life in relation to candidates.

"What's been happening is that the government has been able to go into the pulpits of America, look over the pastor's shoulder, and parse the content of their sermon. And that's unconstitutional," Stanley said. "No government official should entangle itself with religion in that way."

Celia Roady disagrees. Roady, a lawyer and expert on charities law, says there's nothing to stop pastors from talking about issues in light of scripture. But, she says, "You simply cannot say to your congregation, you should not vote for Candidate X because of Candidate X's position on this one issue. That's simply the line that has been drawn."

Roady says if a church can endorse a candidate, it is using tax-free dollars — taxpayer money — to subsidize a political campaign.

But it's not merely tax deductions that are at stake here, says Ohio Pastor Eric Williams. He says it's also the attempt of some churches to move aggressively into politics.

"I ask myself, 'Hmm. Why would a religious leader want to oppose a candidate? Why would a religious leader want to stand up and ask for my support for a candidate who's running for office?' They want to gain influence in the governmental process," Williams said.

No doubt, some church officials feel strongly about their political opinions, and feel that as they're opinions are based (so they believe) in their faith, they should be permitted to explicitly endorse or reject candidates from the pulpit or engage in naked campaigning. And I agree, so long as they are willing to forgo their tax-exempt status and my tax dollars are not required to subsidize their activities. But these pastors want to have their cake and eat it too; they want to continue to accrue their wealth in the form of tithes, fundraisers, etc., etc., untouched by the federal government, while they at the same time attempt to interfere with and meddle in government. Booth himself is awfully cavalier about the prospect of having his church's tax exempt status revoked:

"Big deal," he said. He added that he can get it back the next day because churches are automatically tax-exempt.

Besides, he said, electing "Godly people is more important than money."

Then the solution is simple...pay up.

Sound Off

Frank Schaeffer, son of the late evangelical preacher Francis Schaeffer and himself a former fundamentalist Christian, tears the religious right a new one in a column over at the Huffington Post. Excerpts:

Take a hard look at yourselves. Play back this year's Republican convention and you'll see an all-white crowd of people screaming for offshore oil drilling -- fat lot of good that will do! more carbon! more polution! -- and essentially reacting like starved hyenas when presented with a piece of juicy carrion. At the convention Sarah Palin and others produced nothing more than a snide list of smart ass put downs aimed at the really dumb, with so little substance that former conservatives such the late William F. Buckley, for instance (let alone my late father) would simply have been ashamed to be in your company. You have become a hate-filled rabble proud of your ignorance and resentful of the rest of your own country, resentment that's exceeded only by your maudlin (and false) sense of victimhood.

People that hate half the population of their own country can scarcely be called patriots. On the contrary, people who exult in mocking as their only way to "contribute" to solving our huge environmental, energy, military and economic problems are true subversives.

If you could feel shame there would have been a series of contrite public apologies at your convention for the incredible fiasco of non-governing that has typified the Bush administration. My pension, other people's pensions, our homes, jobs and economy are in chaos because of you. Young Americans are dying in Iraq because of you. The world is a more dangerous place because of you. America is hated because of you. Yes, that is you personally. I blame all of you.

Belligerent posturing is not a policy, it is idiocy. You Republicans have become the party of perpetual fear and aggressive non-provoked war, seeing enemies where there are none and/or provoking former friends to become our enemies, and/or faking reasons for war and/or wasting our soldier's blood in places such as Afghanistan, where our cause was just but you fumbled the ball.

Your moron vice presidential candidate is still at it! While turning her son's deployment to war into a flag-dishonoring political circus stunt she repeated the Bush lie and said that her son was going off to fight the perpetrators of 9/11. This is a barefaced lie and you all know it. Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack. The only reason we attacked them is because the fools listed above decided it would be good for Israel and our stupid "president" went along.

The Republican Party claims traditional values. It has propagated a laissez-faire attitude toward corporate interests and has -- literally -- stood back and encouraged the rape of the earth. You are the party of the earth-hogging SUV. You have literally sowed the wind and reaped the hurricanes.

This is as self-defeating as it is embarrassing for those claiming the moral high ground, particularly those who say that their philosophy represents traditional Judeo-Christian values. We all live here for crying out loud! Will you now fight our God and Creator too for the "right" to burn the last drop of oil while on a weekend jaunt to nowhere in your all-terrain piece of garbage?

The Republican problem is a systemic disparagement of government, community, faith in our institutions, family, God's creation and the mitigating institutions that put a check on something any party aligned with a religious movement should know all about: sin. Greed is not the only problem. Human weakness and stupidity (i.e., "sin") is the problem! And the genius of the American system is supposedly that we have a system of checks and balances to mitigate our fallen state. You have destroyed those checks and balances.

Uh...wow. That's definitely going to make some people mad. I've been less than charitable towards fundamentalists Christians in the past, but I can't say I've ever thought to craft a broadside quite on par with that. And frankly, it's not my style. But Schaeffer knows who he's talking to, as he used to be one of them. The zeal of a convert indeed.

That being said, I get pretty mad too when I read about survey results like this (via Slacktivist):

A new poll finds that nearly six in 10 white Southern evangelicals believe torture is justified, but their views can shift when they consider the Christian principle of the golden rule.

The poll released Thursday, commissioned by Faith in Public Life and Mercer University, found that 57% of respondents said torture can be often or sometimes justified to gain important information from suspected terrorists. Thirty-eight percent said it was never or rarely justified.

The new poll found that 44% of white Southern evangelicals rely on life experiences and common sense to determine their views about torture. A lower percentage, 28%, said they relied on Christian teachings or beliefs.

Yeah, okay. A bunch of fearful white fundamentalist Christians think it's okay to torture people who don't look like them, speak like them, or worship the same religion they do. Tribalism isn't exactly new in world history. But over a quarter of these people think that Christian doctrine justifies torture. Really? The fact that a quarter of these people believe that the religion they practice-that is named after a figure who was tortured to death for his political and religious beliefs-permits torture, says something about the state of religious teaching among these folks. 

Dispensationalism

I'm not one to make fun of people's religious beliefs. I've known very intelligent, kind, tolerant and open-minded people who firmly believe in God and I respect their beliefs even if I don't share them. But a lot of people hold these beliefs as well...including presumably the Republican VP nominee Sara Palin. There has to be a point at which most people are going to have to admit that this stuff is a little...well, crazy. People of this ilk believe-literally-that Israel must continue to exist only so that it can be essentially obliterated prior to the reign of Christ on Earth. And there are people running the show in D.C. who believe this deep in their heart of hearts. That has to worry even non-liberal, moderately religious Americans just a little, right? Do you want someone's finger on the button who believes that the Bible might just require them to push it?