Posts in month: January, 2009

The apostle Paul claimed that Jesus, in the form of “Christ crucified,” was “a stumbling block [skandalon=scandal=offence] to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.” (I Corinthians 1:23) Jews+Gentiles=pretty much everybody. You may ask, “What is Jesus doing in Sightings,” given this column’s assignment to deal with religion in public life? Try this: Saturday my internet search engine turned up 484,000 references to “Jesus” or “Christ” linked with “inauguration,” and yours will find even more by today. That’s “public.”

So Jesus is my topic, as we leave the inaugural events behind but still have controversies ahead. Many citizens are at ease with prayers in pluralistic America when they are generic, civil, God-ly. Invoke Jesus, however, and not a few are scandalized by the reference, while others are scandalized by the scandalized. I propose a thesis; correct me if I have it wrong, lest I keep spreading wrongness. Thesis: Jesus is not the scandal. The use of Jesus in public at “we the people of the United States” occasions is usually the offence. Jesus gets from one- to four-star ratings in the following publics:

First the company of non-believers, secular humanists, atheists, deists, et cetera, who often admire teachings of Jesus. Their American patriarch Thomas Jefferson even published his annotated anthology of The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.

Jews have suffered at the hands of millions of followers of Jesus, but some very fine books on Jesus as rabbi get published – by rabbis – without scandalizing. My wife and I attend the “Music of the Baroque” series with many Jews in the audience and some in the chorus and orchestra, as they perform music with Jesus-words, some of them not kind toward Jews. “No problem.” Yet many are uneasy with the invocation of Jesus in general-public and often official events.

Muslims revere Jesus the prophet. Of course, with the other groups just mentioned, they do not accept his divinity, but he is in the Qur’an, and they are respectful, except, again, in certain public settings. Jesus is not in Hindu scriptures, but most Hindus say “no problem” about many of his teachings and about him – in context.

No matter what is said in public, what do the inhabitants of the previous three paragraphs hear? First, they hear: “We belong, and you don’t.” They hear assertions of majority privilege in the religious realm, where such privilege often has taken form in power against others. Second, they hear: “We have things figured out, and you don’t,” and find such claims insulting, since issues of truth based in scriptural revelations cannot be settled in civil discourse and civic debate.

Christians are taught to pray in the name of Jesus, and I join the two billion Christians around the world in doing so. It is theologically correct, liturgically appropriate, and personally, as in matters of piety, clarifying and warm. But such beliefs and practices do not license privilege, assertions of power, or exclusivity in public settings. Because of our confusion on this, we Americans spend more energy debating inaugural and other prayers than praying them, to the point that their point is obscured.

We should devise some signal by which those who pray particular prayers (as I believe all are) let everyone know that while praying in their own integral style and form, they are aware and will at least implicitly assure their audiences that they are not speaking for everyone. They can then encourage others to translate what is being said into contexts they find congenial, and still share a communal experience.

Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

It will be a moment, a moment when the entire world watches, as the United States of America inaugurates our first African-American president.  There will be parties. There will be cheering. There will be speeches. I suspect a lot of people will probably start to cry.

Busloads of people, thousands of them, are making the trek to Washington, D.C., to witness the historic event, and millions more will be glued to their sets at home.

The donors, big and small, will feel proud. The media will chatter about what a big day it is, and all the volunteers who made the phone calls and sent the e-mails and registered the voters and went door to door will be elated because, thanks to their hard work, an idea that once seemed improbable has become real.

But there are some other people who also contributed to this moment. We’re not going to see them at any of the inaugural balls or marching in the parade. They don’t have front-row seats at the swearing-in ceremony and they won’t be interviewed on television.  But I suspect that they’ll be there during that moment when the Obamas walk up the steps to enter the White House.  

A strong, silent group of contributors who I hope realize that, without them, this moment never could have happened.  They didn’t vote for him, they didn’t raise money and they certainly didn’t make YouTube videos.

But they’ll be by the first family’s side nonetheless, because they’re the unsung heroes whose literal blood, sweat and tears built the house that the Obamas will now call home.  In a grand full circle moment, America’s first black president will walk up steps that were built by slaves. 

I’ve often imagined what it would be like to go back in time and tell those slaves how things worked out.  Imagine standing there at the foot of the White House steps, watching as the crew of black men hauled the stones in place, sweat streaming down their bodies, eyes downcast and their hands gnarled and mangled from years of hard labor.  Imagine walking up to the oldest, most tired-looking one, knelt down near the bottom of the steps as he struggles to push another rock in place. 

Imagine bending over and whispering in his ear:  ”One day, on this very spot, a black man will stand with his wife and two beautiful daughters. He won’t be wearing laborers’ rags; he’ll be wearing a suit.  As he stands with his family at the foot of these stairs, the eyes of the world will be upon them, but they’ll be thinking about you.  They’ll pause right here on this very spot and, as they look up at the doors of the house they are about to enter, they will send you, and every other worker on this site, a silent prayer of gratitude and thanks.  Because they want you to know that you mattered, that your life was not for nothing. Because these rocks that you’re laying, they are the very surface the black man and his family will walk on before they ascend the stairs, so that he can begin his work as President of the United States.”

The old slave would have thought that you were crazy if you had spun him that tale. But perhaps somewhere, somehow, he now knows.

I pray that they all do.

Lisa Earle McLeod is an author, keynote speaker, nationally syndicated columnist, business consultant, and media personality. Lisa Earle McLeod’s comments can be read at <www.forgetperfect.com>.

Tomorrow, they tell us, is an epochal day in America and on the world-scene, so we’ll choose to be reflective about some of its meanings. The dictionary says that sighting is “the act of catching sight of something, especially something unusual or searched.” The original charter of Sightings was to “search” for sights of religion in public life and public issues in religion, back when it was rarer to “catch” sight of such. A canvass of press and media coverage during the weeks up to and including the weekend just past suggests we do not have to “search” or “catch sight of.” Rather, so massive is the coverage that we have to squint and blink to protect the searching eye. To the point of it all:

The text for our meditation is something the late columnist Mike Royko wrote when he bade good-bye to the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson. My Royko books are in storage and what he said was not lifted up by Google and other search engines, but it was etched in my mind, and I hope that my reproduction is faithful. It went something like this: “Farewell, President Johnson. You weren’t the best president a people ever had, but we were not the best people a president ever had.”

This season people are still debating whether President Bush, who, I think, is being mentioned in this column for the first time on his last day in office, is “the worst president a people ever had,” and I don’t think we are “the worst people a president ever had.” But Inauguration Day is a good time to reflect on “what kind of people we have been” and “what kind of people might we wish to be and might become.”

Presidents of both parties from Eisenhower to Clinton have cited Alexis de Tocqueville, the great commentator on American life: “America is great because America is good.” Two problems: Tocqueville never wrote that – look it up! And “good” is too hard to define, is too much in the eye of the beholders, and is far too crisp and clean for any nation to advertise, since the record of each is mixed, and more mixed each year.

What kind of people do we want to be with a new president who has such lofty ideas about what he wants to be? A sermon: We might do better if we aspire to be good rather than claim to be good; if we become a self-claimed godly people who serve God more than we boast about our goodness; if we spend less time fighting over who prays when and where and how, and let the intrinsic value of praying speak for itself.

What kind of people do we want to be? It would be good to see us as a people weary of “culture wars” in which God gets used, and ready for armistice and truces so we can fight the political battles that must be fought in pursuit of justice; a self-claimed godly people that stops legitimating torture of humans; a less litigious people who concerns itself with building trust; a people that will turn down the shouting on talk-radio, cable television, and the internet, so that we can hear each other.

What kind of people do we want to be? A people not paralyzed by fear and insecurity in the face of fearful threats; a people more dedicated than before to the education of all and health care for all; a people concerned with the environment given – many of us say – by a generous Creator; a people concerned for the rights of others. In four or eight years we hope to bid our now-new president farewell upon his retirement: “Farewell. Your and our record is mixed, but there is good in it. And you and we and the people we affect can live with that.”

Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School. Martin E. Marty’s biography, current projects, upcoming events, publications, and contact information can be found at <www.illuminos.com>.

From Newsweek, January 19, 2009

“Shall we meet hate with hate?” that has been a recurring question throughout history and, recently, a personal one for me. On a Sunday morning last July, a man walked into the sanctuary of my church, took a shotgun out of a guitar case and opened fire on a room of unarmed men, women and children. Two precious people, Greg McKendry and Linda Kraeger, lost their lives. Six others were injured. Our entire community was traumatized.

According to a manifesto in his handwriting, the alleged assailant reportedly wrote of his hatred for liberals, whom he believed were soft on terror. He was in for a surprise. Members of our congregation rushed forward and tackled the shooter. Others acted instantly to guide children to safety, call police and emergency assistance, care for the wounded and counsel those in grief and shock.

This misguided man may have picked our congregation because we call ourselves a liberal church. In our church, the word “liberal” is meant to describe whom we include, not whom we exclude. The children in our congregation say these words in chapel services: “Ours is the church of the loving heart, open mind and helping hands.” Our understanding of liberalism speaks to a generosity of spirit that transcends partisan politics. Sadly, though, the word “liberal” has become demonized. The man accused of the shootings owned books by popular media personalities who vilify liberals as evil, unpatriotic, godless and treasonous. I think our country needs to reclaim the word from those who defame it. Far from being evil, we liberals aspire to overcome evil with good. If you walk into a liberal church and open fire on its members, we will still defend your right to due process, access to an attorney and a fair trial.

The trial for the man accused of attacking our church is set for March 16. A reporter asked me what results I would like to see from our day in court. “Justice,” I said. The follow-up question was predictable: “What does justice look like?” “A community,” I replied, “where our children are safe.” After the incident, everyone in our town felt as if the children of our church were their children. For weeks, people would stop me to ask, “How are the children doing?” Fortunately, none of them was injured in body. We continue to work on healing the spirit, and healing has its own timetable. A miracle story in the Bible is that of Jesus walking on the water. A miracle in my time has been witnessing the young and the old, the wounded and the whole, walking into our sanctuary without bitterness or resentment.

Of course, the question keeps coming back: “Shall we return hatred for hatred?” Anyone who has endured a brutal act of violence will know the temptation. Our congregation’s experience, however, offers a cautionary tale. The man who brought violence to our church hated liberals. But in his desire to defeat terrorism he became a terrorist himself.

I have tried to use the power of the pulpit to advocate for a better way. I have told my congregation, “The man who attacked our church is in prison, but we do not have to remain prisoners of our own anger. Without denying the reality of our feelings in the present, we can be open to the possibility that one day we will be able to lay down our burden and say, in the words of the old African-American spiritual, ‘We are free at last’.”

Since that terrible day, people have flooded our church with immeasurable amounts of love. Postcards, letters, banners and artwork have come to us from across the nation and from many other countries. Our little town on the banks of the Tennessee River was once the site for the 1982 World’s Fair, and it remains surprisingly diverse today. On the night after the violence there was a gathering in the Presbyterian church next door, where we were hugged and held by our neighbors of all faiths and convictions—Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, rationalists and more. For years, there has been a sign at the entrance of our church that reads EVERYONE WELCOME, and we do mean everyone. All God’s children. The sign is still there.

Members of my congregation have been hurt. But we have also been healed by the feeling that there is a love greater than our theological differences, a compassion that is not limited by the boundaries of any creed. I firmly believe, now more than ever, that love is stronger than death. Love is more powerful than hate.

Rev. Chris Buice is the minister of the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville.

If you pick just one spiritual truth that resonates deep within you and live it constantly and with every ounce of your being, it will change your world forever. But that is not how I started my first attempt at a spiritual life. However, 28 years later. I landed on one spiritual truth that carried me, like Columbus, to a new world.

The mistake I made when I first attempted to live a spiritual life was trying to swallow the whole thing. I had perpetual indigestion as many of the beliefs of the church of my youth just would not go down my throat. Years later when I went to “orientation” to consider joining another church, some of those same beliefs that gave me indigestion earlier were right back again sticking in my throat.

To try to force any belief down your throat when it violates your good judgment or conscience, is a sin against your own soul. I believe it was Ingersoll who said anything that shocks the mind and soul of a child cannot be true.

Some people don’t ever try to accept the litany of beliefs their church broadcasts. They just noisily gargle them so people will think they are swallowing. Others swallow them but in their moments of highest fidelity to their own minds, they stick their fingers down their throats and regurgitate them — usually after the revival is over.

The way to ascertain spiritual truths for yourself is to munch, meditate and experiment. Munch on them with your mind and see if they ring true. God gave us a brain to use as a hat rack but it’s OK to think with it, too.

Munch on them with your soul, too. See how they taste to your deepest being. The taste buds in you soul are very sacred things.

Now experiment with them. Find a situation in your life to test them on. To test the deep truth Jesus taught about turning the other cheek, be willing to feel a little pain just to see if forgiveness and love really work. The smack will smart but when you realize you are testing a Jesus truth, it will ease the pain.

I proved this truth for myself when I took a couple of slaps from a man who seemed determined to be my political enemy. I asked God to help me love him until he could see that love was the best thing for both of us. Over the next few weeks after that prayer, I started seeing the good in him. We made peace. We accomplished great things together.

That truth went through my lips, down my throat, into my digestive tract, and settled forever into my soul. I know exactly what Jesus was talking about and I know it works.

When I was embarking on a great challenge and adventure I asked God to make His presence so real to me that I would feel it, know it, and learn to trust in it in times of great stress. The message I got was, “Be still and know.” Every time I needed to feel the Presence, I would get very still until I knew. Sometimes the presence of the Lord would be so real to me that I felt he was in the passenger seat of my car.

We are told to “taste the Lord.” Experiment with His teachings. Each time one becomes Truth to you, you know it for yourself. As John Hartford’s “Gentle on My Mind” reveals, you will know you are “not shackled by forgotten words and bonds and the ink stains that have dried upon some line” but that your own body, mind and soul have been gentled by an eternal truth. Your personal creed becomes not a thing on paper or something to noisily gargle but the very marrow of your spiritual bones.

Yes, just one truth like this can change your world forever.

Dalton Roberts writes for IPS features. Read more at <www.daltonroberts.com>.

This is what I sent the Pulse on January 7, 2008.  They are preparing an article in response to the article on the front page of the Time-Free Press of December 28, 2008, which detailed the experience of a man who was “cured” of homosexuallity through religion.  Gary Poole is the reporter.

       Gary Poole wrote:

“Why do we always wait until things get awful before we ask for help?”

We wait until our marriage is in a ditch before we go to a counselor.  We wait until our kid is failing before we hire a tutor.  And we often wait until we’re desperate before we turn to God. 

No, this isn’t going to be a lecture about religion. Faith and spirituality transcend religion and I would hope that we’re all smart enough to realize that by now.

Back to the point: why do we humans wait so long before we turn to God, Allah, Mother Earth or – insert deity here – to ask for help?

People say there are no atheists in a foxhole. I would also say there aren’t too many atheists during an economic collapse or when your kid gets really sick or when your car flips over in a traffic accident and you find yourself lying bruised and bloody in a ditch.

There’s nothing like a big problem to bring us to our knees, both literally and figuratively.

A quick trip to any hospital chapel and you’ll find people who aren’t even sure they believe in God, praying with all their hearts promising to do anything if only the Almighty will intervene and help their loved one get better.

I have to wonder what would happen if we prayed for answers when things were going well.

As a former atheist, turned agnostic, turned religiously confused, turned seeker, turned conceptual believer, I’m well acquainted with the spiritual quagmire of trying to pray when you’re not sure what, or who, you’re praying to.

But vagueness and confusion about the source need not stop you from tapping into it.

Call it hedging your bets if you like, but people generally feel more peaceful when they believe in something larger than themselves. There’s a certain comfort in knowing that you don’t have to have all the answers.

A minister friend of mine tells about a time in her life when she was spiritually lost and couldn’t find a faith. After many frustrations with the dogma and rigidity of organized religion she finally joined a church that told her, “All you need to know about God right now is that it’s not you.”

Truer words have never been spoken.

To be honest, I’m always kind of envious of people who claim to know exactly what God looks like and what he thinks about everything.

However, I’ve also noticed that most of the major religions also include a part about free will. Perhaps that’s because the journey to faith is only ultimately a personal one.

Rabbis, priests, ministers and other teachers may help, but at the end of the day, you don’t need a third party to connect with the divine.

And you don’t have to understand who or what’s out there to ask for help. If you’re feeling lost or alone, the vague God of your understanding is good enough for today.

It’s like my friend’s church says, all you need to know about God is that it isn’t you.

And thank heaven for that, because wouldn’t it be awful to believe that you were supposed to handle everything alone?

Lisa Earle McLeod is an author, keynote speaker, nationally syndicated columnist, business consultant, and media personality.  Lisa Earle McLeod’s comments can be read at <www.forgetperfect.com>.