This Election’s True Faith-Based Candidate

As regular readers know all to well, in general I hold Christianity, especially as practiced by conservative and evangelical Christians, in very low regard.  Indeed, hypocrisy seems to be one of the main traits of the "godly folk" who loudly proclaim their religiosity while condemning and hating others who look, love or believe differently from they themselves. Indeed, as past posts have examined, studies have documented that children raised in conservative Christian households show less empathy toward others than the non-religious and are much more judging of others.  Behavior that is hardly in keeping with Christ's commandment to love one another or to care for the poor, the hungry and/or homeless.  And, if one looks at the political party that so many of the Christofascists support, i.e., the Republican Party, that party's policies are likewise the antithesis of what the Gospel message teaches.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the irony of the fact that Hillary Clinton's religious background and the policies she has supported for decades are more in tune with the Gospel message than the rhetoric of the GOP, the Christofascists themselves, or Donald Trump.  Here are column excerpts:  

This is the inversion election, a contest in which so many of our familiar mental categories have been turned upside down.

This year, it’s the Republican presidential candidate who says the United States isn’t great anymore and the Democrat who insists it is. The Republican says that the former KGB agent presiding over Russia is a better leader than the president of the United States. The Democrat condemns him for it.

But last week reminded us that there is another role reversal in this election. There is one candidate who is authentically religious, who has thought seriously about what the Scriptures teach, and whose own view of the world was changed radically by her engagement with faith. Her name is Hillary Clinton.

Yes, I flinched when I typed that word “authentically.” How can we know whose faith is authentic or truly understand someone else’s relationship to God? It’s hard enough for most of us to come to terms honestly with our own relationship to the Almighty.

Moreover, I acknowledge that I bring a series of predispositions to my case here, beginning with the most basic: my conviction that Clinton is fit to be president and Donald Trump is not. More importantly in this context, her journey in wrestling with the relationship between religious commitment and political action was remarkably similar to my own.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was a key influence on both of us. She reexamined many of her assumptions when she heard him speak. I did the same  . . . . I grew up in a conservative family, as Clinton did, and King challenged me — as he did her and millions of other Americans — to embrace a Christian’s obligation to struggle for social and racial justice.

So let me be more specific about my definition of authenticity. It focuses on passages from the letter of James that Clinton cited in her speech last Thursday to the predominantly black National Baptist Convention. James suggests that the best measure of authenticity is whether your faith affects how you think and what you do. Clinton’s religious views, I’d argue, are organically connected to many of the choices she has made in her life.

“The Scripture tells us that faith without works is dead,” she said. “The Epistle of James tells us we cannot just be hearers of the Word, we must be doers.” Clinton explained that she embraced “an activist social justice faith , a roll-up-your-sleeves and get-your-hands-dirty faith.”

What I do doubt is the depth of the conviction of politicians whose religious commitments seem to have little connection to their lives. They paint themselves as religious by either pushing the social conservatives’ hot buttons or, as Trump did Friday at the Values Voter Summit, appealing to their sense of victimhood. He spoke about religious liberty and criticized a media culture that “mocks and demeans people of faith.”

Conservative religious people have every right to test liberal believers by their willingness to defend the role of faith in our public square. But liberal believers have a comparable right to test conservatives by whether what the Gospel teaches about love, justice and our obligation to the poor has any relationship to their public actions and the policies they promote.

Clinton also spoke of “the awesome responsibilities of power and the frailties of human action.” I do prefer politicians who follow Kierkegaard’s lead in approaching the burdens of governing with a certain amount of “fear and trembling.” I see at least some of that spirit in Clinton. I wish I could find it in Trump.

The Christofascists and most of the "professional Christian" set such as Tony Perkins, Franklin Graham,  James Dobson, et al, shout loudly about their supposed faith, yet one sees little or nothing in the personal lives that gives proof to the authenticity of their claimed beliefs.  Some like Graham run on the service charities, yet in the process financially enrich themselves beyond the dreams of most average citizens.   A similar disconnect occurs with the harsh, reverse Robin Hood policies of the GOP which they vociferously support. As for the narcissistic, greed driven Donald Trump, don't even get me started.  Meanwhile, Clinton, for all her faults at least supports programs in keeping with the Gospel social ministry message.  

Why Science and Religion Cannot Be Reconciled

As scientific knowledge advances it is becoming increasingly difficult to reconcile religion - especially fundamentalist forms of religion and those that claim the Bible (or Koran) are inerrant - with scientific reality.   The Old Testament including the Book of Genesis simply do not agree with and cannot be reconciled with the true age of the Earth, evolution, modern knowledge on sexual orientation, or the findings of the human genome project that confirm that Adam and Eve never existed as historical persons.   And the problem is only going to grow worse for fundamentalists in particular.  The result?  More of the younger generations walking away from religion white the hysteria and venom of the fundamentalists - both Christian and Muslim - grow more extreme as they desperately fight against modernity and anything that threatens their house of cards faith systems.  A piece in Huffington Post by Physicist, Victor Stenger, looks at why religion and science cannot be reconciled in the final analysis.  The piece is very harsh towards religion, and in my view deservedly so.  Especially, when one considers the self-congratulatory embrace of ignorance among the Christofascists.  Here are some article excerpts (they are fairly lengthy):

Religious apologists, spiritualist gurus, and accommodating atheists have been bombarding us with assertions that science and religion have no reason not to get along. This may be politically convenient, but it's simply untrue. Science and religion are fundamentally irreconcilable, and they always will be.

Faith is belief in the absence of supportive evidence and even in the light of contrary evidence. No one disputes that religion is based on faith. Some authors claim that science is also based on faith. They argue that science takes it on faith that the world is rational and that nature can be ordered in an intelligible way.

However, science makes no such assumption on faith. It analyzes observations by applying certain methodological rules and formulates models to describe those observations. It justifies that process by its practical success, not by any logical deduction derived from dubious metaphysical assumptions. We must distinguish faith from trust. Science has earned our trust by its proven success. Religion has destroyed our trust by its repeated failure.

Using the empirical method, science has eliminated smallpox, flown men to the moon, and discovered DNA. If science did not work, we wouldn't do it. Relying on faith, religion has brought us inquisitions, holy wars, and intolerance. Religion does not work, but we still do it.

Science and religion are fundamentally incompatible because of their unequivocally opposed epistemologies -- the separate assumptions they make concerning what we can know about the world. Every human alive is aware of a world that seems to exist outside the body, the world of sensory experience we call the natural. Science is the systematic study of the observations made of the natural world with our senses and scientific instruments.

By contrast, all major religions teach that humans possess an additional "inner" sense that allows us to access a realm lying beyond the visible world -- a divine, transcendent reality we call the supernatural. If it does not involve the transcendent, it is not religion.

No doubt science has its limits. However, that fact that science is limited doesn't mean that religion or any alternative system of thought can or does provide insight into what lies beyond those limits. For example, science cannot yet show precisely how the universe and life originated naturally, although many plausible scenarios exist. But the fact that science does not at present have a definitive answer to this question does not mean that ancient creation myths such as those in Genesis have any substance, any chance of eventually being verified.

So far we see no evidence that the feelings people experience when they perceive themselves to be in touch with the supernatural correspond to anything outside their heads, and have no reason to rely on those feelings when they occur. 

[R]eligion, as it is currently practiced, with its continued focus on closed thinking and ancient mythology, is not doing much to support the goal of a better, safer world. In fact, religion is hindering our attempts to attain that goal. Today science and religion find themselves in serious conflict. Even moderate believers do not fully accept Darwinian evolution. Although they claim to see no conflict between their faith and evolution, they insist that God still controlled the development of life so humans would evolve, which is not at all what the theory of evolution says.

Those who rely on observation and reason to provide an understanding of the world must stop viewing as harmless those who rely instead on superstition and the mythologies in ancient texts passed down from the childhood of our species. For the sake of the future of humanity, we must fight to expunge the fantasies of faith from human thinking.

Religious faith would not be such a negative force in society if it were just about religion. However, the magical thinking that becomes deeply ingrained whenever faith rules over facts warps all areas of life. It produces a frame of mind in which concepts are formulated with deep passion but without the slightest attention paid to the evidence that bears on the concept. Nowhere is this more evident than in America today where the large majority of the public hold on to a whole set of beliefs despite the total lack of evidence to support these beliefs and, indeed, strong evidence that denies them. Magical thinking and blind faith are the worst mental system we can apply under these circumstances. They allow the most outrageous lies to be accepted as facts.

From its very beginning, religion has been a tool used by those in power to retain that power and keep the masses in line. This continues today as religious groups are manipulated to work against believers' own best interests in health and economic well-being in order to cast doubt on well-established scientific findings. This would not be possible except for the diametrically opposed world-views of science and religion. Science is not going to change its commitment to the truth. We can only hope religion will change its commitment to nonsense.

Did Jesus Heal a Same-Sex Partner?

The Christofascists and the con-artists of the professional Christian set  love to insist that the Bible is "the inerrant word of God."  Except, of course when the actual language of Bible proves to be inconvenient - e.g., prohibitions against divorce, polygamy being the true biblical marriage structure in the Old Testament, prohibitions against lying, commands to feed the poor rather than amassing wealth, etc. - or, worse yet, cuts them off at the knee caps.  A column in the Huffington Post brings up another situation where the New Testament portion of the Bible proves unhelpful in the jihad against same sex couples.  What am I talking about?  The passage where Jesus heals the Roman centurion's lover or "pais" in the early Greek versions of the New Testament.   Here are column excerpts:

In this year's battles over same-sex marriage (there are referenda on the issue in Minnesota, Maine, Maryland, and Washington), opponents have tried to depict the issue as a choice between traditional religious values and some sinister homosexual agenda, between God and gay.   .   .   .   some people argue, what about the fact that the only sanctioned relationship in the Bible is between a man and a woman?

Well, in fact, that's not quite the case. The story of the faithful centurion, told in Matthew 8:5-13 and Luke 7:1-10, is about a Roman centurion who comes to Jesus and begs that Jesus heal his pais, a word sometimes translated as "servant." Jesus agrees and says he will come to the centurion's home, but the centurion says that he does not deserve to have Jesus under his roof, and he has faith that if Jesus even utters a word of healing, the healing will be accomplished. Jesus praises the faith of the centurion, and the pais is healed. This tale illustrates the power and importance of faith, and how anyone can possess it. The centurion is not a Jew, yet he has faith in Jesus and is rewarded.

But pais does not mean "servant." It means "lover." In Thucydides, in Plutarch, in countless Greek sources, and according to leading Greek scholar Kenneth Dover, pais refers to the junior partner in a same-sex relationship.  Now, this is not exactly a marriage of equals. An erastes-pais relationship generally consisted of a somewhat older man, usually a soldier between the ages of 18 and 30, and a younger adolescent, usually between the ages of 13 and 18. Sometimes that adolescent was a slave, as seems to be the case here.

However, it is a same-sex relationship nonetheless. (It is also basically the same as the soldier/armor-bearer in the model of David and Jonathan, which I'll explore in a future article.) And what is Jesus's response? Does he spit in the centurion's face for daring to suggest that he heal the soldier's lover? Hardly. He recognizes the relationship and performs an act of grace.

Now, could pais really just mean "servant"? There are several reasons why this makes no sense. First, one would not expect a Roman centurion to intercede, let alone "beg" (parakaloon), on behalf of a mere servant or slave. Second, while Luke refers to the young man as a doulos (slave), the centurion himself specifically calls him a pais; this strongly suggests that the distinction is important. Third, we know that the erastes-pais intimate relationship was common practice among Roman soldiers, who were not allowed to take wives, and whose life was patterned on the Greek model of soldier-lovers.

If I and dozens of other scholars (some of whom are listed below) are correct, this is a radical act. Jesus is extending his hand not only to the centurion but to his partner, as well. In addition to Jesus' silence on homosexuality in general (he never mentions same-sex intimacy, not once, despite its prevalence in his social context), it speaks volumes that he did not hesitate to heal a Roman's likely same-sex lover. Like his willingness to include former prostitutes in his close circle, Jesus' engagement with those whose conduct might offend sexual mores even today is a statement of radical inclusion, and of his own priorities for the spiritual life.  

No doubt local loon Pat Robertson, Bryan Fischer, Rick Warren, and Maggie Gallagher all pretend that these passages are a part of the Bible as they relentlessly denigrate gays and same sex love.

Other takes on these New Testament passages can be found here and here.  The former looks at the historical basis for Hebrew opposition to homosexuality:  the Hebrews looked down upon their neighboring nations and people and deliberately set themselves apart as God’s Chosen People through the strict dietary and living codes of the Torah.  Here are relevant highlights:

Hebrew scripture and culture had roots in the same Mediterranean soil as their neighbors, but also the Hebrew people quite deliberately set themselves apart as God’s Chosen People. The Torah governed every detail of life from cradle to grave and served as an impenetrable wall around the Jews. One aspect of the Torah was a strict prohibition of homosexual activity among men. (The Hebrew scriptures contain no prohibition of lesbian activity.) Some scholars maintain that the Torah prohibition of male homosexual activity among the Jews was meant to protect the ritual purity of the Jews and cannot be seen as a condemnation of homosexuality in general. In other words, maybe the neighbors do those things, but we would never do them (Countryman, 1988).

The apostle Paul, whose letter to the Romans is often cited to condemn homosexual activity, could hardly be expected to have been comfortable with homosexuality. Paul began life as a Jew and a Pharisee, a strict observer of the Jewish Law. He inherited his tradition’s harsh attitude toward homosexual activity, probably without understanding the boundary-marking aspect of that condemnation. This attitude hardened in the three hundred years before Christ, as the armies of Alexander the Great and his successors occupied the Levant. Alexander brought in Greek ideas, including the glorification of the body and the idealization of physical beauty, both male and female. The former found expression in the gymnasium, where young men and boys exercised their bodies gymnos, or naked, as older men looked on, offering encouragement. Alexander also erected statues of their pagan gods that boldly displayed the virtues of the male body, often modeled after the beautiful, naked young men in the gymnasium. The revolt of the Maccabees against foreign occupation in 160 BCE began with the establishment of a gymnasium in Jerusalem and the erection of a Greek idol in the Jewish Temple (I Maccabees 1:14 and 54). For 300 years Jews had reason to connect the abhorrent idea of idolatry as practiced by the Greeks in the temples to their suspicious fascination with each other’s bodies at the gym.

The Romans, who of course absorbed much of Greek culture, arrived in Palestine as political and military occupiers in the first century BCE. The Jews increasingly set themselves apart from these foreigners.   .   .   .  Jewish culture and attitudes contributed to the context of the centurion and his servant, and so did Roman culture. The two cultures diametrically opposed each other with regard to homosexuality.

Unfortunately, ignorant preachers - many of whom attended two bit bible colleges that could not even meet normal accreditation standards - know little about the real history of the ancient world.  Consequently they are all too often among those who mindlessly repeat the far right lie that societies that have embraced homosexuality have fallen.   Yes, the Roman Empire ultimately fell, but  not because of homosexuality.  Indeed, as previous blogs have explored, the Church itself was a leading force that undermined the Empire.  And, whatever their failings, the Roman Empire and the city states of classical Greece endured for longer than the United States has existed and surely surpassed the levels of art and knowledge in Judea throughout their combined nearly 1,000 year duration. 

Mother Teresa's Crisis of Faith

This story from Yahoo News about a new book being released about Mother Teresa (http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20070823/wl_time/motherteresascrisisoffaith) shows that this noble woman had many spiritual doubts. I believe that if one is a thinking, rational, and perceptive person, one cannot help but have spiritual doubts from time to time or even for extended periods of time. Faith involves doubt and coming to terms with it as opposed to blind acceptance. If anything, I have respect for Mother Teresa who at least could voice her doubt as opposed to disingenuous blowhards like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and James Dobson, to name a few, who act as if they have all the answers and have a direct line to God. Here are some highlights from the article:

On Dec. 11, 1979, Mother Teresa, the "Saint of the Gutters," went to Oslo. Dressed in her signature blue-bordered sari and shod in sandals despite below-zero temperatures, the former Agnes Bojaxhiu received that ultimate worldly accolade, the Nobel Peace Prize. In her acceptance lecture, Teresa, whose Missionaries of Charity had grown from a one-woman folly in Calcutta in 1948 into a global beacon of self-abnegating care, delivered the kind of message the world had come to expect from her. "It is not enough for us to say, 'I love God, but I do not love my neighbor,'" she said, since in dying on the Cross, God had "[made] himself the hungry one - the naked one - the homeless one." Jesus' hunger, she said, is what "you and I must find" and alleviate. She condemned abortion and bemoaned youthful drug addiction in the West. Finally, she suggested that the upcoming Christmas holiday should remind the world "that radiating joy is real" because Christ is everywhere - "Christ in our hearts, Christ in the poor we meet, Christ in the smile we give and in the smile that we receive."

Yet less than three months earlier, in a letter to a spiritual confidant, the Rev. Michael van der Peet, that is only now being made public, she wrote with weary familiarity of a different Christ, an absent one. "Jesus has a very special love for you," she assured Van der Peet. "[But] as for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see, - Listen and do not hear - the tongue moves [in prayer] but does not speak ... I want you to pray for me - that I let Him have [a] free hand."

The two statements, 11 weeks apart, are extravagantly dissonant. The first is typical of the woman the world thought it knew. The second sounds as though it had wandered in from some 1950s existentialist drama. Together they suggest a startling portrait in self-contradiction - that one of the great human icons of the past 100 years, whose remarkable deeds seemed inextricably connected to her closeness to God and who was routinely observed in silent and seemingly peaceful prayer by her associates as well as the television camera, was living out a very different spiritual reality privately, an arid landscape from which the deity had disappeared.

And in fact, that appears to be the case. A new, innocuously titled book, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (Doubleday), consisting primarily of correspondence between Teresa and her confessors and superiors over a period of 66 years, provides the spiritual counterpoint to a life known mostly through its works. The letters, many of them preserved against her wishes (she had requested that they be destroyed but was overruled by her church), reveal that for the last nearly half-century of her life she felt no presence of God whatsoever - or, as the book's compiler and editor, the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, writes, "neither in her heart or in the eucharist."

Even If It's Wrong: Barack Obama, Religious Faith, and Same-Sex Marriage

Check out this post on Greta Christina's Blog. In many ways I like many of Obama's ideas, especially his new call for universal health care. However, there's something about him that makes me not totally trust that he won't sell out gay American's based on one set of religious beliefs, thus making him not much different than the late Jerry Falwell. As Greta Christina notes, some of the worse abuses and genocides throughout history have been based on strongly held religious beliefs, many of which ultimately turned out to be wrong or simply based on bigotry. http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2007/05/even_if_its_wro.html