On Thursday, September 14, 2006 the Jewish people reached a new milestone in their millennia old contest with fate: three new rabbis will be ordained in Dresden, Germany, the first ordinations in Germany since the Nazi slaughter of Jews beginning 60 years ago.
By all accounts there should be no Jews left on this planet (leaving open of course the possibility of Jews on other planets: see “Wandering Stars Volumes 1 & 2”). Exiles, expulsions, genocide—any other people would have simply called it quits. But not the Jews. Instead we are ordaining new rabbis in the shadow of Hitler. What chutzpah!
In fact I think Jewish survival is based almost solely on chutzpah. We run on audacity, we survive by spitting in the eye of logic and refusing to go the way of the Hittites. And if you don’t know who the Hittites were, you are simply proving my point.
We like to think that it is our educational system that protects us from disappearing in to history, or our devotion to God, or God’s devotion to us, but I think it is sheer chutzpah. We simply refuse to die.
Now I would like to say that we refuse to die because we believe we have some purpose or destiny to fulfill, but most Jews have no idea of what Jews or Judaism is about. They just refuse to stop being Jews. And I can’t even say what “being Jews” means to most Jews since most Jews opt out of behaviors that are traditionally linked with “being Jews”— eating kosher, making Shabbos, marrying Jews, etc.
The best I can come up with is this: being Jewish is a state of mind that refuses to surrender to history.
I am sure I could go on about this, but the real purpose of this blog is to simply wish our three new rabbis— Daniel Alter, Tomas Kucera, and Malcom Matitiani— good luck. I felt a real sense of pride when I learned of their ordination.
I felt something similar in the 1980’s when I visited the Egyptian art exhibit on display at a museum in Dallas, TX. As I wandered among the artifacts I suddenly came upon a huge statue of Ramses, the Pharaoh of Moses’ time. All of a sudden it struck me: he and his people and his people’s religion were long dead (contemporary Egyptians are not the same people as those of ancient Egypt), while me, and my people, and our religion were doing quite well. I thumbed my nose at old Ramses, and gave a thumbs up to Moses.
Well today we can thumb our noses at Hitler and give a thumbs up to those Jewish men and women who just refuse to give up. I hope the Dalai Lama read the article and takes heart.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Monday, September 18, 2006
Bi God!
You probably know about Pastor Fred Phelps and the members of his Westboro Baptist Church. They are the Christian extremists who protest at the funerals and memorial services of our men and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, celebrating the death of Americans as God’s punishment for America’s tolerance toward gays and lesbians.
If you are gay and lesbian you may be surprised to learn that America is so tolerant, but for the Phelps’ gang merely suffering a fag to live is enough to bring down God’s vengeance upon our country.
Now there is a new wrinkle in their story. Not only are they protesting homosexuality, they are also protesting rainbows.
Robin and J.R. Knight, owners of the Lakeway Hotel in Meade, Kansas, flew a rainbow flag beneath the American flag in front of their hotel. Their 12-year old son gave it to them because he liked the bright colors. Little did he know that the rainbow was a sign of homosexuality. Not surprisingly, the hotel came under attack by homophobes and the Westboro Baptist Church.
When I read about this attack on the rainbow the first thing that popped into my mind was God’s use of the rainbow to affirm his covenant with humanity after the Flood during the time of Noah.
God, being omniscient, must have known that the rainbow sign would become a symbol of homosexuality. Hence it is not a stretch to believe that God was proclaiming his support of gays and lesbians. Otherwise why pick a symbol that would become so controversial?
Realizing this I went back to the beginning of Genesis to discover what the Bible has to say about God’s sexual preference. While it is true that he placed a man and woman in the Garden of Eden, it is also true that God created male and female in his own image. God is bi! God can be a male or a female!
How then can God hate homosexuals as many say s/he does in Leviticus? Well God would not be the first homosexual to deny his sexual preference and come out vehemently against other homosexuals. But more likely what God is attacking is not homosexuality per se, but temple prostitution. Besides what God says is that a man should not have with a man as he would with a woman. In other words, if you are a gay man do not pretend otherwise and imagine your male lover is a woman.
So God is bi and flies the fag flag of the rainbow. What should we do in response? If you claim to be on God’s side you must join in solidarity with his people (not the Jews, but the homosexual and bi-sexual community), and fly his flag. I’m serious. If you belong to a church or synagogue or mosque that flies flags, purchase God’s flag and urge your community to fly it proudly. And when Pastor Phelps comes by to protest, march boldly with signs that read: “Read Your Bible—God Is Bi!”.
If you are gay and lesbian you may be surprised to learn that America is so tolerant, but for the Phelps’ gang merely suffering a fag to live is enough to bring down God’s vengeance upon our country.
Now there is a new wrinkle in their story. Not only are they protesting homosexuality, they are also protesting rainbows.
Robin and J.R. Knight, owners of the Lakeway Hotel in Meade, Kansas, flew a rainbow flag beneath the American flag in front of their hotel. Their 12-year old son gave it to them because he liked the bright colors. Little did he know that the rainbow was a sign of homosexuality. Not surprisingly, the hotel came under attack by homophobes and the Westboro Baptist Church.
When I read about this attack on the rainbow the first thing that popped into my mind was God’s use of the rainbow to affirm his covenant with humanity after the Flood during the time of Noah.
God, being omniscient, must have known that the rainbow sign would become a symbol of homosexuality. Hence it is not a stretch to believe that God was proclaiming his support of gays and lesbians. Otherwise why pick a symbol that would become so controversial?
Realizing this I went back to the beginning of Genesis to discover what the Bible has to say about God’s sexual preference. While it is true that he placed a man and woman in the Garden of Eden, it is also true that God created male and female in his own image. God is bi! God can be a male or a female!
How then can God hate homosexuals as many say s/he does in Leviticus? Well God would not be the first homosexual to deny his sexual preference and come out vehemently against other homosexuals. But more likely what God is attacking is not homosexuality per se, but temple prostitution. Besides what God says is that a man should not have with a man as he would with a woman. In other words, if you are a gay man do not pretend otherwise and imagine your male lover is a woman.
So God is bi and flies the fag flag of the rainbow. What should we do in response? If you claim to be on God’s side you must join in solidarity with his people (not the Jews, but the homosexual and bi-sexual community), and fly his flag. I’m serious. If you belong to a church or synagogue or mosque that flies flags, purchase God’s flag and urge your community to fly it proudly. And when Pastor Phelps comes by to protest, march boldly with signs that read: “Read Your Bible—God Is Bi!”.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Pope on the Ropes
He didn’t mean it. He had no idea it would be offensive. He has nothing but respect for… in fact some of his best friends are… Aw, face it, the Pope knew what he was doing, and thought is was wise to do it. And maybe he’s right.
Speaking at the University of Regensburg, Pope Benedict XVI quoted from a book in which 14th century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel II Paleologos said, “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman….”
“Only evil and inhuman?” When challenged on this point, the Pope said he was simply quoting a text, that these were not his own words. Given the fact that he did not quote the text in order to argue against it, however, one can only surmise that he affirms it.
We should not be surprised at this. The fact is that the three Abrahamic religions as conventionally taught are mutually incompatible, and each of them rejects as false anything that is new. The only way the rabbis could claim their Judaism was true was to insist that it was old, that it was given to Moses along with what was then the Written Torah. Any so-called revelation that came after it was by definition false. So much for Christianity and Islam.
Christianity itself follows suit. There is no further revelation after Jesus so anything claiming to be revelation, i.e. the Koran, is by definition false. And Islam makes the same claim for itself: Mohammed is the seal of the prophets, the final prophet, and there is no further revelation after the Koran, and those that came before are corrupt and inoperable.
Simply put, if Torah is true, the Gospels and the Koran are false; if the Gospels are true the Torah is incomplete and the Koran is false; and if the Koran is true, the Torah and Gospels are corrupt and only the Koran is the true revelation. It doesn’t get much clearer than that.
The Pope has apologized for the reaction his words have stirred in the Muslim world. He has not apologized for the idea that Islam is evil, nor has he backed down from his challenge to Islam that it publicly and unambiguously denounce all violence in the Name of God. Good for him. I just wish he had called upon all clergy to do so. Coming from the former head of the Inquisition, the Pope’s challenge may have carried some weight.
The truth is that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam can be used to sanction violence, even genocide, in God’s Name. They have all engaged in evil and inhuman acts in God’s Name in the past, and continue to do so in the present. What is needed is a recognition of this fact, and a bold denunciation of ever using God to sanction violence.
Clergy must disassociate themselves from those strands of their respective religions that kill or fantasize about killing in God’s Name.
Let priests and pastors condemn the bombing of women’s health clinics and the murder of doctors who perform abortions. Let them walk away from churches that salivate at the thought of the Tribulation and Armageddon.
Let rabbis refuse to serve synagogues that support the oppression of Palestinians, and openly condemn those Jews who wish to destroy the mosque on the Temple Mount and replace it with an animal slaughterhouse.
Let imams leave mosques that preach and support hatred and violence, and proclaim those who use of the Koran to foster evil infidels.
Let these clergymen and women gather in Rome, Jerusalem, Mecca, and New York to preach peace. Let them issue a proclamation that they and their religions must outgrow their violent histories, and affirm the best that each has to offer, a best that says in one voice from one God that justice, compassion, humility, and nonviolence are the Way, and that anyone who violates this Way will be arrested along with their families to be publicly humiliated, tortured, burned in this world and the next and… oh. This may be harder than I think.
Speaking at the University of Regensburg, Pope Benedict XVI quoted from a book in which 14th century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel II Paleologos said, “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman….”
“Only evil and inhuman?” When challenged on this point, the Pope said he was simply quoting a text, that these were not his own words. Given the fact that he did not quote the text in order to argue against it, however, one can only surmise that he affirms it.
We should not be surprised at this. The fact is that the three Abrahamic religions as conventionally taught are mutually incompatible, and each of them rejects as false anything that is new. The only way the rabbis could claim their Judaism was true was to insist that it was old, that it was given to Moses along with what was then the Written Torah. Any so-called revelation that came after it was by definition false. So much for Christianity and Islam.
Christianity itself follows suit. There is no further revelation after Jesus so anything claiming to be revelation, i.e. the Koran, is by definition false. And Islam makes the same claim for itself: Mohammed is the seal of the prophets, the final prophet, and there is no further revelation after the Koran, and those that came before are corrupt and inoperable.
Simply put, if Torah is true, the Gospels and the Koran are false; if the Gospels are true the Torah is incomplete and the Koran is false; and if the Koran is true, the Torah and Gospels are corrupt and only the Koran is the true revelation. It doesn’t get much clearer than that.
The Pope has apologized for the reaction his words have stirred in the Muslim world. He has not apologized for the idea that Islam is evil, nor has he backed down from his challenge to Islam that it publicly and unambiguously denounce all violence in the Name of God. Good for him. I just wish he had called upon all clergy to do so. Coming from the former head of the Inquisition, the Pope’s challenge may have carried some weight.
The truth is that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam can be used to sanction violence, even genocide, in God’s Name. They have all engaged in evil and inhuman acts in God’s Name in the past, and continue to do so in the present. What is needed is a recognition of this fact, and a bold denunciation of ever using God to sanction violence.
Clergy must disassociate themselves from those strands of their respective religions that kill or fantasize about killing in God’s Name.
Let priests and pastors condemn the bombing of women’s health clinics and the murder of doctors who perform abortions. Let them walk away from churches that salivate at the thought of the Tribulation and Armageddon.
Let rabbis refuse to serve synagogues that support the oppression of Palestinians, and openly condemn those Jews who wish to destroy the mosque on the Temple Mount and replace it with an animal slaughterhouse.
Let imams leave mosques that preach and support hatred and violence, and proclaim those who use of the Koran to foster evil infidels.
Let these clergymen and women gather in Rome, Jerusalem, Mecca, and New York to preach peace. Let them issue a proclamation that they and their religions must outgrow their violent histories, and affirm the best that each has to offer, a best that says in one voice from one God that justice, compassion, humility, and nonviolence are the Way, and that anyone who violates this Way will be arrested along with their families to be publicly humiliated, tortured, burned in this world and the next and… oh. This may be harder than I think.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Poison Pill
“But that’s not Jewish!” I get that complaint all the time. This time it came from a rabbi who had just finished a passionate rant about the need for continuity in Jewish life.
“Continuity,” I said by way of unsolicited comment, “is the death of creativity. A culture built on continuity is one that is devoted to its own doom. Life is change. You either change with it or you die. Continuity is suicide.”
“That is not a Jewish value,” he retorted. “Judaism is about preserving the eternal truths and forms given to us by God on Sinai. Even if life does change, God does not.”
Now, I could have argued this point. For me God is change; not that God changes, but that God is change itself. “I will be what I will be” is how God names himself in Exodus suggesting to me at least that God is not the same moment to moment because is the changing moment itself. I could have argued this, but I didn’t. Instead I said:
“Continuity gives precedence to form. God is formless. Focusing on form is like decorating the eggshell without ever eating the egg. The nourishment is in the egg not the shell, and to get at it you have to break the shell.”
“Breaking the shell, as you call it,” the rabbi said, “is the end of Judaism. Aren’t you concerned about Jewish survival?”
“No,” I said, “I’m not. Jewish survival is up to God. What I am concerned about is God-realization, meeting the One in the many, and seeing Whole manifest in every part. If Judaism can do that, then it will survive. If it is simply a self-reflexive exercise it is useless to me and to God.”
“Well I totally disagree, and thinking as you do is the spell the death knell of Judaism, something I neither wish for nor wish to devote even another moment to. Let’s move on.”
And we did.
I was not happy with myself over this exchange. While I believe what I said to be true, I also believe there was no real need to say it. I wasn’t going to change the mind of the speaker and the audience was inclined to side with him so their minds, too, were set. I should have kept my mouth shut.
After the lecture a woman came over to me and asked politely, “So what criteria do you use when deciding what aspects of Judaism to follow and which to let go?”
“I do what works for me,” I said. “And what works for me are those things that help me experience and live out the ethical implications of my unity with God. If I find something in Orthodoxy that works, I use it. If it comes from Reform, I use that. And I don’t limit myself to Judaism. If I learn something from Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Islam, or Christianity that awakens by true Self to God as all then I use that as well.” Labels are meaningless to me. I do what works because it is God and not religion I care about.”
She stared at me for a long, hard moment and then spit out, “The rabbi was right, you are a poison pill for Judaism.” She spun around and walked over to ask a question of our speaker. I looked around and found myself all alone.
As I walked out to my car I grabbed a bottle of cool water to wash down the poison pill I found myself pushing. Not a bad way to go; not a bad way to go at all.
“Continuity,” I said by way of unsolicited comment, “is the death of creativity. A culture built on continuity is one that is devoted to its own doom. Life is change. You either change with it or you die. Continuity is suicide.”
“That is not a Jewish value,” he retorted. “Judaism is about preserving the eternal truths and forms given to us by God on Sinai. Even if life does change, God does not.”
Now, I could have argued this point. For me God is change; not that God changes, but that God is change itself. “I will be what I will be” is how God names himself in Exodus suggesting to me at least that God is not the same moment to moment because is the changing moment itself. I could have argued this, but I didn’t. Instead I said:
“Continuity gives precedence to form. God is formless. Focusing on form is like decorating the eggshell without ever eating the egg. The nourishment is in the egg not the shell, and to get at it you have to break the shell.”
“Breaking the shell, as you call it,” the rabbi said, “is the end of Judaism. Aren’t you concerned about Jewish survival?”
“No,” I said, “I’m not. Jewish survival is up to God. What I am concerned about is God-realization, meeting the One in the many, and seeing Whole manifest in every part. If Judaism can do that, then it will survive. If it is simply a self-reflexive exercise it is useless to me and to God.”
“Well I totally disagree, and thinking as you do is the spell the death knell of Judaism, something I neither wish for nor wish to devote even another moment to. Let’s move on.”
And we did.
I was not happy with myself over this exchange. While I believe what I said to be true, I also believe there was no real need to say it. I wasn’t going to change the mind of the speaker and the audience was inclined to side with him so their minds, too, were set. I should have kept my mouth shut.
After the lecture a woman came over to me and asked politely, “So what criteria do you use when deciding what aspects of Judaism to follow and which to let go?”
“I do what works for me,” I said. “And what works for me are those things that help me experience and live out the ethical implications of my unity with God. If I find something in Orthodoxy that works, I use it. If it comes from Reform, I use that. And I don’t limit myself to Judaism. If I learn something from Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Islam, or Christianity that awakens by true Self to God as all then I use that as well.” Labels are meaningless to me. I do what works because it is God and not religion I care about.”
She stared at me for a long, hard moment and then spit out, “The rabbi was right, you are a poison pill for Judaism.” She spun around and walked over to ask a question of our speaker. I looked around and found myself all alone.
As I walked out to my car I grabbed a bottle of cool water to wash down the poison pill I found myself pushing. Not a bad way to go; not a bad way to go at all.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Forgiveness
Today is the first day of the month of Elul, the final month of the Hebrew year. Traditionally Elul is devoted to forgiveness. We arise each morning and, with the exception of Shabbat, we blow the shofar, the ram’s horn, calling ourselves to attend to reality and forgive both self and other for maintaining the illusion that we are self and other.
At the heart of the notion of forgiveness is the idea that we can be hurt, and that somehow we can end this hurt by forgiving the one who hurt us. This may be true, but if it is I have no idea how to do it. When I think about someone who has hurt me I naturally think about the hurt that was done and, rather than let it go, replay it a few times just to maintain the negativity I feel toward the doer.
Every time we tell the story of being hurt, we maintain the story of the hurter and the hurtee, looking for sympathy for the latter (us) and anger toward the former. So one way to forgive is to stop telling and retelling the story.
This is not the same as forgetting. Every time I try to forget something I have to remember what it is I wish to forget which undermines the whole notion of forgetting in the first place. So forget forgetting, and simply catch yourself whenever you are retelling your tale of woe, and say, “Whoa! I don’t have to waste my time with this again.” And stop telling the story.
But there is more to forgiveness than silence. In addition to not retelling the drama, you have to understand the true nature of the actors.
If someone accidently steps on your toe you are in physical pain, but the pain passes, and because you realize there was no intent to cause harm, no lasting suffering accrues. It is otherwise if you imagine that the person stepping on your toe is doing so on purpose. Then all kinds of secondary emotions arise: anger, revenge, fear, etc. But what if no one intentionally sets out to hurt you?
I think that most of the people who hurt me do so mindlessly. They are not concerned with me, and do what they do in pursuit of what they desire. I am just collateral damage. When I remember this, the hurt I feel passes like a that of a stepped-on toe. Of course there are rare cases when someone is out to get you, but even then if I look closely I discover that they are imprisoned in a mindset that makes their actions almost uncontrollable. They are prisoners of their passions and act as one possessed. And what is true of the other is true of you and me as well.
Knowing this is the key to living without lingering emotional baggage. Elul is a month for putting down the baggage of suffering. To help with this I have written and will gladly share my Elul journal. Email me and I will send it to you as a Word doc.
At the heart of the notion of forgiveness is the idea that we can be hurt, and that somehow we can end this hurt by forgiving the one who hurt us. This may be true, but if it is I have no idea how to do it. When I think about someone who has hurt me I naturally think about the hurt that was done and, rather than let it go, replay it a few times just to maintain the negativity I feel toward the doer.
Every time we tell the story of being hurt, we maintain the story of the hurter and the hurtee, looking for sympathy for the latter (us) and anger toward the former. So one way to forgive is to stop telling and retelling the story.
This is not the same as forgetting. Every time I try to forget something I have to remember what it is I wish to forget which undermines the whole notion of forgetting in the first place. So forget forgetting, and simply catch yourself whenever you are retelling your tale of woe, and say, “Whoa! I don’t have to waste my time with this again.” And stop telling the story.
But there is more to forgiveness than silence. In addition to not retelling the drama, you have to understand the true nature of the actors.
If someone accidently steps on your toe you are in physical pain, but the pain passes, and because you realize there was no intent to cause harm, no lasting suffering accrues. It is otherwise if you imagine that the person stepping on your toe is doing so on purpose. Then all kinds of secondary emotions arise: anger, revenge, fear, etc. But what if no one intentionally sets out to hurt you?
I think that most of the people who hurt me do so mindlessly. They are not concerned with me, and do what they do in pursuit of what they desire. I am just collateral damage. When I remember this, the hurt I feel passes like a that of a stepped-on toe. Of course there are rare cases when someone is out to get you, but even then if I look closely I discover that they are imprisoned in a mindset that makes their actions almost uncontrollable. They are prisoners of their passions and act as one possessed. And what is true of the other is true of you and me as well.
Knowing this is the key to living without lingering emotional baggage. Elul is a month for putting down the baggage of suffering. To help with this I have written and will gladly share my Elul journal. Email me and I will send it to you as a Word doc.
Hopeful Anniversary
Something is terribly wrong in this country, and there is no more clear example of it than Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s comment that critics of the Bush administration’s policies in Iraq are morally confused, and modern-day versions of Nazi appeasers.
The very fact that the administration has to go to such extremes to demean their political opponents tells us how frightened and fearful they are. What we need is honest argument on what is happening in the world and how best to address it, and what we are offered is rhetoric of the most dangerous kind.
I am not morally confused. The war in Iraq was wrong from the beginning. Not that war is always wrong, it isn’t. But this war was and is illegal, immoral, and damaging to the United States and freedom worldwide. And to be told that saying so makes me somehow un-American makes plain that many of our leaders have no idea of what America is.
America is rooted in law and not as President Bush seems to believe on the whims of chief executive. Bush sees himself as above the law. He is playing king, and there are few is any behaviors that are less American than that.
Torah is clear on the danger of kings. God’s plan for Israel was to be a loose confederation of tribes without a king. We were ruled by judges whose authroity rested in their ability to do justly. Today judges are pawns in the hands of politicians who long for authoritarian rulers who are kings in all but name. Read your Bible: When Israel insisted on having a king they were told they were violating God’s will, and things went badly for them for centuries.
It is time for us to speak truth to power. To stand up for America and what is American.
This September 11th is the anniversary not only the horror of the Twin Towers, but the hope of Gandhi’s satyagraha movement. Founded on September 11, 1906, satyagraha (soul force) sought to provide a third way between acquiescing to violence and becoming violent ourselves. This September 11th we must honor our murdered dead by reclaiming what is best about us as Americans.
On the campus of MTSU I plan to host a dialogue on Nonviolence in an Age of Global Terror. We will draw from Gandhi and explore if and how his teachings can guide us today. I am using material from a group out of New York. I know this isn’t much, but it is something. I cannot look myself in the mirror if I remain silent. I urge you to visit the website of the satyagraha anniversary people in NY and do something this 9/11 to make a difference. Their url is www.nyc-dop.com/gandhi/index.html/.
I am hurt, outraged, and frightened by what Rumsfeld has been saying this week. I refuse to be silenced by him. I believe that we are at war, but that it must be fought with greater wisdom, compassion, and finesse than this administration is capable of using. Don’t let this anniversary of horror pass without at least trying to give voice to the sound of hope.
The very fact that the administration has to go to such extremes to demean their political opponents tells us how frightened and fearful they are. What we need is honest argument on what is happening in the world and how best to address it, and what we are offered is rhetoric of the most dangerous kind.
I am not morally confused. The war in Iraq was wrong from the beginning. Not that war is always wrong, it isn’t. But this war was and is illegal, immoral, and damaging to the United States and freedom worldwide. And to be told that saying so makes me somehow un-American makes plain that many of our leaders have no idea of what America is.
America is rooted in law and not as President Bush seems to believe on the whims of chief executive. Bush sees himself as above the law. He is playing king, and there are few is any behaviors that are less American than that.
Torah is clear on the danger of kings. God’s plan for Israel was to be a loose confederation of tribes without a king. We were ruled by judges whose authroity rested in their ability to do justly. Today judges are pawns in the hands of politicians who long for authoritarian rulers who are kings in all but name. Read your Bible: When Israel insisted on having a king they were told they were violating God’s will, and things went badly for them for centuries.
It is time for us to speak truth to power. To stand up for America and what is American.
This September 11th is the anniversary not only the horror of the Twin Towers, but the hope of Gandhi’s satyagraha movement. Founded on September 11, 1906, satyagraha (soul force) sought to provide a third way between acquiescing to violence and becoming violent ourselves. This September 11th we must honor our murdered dead by reclaiming what is best about us as Americans.
On the campus of MTSU I plan to host a dialogue on Nonviolence in an Age of Global Terror. We will draw from Gandhi and explore if and how his teachings can guide us today. I am using material from a group out of New York. I know this isn’t much, but it is something. I cannot look myself in the mirror if I remain silent. I urge you to visit the website of the satyagraha anniversary people in NY and do something this 9/11 to make a difference. Their url is www.nyc-dop.com/gandhi/index.html/.
I am hurt, outraged, and frightened by what Rumsfeld has been saying this week. I refuse to be silenced by him. I believe that we are at war, but that it must be fought with greater wisdom, compassion, and finesse than this administration is capable of using. Don’t let this anniversary of horror pass without at least trying to give voice to the sound of hope.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Whose Your Enemy?
I received a call this morning from a delightful evangelical Christian hoping to enlist me in a war against “our common enemy”— Islam. While I might ordinarily be inclined to respond to such calls by pretending to be my own answering machine, and thus avoid having to take the call at all, I opted instead to engage in a conversation about something that is very important to me: confronting the real enemy.
Islam is not my enemy. Nor is it yours. Yes, there are elements within Islam that are the enemies of freedom, and they, assuming you are in favor of freedom, are your enemy. But these elements exist in every religion, and labeling such people Islamofascists leads to the false conclusion that all of Islam as your enemy.
While I find the conclusion false, it was exactly the conclusion the caller expected me to make. Islam, because it denies the jingoistic chosenness of the Jews and the spiritual triumphalism of the Christians, must be against God who in fact chose the Jews and sent the world his only begotten son. When I suggested that the Koran and Islam offer a viable alternative to both Jewish and Christian interpretations of God’s will, I was met with the notion that the Koran, because it denies these claims, is by definition a false revelation coming from the Devil. I find such reasoning circular and meaningless.
Yet there is an enemy. The enemy is not Islamo-anything. The enemy is fascism in all its forms: Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and Secular.
Fascism technically began in Italy under Benito Mussolini and ruled that country from 1922 to 1943. Broadly understood fascism is an extreme authoritarian political ideology in which, according to Mussolini, “the state… governs and molds individual wills with laws and values of spiritual life… For the fascist, everything is within the state and… neither individuals or groups are outside the state… For fascism the state is an absolute, before which individuals or groups are only relative.” Or, to put it more succinctly in his original Italian: “Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato/ Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.”
Statism is my enemy, fascism is my enemy, regardless which religion they choose to hide behind. Any group that seeks to subsume the individual beneath the state, and uses violence, propaganda, and censorship to suppress political and spiritual opposition is the enemy.
The caller was right: we need to band together and support the freedom of the individual to choose her way of life for herself, for only free people can withstand fascism. But that means that the enemy is any movement that seeks to shut down the individual’s right to choose, and the caller was not yet ready to admit that.
In John Dean’s Conservatives Without Conscience he is careful not to label the Bush regime as fascist, only authoritarian. I am not so sure. Fascism is alive and well in this country, and we must fight it here as well as elsewhere. Until we are ready to do that, when it comes to talk of the enemy, I will defer to Pogo: “We have met the enemy, and it is us.”
Islam is not my enemy. Nor is it yours. Yes, there are elements within Islam that are the enemies of freedom, and they, assuming you are in favor of freedom, are your enemy. But these elements exist in every religion, and labeling such people Islamofascists leads to the false conclusion that all of Islam as your enemy.
While I find the conclusion false, it was exactly the conclusion the caller expected me to make. Islam, because it denies the jingoistic chosenness of the Jews and the spiritual triumphalism of the Christians, must be against God who in fact chose the Jews and sent the world his only begotten son. When I suggested that the Koran and Islam offer a viable alternative to both Jewish and Christian interpretations of God’s will, I was met with the notion that the Koran, because it denies these claims, is by definition a false revelation coming from the Devil. I find such reasoning circular and meaningless.
Yet there is an enemy. The enemy is not Islamo-anything. The enemy is fascism in all its forms: Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and Secular.
Fascism technically began in Italy under Benito Mussolini and ruled that country from 1922 to 1943. Broadly understood fascism is an extreme authoritarian political ideology in which, according to Mussolini, “the state… governs and molds individual wills with laws and values of spiritual life… For the fascist, everything is within the state and… neither individuals or groups are outside the state… For fascism the state is an absolute, before which individuals or groups are only relative.” Or, to put it more succinctly in his original Italian: “Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato/ Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.”
Statism is my enemy, fascism is my enemy, regardless which religion they choose to hide behind. Any group that seeks to subsume the individual beneath the state, and uses violence, propaganda, and censorship to suppress political and spiritual opposition is the enemy.
The caller was right: we need to band together and support the freedom of the individual to choose her way of life for herself, for only free people can withstand fascism. But that means that the enemy is any movement that seeks to shut down the individual’s right to choose, and the caller was not yet ready to admit that.
In John Dean’s Conservatives Without Conscience he is careful not to label the Bush regime as fascist, only authoritarian. I am not so sure. Fascism is alive and well in this country, and we must fight it here as well as elsewhere. Until we are ready to do that, when it comes to talk of the enemy, I will defer to Pogo: “We have met the enemy, and it is us.”
Monday, August 21, 2006
What If Judaism Ruled The World?
I was recently invited to submit a short essay responding to the question: What If My Religion Ruled The World? Here is my essay:
The very question, What If My Religion Ruled The World, is a frightening one. Indeed, the fact that we could even entertain such a thought is scary to me. Theocracy is quite simply an authoritarian government leaning toward if not firmly in the grip of fascism. When God and government mix, it is always at the expense of human dignity, integrity, justice and compassion.
In the Torah God warns the people against having a king. He sees them as a “nation of priests,” and a “holy people.” (Exodus 19:6) who are to be ruled by judges not kings. Judges are concerned with justice, kings with power. In Samuel 10:19 God tells the people that by choosing to be lead by a king they have “rejected your God.” To be aligned with God is to be committed to justice, not power: “justice, and only justice you shall pursue,” (Deuteronomy 16:20).
The Torah is clear that when the people succumb to the quest for power they are capable of great evil— genocide and ethnic cleansing— and they do this evil in the name of God. What we see today is nothing new.
The heart of Judaism is found not in the doings of her kings or the pomp of her priests, but in the principles taught by her prophets. The prophets spoke out against the tyranny of the powerful and the exploitation of the powerless. The prophets offered a view of God very different from that of the ruling elite; a God who cared about the widow and the orphan, a God who is moved by acts of justice and compassion not ritual sacrifice and military might.
Even the rabbis do not live up to the prophetic ideal, focusing instead on adherence to their laws and customs, and insisting that these come not from themselves, but from God. The rabbis no less than their priestly rivals equate God with power and seek to claim both for themselves.
Yet, the question is asked, so let me speak to it more concretely. What if Judaism ruled the world? It is very Jewish to answer a question with a question, so would ask, Which Judaism? The Judaism of the prophets or the Judaism of the rabbis? And if the latter, is it the Judaism of the Orthodox or the Judaism of the liberals? Judaism has never been monolithic.
To keep things simple, let me focus on Orthodoxy. If we want to know what the world would look like if Orthodox Judaism ruled the world, we can look to see how they rule in modern day Israel. While still a democracy, and 90% secular, the private lives of Israeli Jews are ruled by the theocracy of the Orthodox establishment.
It is the Orthodox rabbinate who decides who is a Jew, who is a rabbi, and who can marry whom. It is the Orthodox establishment that denies women the right to initiate divorce, and ties widows who cannot prove their husbands are dead (perhaps they were lost in war, but no body was found, for example) to the dead by refusing to free them from their marriages. It is the Orthodox establishment that refuses to ordain women as rabbis, and disenfranchises any Judaism but their own.
It is easy to see what would happen if Judaism ruled the world: we would all step closer to living in the Middle Ages. Indeed, it is my belief that if they could get away with it, Orthodoxies of every religious type would shape the world into a Taliban-like state.
What the world today so desperately needs is not the power-focused teaching of religious elites, but the justice-focused radicalism of the prophets of all faiths. It is the prophets who speak for God and creation, and who can cross the boundaries established by clerics and kings, seeing all people as God’s people, and all beings as God’s Being.
The very question, What If My Religion Ruled The World, is a frightening one. Indeed, the fact that we could even entertain such a thought is scary to me. Theocracy is quite simply an authoritarian government leaning toward if not firmly in the grip of fascism. When God and government mix, it is always at the expense of human dignity, integrity, justice and compassion.
In the Torah God warns the people against having a king. He sees them as a “nation of priests,” and a “holy people.” (Exodus 19:6) who are to be ruled by judges not kings. Judges are concerned with justice, kings with power. In Samuel 10:19 God tells the people that by choosing to be lead by a king they have “rejected your God.” To be aligned with God is to be committed to justice, not power: “justice, and only justice you shall pursue,” (Deuteronomy 16:20).
The Torah is clear that when the people succumb to the quest for power they are capable of great evil— genocide and ethnic cleansing— and they do this evil in the name of God. What we see today is nothing new.
The heart of Judaism is found not in the doings of her kings or the pomp of her priests, but in the principles taught by her prophets. The prophets spoke out against the tyranny of the powerful and the exploitation of the powerless. The prophets offered a view of God very different from that of the ruling elite; a God who cared about the widow and the orphan, a God who is moved by acts of justice and compassion not ritual sacrifice and military might.
Even the rabbis do not live up to the prophetic ideal, focusing instead on adherence to their laws and customs, and insisting that these come not from themselves, but from God. The rabbis no less than their priestly rivals equate God with power and seek to claim both for themselves.
Yet, the question is asked, so let me speak to it more concretely. What if Judaism ruled the world? It is very Jewish to answer a question with a question, so would ask, Which Judaism? The Judaism of the prophets or the Judaism of the rabbis? And if the latter, is it the Judaism of the Orthodox or the Judaism of the liberals? Judaism has never been monolithic.
To keep things simple, let me focus on Orthodoxy. If we want to know what the world would look like if Orthodox Judaism ruled the world, we can look to see how they rule in modern day Israel. While still a democracy, and 90% secular, the private lives of Israeli Jews are ruled by the theocracy of the Orthodox establishment.
It is the Orthodox rabbinate who decides who is a Jew, who is a rabbi, and who can marry whom. It is the Orthodox establishment that denies women the right to initiate divorce, and ties widows who cannot prove their husbands are dead (perhaps they were lost in war, but no body was found, for example) to the dead by refusing to free them from their marriages. It is the Orthodox establishment that refuses to ordain women as rabbis, and disenfranchises any Judaism but their own.
It is easy to see what would happen if Judaism ruled the world: we would all step closer to living in the Middle Ages. Indeed, it is my belief that if they could get away with it, Orthodoxies of every religious type would shape the world into a Taliban-like state.
What the world today so desperately needs is not the power-focused teaching of religious elites, but the justice-focused radicalism of the prophets of all faiths. It is the prophets who speak for God and creation, and who can cross the boundaries established by clerics and kings, seeing all people as God’s people, and all beings as God’s Being.
Sunday, August 13, 2006
I Am Extinct
Today I found out I am extinct.
I was talking with a very nice man in his forties about the Bible. I mentioned that I taught Bible at Middle Tennessee State University, and he said joyfully, “Oh, you are a Christian!”
“No,” I said, “I am a Jew.” I expected some response, some well polished piece of evangelism designed to save my soul from eternal damnation for not believing in Jesus just the way this fellow did, but he simply stared at me. He had no idea what I just said.
“You, know,” I prompted him. “I’m Jewish. Like Jesus.” He continued to look at me without any expression at all. And then he said, “I didn’t know there were any Jewish.”
Now I am not a novice when it comes to ignorance about Jews, whether it comes from fellow Jews or Christians, but this is the first time I have actually encountered a person who had no idea that Jews still existed. After all who did he think ran Hollywood? And who would be slaughtered at the Second Coming? And who would be the 144,000 to finally accept Jesus as Christ at the End Times? This guy thought we were extinct. Wishful thinking? Not at all: Christians needed Jews to kill their god and continue to need them to recognize him when he comes back.
“Aren’t Jews Christians?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “We came before Christianity, about 4000 years ago. Jesus was a Jew, Christianity comes after Jesus.” I probably should have left this last part out, it only confused him more.
“Jesus is a Christian. His last name is Christ. That wouldn’t make sense if he weren’t a Christian.”
I know when I am licked. “You know you may be right,” I said. “It is like talking about King David. He must have been a king or we wouldn’t call him that. Or Mother Mary, she must be the Mother of God or we wouldn’t call her that. Or the Prophet Mohammed, he must have been God’s prophet or people wouldn’t call him that either.”
For a second I thought he caught my sarcasm. But then he said, “Yeah, like that.”
So there is hope. The key to interfaith dialogue is not seeking truth together, but not making a big deal out of each other’s ignorance.
I was talking with a very nice man in his forties about the Bible. I mentioned that I taught Bible at Middle Tennessee State University, and he said joyfully, “Oh, you are a Christian!”
“No,” I said, “I am a Jew.” I expected some response, some well polished piece of evangelism designed to save my soul from eternal damnation for not believing in Jesus just the way this fellow did, but he simply stared at me. He had no idea what I just said.
“You, know,” I prompted him. “I’m Jewish. Like Jesus.” He continued to look at me without any expression at all. And then he said, “I didn’t know there were any Jewish.”
Now I am not a novice when it comes to ignorance about Jews, whether it comes from fellow Jews or Christians, but this is the first time I have actually encountered a person who had no idea that Jews still existed. After all who did he think ran Hollywood? And who would be slaughtered at the Second Coming? And who would be the 144,000 to finally accept Jesus as Christ at the End Times? This guy thought we were extinct. Wishful thinking? Not at all: Christians needed Jews to kill their god and continue to need them to recognize him when he comes back.
“Aren’t Jews Christians?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “We came before Christianity, about 4000 years ago. Jesus was a Jew, Christianity comes after Jesus.” I probably should have left this last part out, it only confused him more.
“Jesus is a Christian. His last name is Christ. That wouldn’t make sense if he weren’t a Christian.”
I know when I am licked. “You know you may be right,” I said. “It is like talking about King David. He must have been a king or we wouldn’t call him that. Or Mother Mary, she must be the Mother of God or we wouldn’t call her that. Or the Prophet Mohammed, he must have been God’s prophet or people wouldn’t call him that either.”
For a second I thought he caught my sarcasm. But then he said, “Yeah, like that.”
So there is hope. The key to interfaith dialogue is not seeking truth together, but not making a big deal out of each other’s ignorance.
Monday, August 07, 2006
Two Minds on the War
When it comes to talk of war I am of two minds. Here is what they sound like:
Mind One: First of all, we did not go into Iraq to free the Iraqi people, we went in to make sure that US oil companies would continue to dominate the oil market. This is an old-fashioned war of empire, and I am not necessarily adverse to it. As long as the United States insists on being an oil-based economy we must control the oil markets.
Mind Two: I agree, but I don’t want to minimize the religious element. It is not simply about empire and oil, it is about which god is the True God. Since biblical times there has been only one way to prove which god is the True God, and that is by killing the followers of the other gods. The only way out of this mess is to wake to the fact that all gods are created in the image of those who benefit from them. What we need is a spiritual revolution that no longer allows people to be manipulated by religion.
Mind One: I would welcome that revolution, but we also need to end our dependency on oil. As long as I want to drive and fly and keep my house, car, and office at 72 degrees regardless of the weather, I am consigning myself and my country to war until the last drop of oil is pumped out the ground and we are reduced to fighting over barren sands…
Mind Two: Which we would be all too eager to do if we imagine our god wants us to.
Mind One: Yes, we have to lay down not only our weapons, but our gods as well.
Mind Two: But churches and Hummers are here to stay, so if we want to end the war we must do something else. First, we must reinstitute the draft without any deferments. Until everyone is equally at risk of dying we will not have the political will to stop the rush to empire. Second, we must raise gasoline taxes to fund research and development of new oil independent technologies.
Mind One: Good luck with that! The fact is we are in the early stages of World War Four, a war for God and Oil that will last decades. We will draft tens of thousands of people, and we will make serving in the military a fast-track to American citizenship for thousands of people who wish to come here from other countries.
Mind Two: And I thought I was the pessimist. So I just want to say thank God for global warming. Maybe we will simply drown in melting ice caps and not have to wage war on behalf of middle eastern sky gods.
Mind One: Praise Neptune, Lord of the Sea!
Mind Two: Praise Neptune? No way! Praise Yam, the True Sea God.
Uh-oh.
Mind One: First of all, we did not go into Iraq to free the Iraqi people, we went in to make sure that US oil companies would continue to dominate the oil market. This is an old-fashioned war of empire, and I am not necessarily adverse to it. As long as the United States insists on being an oil-based economy we must control the oil markets.
Mind Two: I agree, but I don’t want to minimize the religious element. It is not simply about empire and oil, it is about which god is the True God. Since biblical times there has been only one way to prove which god is the True God, and that is by killing the followers of the other gods. The only way out of this mess is to wake to the fact that all gods are created in the image of those who benefit from them. What we need is a spiritual revolution that no longer allows people to be manipulated by religion.
Mind One: I would welcome that revolution, but we also need to end our dependency on oil. As long as I want to drive and fly and keep my house, car, and office at 72 degrees regardless of the weather, I am consigning myself and my country to war until the last drop of oil is pumped out the ground and we are reduced to fighting over barren sands…
Mind Two: Which we would be all too eager to do if we imagine our god wants us to.
Mind One: Yes, we have to lay down not only our weapons, but our gods as well.
Mind Two: But churches and Hummers are here to stay, so if we want to end the war we must do something else. First, we must reinstitute the draft without any deferments. Until everyone is equally at risk of dying we will not have the political will to stop the rush to empire. Second, we must raise gasoline taxes to fund research and development of new oil independent technologies.
Mind One: Good luck with that! The fact is we are in the early stages of World War Four, a war for God and Oil that will last decades. We will draft tens of thousands of people, and we will make serving in the military a fast-track to American citizenship for thousands of people who wish to come here from other countries.
Mind Two: And I thought I was the pessimist. So I just want to say thank God for global warming. Maybe we will simply drown in melting ice caps and not have to wage war on behalf of middle eastern sky gods.
Mind One: Praise Neptune, Lord of the Sea!
Mind Two: Praise Neptune? No way! Praise Yam, the True Sea God.
Uh-oh.
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Sabbath (Ar)Rest
In a USA Today feature “A Call to Honor the Sabbath,” Henry Brinton, a Presbyterian minister from Virginia, offers a fine essay, but one that does what so many essays on biblical themes do: it ignores the truth.
When Pastor Brinton honors the Sabbath, which he does every Wednesday (he works on Sunday which is why he cannot honor the Sabbath on Sunday which makes no sense since God says the Sabbath is Saturday, see Exodus 20:8) he goes for a long run (as opposed to Sunday when many of his parisioners think he runs long).
I have no problem with Pastor Brinton running on Wednesday or running on and on on Sunday. What bothers me is that he thinks God’s commandment (number 4 for those of you who are counting) is so flexible. God is not saying, as this essay seems to suggest: Thou shalt taketh a day off from work that thou might beeth more productiveth during the rest of the week. God is saying that we should cease all work on the Seventh Day because God ceased working on the Seventh Day. When we rest on Saturday we do so in remembrance of God.
God says of the Sabbath what Jesus says of Communion, do this in remembrance of me. If we were as loose with the latter as with the former, we would find millions of Christians skipping the church’s dry wafers or scraps of bread, and heading to Burger King (of Kings) for a Whopper.
God’s Sabbath is not about being more productive or taking long runs. It is about doing nothing. This is what is so hard about it. Doing nothing means the ego is still for a day. And a still ego is no ego at all. “You” exist only in doing. Stop doing and “you” stop being. And when “you” stop being, God is realized (though by whom is unclear). Hence: “Be still and know I am God.”
But what I really don’t get is how people make light of the Sabbath (as opposed to making Sabbath lights) when the Bible so clearly does not. Remember this story: Some people found a guy picking up sticks on a Saturday and dragged him to Moses for punishment (Numbers 15:32). The assumption here is that it is wrong to pick up sticks but ok to drag a person around while you look for Moses. Anyway, Moses didn’t know what to do since God had not yet been confronted by a stick-picker, so he imprisons the man while he goes out to ask God how to handle the situation. God, who might have preferred to rest on the Sabbath, does not blast Moses for bothering him, and rules that the man should be stoned to death by all the people. This proves that while picking up sticks is a capital crime, picking up stones to kill a guy for stick-picking is not.
Here is my point: If we are going to use the Bible to make some point, let’s be honest and use all the Bible to make this point. So Pastor Brinton should have told us why the church feels it can change the Sabbath to Sunday and why he feels he can change it to Wednesday. And at least find a way to work around the stick-picking thing. Otherwise you might as well admit you are making the whole thing up and go for a long run on Wednesday pretending this is the Sabbath and God has so commanded thee.
When Pastor Brinton honors the Sabbath, which he does every Wednesday (he works on Sunday which is why he cannot honor the Sabbath on Sunday which makes no sense since God says the Sabbath is Saturday, see Exodus 20:8) he goes for a long run (as opposed to Sunday when many of his parisioners think he runs long).
I have no problem with Pastor Brinton running on Wednesday or running on and on on Sunday. What bothers me is that he thinks God’s commandment (number 4 for those of you who are counting) is so flexible. God is not saying, as this essay seems to suggest: Thou shalt taketh a day off from work that thou might beeth more productiveth during the rest of the week. God is saying that we should cease all work on the Seventh Day because God ceased working on the Seventh Day. When we rest on Saturday we do so in remembrance of God.
God says of the Sabbath what Jesus says of Communion, do this in remembrance of me. If we were as loose with the latter as with the former, we would find millions of Christians skipping the church’s dry wafers or scraps of bread, and heading to Burger King (of Kings) for a Whopper.
God’s Sabbath is not about being more productive or taking long runs. It is about doing nothing. This is what is so hard about it. Doing nothing means the ego is still for a day. And a still ego is no ego at all. “You” exist only in doing. Stop doing and “you” stop being. And when “you” stop being, God is realized (though by whom is unclear). Hence: “Be still and know I am God.”
But what I really don’t get is how people make light of the Sabbath (as opposed to making Sabbath lights) when the Bible so clearly does not. Remember this story: Some people found a guy picking up sticks on a Saturday and dragged him to Moses for punishment (Numbers 15:32). The assumption here is that it is wrong to pick up sticks but ok to drag a person around while you look for Moses. Anyway, Moses didn’t know what to do since God had not yet been confronted by a stick-picker, so he imprisons the man while he goes out to ask God how to handle the situation. God, who might have preferred to rest on the Sabbath, does not blast Moses for bothering him, and rules that the man should be stoned to death by all the people. This proves that while picking up sticks is a capital crime, picking up stones to kill a guy for stick-picking is not.
Here is my point: If we are going to use the Bible to make some point, let’s be honest and use all the Bible to make this point. So Pastor Brinton should have told us why the church feels it can change the Sabbath to Sunday and why he feels he can change it to Wednesday. And at least find a way to work around the stick-picking thing. Otherwise you might as well admit you are making the whole thing up and go for a long run on Wednesday pretending this is the Sabbath and God has so commanded thee.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Religion's Ills
I am reading a book called Orthodox Psychology, a fine exploration of Orthodox Christianity. The book makes the case that Christianity is not a religion but a healing science. In so doing it spills the beans on religion: religion is based not on health but on illness. Before any religion can offer you its cure, it must first infect you with its disease.
The disease for which Christianity is the cure is Original Sin. Original Sin refers not to the creativity of your sinning, but to the First Sin, Eve’s Sin, the sin of eating from the Tree of Knowledge. So before Christianity even makes sense, you have to believe in Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden as historical fact, and the inheritance of sin as a metaphysical truth.
I love the story of Adam and Eve. I love the idea that Eve is willing to die for wisdom. She is the Hebrew Prometheus stealing the fire of wisdom from the god of the Garden. She is my role model. I only wish I had her courage. But I do not take the story as history. It is myth, not in the modern sense of falsehood, but in the premodern sense of metaphoric truth. The truth of the story is that wisdom costs you big time.
Christianity isn’t the only religion to sell us disease. They all do. The disease of Judaism and Islam is failing to live up to God’s commandments. The disease of Hinduism is mistaking illusion for reality. The disease of Buddhism is mistaking ignorance for truth, and thereby desiring permanence when none exists.
Now you may believe you have one or more of these diseases. I think I suffer from all of them, which is why I am open to all religions. But I only think this way because I was taught to think this way.
But what if none of these diseases is true? Then none of these religions will help. When someone tells you what religion they follow they are also telling you what disease they prefer.
I prefer to be healthy from the start. I prefer a faith not rooted in illness but in health. Is there such a faith? I don’t think so. But there are hints of this in every religion. To sight but one example, each morning observant Jews say, “God, the soul you place within me is pure.” This is the opposite of Original Sin. Your soul, your true self, is pure. Pure what? Pure Godhead!
So start with that. Whatever else you may do during the day to screw yourself up, remind yourself first thing each morning that your true self is pure, unstained, sinless, wise, and real. Build your faith and that, and see where it takes you.
The disease for which Christianity is the cure is Original Sin. Original Sin refers not to the creativity of your sinning, but to the First Sin, Eve’s Sin, the sin of eating from the Tree of Knowledge. So before Christianity even makes sense, you have to believe in Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden as historical fact, and the inheritance of sin as a metaphysical truth.
I love the story of Adam and Eve. I love the idea that Eve is willing to die for wisdom. She is the Hebrew Prometheus stealing the fire of wisdom from the god of the Garden. She is my role model. I only wish I had her courage. But I do not take the story as history. It is myth, not in the modern sense of falsehood, but in the premodern sense of metaphoric truth. The truth of the story is that wisdom costs you big time.
Christianity isn’t the only religion to sell us disease. They all do. The disease of Judaism and Islam is failing to live up to God’s commandments. The disease of Hinduism is mistaking illusion for reality. The disease of Buddhism is mistaking ignorance for truth, and thereby desiring permanence when none exists.
Now you may believe you have one or more of these diseases. I think I suffer from all of them, which is why I am open to all religions. But I only think this way because I was taught to think this way.
But what if none of these diseases is true? Then none of these religions will help. When someone tells you what religion they follow they are also telling you what disease they prefer.
I prefer to be healthy from the start. I prefer a faith not rooted in illness but in health. Is there such a faith? I don’t think so. But there are hints of this in every religion. To sight but one example, each morning observant Jews say, “God, the soul you place within me is pure.” This is the opposite of Original Sin. Your soul, your true self, is pure. Pure what? Pure Godhead!
So start with that. Whatever else you may do during the day to screw yourself up, remind yourself first thing each morning that your true self is pure, unstained, sinless, wise, and real. Build your faith and that, and see where it takes you.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Who's Your Daddy?
It was only a matter of time. Once we knew that Jesus had children with Mary Magdalene, it was only a matter of time until some of his great, great, great ... grandchildren stepped forward to make their presence known.
The first to do so is Kathleen McGowan whose novel, The Expected One, reveals that she is one of Jesus' descendents. This may be news to many, but not to me. Ever since reading The Da Vinci Code I have been searching out the contemporary line of Jesus and the Mary.
The first one I uncovered was a cousin of mine, fifth removed on my material grandfather's paternal uncle's maternal aunt's side of the family. Like Ms. McGowan, I too have incontrovertible evidence proving this to be so, but, again like her, I am not at liberty to reveal this to the public.
Since finding this cousin, I have stumbled on dozens of Jesus descendents all of whom are related to me. Now I know that this means that I too am related to Jesus and Mary. Ordinarily this would not really mean much to me. After all it is such a tenuous connection. Yet, I found out that not only am I a descendent of Jesus, my next door neighbor, with whom I have never gotten along, is descended from the High Priest who plotted Jesus' death. And not only that, but the guy around the corner is in fact related to Pontius Pilate, the Roman Procurator who actually had Jesus killed. Neither my neighbor nor I get along with him.
And there is more. Knowing my lineage explains so much about my life. Now I know why I feel so persecuted. Now I know why I used to get the hives in high school wood shop. Now I know why thorns frighten me, and why I loved subtraction in elementary school but broke out in a cold sweat every time I had to write the plus sign in addition problems.
Lots of readers will deny Ms. McGowan's claim, seeing it as a crass marketing ploy by her and her publisher. But I haven't written a novel about my ancestors, so I have nothing to gain by disclosing my heritage. Well, maybe not nothing. I am writing to Aunt Kathleen to ask her to help out a starving relative when the millions she will reap from this disclosure start poring in. I am sure she will be delighted to send me a substantial percentage. After all, it is the Christian thing to do.
The first to do so is Kathleen McGowan whose novel, The Expected One, reveals that she is one of Jesus' descendents. This may be news to many, but not to me. Ever since reading The Da Vinci Code I have been searching out the contemporary line of Jesus and the Mary.
The first one I uncovered was a cousin of mine, fifth removed on my material grandfather's paternal uncle's maternal aunt's side of the family. Like Ms. McGowan, I too have incontrovertible evidence proving this to be so, but, again like her, I am not at liberty to reveal this to the public.
Since finding this cousin, I have stumbled on dozens of Jesus descendents all of whom are related to me. Now I know that this means that I too am related to Jesus and Mary. Ordinarily this would not really mean much to me. After all it is such a tenuous connection. Yet, I found out that not only am I a descendent of Jesus, my next door neighbor, with whom I have never gotten along, is descended from the High Priest who plotted Jesus' death. And not only that, but the guy around the corner is in fact related to Pontius Pilate, the Roman Procurator who actually had Jesus killed. Neither my neighbor nor I get along with him.
And there is more. Knowing my lineage explains so much about my life. Now I know why I feel so persecuted. Now I know why I used to get the hives in high school wood shop. Now I know why thorns frighten me, and why I loved subtraction in elementary school but broke out in a cold sweat every time I had to write the plus sign in addition problems.
Lots of readers will deny Ms. McGowan's claim, seeing it as a crass marketing ploy by her and her publisher. But I haven't written a novel about my ancestors, so I have nothing to gain by disclosing my heritage. Well, maybe not nothing. I am writing to Aunt Kathleen to ask her to help out a starving relative when the millions she will reap from this disclosure start poring in. I am sure she will be delighted to send me a substantial percentage. After all, it is the Christian thing to do.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Leaving on a Jet Plane?
Here is a question that every Jew, somewhere in the recesses of his or her mind, asks on a regular basis: When will I know it is time to leave the country?
I heard this growing up and used to dismiss it out of hand. I am an American. America, from George Washington on, has been built on the principle of inclusion. Jews are part of the fabric of the United States, and while I am not blind to Anti-Semitism it has never been a governmental policy. For Jews America is not like Spain, or Germany, or England where we were summarily exiled or killed. American is more like Amsterdam where we were welcomed, albeit with some trepidation.
But things are changing. The Southern Baptist Convention turned back a move to pull their kids out of the public schools, and have called upon their members to take on the culture of public education with “godly influence.” I don’t know which is worse. The idea of millions of SBC kids freed from any public school influence and indoctrinated in SBC truths— mistaking myth for history, metaphor for fact, and theology for science— can only dim the future hopes of America in the world. But the idea of millions of SBC families applying “godly influence” on the public schools means imposing SBC ideology on the rest of us. Just as the Southern Baptists may worry about activist judges imposing liberalism, I worry about activist school boards imposing the inquisition. Extreme? Maybe. But I read Ann Coulter.
And then there is the move in Kentucky to replace the inclusive BCE (Before the Common Era) and CE (Common Era) with BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini, Year of Our Lord). Of course the Jews, Chinese, and Muslims have their own calendars, and I have no problem with Christians using BC. and AD among themselves. My problem is that when we use godly influence to go from Common Era to Year of Our Lord we are making it clear that America is for those whose Lord is Jesus.
America is not a Christian country, but it is a country of Christians. There is a difference, but only if the Constitution and the principles of freedom upon which the country was founded remain intact. When people call for a return to Christian values and point to the piety of the early settlers as proof of America’s Christian roots, I shudder. Not because they are wrong to do so, but because the Christian values the early settlers brought to America included the expulsion of Christians whose Christianity differed from their own, an attempt to keep Jews out of the settlements, the Salem Witch Trials, and the killing and exploitation of the Native Peoples, to name but four.
Most Christians I know who want to see America return to its Christian values are right wing Republicans who mistake the Contract With America for the Sermon on the Mount. I can see them creating their own version of the Inquisition in the name of rooting out heresy. And for a Jew that spells trouble with a capital H.
So is it time to leave? Well I’m not packing my bags just yet, but I am keeping my passport up to date. And I sent a donation to the 700 Club just in case.
I heard this growing up and used to dismiss it out of hand. I am an American. America, from George Washington on, has been built on the principle of inclusion. Jews are part of the fabric of the United States, and while I am not blind to Anti-Semitism it has never been a governmental policy. For Jews America is not like Spain, or Germany, or England where we were summarily exiled or killed. American is more like Amsterdam where we were welcomed, albeit with some trepidation.
But things are changing. The Southern Baptist Convention turned back a move to pull their kids out of the public schools, and have called upon their members to take on the culture of public education with “godly influence.” I don’t know which is worse. The idea of millions of SBC kids freed from any public school influence and indoctrinated in SBC truths— mistaking myth for history, metaphor for fact, and theology for science— can only dim the future hopes of America in the world. But the idea of millions of SBC families applying “godly influence” on the public schools means imposing SBC ideology on the rest of us. Just as the Southern Baptists may worry about activist judges imposing liberalism, I worry about activist school boards imposing the inquisition. Extreme? Maybe. But I read Ann Coulter.
And then there is the move in Kentucky to replace the inclusive BCE (Before the Common Era) and CE (Common Era) with BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini, Year of Our Lord). Of course the Jews, Chinese, and Muslims have their own calendars, and I have no problem with Christians using BC. and AD among themselves. My problem is that when we use godly influence to go from Common Era to Year of Our Lord we are making it clear that America is for those whose Lord is Jesus.
America is not a Christian country, but it is a country of Christians. There is a difference, but only if the Constitution and the principles of freedom upon which the country was founded remain intact. When people call for a return to Christian values and point to the piety of the early settlers as proof of America’s Christian roots, I shudder. Not because they are wrong to do so, but because the Christian values the early settlers brought to America included the expulsion of Christians whose Christianity differed from their own, an attempt to keep Jews out of the settlements, the Salem Witch Trials, and the killing and exploitation of the Native Peoples, to name but four.
Most Christians I know who want to see America return to its Christian values are right wing Republicans who mistake the Contract With America for the Sermon on the Mount. I can see them creating their own version of the Inquisition in the name of rooting out heresy. And for a Jew that spells trouble with a capital H.
So is it time to leave? Well I’m not packing my bags just yet, but I am keeping my passport up to date. And I sent a donation to the 700 Club just in case.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Which Came First: Allah or the Egg?
This is true: Reuters News Service reported today that a chicken in a Kazakh village (i.e. a village in predominately Sunni Moslem Central Asian state of Kazakhstan) laid an egg with the word “Allah” written in Arabic on its shell.
This is not: The Christian organization, To Hell with Unbelievers (ToHU), immediately issued a statement saying in part:
“The Allah egg is an obvious forgery. First of all God’s Name is God. Second of all, while God does license the images of his Son and his Son’s Mother to appear in a variety of baked goods, pizza slices, grilled cheese sandwiches, and other food stuffs, the Lord of the Universe does not authorize the use of his signature or Name on eggs.”
Intrigued, I contacted the director of the ToHU, Mark Matthews, and asked what God has against eggs.
“It isn’t that God has something against eggs per se,” Mr. Matthews told me. “The problem is having been born of a woman, Himself, God does not choose to license His Name or Image on other birth products. And, before some liberal takes this as a slap at women and other females, God does not allow His Image to appear in pools of semen either.”
That settled, I wondered if Shiite Moslems were offended that the Allah egg came from a Sunni bird.
“No,” said Abdul Kayyam, the twenty-something head of a hip Shiite group out of Manhattan called Shiite Happens. “We are simply glad that Allah decided to get into the food manifestation business. For years it has been an insult to Moslems everywhere that Jesus and Mary dominated the Holy Face in Foodstuffs movement. Of course, neither Allah nor Mohammed, peace be upon him, would ever lend their faces to food, it is good to see that Allah has found a way to let the world know that He is the God.”
Having been reminded of the prohibition of drawing Mohammed’s face, I did some investigation and found that a Dutch newspaper was holding a contest challenging Dutch chickens to lay eggs with Mohammed’s face on them. No word yet as to how this is going.
For the sake of balance I also called Rabbi Moishe Gross of the Image of God in Food Society, which, despite its name, tries to debunk claims that God’s face or signature shows up in food. “This is nonsense,” the rabbis told me. “God would not sign the Ten Commandments, let alone an egg, and a nonkosher egg at that. No, the signature is a forgery. The pizza with Mary is more problematic, seeing as how a slice of pizza stacked diagonally on another slice of pizza actually reveals the Star of David, but since she only appears on one slice, we are not worried.”
Well, then, neither am I.
This is not: The Christian organization, To Hell with Unbelievers (ToHU), immediately issued a statement saying in part:
“The Allah egg is an obvious forgery. First of all God’s Name is God. Second of all, while God does license the images of his Son and his Son’s Mother to appear in a variety of baked goods, pizza slices, grilled cheese sandwiches, and other food stuffs, the Lord of the Universe does not authorize the use of his signature or Name on eggs.”
Intrigued, I contacted the director of the ToHU, Mark Matthews, and asked what God has against eggs.
“It isn’t that God has something against eggs per se,” Mr. Matthews told me. “The problem is having been born of a woman, Himself, God does not choose to license His Name or Image on other birth products. And, before some liberal takes this as a slap at women and other females, God does not allow His Image to appear in pools of semen either.”
That settled, I wondered if Shiite Moslems were offended that the Allah egg came from a Sunni bird.
“No,” said Abdul Kayyam, the twenty-something head of a hip Shiite group out of Manhattan called Shiite Happens. “We are simply glad that Allah decided to get into the food manifestation business. For years it has been an insult to Moslems everywhere that Jesus and Mary dominated the Holy Face in Foodstuffs movement. Of course, neither Allah nor Mohammed, peace be upon him, would ever lend their faces to food, it is good to see that Allah has found a way to let the world know that He is the God.”
Having been reminded of the prohibition of drawing Mohammed’s face, I did some investigation and found that a Dutch newspaper was holding a contest challenging Dutch chickens to lay eggs with Mohammed’s face on them. No word yet as to how this is going.
For the sake of balance I also called Rabbi Moishe Gross of the Image of God in Food Society, which, despite its name, tries to debunk claims that God’s face or signature shows up in food. “This is nonsense,” the rabbis told me. “God would not sign the Ten Commandments, let alone an egg, and a nonkosher egg at that. No, the signature is a forgery. The pizza with Mary is more problematic, seeing as how a slice of pizza stacked diagonally on another slice of pizza actually reveals the Star of David, but since she only appears on one slice, we are not worried.”
Well, then, neither am I.
Friday, July 07, 2006
The Way of the Window Crank
You never know when controversy will strike. I was reading the paper over lunch and came across an article about the future of crank windows in new cars. It seems that in the near future automatic windows will be standard on all makes and models of new cars. OK, that is somewhat interesting I suppose. But then came the shocker.
Toyota spokesman Kim Kwong predicted, and I quote: “You are going to see crank windows go the way of the dinosaurs.” Oh…my…God…! The way of the dinosaurs. This isn’t simply controversy, this is catastrophe.
Why, you might be asking yourself? Because the way of the dinosaurs isn’t pretty.
Basically you have two choices when it comes the way of the dinosaurs: the scientific way and the Creationist way. Neither one is going to make you sleep better tonight.
If you adhere to the theory of Creationism, the dinosaurs coexisted with human beings and both were caught up in the Flood. Noah and his family survived and so did two of every kind of dinosaur, but after the flood the earth just wasn’t same and the dinosaurs couldn’t adapt or, dare we say, “evolve,” fast enough. The last of them died after the flood.
Now let’s apply this to crank windows. If they, too, go the way of the dinosaur, we are in for another Flood— and (at least according to prophet Kwong) soon! Yes, I know God promised not to drown the earth a second time, but there are millions of people who believe in Creationism and the Flood-bath that killed the dinosaurs so I wouldn’t be so sure. A second flood is coming and, unless you are currently building an ark under God’s direction, you are screwed!
But, if you are a pseudo-intellectual sophisticate life me, you can always scoff at the Flood theory and go with more scientific data regarding the way of the dinosaur.
I always thought an asteroid stricking the earth 65 million years ago in the Cretaceous period killed off the beast. (Yes, I know, you thought it was beauty that killed the beast, but that is because you are a hopeless Romantic and not a real scientist.) It turns out, however, that the climate had already turned too cold for them, and the asteroid was simply the final straw (so to speak). The dinosaurs were freezing to death.
Sure, I know we are supposed to worry about global warming, but, if we are to take Kim Kwong and science seriously, the truth is that extreme cold is going to kill off the crank window. And I mean extreme!
Think of it this way: window cranks are made of plastic. Do you know the freezing point of plastic? Neither do I, but I do know that gasoline will still burn at minus 97 degrees Fahrenheit. Since both plastic and gasoline are made from petroleum you can be pretty damn sure that it has to be pretty damn cold for plastic to freeze. Since the scientific way of the dinosaur is freezing to death, and crank windows are going the way of the dinosaur—it is going to get really cold really soon.
So what can we do? Nothing. Religion and science agree: If crank windows are going the way of the dinosaur as Kim Kwong predicts, we are doomed.
Our only hope is that Mr. Kwong is wrong. But when it comes to predicting the future of the automobile, the people at Toyota are rarely wrong. So here is my advice: Roll up your car windows and burn as much fossil fuel as possible to up the greenhouse gas levels. It may keep the floodwaters out and you a little bit warmer. But not for long.
Toyota spokesman Kim Kwong predicted, and I quote: “You are going to see crank windows go the way of the dinosaurs.” Oh…my…God…! The way of the dinosaurs. This isn’t simply controversy, this is catastrophe.
Why, you might be asking yourself? Because the way of the dinosaurs isn’t pretty.
Basically you have two choices when it comes the way of the dinosaurs: the scientific way and the Creationist way. Neither one is going to make you sleep better tonight.
If you adhere to the theory of Creationism, the dinosaurs coexisted with human beings and both were caught up in the Flood. Noah and his family survived and so did two of every kind of dinosaur, but after the flood the earth just wasn’t same and the dinosaurs couldn’t adapt or, dare we say, “evolve,” fast enough. The last of them died after the flood.
Now let’s apply this to crank windows. If they, too, go the way of the dinosaur, we are in for another Flood— and (at least according to prophet Kwong) soon! Yes, I know God promised not to drown the earth a second time, but there are millions of people who believe in Creationism and the Flood-bath that killed the dinosaurs so I wouldn’t be so sure. A second flood is coming and, unless you are currently building an ark under God’s direction, you are screwed!
But, if you are a pseudo-intellectual sophisticate life me, you can always scoff at the Flood theory and go with more scientific data regarding the way of the dinosaur.
I always thought an asteroid stricking the earth 65 million years ago in the Cretaceous period killed off the beast. (Yes, I know, you thought it was beauty that killed the beast, but that is because you are a hopeless Romantic and not a real scientist.) It turns out, however, that the climate had already turned too cold for them, and the asteroid was simply the final straw (so to speak). The dinosaurs were freezing to death.
Sure, I know we are supposed to worry about global warming, but, if we are to take Kim Kwong and science seriously, the truth is that extreme cold is going to kill off the crank window. And I mean extreme!
Think of it this way: window cranks are made of plastic. Do you know the freezing point of plastic? Neither do I, but I do know that gasoline will still burn at minus 97 degrees Fahrenheit. Since both plastic and gasoline are made from petroleum you can be pretty damn sure that it has to be pretty damn cold for plastic to freeze. Since the scientific way of the dinosaur is freezing to death, and crank windows are going the way of the dinosaur—it is going to get really cold really soon.
So what can we do? Nothing. Religion and science agree: If crank windows are going the way of the dinosaur as Kim Kwong predicts, we are doomed.
Our only hope is that Mr. Kwong is wrong. But when it comes to predicting the future of the automobile, the people at Toyota are rarely wrong. So here is my advice: Roll up your car windows and burn as much fossil fuel as possible to up the greenhouse gas levels. It may keep the floodwaters out and you a little bit warmer. But not for long.
Homorein (with thanks to E)
Do I really care about a Gay-Pride parade in Jerusalem? Do I really feel compelled to comment that in a city where thousands of Jews dress as if they were living in medieval Poland there are Jews who want to make sure that thousands more don’t dress up as the Village People and march down Ben Yehudah Street? Yes I do.
And not because I am gay. I am not even happy most of the time. Nor am I eager to watch Jews with more piercings than Jesus walk along the Via Delarosa. No, I care because I can’t stand it when other unknown rabbis suddenly make the news, while I am condemned to blog about it
The rabbi is question is Rabbi Yehudah Levin of the New York-based Jews for Morality. He is supporting a petition to cancel a Gay-Pride parade in Jerusalem. I’ll tell you about the petition in a moment, but first, I have to say that I never heard of Jews for Morality, though most of the Jews I know are for morality. Why is it when you capitalize a regular noun other than at the beginning of a sentence you suddenly own it? If I am not a member of Jews for Morality, does that make me immoral? And if so, how much does it cost to become a member of Jews for Morality and hence become moral?
I checked out their website to see. First of all these Jews are the circumcised equivalent of the Rapture Right. The only difference, beside the missing foreskin, is that when the Rapture comes, these people will all be left behind. You can be as right as you want, but if you aren’t right with Jesus you are wrong. So there. Second of all, I couldn’t find out how to join. I am hoping that merely clicking on their website is sufficient because that is all I could do.
OK, back to the petition. The petition says, “[s]uch a parade in Jerusalem, of all places, is a great blow at the ages-old Jewish character of the city and its holy values, for the Jewish and non-Jewish public in Israel and around the world. To hold it in Jerusalem is a provocation and a declared mockery of all that is precious and sacred in the Holy city of Jerusalem in the eyes of the entire world."
I know what you are thinking: Why not simply move the parade to Tel Aviv? Rabbi Levin has that covered. Speaking on Israel National Radio he said, "If they think that we will be silent if the parade is moved from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, they do not understand our entire struggle. The Holy Land in its entirety must not be defiled; the basis for our continued presence in this land is that it remain pure."
Pure means “free of homosexuals.” It probably also means free of women in pants. Does this sound like Nazism? It does to me. Yes, I know it is vile to link anything Jewish to the Nazis, and I am not saying that Rabbi Levin is calling for the extermination of homosexuals, but echoes of Judenrein are still dancing in my head.
Rabbi Levin also said that the newly appointed mufti of Jerusalem, as well as other leading Moslem clerics, have shown great support for his cause. Good for him. These are the kind of moral giants we all wish to follow.
The real problem is not Rabbi Levin or Jews for Morality. The real problem is not that they are misrepresenting Judaism, the way we desperately hope that Muslim extremists are misrepresenting Islam. The real problem is that the Torah hates homosexual acts between men. Read Leviticus 18:22: male homosexuality is an abomination. Torah is very clear about this— clear and wrong. It is wrong on many things, and until we are willing to stand up and say so publicly and reject it when it is wrong without having to play games to pretend it doesn’t mean what it says, or says what it clearly does not say, we will continue to be plagued by the madness that passes for religion.
And not because I am gay. I am not even happy most of the time. Nor am I eager to watch Jews with more piercings than Jesus walk along the Via Delarosa. No, I care because I can’t stand it when other unknown rabbis suddenly make the news, while I am condemned to blog about it
The rabbi is question is Rabbi Yehudah Levin of the New York-based Jews for Morality. He is supporting a petition to cancel a Gay-Pride parade in Jerusalem. I’ll tell you about the petition in a moment, but first, I have to say that I never heard of Jews for Morality, though most of the Jews I know are for morality. Why is it when you capitalize a regular noun other than at the beginning of a sentence you suddenly own it? If I am not a member of Jews for Morality, does that make me immoral? And if so, how much does it cost to become a member of Jews for Morality and hence become moral?
I checked out their website to see. First of all these Jews are the circumcised equivalent of the Rapture Right. The only difference, beside the missing foreskin, is that when the Rapture comes, these people will all be left behind. You can be as right as you want, but if you aren’t right with Jesus you are wrong. So there. Second of all, I couldn’t find out how to join. I am hoping that merely clicking on their website is sufficient because that is all I could do.
OK, back to the petition. The petition says, “[s]uch a parade in Jerusalem, of all places, is a great blow at the ages-old Jewish character of the city and its holy values, for the Jewish and non-Jewish public in Israel and around the world. To hold it in Jerusalem is a provocation and a declared mockery of all that is precious and sacred in the Holy city of Jerusalem in the eyes of the entire world."
I know what you are thinking: Why not simply move the parade to Tel Aviv? Rabbi Levin has that covered. Speaking on Israel National Radio he said, "If they think that we will be silent if the parade is moved from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, they do not understand our entire struggle. The Holy Land in its entirety must not be defiled; the basis for our continued presence in this land is that it remain pure."
Pure means “free of homosexuals.” It probably also means free of women in pants. Does this sound like Nazism? It does to me. Yes, I know it is vile to link anything Jewish to the Nazis, and I am not saying that Rabbi Levin is calling for the extermination of homosexuals, but echoes of Judenrein are still dancing in my head.
Rabbi Levin also said that the newly appointed mufti of Jerusalem, as well as other leading Moslem clerics, have shown great support for his cause. Good for him. These are the kind of moral giants we all wish to follow.
The real problem is not Rabbi Levin or Jews for Morality. The real problem is not that they are misrepresenting Judaism, the way we desperately hope that Muslim extremists are misrepresenting Islam. The real problem is that the Torah hates homosexual acts between men. Read Leviticus 18:22: male homosexuality is an abomination. Torah is very clear about this— clear and wrong. It is wrong on many things, and until we are willing to stand up and say so publicly and reject it when it is wrong without having to play games to pretend it doesn’t mean what it says, or says what it clearly does not say, we will continue to be plagued by the madness that passes for religion.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
The Lobby of the Lord
I never heard of Hobby Lobby before moving to Tennessee, and when I did I assumed it was a large crafts store, which it is. But it seems that the true concern of Hobby Lobby is not to lobby for your hobby but to lobby for Jesus and a Christian America. Hence its full-page ad entitled In God We Trust in the July 4th issue of USA Today.
The ad is an anthology of quotes from past presidents, founding fathers, Supreme Court justices, Congress, and others making the case that America is more than a nation of Christians, but a Christian nation. Maybe this shouldn’t upset me. It is just that I love being an American, and I find the Fourth of July truly inspiring. I think we should assemble on the Fourth to read and debate the meaning of the Declaration and the Bill of Rights. I think the Fourth of July should be for Americans what Yom Kippur is for Jews and Easter is for Christians—the day when we consider the deepest truths of who we are.
So when I find an ad that violates the very genius and spirit of America and does so in the name of America, I get upset. No, not upset—sad. Sad and worried. And then a bit more sad.
In addition to being sad, I also find this ad to be a fine example of false advertising. Hobby Lobby does not trust in God. If it did it would relax and let God take care of things. HL wants to impose JC on the rest of us. And if HL can’t turn all Americans into believing Christians, it wants to make sure all are forced to live by Christian values (as they define them) and do away with science, contraception, and homosexuals.
If they really trusted God, they would simply leave these things up to God. If God is willing to allow us to imagine and teach that humans and apes share a family tree, why should HL take offense? And if God created people so that people might create condoms, who are they to interfere? And if God created everything, then God created homosexuals and who is HL to condemn God’s creation?
What bugs me about HL is their hubris. They sift through the teachings of Jesus, focus on what he has to say about homosexuality, stem cell research, evolution, and contraception, and ignore all the rest. (Note: For those who have not read the Gospels, Jesus says nothing about any of these things.) Their Jesus is created in their image, not God’s. He is their son, not His. They did the same with this ad. America was not and is not a Christian nation, and because it isn’t, Christianity flourishes here unlike anywhere else on the planet.
So I call upon America (notice how I assume America reads this blog) to trust in God but not in Hobby Lobby. I, for one, will no longer shop at Hobby Lobby. (OK I never have before, either.) I will not shop at Hobby Lobby not because I have no hobbies (which, sadly, is true) but because I can’t support their lobby. And I hope you won’t either. I am calling for a boycott of Hobby Lobby. Or, if you just have to buy stuff there, buy some stuff to make a sign that tells others not to buy there.
Happy Fourth. And God bless you (or damn you as the case may be).
The ad is an anthology of quotes from past presidents, founding fathers, Supreme Court justices, Congress, and others making the case that America is more than a nation of Christians, but a Christian nation. Maybe this shouldn’t upset me. It is just that I love being an American, and I find the Fourth of July truly inspiring. I think we should assemble on the Fourth to read and debate the meaning of the Declaration and the Bill of Rights. I think the Fourth of July should be for Americans what Yom Kippur is for Jews and Easter is for Christians—the day when we consider the deepest truths of who we are.
So when I find an ad that violates the very genius and spirit of America and does so in the name of America, I get upset. No, not upset—sad. Sad and worried. And then a bit more sad.
In addition to being sad, I also find this ad to be a fine example of false advertising. Hobby Lobby does not trust in God. If it did it would relax and let God take care of things. HL wants to impose JC on the rest of us. And if HL can’t turn all Americans into believing Christians, it wants to make sure all are forced to live by Christian values (as they define them) and do away with science, contraception, and homosexuals.
If they really trusted God, they would simply leave these things up to God. If God is willing to allow us to imagine and teach that humans and apes share a family tree, why should HL take offense? And if God created people so that people might create condoms, who are they to interfere? And if God created everything, then God created homosexuals and who is HL to condemn God’s creation?
What bugs me about HL is their hubris. They sift through the teachings of Jesus, focus on what he has to say about homosexuality, stem cell research, evolution, and contraception, and ignore all the rest. (Note: For those who have not read the Gospels, Jesus says nothing about any of these things.) Their Jesus is created in their image, not God’s. He is their son, not His. They did the same with this ad. America was not and is not a Christian nation, and because it isn’t, Christianity flourishes here unlike anywhere else on the planet.
So I call upon America (notice how I assume America reads this blog) to trust in God but not in Hobby Lobby. I, for one, will no longer shop at Hobby Lobby. (OK I never have before, either.) I will not shop at Hobby Lobby not because I have no hobbies (which, sadly, is true) but because I can’t support their lobby. And I hope you won’t either. I am calling for a boycott of Hobby Lobby. Or, if you just have to buy stuff there, buy some stuff to make a sign that tells others not to buy there.
Happy Fourth. And God bless you (or damn you as the case may be).
Monday, July 03, 2006
Knit One, Pearl Two
When most of us think of the creation of humanity in the Bible we think of Genesis. In Chapter One God simply has the idea to create men and women and— whoosh! — there they are. In Chapter Two God creates the male human first by fashioning a clay manikin and then breathing consciousness into it. Both versions of human origins have something to teach us.
We are an idea in the mind of God. We are, as the Hindus say, the dream of God. Or better, we are God dreaming. The creation you and I experience is a cosmic game of hide of seek with God hiding from himself and then finding himself which ends the game for a few millennia until God starts playing all over again. We know this intuitively which is why one of the earliest games babies learn to play is peek-a-boo: now you’re here, now you’re not.
The second creation story reminds us that we are not (as the first story might suggest) alien to the earth, but fully of it. This is just the opposite of the Christian call to be in the world but not of the world. Genesis 2 says we are of the world, literally. We are the clay of the earth made self-conscious. To me this means that we are the way life comes to know itself divine. We are the way nature cares for the poor, the homeless, and the hungry. Unfortunately we are also the way nature produces poverty, homelessness, and starvation. There is nothing we can do about that. We are both the problem and the solution.
But there is a third creation myth in the Bible. In Psalm 139:13 we learn that God knits us together in our mothers’ wombs. I love this image for several reasons. First, the Knitting God just cannot be the angry, imperial, and dysfunctional Lord God running around creating life, drowning life, and proclaiming fatwas and jihads against anyone who crosses the Chosen people. With the exception of Madame Lafarge, knitting is done with love, not malice.
Second, the Knitting God is God as Mother and Grandmother, a welcome alternative to God the Father. In my family women knit, men fart. This image of the Great Mother God knitting me into existence is so loving. I have God’s full attention, and better, I am the result of God’s full attention.
Third, knitting is an image quite different from breathing life into a blow-up doll. When you knit you take different threads and weave them together. The more complex the pattern, the more glorious the piece. Given the excitement around string theory in physics, I can imagine God knitting the strings of existence together in an infinite array of more and less complex patterns eventually knitting a sweater and pants set that thinks and can knit its own socks!
So the next time you hear someone say we ought to teach Biblical creationism in the schools, you should agree with them. Just do it in during home economics.
We are an idea in the mind of God. We are, as the Hindus say, the dream of God. Or better, we are God dreaming. The creation you and I experience is a cosmic game of hide of seek with God hiding from himself and then finding himself which ends the game for a few millennia until God starts playing all over again. We know this intuitively which is why one of the earliest games babies learn to play is peek-a-boo: now you’re here, now you’re not.
The second creation story reminds us that we are not (as the first story might suggest) alien to the earth, but fully of it. This is just the opposite of the Christian call to be in the world but not of the world. Genesis 2 says we are of the world, literally. We are the clay of the earth made self-conscious. To me this means that we are the way life comes to know itself divine. We are the way nature cares for the poor, the homeless, and the hungry. Unfortunately we are also the way nature produces poverty, homelessness, and starvation. There is nothing we can do about that. We are both the problem and the solution.
But there is a third creation myth in the Bible. In Psalm 139:13 we learn that God knits us together in our mothers’ wombs. I love this image for several reasons. First, the Knitting God just cannot be the angry, imperial, and dysfunctional Lord God running around creating life, drowning life, and proclaiming fatwas and jihads against anyone who crosses the Chosen people. With the exception of Madame Lafarge, knitting is done with love, not malice.
Second, the Knitting God is God as Mother and Grandmother, a welcome alternative to God the Father. In my family women knit, men fart. This image of the Great Mother God knitting me into existence is so loving. I have God’s full attention, and better, I am the result of God’s full attention.
Third, knitting is an image quite different from breathing life into a blow-up doll. When you knit you take different threads and weave them together. The more complex the pattern, the more glorious the piece. Given the excitement around string theory in physics, I can imagine God knitting the strings of existence together in an infinite array of more and less complex patterns eventually knitting a sweater and pants set that thinks and can knit its own socks!
So the next time you hear someone say we ought to teach Biblical creationism in the schools, you should agree with them. Just do it in during home economics.
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Kal-El, Son of God
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s a gay guy!
Is Superman, the quintessential American superhero, gay? Enquiring minds want to know. Actually not “enquiring” minds but stupid, silly, bored minds with nothing better to do than debate Superman’s sexuality. But, since they started…
Actually I have no idea if Superman is gay or straight. And, since he is a COMIC BOOK CHARACTER, I don’t care. But apparently some people do, but not the people you might think. It isn’t the wacko-Christian fringe that is obsessed with a gay Man of Steel, but the wacko-gay fringe. They can’t imagine that a guy in tights and wearing a cap is straight. What do they think the big “S” on his chest stands for, anyway.
As I investigated the truth behind the gay Ubermensch (UberHomo?) I discovered a more fascinating understanding of the big “S.” It doesn’t stand for “straight” but for “Son,” as in the Son of God. The May/June issue of New Man, a Christian men’s magazine (talk about gay, there isn’t a single photograph of a woman, let alone a scantily dressed woman, in this magazine), the Man of Steel is the Son of God. Here’s the proof:
Superman’s powers come from the sun (Son, get it?).
Superman has X-ray vision; God can see everything.
Superman has super hearing; God hears all prayers before they are spoken (Isaiah 65:24).
Superman has heat vision; Christ’s eyes blaze like fire (Revelation 1:14).
Superman has super speed; Christ is everywhere in times of trouble (Psalm 46:1).
Superman is raised by Martha and Jonathan which sounds like Mary and Joseph. (And, though the magazine didn’t mention this, “Kent” rhymes with Lent.)
Superman’s archenemy is Lex Luthor which sounds a lot like Lucifer, aka, the Devil.
You get the idea. Of course it doesn’t hurt that in the up-coming movie Jor-El, Superman’s dad, says he is sending his only begotten son to save the earth. And it damn well helps to know that Superman’s real name is Kal-El, which the two Jewish creators of Superman, having recently become bar mitzvah, knew is Hebrew for “All-God” (Jor-
El means nothing in particular, though El is Hebrew for God).
So is Superman a gay, Jewish, Christ-figure? Yes, he likes to run around in tights and a cape, but the rest of his wardrobe is kind of boring. Yes, he has a great body, but he never works out. Yes, he trying to save humankind, but he never sacrifices himself, preferring to beat the crap out of his enemies. Yes, his name is Jewish, but he flies on Shabbos.
The truth is, we don’t know. Does it matter? Not to me. Jesus wore robes, hung around with a bunch of guys, never married, remained a virgin (sorry Dan Brown), and seemed to attract a lot of women without himself being attracted to them. Maybe Jesus was…. Nah.
Is Superman, the quintessential American superhero, gay? Enquiring minds want to know. Actually not “enquiring” minds but stupid, silly, bored minds with nothing better to do than debate Superman’s sexuality. But, since they started…
Actually I have no idea if Superman is gay or straight. And, since he is a COMIC BOOK CHARACTER, I don’t care. But apparently some people do, but not the people you might think. It isn’t the wacko-Christian fringe that is obsessed with a gay Man of Steel, but the wacko-gay fringe. They can’t imagine that a guy in tights and wearing a cap is straight. What do they think the big “S” on his chest stands for, anyway.
As I investigated the truth behind the gay Ubermensch (UberHomo?) I discovered a more fascinating understanding of the big “S.” It doesn’t stand for “straight” but for “Son,” as in the Son of God. The May/June issue of New Man, a Christian men’s magazine (talk about gay, there isn’t a single photograph of a woman, let alone a scantily dressed woman, in this magazine), the Man of Steel is the Son of God. Here’s the proof:
Superman’s powers come from the sun (Son, get it?).
Superman has X-ray vision; God can see everything.
Superman has super hearing; God hears all prayers before they are spoken (Isaiah 65:24).
Superman has heat vision; Christ’s eyes blaze like fire (Revelation 1:14).
Superman has super speed; Christ is everywhere in times of trouble (Psalm 46:1).
Superman is raised by Martha and Jonathan which sounds like Mary and Joseph. (And, though the magazine didn’t mention this, “Kent” rhymes with Lent.)
Superman’s archenemy is Lex Luthor which sounds a lot like Lucifer, aka, the Devil.
You get the idea. Of course it doesn’t hurt that in the up-coming movie Jor-El, Superman’s dad, says he is sending his only begotten son to save the earth. And it damn well helps to know that Superman’s real name is Kal-El, which the two Jewish creators of Superman, having recently become bar mitzvah, knew is Hebrew for “All-God” (Jor-
El means nothing in particular, though El is Hebrew for God).
So is Superman a gay, Jewish, Christ-figure? Yes, he likes to run around in tights and a cape, but the rest of his wardrobe is kind of boring. Yes, he has a great body, but he never works out. Yes, he trying to save humankind, but he never sacrifices himself, preferring to beat the crap out of his enemies. Yes, his name is Jewish, but he flies on Shabbos.
The truth is, we don’t know. Does it matter? Not to me. Jesus wore robes, hung around with a bunch of guys, never married, remained a virgin (sorry Dan Brown), and seemed to attract a lot of women without himself being attracted to them. Maybe Jesus was…. Nah.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
What Makes Us Unique
My friend Hal gave me a copy of “Stumbling on Happiness” by Daniel Gilbert. I’m only on page 3, but I already feel compelled to comment.
Gilbert speaks of The Sentence; that one line on which so many of us live or die: “The human being is the only animal that…”
Gilbert says humans are the only beings that think about the future. I don’t know if that is true, but, true or not, there are other ways to complete this sentence that I find more compelling: The human being is the only animal that… pays for sex; packs things with Styrofoam peanuts; and bothers to complete the sentence: The human being is the only animal that….
But these answers, while wildly clever, don’t mean much. Thinking a bit more deeply, I would say the human being is the only animal that imagines God cares about what he or she believes God cares about. We are the only animals that worry about heresy, blasphemy, and making sure that Passover matzah is baked no longer than 18 minutes.
Now you might argue that I am missing the point, and that we humans are the only animals that care about Truth. But I don’t think truth is what we care about. What we care about is belief. What you believe may be totally insane, but you will fight to the death (preferably someone else’s) insisting otherwise.
Most likely the insanity belongs to those who believe other than you do. For example, it is insane to think that a bit of dry cracker becomes the body of Christ, but it makes total sense that the sun stood still at midday to allow Joshua enough time to finish his military conquests. Or, it is ludicrous to think that God kept feeding lines to Mohammed in a cave, but the quintessence of reason to believe that He dictated a few lines to Moses on a mountaintop.
I am not saying that one person’s belief is another person’s heresy. I am saying that when it comes to religious belief people are nuts. And we like it that way.
Take the Buddha. He comes to a very simple insight: life driven by unquenchable desire is painful, so stop living that way. That is a very clear, testable truth. And then his followers spend innumerable hours decorating it with wild stories about cobras, demons and virgins over whose existence we can argue incessantly.
So here is another ending for Gilbert’s sentence: The human being is the only animal that prefers fantasy to reality.
Now it is your turn: The human being is the only animal that…
Gilbert speaks of The Sentence; that one line on which so many of us live or die: “The human being is the only animal that…”
Gilbert says humans are the only beings that think about the future. I don’t know if that is true, but, true or not, there are other ways to complete this sentence that I find more compelling: The human being is the only animal that… pays for sex; packs things with Styrofoam peanuts; and bothers to complete the sentence: The human being is the only animal that….
But these answers, while wildly clever, don’t mean much. Thinking a bit more deeply, I would say the human being is the only animal that imagines God cares about what he or she believes God cares about. We are the only animals that worry about heresy, blasphemy, and making sure that Passover matzah is baked no longer than 18 minutes.
Now you might argue that I am missing the point, and that we humans are the only animals that care about Truth. But I don’t think truth is what we care about. What we care about is belief. What you believe may be totally insane, but you will fight to the death (preferably someone else’s) insisting otherwise.
Most likely the insanity belongs to those who believe other than you do. For example, it is insane to think that a bit of dry cracker becomes the body of Christ, but it makes total sense that the sun stood still at midday to allow Joshua enough time to finish his military conquests. Or, it is ludicrous to think that God kept feeding lines to Mohammed in a cave, but the quintessence of reason to believe that He dictated a few lines to Moses on a mountaintop.
I am not saying that one person’s belief is another person’s heresy. I am saying that when it comes to religious belief people are nuts. And we like it that way.
Take the Buddha. He comes to a very simple insight: life driven by unquenchable desire is painful, so stop living that way. That is a very clear, testable truth. And then his followers spend innumerable hours decorating it with wild stories about cobras, demons and virgins over whose existence we can argue incessantly.
So here is another ending for Gilbert’s sentence: The human being is the only animal that prefers fantasy to reality.
Now it is your turn: The human being is the only animal that…
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
The Name Game
A couple of days ago I commented on changes to the American Catholic liturgy. Today I read that the Presbyterian Church (USA) is considering some drastic changes of its own.
The church’s national assembly voted to “receive” (one step short of approving) a more gender-inclusive reference to the Trinity. No, not Natalie, Martie, and Emily, they are the Dixie Chicks. In addition to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (nee Ghost) the Trinity may soon make a liturgical debut as Mother, Child, and Womb” or “Rock, Redeemer, and Friend” or “Lover, Beloved, and Love.”
The goal of the changes is to remove the misnomer that God— King of Kings, Lord of Lord, and Man of War—is male. Not a bad goal as goals go, but to say that these changes “do not alter the church’s theological position,” as the church claims, is to say you are not taking these changes very seriously.
If God the Father is now God the Mother, just how did Mother impregnate Mary with Child? And if She did, what does this say about homosexuality in the church? God is now a lesbian, so how can we say lesbianism is an abomination? Gay men are still out, of course, because it is man on man sex that really freaks the Church Fathers out. Women on women, well lets just say boys will be boys unless they are gay in which case they are abominations.
But could a Lesbian God really hate gay men? I doubt it. So I imagine that soon after the return of the Mother we will find a way to welcome gay men as well.
I for one am happy about this. I am a bit less comfortable with the Holy Womb.
A womb is a uterus, a hollow muscular organ located in the pelvic cavity of female mammals. True, I believe that God manifests as all things, so this hollow muscular organ is also God, but do I really want to pray to it? When people say they are moved by the Holy Spirit, am I to imagine they are being squeezed by an invisible uterus? And if we are trying to make our religious language gender-inclusive, did it ever occur to people that only women have wombs?
For a moment I thought the way out would be the Lover, Beloved, Love trinity. But lovers need not be spouses and spouses need not be lovers, so now God is supporting love outside of marriage which makes everyone not living in Massachusetts very nervous.
So what to do? Opt for the liturgy of the unformed Quaker service: silence. Just sit in God’s presence and know that whatever images come to mind regarding God are neither real nor accurate.
As Lao Tzu has been trying to teach us for thousands of years: the God that can be named is not the eternal God.
The church’s national assembly voted to “receive” (one step short of approving) a more gender-inclusive reference to the Trinity. No, not Natalie, Martie, and Emily, they are the Dixie Chicks. In addition to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (nee Ghost) the Trinity may soon make a liturgical debut as Mother, Child, and Womb” or “Rock, Redeemer, and Friend” or “Lover, Beloved, and Love.”
The goal of the changes is to remove the misnomer that God— King of Kings, Lord of Lord, and Man of War—is male. Not a bad goal as goals go, but to say that these changes “do not alter the church’s theological position,” as the church claims, is to say you are not taking these changes very seriously.
If God the Father is now God the Mother, just how did Mother impregnate Mary with Child? And if She did, what does this say about homosexuality in the church? God is now a lesbian, so how can we say lesbianism is an abomination? Gay men are still out, of course, because it is man on man sex that really freaks the Church Fathers out. Women on women, well lets just say boys will be boys unless they are gay in which case they are abominations.
But could a Lesbian God really hate gay men? I doubt it. So I imagine that soon after the return of the Mother we will find a way to welcome gay men as well.
I for one am happy about this. I am a bit less comfortable with the Holy Womb.
A womb is a uterus, a hollow muscular organ located in the pelvic cavity of female mammals. True, I believe that God manifests as all things, so this hollow muscular organ is also God, but do I really want to pray to it? When people say they are moved by the Holy Spirit, am I to imagine they are being squeezed by an invisible uterus? And if we are trying to make our religious language gender-inclusive, did it ever occur to people that only women have wombs?
For a moment I thought the way out would be the Lover, Beloved, Love trinity. But lovers need not be spouses and spouses need not be lovers, so now God is supporting love outside of marriage which makes everyone not living in Massachusetts very nervous.
So what to do? Opt for the liturgy of the unformed Quaker service: silence. Just sit in God’s presence and know that whatever images come to mind regarding God are neither real nor accurate.
As Lao Tzu has been trying to teach us for thousands of years: the God that can be named is not the eternal God.
Monday, June 19, 2006
A Shameless Plug
My friend Rich called last night and urged me to let my readers now that I have recently published a new book with Skylight Press. The book is called the Sacred Art of Lovingkindness. It should be in most bookstores by now, and can be ordered from either Skylight or Amazon.
If you are readers of my books, I would like to ask a favor. If you can make the time, please go on Amazon.com and write comments in the review section. Of course I am assuming you would right positive reviews. If you didn't like the book no need to write a review.
Thanks,
Rami
If you are readers of my books, I would like to ask a favor. If you can make the time, please go on Amazon.com and write comments in the review section. Of course I am assuming you would right positive reviews. If you didn't like the book no need to write a review.
Thanks,
Rami
A Shift in the Making?
Just when I was packing to move to Canada, or Amsterdam, or Israel (notice the order), I read that the Southern Baptist Convention elected the Rev. Frank Page as the group's president at its meeting in Greensboro, N.C., and Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori is elected to lead the Episcopal Church USA. While too very different persons of faith, they share a broader vision that shifts (in the case of the Baptists) and maintains (in the case of the Episcopalians) the direction of these two denominations toward the left.
Now, don’t get too excited. Rev. Page and his Southern Baptists are not about to vote for gay marriage, something Bishop Schori supports, but the obsession of the religious right with bashing the liberal left may be waning.
Does this mean that the War on Christianity is over and the Civil War among Christians is underway? I doubt it. As American Jews know, feeling hated and oppressed is a great marketing tool. It is easier to raise money from followers who feel attacked, then from followers who feel victorious. So I doubt the War is over. But at least there may be a new front opening: more liberal (relative to the establishment) leaders are coming to the fore bringing the teachings of Jesus to bear on the issues that really mattered to him: poverty, injustice, exploitation of the common people by the religious and political elites, rather than abortion, gay marriage, and stem cell research.
I for one am heartened by these two elections. What Christianity, Islam, and Judaism need is their how Dalai Lama. We are no where near this at the moment, but maybe we moved a bit in that direction this past week. Let’s hope so.
Now, don’t get too excited. Rev. Page and his Southern Baptists are not about to vote for gay marriage, something Bishop Schori supports, but the obsession of the religious right with bashing the liberal left may be waning.
Does this mean that the War on Christianity is over and the Civil War among Christians is underway? I doubt it. As American Jews know, feeling hated and oppressed is a great marketing tool. It is easier to raise money from followers who feel attacked, then from followers who feel victorious. So I doubt the War is over. But at least there may be a new front opening: more liberal (relative to the establishment) leaders are coming to the fore bringing the teachings of Jesus to bear on the issues that really mattered to him: poverty, injustice, exploitation of the common people by the religious and political elites, rather than abortion, gay marriage, and stem cell research.
I for one am heartened by these two elections. What Christianity, Islam, and Judaism need is their how Dalai Lama. We are no where near this at the moment, but maybe we moved a bit in that direction this past week. Let’s hope so.
Making a Mess of Mass
Religious ritual is theater. Its power rests on its use of music, symbol, and liturgy to open the heart, mind, and soul of the worshipper to the presence of God. Mostly it is bad theater, primarily because the people in charge of worship refuse to treat it as theater. Case in point: the newly proposed changes to the American Catholic Mass.
In the new version the standard exchange between priest and people: “The Lord be with you”/”And also with you” will now be “The Lord be with you”/ “And with your spirit.” This is supposed to better reflect the Latin from which the English Mass comes. That may be. My Latin is limited to E Pluribus Unum and Biggus Dickus. But it is bad theater.
The repetition of “you” in the two phrases links the priest with the people. We could bless one another as equals. Now the people are asking that God be with the father’s spirit. But what about the rest of him? This splitting of body and spirit is both false and unfortunate. A church still reeling from child abuse scandals should know this most of all.
The second change deals with Communion. Prior to taking Communion Catholics used to say, “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you.” Now worshippers will say, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof.” What were they thinking?
Taking the Body and Blood of Christ into oneself is the center of the Mass. This is a moment of integrating God and wo/man. No one is worthy of this, and thus it is a sign of God’s love that it is offered to you. But to shift from receiving God to having God under one’s roof misses the point completely. God isn’t entering under your roof; God is entering your mouth. Even if the liturgical writer was thinking of the roof of one’s mouth when he made this change (which I doubt), it is a terrible change.
I have been to many Communion services. I have seen the power of this intimate in-taking of God. It is moving and stirring. This new liturgy can only take away from that.
These changes reflect the error at the heart of organized religion. Rather than work to deepen our experience of God’s presence here and now, organized religion focuses on conforming to some historical experience there and then. These changes to the Catholic liturgy are just the latest example of how religion misses the mark.
True worship should have elements of continuity with the past, but should not simply imitate the past. Imitative worship cannot open us to God, unless the god it presents to us is also imitative. Indeed that may be the problem. Religion is all about the second-hand. The God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob rather than the God of you and this moment. Even if you add the matriarchs to the mix—Sarah, Hagar, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah—you are doing nothing to shift worship into the present.
When I go to a worship service I want to moved to let go of past and future and awaken to what is here and now: God manifest. I guess that is I why I rarely go to services.
In the new version the standard exchange between priest and people: “The Lord be with you”/”And also with you” will now be “The Lord be with you”/ “And with your spirit.” This is supposed to better reflect the Latin from which the English Mass comes. That may be. My Latin is limited to E Pluribus Unum and Biggus Dickus. But it is bad theater.
The repetition of “you” in the two phrases links the priest with the people. We could bless one another as equals. Now the people are asking that God be with the father’s spirit. But what about the rest of him? This splitting of body and spirit is both false and unfortunate. A church still reeling from child abuse scandals should know this most of all.
The second change deals with Communion. Prior to taking Communion Catholics used to say, “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you.” Now worshippers will say, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof.” What were they thinking?
Taking the Body and Blood of Christ into oneself is the center of the Mass. This is a moment of integrating God and wo/man. No one is worthy of this, and thus it is a sign of God’s love that it is offered to you. But to shift from receiving God to having God under one’s roof misses the point completely. God isn’t entering under your roof; God is entering your mouth. Even if the liturgical writer was thinking of the roof of one’s mouth when he made this change (which I doubt), it is a terrible change.
I have been to many Communion services. I have seen the power of this intimate in-taking of God. It is moving and stirring. This new liturgy can only take away from that.
These changes reflect the error at the heart of organized religion. Rather than work to deepen our experience of God’s presence here and now, organized religion focuses on conforming to some historical experience there and then. These changes to the Catholic liturgy are just the latest example of how religion misses the mark.
True worship should have elements of continuity with the past, but should not simply imitate the past. Imitative worship cannot open us to God, unless the god it presents to us is also imitative. Indeed that may be the problem. Religion is all about the second-hand. The God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob rather than the God of you and this moment. Even if you add the matriarchs to the mix—Sarah, Hagar, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah—you are doing nothing to shift worship into the present.
When I go to a worship service I want to moved to let go of past and future and awaken to what is here and now: God manifest. I guess that is I why I rarely go to services.
Friday, June 16, 2006
Soylent Green is People (Chinese People)
Remember ice cream trucks? Where I grew up in Western Massachusetts the ice cream truck was a summer staple. Everyday, though we never new just when, we would hear the jingle as the gleaming white van made its way through the streets of our neighborhood. As the jingle got louder we knew the van was getting closer. We would practically mug our mothers for change, and then wait anxiously at the curb for the arrival of the truck.
The truck drove slowly down the street so as not to kill any potential customers. As it pulled up in front of us our eyes scanned the myriad signs plastered on the side of the truck announcing just what was inside the coolers that day. Popsicles, Push-Up Pops, Creamsicles, Fudge Bars, Ice Cream Sandwiches, the list seemed endless. And the guy dressed in white pants, shirt, and sailor-like paper hat was the master of ceremonies. He worked efficiently, never loosing his cool. I wanted to be that guy.
My cousin Bob actually drove an ice cream truck for a while. The envy of many of my friends, but his route was far from our neighborhood, so having a family member in the business did nothing to lower our personal ice cream expenses. He loved that job. I bet he would do it again, given the chance.
I read today that the Chinese have something similar. Or not so similar. The twist is that, in China, they are not selling ice cream, they are killing people. The Chinese van, which looks just like the ice cream trucks of my childhood, is a deathmobile that comes to your neighborhood to inject convicted criminals with lethal chemicals and then cart away the bodies in the back of the truck.
Critics of the idea say China uses the trucks to increase their harvest of body parts to sell on the black market. Not a bad idea. If we did this profits could offset the costs of trials, or be given to the families the criminals have harmed. In fact, we could harvest body parts from living criminals. We could offer a reduced sentence to criminals who would give up a lung or kidney or eye.
I am thinking about writing to the Chinese embassy to suggest that they could get more out of the vans if they let the drivers sell ice cream out of the back of the trucks. They already have coolers to keep the newly harvested organs fresh, so why not start the day with the coolers filled with ice cream. Rather than sitting around waiting for a criminal to kill, drivers could cruise neighborhoods and sell ice cream, stopping for an occasional lethal injection, and careful not to mix the deadly serum with the butterscotch topping.
I am not saying we should have deathmobiles, or that the Chinese should sell ice cream. It isn’t my place to tell other people what to do. It is just that if we did do it maybe my cousin could get a part-time job driving one of the trucks in my neighborhood so I could get a free hot fudge sundae now and then.
The truck drove slowly down the street so as not to kill any potential customers. As it pulled up in front of us our eyes scanned the myriad signs plastered on the side of the truck announcing just what was inside the coolers that day. Popsicles, Push-Up Pops, Creamsicles, Fudge Bars, Ice Cream Sandwiches, the list seemed endless. And the guy dressed in white pants, shirt, and sailor-like paper hat was the master of ceremonies. He worked efficiently, never loosing his cool. I wanted to be that guy.
My cousin Bob actually drove an ice cream truck for a while. The envy of many of my friends, but his route was far from our neighborhood, so having a family member in the business did nothing to lower our personal ice cream expenses. He loved that job. I bet he would do it again, given the chance.
I read today that the Chinese have something similar. Or not so similar. The twist is that, in China, they are not selling ice cream, they are killing people. The Chinese van, which looks just like the ice cream trucks of my childhood, is a deathmobile that comes to your neighborhood to inject convicted criminals with lethal chemicals and then cart away the bodies in the back of the truck.
Critics of the idea say China uses the trucks to increase their harvest of body parts to sell on the black market. Not a bad idea. If we did this profits could offset the costs of trials, or be given to the families the criminals have harmed. In fact, we could harvest body parts from living criminals. We could offer a reduced sentence to criminals who would give up a lung or kidney or eye.
I am thinking about writing to the Chinese embassy to suggest that they could get more out of the vans if they let the drivers sell ice cream out of the back of the trucks. They already have coolers to keep the newly harvested organs fresh, so why not start the day with the coolers filled with ice cream. Rather than sitting around waiting for a criminal to kill, drivers could cruise neighborhoods and sell ice cream, stopping for an occasional lethal injection, and careful not to mix the deadly serum with the butterscotch topping.
I am not saying we should have deathmobiles, or that the Chinese should sell ice cream. It isn’t my place to tell other people what to do. It is just that if we did do it maybe my cousin could get a part-time job driving one of the trucks in my neighborhood so I could get a free hot fudge sundae now and then.
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Dear Rami
Dear Rami,
I just found your website (www.rabbirami.com) and read most of what you had posted there. It was very irritating. I know you say you are a rabbi but I am not sure. I think you should stop using the title rabbi. Then we won’t have to take you seriously anymore.
X
* * *
Dear X
You don’t have to take me seriously, but I worked hard to become a rabbi, and I have no intension of dropping the title.
In fact I love being a rabbi, just as I love being a Jew; though I admit to pushing the limits of both. And in the spirit of doing just that, let me share a couple of thoughts your email sparked in me.
A rabbi is a master of Torah, God’s revelation to Moses and through Moses to the world. The heart of that revelation is what I call the Jewish Creed:
Hear O Israel, YAH is our God, YAH is one. Love YAH with all your heart, with every breath, with all you have and are (Deuteronomy 6:4-5); and Love your neighbor (Leviticus 19:18) and the stranger (Leviticus 19:34) as yourself.
[I use the Name YAH (as in Hallelu-YAH, praise YAH) rather than Adonai/Lord to avoid the patriarchal and hierarchical dualism associated with the more classic LORD. The Hebrew is best understood as the verb TO BE. God is the is-ing of reality.]
A Jew is someone devoted to this Creed who continually strives to deepen her capacity to listen and love, and uses the tools Judaism offers as her primary means for doing so. A rabbi is someone whose life is devoted to facilitating this deepening in both others and him/herself.
Of course these are not standard definitions, but they work for me, and I thought I would share them with you. Thanks for the opportunity to comment on this. Feel free to ignore my thoughts if you wish.
I just found your website (www.rabbirami.com) and read most of what you had posted there. It was very irritating. I know you say you are a rabbi but I am not sure. I think you should stop using the title rabbi. Then we won’t have to take you seriously anymore.
X
* * *
Dear X
You don’t have to take me seriously, but I worked hard to become a rabbi, and I have no intension of dropping the title.
In fact I love being a rabbi, just as I love being a Jew; though I admit to pushing the limits of both. And in the spirit of doing just that, let me share a couple of thoughts your email sparked in me.
A rabbi is a master of Torah, God’s revelation to Moses and through Moses to the world. The heart of that revelation is what I call the Jewish Creed:
Hear O Israel, YAH is our God, YAH is one. Love YAH with all your heart, with every breath, with all you have and are (Deuteronomy 6:4-5); and Love your neighbor (Leviticus 19:18) and the stranger (Leviticus 19:34) as yourself.
[I use the Name YAH (as in Hallelu-YAH, praise YAH) rather than Adonai/Lord to avoid the patriarchal and hierarchical dualism associated with the more classic LORD. The Hebrew is best understood as the verb TO BE. God is the is-ing of reality.]
A Jew is someone devoted to this Creed who continually strives to deepen her capacity to listen and love, and uses the tools Judaism offers as her primary means for doing so. A rabbi is someone whose life is devoted to facilitating this deepening in both others and him/herself.
Of course these are not standard definitions, but they work for me, and I thought I would share them with you. Thanks for the opportunity to comment on this. Feel free to ignore my thoughts if you wish.
Monday, June 12, 2006
y-K-v-K
“We report to a Higher Authority” is a very successful marketing slogan for kosher meat producer Hebrew National. It suggests that kosher products are holier and therefore healthier. That may be true for Hebrew National, and I have no evidence to the contrary. But it is not true of all companies who call themselves kosher.
AgriProcessors, a major kosher meat producer selling its products under the Aaron’s Best brand, has been under fire for mistreatment of animals since December of 2004 when an animal rights group shot video of the plant’s slaughtering processes. At the heart of kosher is the principle of “tzar baalei chayyim,” sparing animals from unnecessary suffering. Not so at AgriProcessors. Of course since meat eating itself is unnecessary, and God’s prescribed diet in Genesis is clearly meatless, one could (and I do) argue that true kosher is vegetarianism. But the suffering of the animal is not the only issue; of equal importance is the treatment of workers.
Exploiting laborers renders products, both food stuffs and other goods, treif, unfit for human consumption. A new study of AgriProcessors’ labor policies reveals that on this count too they are decidedly treif. Workers are often undocumented, underpaid, poorly trained, and overworked. (see the Forward, May 26, 2006).
“Aaron’s Best” is really what is best for Aaron, and seems to bear little resemblance to anything remotely holy. Yet religious Jews continue to buy their products. Why? Because law is God and God is law in so much of what passes for Judaism. But this is not Judaism; this is idolatry.
Judaism is not alone in making idols. Every religion offers up a lens (it is really a mirror, but that is for some other time) through which to view God and in time begins to worship that lens as if it were God. That people don’t see this amazes me. Religion is too often bullshit from a sacred cow (if you’ll pardon the mixed metaphor).
I take kosher very seriously. I think that doing your best to only consume items that do as little harm to animals, people, and the environment as possible is what kosher is all about. I am a kosher Jew, and while tuna, salmon, and halibut consider me a Nazi, cows and chickens think I am Gandhi. Mea culpa to the fish; my kosher is a work in progress.
The fact that a company that causes needless suffering to animals and workers can still be kosher simply reinforces my sense that orthodoxies of any sort are corrupt to the core.
What Judaism needs, what all religions need, is a prophetic voice standing in the marketplace of ideas and speaking truth to power. Jesus may have been the last Jew to do this for Judaism, and look what happened to him— they turned him into God! There is no better way to avoid the message then worshipping the messenger. How terribly sad for us all.
AgriProcessors, a major kosher meat producer selling its products under the Aaron’s Best brand, has been under fire for mistreatment of animals since December of 2004 when an animal rights group shot video of the plant’s slaughtering processes. At the heart of kosher is the principle of “tzar baalei chayyim,” sparing animals from unnecessary suffering. Not so at AgriProcessors. Of course since meat eating itself is unnecessary, and God’s prescribed diet in Genesis is clearly meatless, one could (and I do) argue that true kosher is vegetarianism. But the suffering of the animal is not the only issue; of equal importance is the treatment of workers.
Exploiting laborers renders products, both food stuffs and other goods, treif, unfit for human consumption. A new study of AgriProcessors’ labor policies reveals that on this count too they are decidedly treif. Workers are often undocumented, underpaid, poorly trained, and overworked. (see the Forward, May 26, 2006).
“Aaron’s Best” is really what is best for Aaron, and seems to bear little resemblance to anything remotely holy. Yet religious Jews continue to buy their products. Why? Because law is God and God is law in so much of what passes for Judaism. But this is not Judaism; this is idolatry.
Judaism is not alone in making idols. Every religion offers up a lens (it is really a mirror, but that is for some other time) through which to view God and in time begins to worship that lens as if it were God. That people don’t see this amazes me. Religion is too often bullshit from a sacred cow (if you’ll pardon the mixed metaphor).
I take kosher very seriously. I think that doing your best to only consume items that do as little harm to animals, people, and the environment as possible is what kosher is all about. I am a kosher Jew, and while tuna, salmon, and halibut consider me a Nazi, cows and chickens think I am Gandhi. Mea culpa to the fish; my kosher is a work in progress.
The fact that a company that causes needless suffering to animals and workers can still be kosher simply reinforces my sense that orthodoxies of any sort are corrupt to the core.
What Judaism needs, what all religions need, is a prophetic voice standing in the marketplace of ideas and speaking truth to power. Jesus may have been the last Jew to do this for Judaism, and look what happened to him— they turned him into God! There is no better way to avoid the message then worshipping the messenger. How terribly sad for us all.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
160 Nation*
For some technology is the enemy. For me it is a seductress. I love the latest gadgets and gizmos. I am certain that in among the pile of “must have and don’t need” items touted in the pounds of magazines and newspapers I wade through every week, there is at least one item that, if used creatively, can turn the spiral of human consciousness up a notch toward God-realization. Today I think that technology is text messaging.
I can remember not very long ago reading that the computer was going to ruin our children’s capacity to write. Yesterday morning’s USA Today (Tuesday, May 30th) tells us that IM-ing and text messaging have given writing a new cache, and frets that text messaging will ruin our children’s capacity to speak.
I am not much of a fretter. If people are communicating more and more through text messaging over computers, cell phones, BlackBerrys, etc., I want in on it. I want to bring them the Word along with the word. But how?
The Word I care about is the Word high jacked by John 3:16. What John imagines as Jesus, God’s Son, was originally Chochma, God’s Daughter (see Proverbs 22:8). I want to share her teachings, the teachings of the world’s perennial wisdom literature, with people. Wisdom speaks through proverb, parable, and koan— written forms perfect for IM-ing. In Proverbs she sends her apostles (all of whom are female) to call to us from the towers and invite us to the feast of wisdom, the feast that is this life lived with justice, compassion, humility, grace, and humor. Today these towers could be cellular towers, and the feast and the way to it have not changed.
This is my calling (pun intended), but I don’t know how to answer it. I have written about Wisdom in my book “The Divine Feminine,” and I am working on creating a Wisdom Academy to study her teachings during five-day retreats. But I suspect that something more immediate and simple is called for. Something using today’s communication technology and the already ingrained custom of text-message communication. I want to reach the IM generation with the timeless wisdom of Wisdom.
I will wrestle with this and see if something is given to me. If you have any ideas, let me know.
* 160 characters is the maximum text message length.
I can remember not very long ago reading that the computer was going to ruin our children’s capacity to write. Yesterday morning’s USA Today (Tuesday, May 30th) tells us that IM-ing and text messaging have given writing a new cache, and frets that text messaging will ruin our children’s capacity to speak.
I am not much of a fretter. If people are communicating more and more through text messaging over computers, cell phones, BlackBerrys, etc., I want in on it. I want to bring them the Word along with the word. But how?
The Word I care about is the Word high jacked by John 3:16. What John imagines as Jesus, God’s Son, was originally Chochma, God’s Daughter (see Proverbs 22:8). I want to share her teachings, the teachings of the world’s perennial wisdom literature, with people. Wisdom speaks through proverb, parable, and koan— written forms perfect for IM-ing. In Proverbs she sends her apostles (all of whom are female) to call to us from the towers and invite us to the feast of wisdom, the feast that is this life lived with justice, compassion, humility, grace, and humor. Today these towers could be cellular towers, and the feast and the way to it have not changed.
This is my calling (pun intended), but I don’t know how to answer it. I have written about Wisdom in my book “The Divine Feminine,” and I am working on creating a Wisdom Academy to study her teachings during five-day retreats. But I suspect that something more immediate and simple is called for. Something using today’s communication technology and the already ingrained custom of text-message communication. I want to reach the IM generation with the timeless wisdom of Wisdom.
I will wrestle with this and see if something is given to me. If you have any ideas, let me know.
* 160 characters is the maximum text message length.
Monday, May 29, 2006
Borderline Insanity
Both Israel and the United States are debating border issues. In Israel the talk is about building a wall separating Israel from Palestine. In the US the talk is about building a wall separating the America from Mexico.
I don’t have a problem with either wall. While some liberals use President Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachov, tear down this wall” (referring to the Berlin Wall), to turn us against wall building, they have allowed rhetoric to trump reason. The purpose of the Berlin Wall was to keep East Germans in, not to keep West Germans out. The walls in the US and Israel are not meant to keep people from leaving these countries, but to keep people from entering them illegally. The difference is huge.
To be pro-wall, of course, I have to address the three major obstacles that building such walls present. Here they are:
1. OBSTACLE: cost. SOLUTION: sell the wall as advertising space. In Israel one side would advertise in Hebrew and the other in Arabic. In the US both sides would advertise in Spanish. I am certain both walls would pay for themselves within a year or two.
2. OBSTACLE: tunnels. SOLUTION: Whack-o-Mole. It is true that enterprising people will build tunnels as they have in Gaza and Arizona. My solution is to build a giant Whack-o-Mole game that would slam massive hammer blows on any head that pops up on our side of the wall. The hammers would run on high speed magnetic railroad tracks, the kind the Japanese use to move people, and be triggered by sensors that would pick up the sounds of people digging toward the surface. People could access the Whack-o-Mole via the internet and bet on where the strike will take place and how many will be hit. 75% of the monies bet will go for prize money similar to state lotteries. The rest will be used to train English and Spanish speaking Americans to speak Chinese. A similar Whack-o-Mole would be built in Israel. This Whack-O-Mole solution will have the added benefit of encouraging Americans and Israelis to experiment with new high speed train technology, which might be used to alleviate traffic and pollution problems.
3. OBSTACLE: human casualties. SOLUTION: faith and manifest destiny. When the walls are completed, there will be tens of thousands of Israelis on the Palestinian side of the Israeli Wall and millions of illegal aliens on the American side of the American Wall. What do we do with all these people?
The Israelis are contemplating using their military to forcibly remove the West Bank settlers. As we saw in Gaza, this is very dangerous and emotionally painful. The US is considering making the “wrong siders” felons, but that would clog our courts and jails even more then they are now, a very bad prospect. I have a better idea.
Israel should complete their wall and withdraw their army to the Israeli side. Don’t even try to move the settlers. Simply announce that the army will no longer be used to protect Israelis who choose to live on the Palestinian side of the wall. Most settlers will suddenly find reasons to move to Israel, and those who insist God wants them in Palestine will have to rely on God to protect them. They have tried this before, and it doesn’t work, but that is their problem.
Solving the population problem in the US is just as easy. We can’t forcibly repatriate eleven million illegal aliens, and even if we could they and tens of millions more will continue to seek illegal entry into the United States. So rather than build the wall along the northern Mexican border, I suggest we annex Mexico and build it along the southern tip. This will have tremendous benefits.
First, the wall will be much smaller and cheaper to build.
Second, all those Mexicans who want to come to the US will suddenly be in the US without having to leave home.
Third, all those Americans who want to hire Mexicans to do jobs that Americans won’t do, can now simply send buses to pick them up—and the “them” will be Americans. This, of course, may cause a new problem.
As soon as these Mexicans become Americans they too will no longer want to do those jobs, so we may have to build the wall further and further south until the whole hemisphere is American and no one will do those jobs and we will be forced to live without all the goods that illegals make which will reduce us to a third world country encouraging most of us to move illegally to Switzerland in order to find work doing jobs that Swiss won’t do for themselves. I am not sure what these jobs may be, but I for one am practicing shouting Ricola into a huge horn just in case.
As Frost said, good fences make good neighbors. Of course he was being sarcastic, but no one ever reads the whole poem, so don’t let that fact bother you.
I don’t have a problem with either wall. While some liberals use President Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachov, tear down this wall” (referring to the Berlin Wall), to turn us against wall building, they have allowed rhetoric to trump reason. The purpose of the Berlin Wall was to keep East Germans in, not to keep West Germans out. The walls in the US and Israel are not meant to keep people from leaving these countries, but to keep people from entering them illegally. The difference is huge.
To be pro-wall, of course, I have to address the three major obstacles that building such walls present. Here they are:
1. OBSTACLE: cost. SOLUTION: sell the wall as advertising space. In Israel one side would advertise in Hebrew and the other in Arabic. In the US both sides would advertise in Spanish. I am certain both walls would pay for themselves within a year or two.
2. OBSTACLE: tunnels. SOLUTION: Whack-o-Mole. It is true that enterprising people will build tunnels as they have in Gaza and Arizona. My solution is to build a giant Whack-o-Mole game that would slam massive hammer blows on any head that pops up on our side of the wall. The hammers would run on high speed magnetic railroad tracks, the kind the Japanese use to move people, and be triggered by sensors that would pick up the sounds of people digging toward the surface. People could access the Whack-o-Mole via the internet and bet on where the strike will take place and how many will be hit. 75% of the monies bet will go for prize money similar to state lotteries. The rest will be used to train English and Spanish speaking Americans to speak Chinese. A similar Whack-o-Mole would be built in Israel. This Whack-O-Mole solution will have the added benefit of encouraging Americans and Israelis to experiment with new high speed train technology, which might be used to alleviate traffic and pollution problems.
3. OBSTACLE: human casualties. SOLUTION: faith and manifest destiny. When the walls are completed, there will be tens of thousands of Israelis on the Palestinian side of the Israeli Wall and millions of illegal aliens on the American side of the American Wall. What do we do with all these people?
The Israelis are contemplating using their military to forcibly remove the West Bank settlers. As we saw in Gaza, this is very dangerous and emotionally painful. The US is considering making the “wrong siders” felons, but that would clog our courts and jails even more then they are now, a very bad prospect. I have a better idea.
Israel should complete their wall and withdraw their army to the Israeli side. Don’t even try to move the settlers. Simply announce that the army will no longer be used to protect Israelis who choose to live on the Palestinian side of the wall. Most settlers will suddenly find reasons to move to Israel, and those who insist God wants them in Palestine will have to rely on God to protect them. They have tried this before, and it doesn’t work, but that is their problem.
Solving the population problem in the US is just as easy. We can’t forcibly repatriate eleven million illegal aliens, and even if we could they and tens of millions more will continue to seek illegal entry into the United States. So rather than build the wall along the northern Mexican border, I suggest we annex Mexico and build it along the southern tip. This will have tremendous benefits.
First, the wall will be much smaller and cheaper to build.
Second, all those Mexicans who want to come to the US will suddenly be in the US without having to leave home.
Third, all those Americans who want to hire Mexicans to do jobs that Americans won’t do, can now simply send buses to pick them up—and the “them” will be Americans. This, of course, may cause a new problem.
As soon as these Mexicans become Americans they too will no longer want to do those jobs, so we may have to build the wall further and further south until the whole hemisphere is American and no one will do those jobs and we will be forced to live without all the goods that illegals make which will reduce us to a third world country encouraging most of us to move illegally to Switzerland in order to find work doing jobs that Swiss won’t do for themselves. I am not sure what these jobs may be, but I for one am practicing shouting Ricola into a huge horn just in case.
As Frost said, good fences make good neighbors. Of course he was being sarcastic, but no one ever reads the whole poem, so don’t let that fact bother you.
Sunday, May 28, 2006
ID and Evolution: Variations of Dumb
I was on retreat in Alabama with fifty faith-filled Christians this past week. I had a wonderful time, as I always do when hanging around people of faith. One afternoon I found myself in a discussion on Intelligent Design as an alternative to evolution. I was expected to defend evolution, but I couldn’t. Both ID and evolution are variations on the same theme, I said. They both argue that the world is dumb, and I just don’t agree.
Evolutionary theory tells us there is no plan or Planner to the universe. The universe just does what it does and then repeats what it does if what it does survives to do it again. Mutation happens randomly, and when a given mutation makes survival easier, the mutant reproduces. Which is how we got X-Men III.
Intelligent Design argues that life is too complex to be random. There has to be a Designer behind it all pushing tab A into slot B to create something new. Who this Designer is, of course, the ID folks refuse to say. If they did they would have to admit to being closet Creationists and forced to live in Kansas.
I never argue with Creationists, by the way. I always agree with them that God created the universe. My only fossil of contention is Who this Creator God is. They say Jehovah, I say Krishna. They pull out the Bible; I pull out the Bhagavad Gita. They try to sell me salvation; I try to sell them incense. It makes for interesting conversation. That is before the yelling starts.
Anyway, I am not a Creationist and only trot Krishna out to make a point. The point being that the classic notion of a Creator, whether Jewish or bluish, makes the creation dumb.
Evolutionists say life is stupid, the result of chance and time. Creationists and ID folks agree that life is stupid: without God blowing life into adam, humanity is just a lump of clay. I find the notion of a dumb universe to be, well, dumb.
I think the universe itself is intelligent and striving to be more so. Why? There is no why. Reality, as the Chinese language tells us, is what is of itself so. Asking why misses the whole point. It is like asking a baby why it babbles and coos. It does it because it's fun. The universe is forever dancing on-off-on-off-on-off just for the fun of the dance. This is the binary code of reality. Ones and zeros playing out in seemingly infinite variation. And it does so for the sheer joy of it. If there is a Creator he isn't sitting on a throne, she is dancing on air.
Life is not stupid. Life is and has always been intrinsically intelligent, and driven to become more so (see Amit Goswami’s “Self-Aware Universe” for the math). At the moment we humans may be the most awake of all species on our planet. I doubt that the dance ends with us, however. I think that our purpose is to reach a point of consciousness where we can melt the polar ice caps with greenhouse gasses. In this way we will be reduced to a small island-dwelling sideshow while dolphins inherit the earth, which is what Jesus told us two thousand years ago. After all, who is more meek that a dolphin?
Evolutionary theory tells us there is no plan or Planner to the universe. The universe just does what it does and then repeats what it does if what it does survives to do it again. Mutation happens randomly, and when a given mutation makes survival easier, the mutant reproduces. Which is how we got X-Men III.
Intelligent Design argues that life is too complex to be random. There has to be a Designer behind it all pushing tab A into slot B to create something new. Who this Designer is, of course, the ID folks refuse to say. If they did they would have to admit to being closet Creationists and forced to live in Kansas.
I never argue with Creationists, by the way. I always agree with them that God created the universe. My only fossil of contention is Who this Creator God is. They say Jehovah, I say Krishna. They pull out the Bible; I pull out the Bhagavad Gita. They try to sell me salvation; I try to sell them incense. It makes for interesting conversation. That is before the yelling starts.
Anyway, I am not a Creationist and only trot Krishna out to make a point. The point being that the classic notion of a Creator, whether Jewish or bluish, makes the creation dumb.
Evolutionists say life is stupid, the result of chance and time. Creationists and ID folks agree that life is stupid: without God blowing life into adam, humanity is just a lump of clay. I find the notion of a dumb universe to be, well, dumb.
I think the universe itself is intelligent and striving to be more so. Why? There is no why. Reality, as the Chinese language tells us, is what is of itself so. Asking why misses the whole point. It is like asking a baby why it babbles and coos. It does it because it's fun. The universe is forever dancing on-off-on-off-on-off just for the fun of the dance. This is the binary code of reality. Ones and zeros playing out in seemingly infinite variation. And it does so for the sheer joy of it. If there is a Creator he isn't sitting on a throne, she is dancing on air.
Life is not stupid. Life is and has always been intrinsically intelligent, and driven to become more so (see Amit Goswami’s “Self-Aware Universe” for the math). At the moment we humans may be the most awake of all species on our planet. I doubt that the dance ends with us, however. I think that our purpose is to reach a point of consciousness where we can melt the polar ice caps with greenhouse gasses. In this way we will be reduced to a small island-dwelling sideshow while dolphins inherit the earth, which is what Jesus told us two thousand years ago. After all, who is more meek that a dolphin?
Sunday, May 21, 2006
I Believe
During one of my weekend seminars, I facilitated an exercise where people are challenged to articulate their answers to ultimate questions as clearly and as succinctly as possible. To model what I was looking for, I invited people to ask me 10 questions. I had fifteen seconds to respond to each one. I am sharing them with you here as a way of suggesting you try the exercise yourself. Don’t get hung up on my answers, seek instead in formulate your own.
1. What is God? God is the source and substance of all reality. Whatever is, is God.
2. Do you believe in evolution or intelligent design? Evolution is intelligent design. I don't believe there is a designer behind the design, I believe the design is itself intelligent, conscious. It is God exploring ways to know itself.
3. Does God care about you? Does God have a plan for your life? That's two questions, but yes to both. God cares about me the way a tree cares about its branches. God’s plan or all life is to manifest beings complex enough to realize that all is God. God’s plan for my life is to move toward that realization.
4. Which religion is true? All and none. A religion is true to the extent that it leads us toward the realization of God as all, and teaches us to live justly, compassionately, and humbly. A religion is false to the extent it does anything else.
5. Is Israel the holy land? No. God is not a realtor. The universe is the holy land. Israel is for some the motherland, for others just another tripwire for the apocalypse.
6. What happens when you die? You stop pretending to be other than you are: God extended in time and place. Death is the great awakening. But it is more fun to wake before you die.
7. Are you a Jew? Yes, but not exclusively. First I am human, adam from adamah, an earthling arising the earth the way a bud arises from a branch. Then I am a male, and an American. These are all givens from birth. I am also a Christian, Muslim, Sufi, Hindu, Jain, Buddhist, Atheist, Humanist, Taoist— the more I know myself the more I know myself to be hyphenated.
8. What scares you most in the world? Ignorance and the fear, greed, anger, and violence that ignorance breeds.
9. What is the purpose of life? Life has no purpose; life is purpose. To suggest that life has a purpose is to make life a means rather than an end. Life is the end; the purpose of life is to live; to live with the awareness that all life is God.
10. What is the one question you cannot answer? That’s it.
1. What is God? God is the source and substance of all reality. Whatever is, is God.
2. Do you believe in evolution or intelligent design? Evolution is intelligent design. I don't believe there is a designer behind the design, I believe the design is itself intelligent, conscious. It is God exploring ways to know itself.
3. Does God care about you? Does God have a plan for your life? That's two questions, but yes to both. God cares about me the way a tree cares about its branches. God’s plan or all life is to manifest beings complex enough to realize that all is God. God’s plan for my life is to move toward that realization.
4. Which religion is true? All and none. A religion is true to the extent that it leads us toward the realization of God as all, and teaches us to live justly, compassionately, and humbly. A religion is false to the extent it does anything else.
5. Is Israel the holy land? No. God is not a realtor. The universe is the holy land. Israel is for some the motherland, for others just another tripwire for the apocalypse.
6. What happens when you die? You stop pretending to be other than you are: God extended in time and place. Death is the great awakening. But it is more fun to wake before you die.
7. Are you a Jew? Yes, but not exclusively. First I am human, adam from adamah, an earthling arising the earth the way a bud arises from a branch. Then I am a male, and an American. These are all givens from birth. I am also a Christian, Muslim, Sufi, Hindu, Jain, Buddhist, Atheist, Humanist, Taoist— the more I know myself the more I know myself to be hyphenated.
8. What scares you most in the world? Ignorance and the fear, greed, anger, and violence that ignorance breeds.
9. What is the purpose of life? Life has no purpose; life is purpose. To suggest that life has a purpose is to make life a means rather than an end. Life is the end; the purpose of life is to live; to live with the awareness that all life is God.
10. What is the one question you cannot answer? That’s it.
Monday, May 15, 2006
Tubes
I am flying from Nashville to Los Angeles. Something I ate in Nashville is disagreeing with me over Dallas. The roar of the jets is masking the sound of this disagreement, and I have the overhead fan blasting full to diffuse its perfume, but one can only mask so much. My seatmate is asleep, and I image his dreams are a bit more dark than they might be had he been lucky enough to sit next to someone else.
The Sufi poet Rumi wrote that we humans are hollow reeds through which God plays His music. I always found that image compelling. Today I know it to be true. But why this particular sonata, Lord?
Think about it. Are we more than tubes through which air passes? Yesterday I sat next to someone whose lunch proved painfully sour to all around him when he belched in the meeting room we were using. So it doesn’t matter which end of the tube through which the air emerges, there is a good chance it will be foul.
Some of the air we move, of course, is shaped in ways we find more pleasant: words, musical notes, sighs of sorrow and relief, moans of pleasures, squeals of joy. Others are capable of cutting us like a knife: There is a baby in the back of the plane whose screams are of such a pitch that the ears of her neighbors will soon rupture and bleed. I thank God for my Bose noise canceling headphones.
I find it somewhat amusing that all of us tubes are hurling through air in a larger tube, itself propelled by sucking in and shooting out air. I am on my way to push some air at a few dozen tubes who have paid for the privileged of having me do so. I will be sure to leave them time to blow air in my direction as well, and I will do my best to honor their wind with a bit more of my own.
This may depress you. We long to be so much more than mere tubes, yet even Genesis has us as inert clay tubes until God blows air into us. The first air that emerges from Adam is used to name the animals, who are themselves tubes unable to name themselves. Maybe that is the point. We are the Tubes That Name, the tubes that make meaning by naming our fellow tubes. Not a bad designation, as designations go.
I know this may sound absurd; we long to be so much more. But at the moment I just cannot imagine what that more might be. So for now I will simply enjoy the moment when air emerges and the tube relaxes, and hope that most of what comes out of me does more for those I meet then it has for my seatmate whose nose, I pray, is twitching for some other reason.
The Sufi poet Rumi wrote that we humans are hollow reeds through which God plays His music. I always found that image compelling. Today I know it to be true. But why this particular sonata, Lord?
Think about it. Are we more than tubes through which air passes? Yesterday I sat next to someone whose lunch proved painfully sour to all around him when he belched in the meeting room we were using. So it doesn’t matter which end of the tube through which the air emerges, there is a good chance it will be foul.
Some of the air we move, of course, is shaped in ways we find more pleasant: words, musical notes, sighs of sorrow and relief, moans of pleasures, squeals of joy. Others are capable of cutting us like a knife: There is a baby in the back of the plane whose screams are of such a pitch that the ears of her neighbors will soon rupture and bleed. I thank God for my Bose noise canceling headphones.
I find it somewhat amusing that all of us tubes are hurling through air in a larger tube, itself propelled by sucking in and shooting out air. I am on my way to push some air at a few dozen tubes who have paid for the privileged of having me do so. I will be sure to leave them time to blow air in my direction as well, and I will do my best to honor their wind with a bit more of my own.
This may depress you. We long to be so much more than mere tubes, yet even Genesis has us as inert clay tubes until God blows air into us. The first air that emerges from Adam is used to name the animals, who are themselves tubes unable to name themselves. Maybe that is the point. We are the Tubes That Name, the tubes that make meaning by naming our fellow tubes. Not a bad designation, as designations go.
I know this may sound absurd; we long to be so much more. But at the moment I just cannot imagine what that more might be. So for now I will simply enjoy the moment when air emerges and the tube relaxes, and hope that most of what comes out of me does more for those I meet then it has for my seatmate whose nose, I pray, is twitching for some other reason.
Monday, May 08, 2006
National Prayer Day
Last Thursday was National Day of Prayer day. I missed it. Not on purpose, mind you, but simply out of ignorance. Unless there is a specific Hallmark card or retail sale associated with a special day I tend not to notice it.
The theme of this year’s National Day of Prayer (which was established in 1952 by a joint resolution of the United States Congress and signed into law by President Harry S. Truman) is “America, Honor God.” Not a bad theme as themes go. As a retired congregational rabbi with 20 year’s of Bar and Bat Mitzvah experience, I consider myself somewhat of a theme expert, and, honestly, honoring God would be a unique idea when it comes to such events.
My problem is not with the theme itself, but with how one is to understand it. After giving this some thought, I came up with two options.
First, we might take our cue from Deuteronomy 7. Speaking of all the peoples that the Israelites will encounter as they seek to occupy the Promised Land, the Bible says that they are to “utterly destroy them… make no covenant with them, and show them no mercy” (1-2). Since for many America is the new Zion, and Christians have replaced Jews as God’s favorite, and since the Second Americans have succeeded in honoring Deuteronomy’s God by basically wiping out the First Americans, maybe we can continue to honor God by using National Prayer Day as a call to show our latest enemies no mercy.
The second option we might choose is to honor God by doing what the prophet Micah says God requires of us: do justly, love mercy, walk humbly (6:8). Then we could use the Day of Prayer to focus on ending injustice, cruelty, and imperialism. A very different day than that of Deuteronomy, which is the problem we face when it comes to honoring the Judeo-Christian God. The Guy suffers from multiple personality disorder. Maybe that is why Congress suggested we pray to “the God of our understanding.” This way we can all pray to our own god, i.e., the god that turns out to want for us just what it is we want for ourselves.
Since I missed National Prayer Day all together, let me off an idea for next year: Next year let’s hold city-wide prayer workshops inviting liturgists, poets, artists, and musicians from every major faith tradition to share with the community how they pray, and to engage the community in prayer in these many modalities. People would spend the day praying in multiple languages using multiple images of and metaphors for God. It would be one huge cacophony of God-song so powerful and prayerful that for a few moments we might forget the egoic and imperialist gods that drive us to war, and find ourselves falling together into the arms of the One God who calls us to love God by loving one another.
Now that would be a really NATIONAL day of prayer. Of course if there isn’t a card to buy or a sale to shop at I will still miss the event, but, hey, that’s just me.
The theme of this year’s National Day of Prayer (which was established in 1952 by a joint resolution of the United States Congress and signed into law by President Harry S. Truman) is “America, Honor God.” Not a bad theme as themes go. As a retired congregational rabbi with 20 year’s of Bar and Bat Mitzvah experience, I consider myself somewhat of a theme expert, and, honestly, honoring God would be a unique idea when it comes to such events.
My problem is not with the theme itself, but with how one is to understand it. After giving this some thought, I came up with two options.
First, we might take our cue from Deuteronomy 7. Speaking of all the peoples that the Israelites will encounter as they seek to occupy the Promised Land, the Bible says that they are to “utterly destroy them… make no covenant with them, and show them no mercy” (1-2). Since for many America is the new Zion, and Christians have replaced Jews as God’s favorite, and since the Second Americans have succeeded in honoring Deuteronomy’s God by basically wiping out the First Americans, maybe we can continue to honor God by using National Prayer Day as a call to show our latest enemies no mercy.
The second option we might choose is to honor God by doing what the prophet Micah says God requires of us: do justly, love mercy, walk humbly (6:8). Then we could use the Day of Prayer to focus on ending injustice, cruelty, and imperialism. A very different day than that of Deuteronomy, which is the problem we face when it comes to honoring the Judeo-Christian God. The Guy suffers from multiple personality disorder. Maybe that is why Congress suggested we pray to “the God of our understanding.” This way we can all pray to our own god, i.e., the god that turns out to want for us just what it is we want for ourselves.
Since I missed National Prayer Day all together, let me off an idea for next year: Next year let’s hold city-wide prayer workshops inviting liturgists, poets, artists, and musicians from every major faith tradition to share with the community how they pray, and to engage the community in prayer in these many modalities. People would spend the day praying in multiple languages using multiple images of and metaphors for God. It would be one huge cacophony of God-song so powerful and prayerful that for a few moments we might forget the egoic and imperialist gods that drive us to war, and find ourselves falling together into the arms of the One God who calls us to love God by loving one another.
Now that would be a really NATIONAL day of prayer. Of course if there isn’t a card to buy or a sale to shop at I will still miss the event, but, hey, that’s just me.
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
If Money Didn't Matter
I was listening to financial guru Dave Ramsey on the radio, and heard him ask one of the most subversive questions one can ask in a capitalist, debt-driven society: “What would you do if money were not an issue?”
This is different than asking, “What would you do if you were rich?” Dealing with being rich continues your focus on finances. Ramsey’s question shifts that focus from wealth to happiness. Happiness is not a capitalist value. Happy people are harder to manipulate, harder to sell to. Ramsey was asking his listeners to think about what they want rather than what they are worth.
Try it. Imagine you did not have to think about money at all. Imagine that your basic needs for food, clothing, shelter, transportation, insurance, retirement, etc. were taken care of. What would you do with your life?
I have thought about this for several days, and I discovered I would be doing pretty much what I am doing now. I teach and I write. Sure, if I had no monetary worries I would live in a nicer home, drive a hybrid car, and never worry about the financial woes of illness or retirement, but I would not change what I do. I would simply do what I already do without beating myself up over that fact that I am not making enough money doing it.
Alan Watts, talking about the same issue some three decades earlier, urged his audience to live as if money was not an issue. His reasoning was this: you will never have enough money to do what you want, so you will always be enslaved to doing what you don’t want, in the vain hope that someday you will be able to do what you do want. This slavery makes you miserable. Since you are going to be miserable, anyway (either because you don’t have enough money or because you are forced to work at a job you hate), why not do what you want and just give up the illusion of financial success? Be miserable over your finances rather than over the fact that you are never going to do what you want. At least you can feel good about what you do even as you feel miserable about how poor you are doing it.
I will never make any real money teaching and writing. Adjunct professors like myself are a dime a dozen, and we are paid that way. My book sales, while solid, still don’t put food on the table. And as far as retirement goes, I can neither afford it nor do I desire it. After all, since I am already doing what I want, why would I want to retire?
I am happy doing what I want even if society isn’t willing to pay me what I am worth. There was a time when I made what I was worth but I didn’t like what I had to do to earn it. So, for now at least, I am willing to give up what I am worth in favor of doing what I want.
How about you? What would you do if money were not an issue?
This is different than asking, “What would you do if you were rich?” Dealing with being rich continues your focus on finances. Ramsey’s question shifts that focus from wealth to happiness. Happiness is not a capitalist value. Happy people are harder to manipulate, harder to sell to. Ramsey was asking his listeners to think about what they want rather than what they are worth.
Try it. Imagine you did not have to think about money at all. Imagine that your basic needs for food, clothing, shelter, transportation, insurance, retirement, etc. were taken care of. What would you do with your life?
I have thought about this for several days, and I discovered I would be doing pretty much what I am doing now. I teach and I write. Sure, if I had no monetary worries I would live in a nicer home, drive a hybrid car, and never worry about the financial woes of illness or retirement, but I would not change what I do. I would simply do what I already do without beating myself up over that fact that I am not making enough money doing it.
Alan Watts, talking about the same issue some three decades earlier, urged his audience to live as if money was not an issue. His reasoning was this: you will never have enough money to do what you want, so you will always be enslaved to doing what you don’t want, in the vain hope that someday you will be able to do what you do want. This slavery makes you miserable. Since you are going to be miserable, anyway (either because you don’t have enough money or because you are forced to work at a job you hate), why not do what you want and just give up the illusion of financial success? Be miserable over your finances rather than over the fact that you are never going to do what you want. At least you can feel good about what you do even as you feel miserable about how poor you are doing it.
I will never make any real money teaching and writing. Adjunct professors like myself are a dime a dozen, and we are paid that way. My book sales, while solid, still don’t put food on the table. And as far as retirement goes, I can neither afford it nor do I desire it. After all, since I am already doing what I want, why would I want to retire?
I am happy doing what I want even if society isn’t willing to pay me what I am worth. There was a time when I made what I was worth but I didn’t like what I had to do to earn it. So, for now at least, I am willing to give up what I am worth in favor of doing what I want.
How about you? What would you do if money were not an issue?
Monday, May 01, 2006
Religious Progressives
What is a religious progressive? That was the topic at a conference I attended this weekend in Nashville, TN. Most of the participants drew their insights from Jim Wallis (“God’s Politics”) and Michael Lerner (“Left Hand of God”), two wonderful thinkers who find in their respective faiths (Christianity and Judaism) a politics of compassion that surpasses the fear-based religions of the Religious Right.
I could and did nod in agreement. There is little if anything that either Jim or Michael says that I cannot support. But I have a contrarian streak; I need to stand out; to say something different. This is a psychological disorder, I am sure, but it is mine nonetheless. So when asked to define “religious progressive” I suggested that a religious progressive is someone who has progressed beyond religion.
At the heart of religion, or at least at the heart of the three Abrahamic religions, is the illusion of scarcity. God chooses Jews not Christians or Moslems; saves Christians not Jews or Moslems; and gives the one uncorrupted revelation to Moslems not Christians or Jews. Because God’s love is scarce, the religions that compete for that love share a zero-sum theology: for one to win, the others must lose.
Of course there are liberals in all three faiths who have outgrown this, but that isn’t enough. We have to name it and openly reject it. We have to own the fact that scarcity infects all three Abrahamic faiths in a way that makes them intrinsically fear-based and violent, and then we have to reinvent our respective faiths from a position of God’s infinite and timeless love (ahavah rabbah/ahavat olam, to use Jewish terms).
A true religious progressive is one whose faith is not in religion, but in God; not in the known but in the Unknowable; not in this or that belief but in the realization that belief is simply the projection of ones own ego.
The religion of a religious progressive is the religion of radical humility, hospitality, and holiness: admitting to not knowing the nature and mind of God; welcoming all to God’s feast regardless of gender, race, religion, ethnicity, etc.; and using justice and compassion toward all beings as the standard by which to measure the value of any creed or system of belief. Religious progressives can be Jewish, Christian, Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist, New Age, etc. What matters is not the label but the ability to hold it lightly, and to transcend it in the greater reality of the One Who is all.
Let us religious progressives stand for that, and we will stand for something invaluable.
I could and did nod in agreement. There is little if anything that either Jim or Michael says that I cannot support. But I have a contrarian streak; I need to stand out; to say something different. This is a psychological disorder, I am sure, but it is mine nonetheless. So when asked to define “religious progressive” I suggested that a religious progressive is someone who has progressed beyond religion.
At the heart of religion, or at least at the heart of the three Abrahamic religions, is the illusion of scarcity. God chooses Jews not Christians or Moslems; saves Christians not Jews or Moslems; and gives the one uncorrupted revelation to Moslems not Christians or Jews. Because God’s love is scarce, the religions that compete for that love share a zero-sum theology: for one to win, the others must lose.
Of course there are liberals in all three faiths who have outgrown this, but that isn’t enough. We have to name it and openly reject it. We have to own the fact that scarcity infects all three Abrahamic faiths in a way that makes them intrinsically fear-based and violent, and then we have to reinvent our respective faiths from a position of God’s infinite and timeless love (ahavah rabbah/ahavat olam, to use Jewish terms).
A true religious progressive is one whose faith is not in religion, but in God; not in the known but in the Unknowable; not in this or that belief but in the realization that belief is simply the projection of ones own ego.
The religion of a religious progressive is the religion of radical humility, hospitality, and holiness: admitting to not knowing the nature and mind of God; welcoming all to God’s feast regardless of gender, race, religion, ethnicity, etc.; and using justice and compassion toward all beings as the standard by which to measure the value of any creed or system of belief. Religious progressives can be Jewish, Christian, Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist, New Age, etc. What matters is not the label but the ability to hold it lightly, and to transcend it in the greater reality of the One Who is all.
Let us religious progressives stand for that, and we will stand for something invaluable.
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