Bill Clinton Gets Called On Conversation

A couple of days ago Terry Mattingly, who covers religion for the Scripps News Service, had a post about Bill Clinton's speech at the New Baptist Convention meeting in Atlanta. During his speech, Clinton related a story about a meeting he had in 1993 in the White House with Rev. Ed Young, the Southern Baptist Convention's new President. At the time Young was, and still is, pastor of a church in Houston. Here is Mattingly on what Clinton had to say about their conversation, in a speech before thousands:

Continuing a lengthy story that he turned into a parable, Clinton claimed that Young "looked at me and he said, 'I want to ask you a question, a simple question, and I just want a yes or no answer. I don't want one of those slick political answers. ... Do you believe the Bible is literally true? Yes or no.'

"I said, 'Reverend Young, I think that it is completely true, but I do not believe that you, or I, or any other living person, is wise enough to understand it completely.' He said, 'That's a political answer.' I said, 'No, it's not. You asked a political question.' "

There is only one problem with this. Young says it isn't true. Mattingly has followed up with Young's response, given through the Baptist Press:

After receiving a copy of the address you delivered at the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant in Atlanta, I have asked for divine wisdom as to how I should respond. Initially, I was stunned. Your comments concerning our visit together were not just taken out of context; the conversation you described never took place. Certainly we did not agree on many issues. You were gracious, patient, and transparent. I was impressed with you as a person and with your willingness to allow others to share with you. I certainly was not confrontational, and on several occasions we simply politely agreed to disagree. . . .

The most important thing I wish to correct is that I have never asked you nor anyone else the question, "Do you believe the Bible is literally true?" I do not believe the Bible is literally, in the normal definition of the word, true. Jesus said, "I am the door." No one takes that "literally." As you know, Sir, in the Bible there are metaphors, parables, hyperbole, poetry, apocalyptic language, etc., and the Bible cannot be understood by anyone who would be foolish enough to think that you can take the Word of God literally. Also, at no time during our visit did I use the pejorative phrase, "slick political answer."

I think this is an interesting story for a couple of reasons. First, I think Clinton got caught in a public lie, not for the first time. I like Clinton; I think he was a good President. I also think that all Presidents lie; there is something about the nature of the job that invites dishonesty. But this was an unnecessary lie. There were no national secrets at stake. And that leads me to my second point. I think Clinton also violated confidentiality by making public the contents of a private conversation, albeit an apparently made up one. I suspect Young was surprised to read press reports of Clinton sharing details of a private conversation. He shouldn't have done it.

Finally, the primary reason I relate this back and forth conversation is that it reminds me to be careful about language when talking about conservative Christians. Don't they believe the Bible is "literally true?" Not really; they understand as well as I do that the Bible is full of metaphor and poetry, as Young suggests in his response. The real fault line is around issues of inerrancy. To what extent is the scripture without error? Fundamentalists and conservatives don't always have the same answer on this issue, but most settle on some version of the idea that in their original autographs the scripture is without error. This allows for the possibility of human error to have crept into the text through transcription and editorial license, and calls, therefore, for textual criticism and biblical scholarship to sift through the manuscripts. But still, they would say, even with whatever human error has made its way in the original intent can be determined. But there was once an authentic, original autograph that captured without error the mind of God.

I disagree with this, of course, and don't think there was ever a moment when humans encountered the divine in a way that is different than we do, through the glass darkly. This means there is always error. This means, for me, that I view the scriptures as human creations; humans seeking to convey what they believed was divine wisdom. I read the scriptures reverently because they are the repository of thousands of years of spiritual reflections, and they have shaped the course of human life and human history. But however true the wisdom contained in them might have been for their time, it may not always be true for ours.

It is important, though, to accurately convey the nature of the differences between conservatives and liberals.

A Birthday Quote

Who said this:

You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.

Believe it or not it was a Republican. Today is Abe Lincoln's birthday. Would that today's spend now, our children can pay later Republicans would do a better job living up to the legacy of the greatest President their party has ever given us.

Shelley Madore

Shelley Madore is my state representative. Two years ago she broke through the south metro Republican strangle-hold on House and Senate seats. Today in the Star Tribune columnist Nick Coleman tells the story of how she came to be involved in politics:

Madore, 45, is a DFLer from Apple Valley who ran for the state House of Representatives in 2006 after encountering the indifference of legislative leaders to people in her situation. At the time, Madore and her husband, Paul, were earning about $50,000 a year and struggling to make the payments on their modest home and the $908 monthly premium on their health insurance.

The family's financial well-being was devastated when Madore's daughter, Erica, who was having trouble walking, received a long-overdue $25 X-ray. Until then, Madore said, her doctor suggested that Erica, 9 at the time, was having psychological problems, and he refused to order X-rays. After the Madores went to another doctor, out of their insurance network, an X-ray was done. It showed a tumor pressing on Erica's spinal cord. The operation that followed cost $60,000. Madore learned the price tag when the hospital asked her to pay it.

"But I have insurance," Madore said. "The company says it won't pay for the operation," the hospital replied. "You will have to pay it yourself."

Millions of Americans are one serious illness away from bankruptcy. The Madore family (son Jason is autistic), knows what living on the edge is like.

The only way they could pay for Erica's operation (she is 17 now), was to apply for assistance under a program limited to families with less than $3,000 in cash assets. Madore, working as an advocate for special-needs families, became disgusted with the system and went to the state Capitol to talk with legislators about fixing it.

She was told by a Republican legislator that her need to buy supplementary insurance to cover her family's huge medical bills was a "discretionary expense" like his decision to pay extra for "ice time" for his son's hockey practice. She was outraged. And then she turned her anger into community service and political action. Now she is part of a group of mostly freshman legislators who are proposing a version of a comprehensive healthcare plane for MN.

Their Minnesota Health Plan faces some tough sledding in the legislature. Our Republican governor continues to oppose any move towards universal healthcare. And some of the old-guard leadership in the DFL are still a bit too cozy with those who gave us the "miracle" of managed care.

But the times they are a' changing. And Madore's victory in the south metro is a sign of that. It wasn't that long ago that Republicans rode to victory in the governor's mansion and in the state legislature on the strength of the suburban bubble of prosperity that ringed the metro area. Those suburban Republicans were much more concerned about getting enough "ice time" for their kids than they were about families without healthcare. They were also outraged that they had to pay more in annual vehicle taxes for their BMW's than those driving beat-up Chevys. They had the same feelings about having to support a public school system with their property taxes. And God forbid any of their money be used to support public transportation.

But the bubble has burst. The healthcare system is broke, our infrastructure is crumbling, our schools are in trouble. In the suburbs. Under Republican watch. Madore is part of the wave of DFL Senators and Representatives who kicked out the no-taxes crowd in the suburbs and put the Legislature back in control of the party that actually cares about the welfare of struggling families in the state. They have their work cut out for them, but Shelley's personal experience suggests that she is the kind of legislator who knows what it takes to bring change against long odds.

Huckabee Staying In

Mike Huckabee has just the slimmest chance of pulling off an upset of John McCain. McCain leads Huckabee in delegates 707 to 198; he needs only 1191 to seal the deal. But Huckabee is staying in the race. I saw him on TV yesterday speaking from Virginia where he addressed the issue of why he was still in it. He said, in essence, that because he was in Virginia campaigning and speaking, John McCain was also in Virginia campaigning and speaking. If he dropped out, he said, McCain would not be there because he wouldn't need to be there. He is giving the voters in these states a chance to have their voices be heard and their votes count.

I don't know what is really going on in Huckabee's mind; there is speculation he wants to be VP. Could be. But I am glad he is staying in for the reasons he gave. For the same reason I am glad Hillary and Barack are still slugging it out. This is the most substantial and consequential presidential campaign we have had in a couple of decades. In both parties there may be a contested election right down to the conventions and that means that the elections in every state matter. We have real choices and a real debate on issues and vision for the country. It is good for the country to be having this kind of election.

There's Something About Mary (2)

The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene, by Jane Schaberg

Continuing the summary of chapter 3. How, I asked in a previous post, did Mary Magdalene (MM) get turned from one of the central witnesses to the death and resurrection of Jesus into the popular image of a whore? Schaberg suggests that the transformation is already happening in the biblical texts, particularly the Gospel of Luke. Luke adds an important detail to the story about MM not found in Mark (apart from the later addition to Mark found in 16:9*) or Matthew. In original Mark and then Matthew and John MM is only named in the death-resurrection narrative. But in Luke 8:1-3 the author tells us that MM was part of a group of women who had been cleansed of evil spirits. What, pray tell, might those evil spirits have been? This is the first important piece of information that contributes to a process of conflation.

The second is that nowhere in the gospels does it say that MM anointed Jesus; we are only told that she unsuccessfully attempted to anoint the body of Jesus at the tomb. But we are told that Jesus was anointed by a woman. In Mark and Matthew she is unnamed; John identifies the woman as Mary of Bethany, sister of Martha and Lazarus. Both Mark (14:3-9), Matthew (26:6-13) and John (12:1-8) tell us that a woman anointed the feet of Jesus and this anointing was interpreted by Jesus as a prophetic act anticipating his death. Once again, though, Luke 7:36-50 gives this story a different interpretation:

³⁶One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table. ³⁷And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. ³⁸She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. ³⁹Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him—that she is a sinner.” ⁴⁰Jesus spoke up and said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” “Teacher,” he replied, “Speak.” ⁴¹“A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. ⁴²When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?” ⁴³Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the greater debt.” And Jesus said to him, “You have judged rightly.” ⁴⁴Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. ⁴⁵You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. ⁴⁶You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. ⁴⁷Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” ⁴⁸Then he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” ⁴⁹But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” ⁵⁰And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” (Oremus Bible Browser)

Schaberg says of Luke's move:

Luke has radically rewritten Mark's account and turn the anointing prophet into a woman most readers have seen as a prostitute, forgiven for her great love it. Even though the Markan and Matthean versions carry the remark of Jesus that "wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she [the prophet] has done will be told in remembrance of her," Luke's story -- without the remark and without the prophetic dimension of anointing -- overpower the other two by means of its dangerous artistry and its ideology. The prophet is morphed into the whore. This moment of forgiveness for sexual sin all but obliterated the political anointing, and later became the central moment of the mangling legends. (p.74)

The conflation of MM who wanted to anoint the dead Jesus with the prostitute whose sins were forgiven and anointed Jesus in gratitude has begun. And it takes off. By the 6th century Pope Gregory the Great could declare:

She whom Luke calls the sinful woman, whom John calls Mary, we believe to be the Mary from whom seven devils were ejected according to Mark. And what did these seven devils signify, if not all the vices....It is clear, brothers, that the woman previously used the unguent to perfume her flesh in forbidden acts. What she therefor displayed more scandalously, she was now offering to God in a more praiseworthy manner... (p.82)

The legend of MM the repentent whore is fleshed out in some fascinating ways in the Middle Ages, as we will see in a subsequent post. But it is important to note Schaberg's commentary on why this happened. There was, she said, a need to downgrade her and to deny her authority. There was also "the desire to attach to female sexuality the notions of evil, repentence, and male mercy."

She became a whore for many reasons: sexism, never simple, and misogyny; the struggle to create and maintain a male hierarchy with its male models and precedents; unconscious or semi-conscious androcentrism; asceticism and the increasingly high value put on celibacy; intolerance of difference; the genuine fear of one's opponents within and without; political and social and cultural pressures; the liking for a good story; anger. (p.81)

It didn't have to be this way; it almost certainly wasn't this way in the Jesus movement or the Pauline churches, although it didn't take long for men to put women in their "place." It apparently wasn't this way in some of the gnostic-inspired communities where MM was recognized and revered as a leader, as we will see. But in the proto-orthodox to orthodox church movement, sexism became the norm sanctioned by "the will of God." We are just beginning to correct that wrong interpretation of God's will.

*There is a consensus among biblical scholars that Mark 16 originally ended with verse 8. Verses 9ff were later added to bring Mark into conformity with the later gospels.

Saddest Story of Iraq Debacle

From TomDispatch.com:

I'm an innumerate, but the figures on this -- the saddest story of our Iraq debacle -- are so large that even I can do the necessary computations. The population of the United States is now just over 300,000,000. The population of Iraq at the time of the U.S. invasion was perhaps in the 26-27 million range. Between March 2003 and today, a number of reputable sources place the total of Iraqis who have fled their homes -- those who have been displaced internally and those who have gone abroad -- at between 4.5 million and 5 million individuals. If you take that still staggering lower figure, approximately one in six Iraqis is either a refugee in another country or an internally displaced person.

Now, consider the equivalent in terms of the U.S. population. If Iraq had invaded the United States in March 2003 with similar results, in less than five years approximately 50 million Americans would have fled their homes, assumedly flooding across the Mexican and Canadian borders, desperately burdening weaker neighboring economies. It would be an unparalleled, even unimaginable, catastrophe. Consider, then, what we would think if, back in Baghdad, politicians and the media were hailing, or at least discussing positively, the "success" of the prime minister's recent "surge strategy" in the U.S., even though it had probably been instrumental in creating at least one out of every ten of those refugees, 5 million displaced Americans in all. Imagine what our reaction would be to such blithe barbarism.

Back in the real world, of course, what Michael Schwartz terms the "tsunami" of Iraqi refugees, the greatest refugee crisis on the planet, has received only modest attention in this country (which managed, in 2007, to accept but 1,608 Iraqi refugees out of all those millions -- a figure nonetheless up from 2006). As with so much else, the Bush administration takes no responsibility for the crisis, nor does it feel any need to respond to it at an appropriate level. Until now, to the best of my knowledge, no one has even put together a history of the monumental, horrific tale of human suffering that George W. Bush's war of choice and subsequent occupation unleashed, or fully considered what such a brain drain, such a loss of human capital, might actually mean for Iraq's future.

Michael Schwartz's article follows. Disgrace piled upon disgrace.

GOP Valentines Day Greetings

The Republican National Committee injects some political levity into the Valentines Day season. Pretty funny.

Gated Communities Among Wealthy Evangelicals

D. Michael Lindsay is a member of the sociology faculty at Rice University and the author of Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite. In today's USA Today he writes about what he says is a dangerous trend among wealthy and powerful evangelicals:

President Bush is Public Evangelical No. 1. His presidency is the capstone of evangelicals' 30-year rise from the margins of society to the halls of power. But while the president has gone to great lengths to testify publicly to his faith, he often doesn't do the one thing that defines most evangelicals — go to church. He attends chapel at Camp David and other special services, but the president rarely can be found in a congregation on Sunday morning. (In contrast, Presidents Carter and Clinton both attended services in Washington during their tenures.)

Surprised? When most of us think of devout evangelicals, we think of people who attend church regularly and are active in their local congregations. Yet many of the most prominent evangelicals do neither. They regularly attend Bible studies and religious gatherings, including last week's National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, but many can't be found in the pews on Sunday.

I spent the past five years interviewing some of the country's top leaders — two U.S. presidents (George H.W. Bush and Carter), 100 CEOs and senior business executives, Hollywood icons, celebrated artists and world-class athletes. All were chosen because of their widely known faith. Yet I was shocked to find that more than half — 60% — had low levels of commitment to their denominations and congregations. Some were members in name only; others had actively disengaged from church life.

Why? For many it is because churches aren't run like businesses:

... James Unruh, who served as the chief executive of Unisys, was also at one time an elder at his Presbyterian church in California. He has since decided he will never serve again. He couldn't stand the inefficiency of church meetings, a common refrain among those I interviewed.

"It's very frustrating to be patient and not to try to run things because that's what you're doing all day in your business," Unruh told me. Others described local congregations as "inefficient," "unproductive" and "focused on the wrong things."

These factors are driving evangelical leaders into the arms of fellowship groups that exist outside the churches, often called "parachurch" organizations. The shift began in the 1950s, but it grew dramatically over the past 20 years as the parachurch sector became more professional and well-resourced. Nearly three-fourths of the leaders I interviewed serve on the board of at least one parachurch organization, such as the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. They prefer these groups because they have a broader reach and a bigger impact...

In an effort to evangelize among the nation's elite, evangelicals have launched hundreds of invitation-only programs and organizations. Business leaders in Manhattan conduct Bible studies that meet in private clubs. Fellowship groups in Washington are reserved for diplomats and members of Congress. The CEO Forum, an invitation-only group for CEOs of large corporations, has been extremely important to the religious formation of many business executives. And, ironically, meetings designed to spur Christian philanthropy are held at fancy hotels and resorts. Indeed, the evangelical advance into the nation's higher circles has entailed an extension of, instead of a departure from, the privileged and powerful worlds these leaders regularly inhabit. Yet how does an exclusive religious fellowship square with Christian teaching?

Good question.

The Bible as Graphic Novel

Yesterday's New York Times reports on the growing interest in the comic-book/action hero Bible:

Ajinbayo Akinsiku wants the world to know Jesus Christ, just not the gentle, blue-eyed Christ of old Hollywood movies and illustrated Bibles.

Mr. Akinsiku says his Son of God is “a samurai stranger who’s come to town, in silhouette,” here to shake things up in a new, much-abridged version of the Bible rooted in manga, the Japanese form of graphic novels.

“We present things in a very brazen way,” said Mr. Akinsiku, who hopes to become an Anglican priest and who is the author of “The Manga Bible: From Genesis to Revelation.” “Christ is a hard guy, seeking revolution and revolt, a tough guy.” ...

The medium shapes the message. Manga often focuses on action and epic. Much of the Bible, as a result, ends up on the cutting room floor, and what remains is darker.

“It is the end of the Word as we know it, and the end of a certain cultural idea of the Scriptures as a book, as the Book,” Timothy Beal, professor of religion at Case Western Reserve University, said of the reworking of the Bible in new forms, including manga. “It opens up new ways of understanding Scripture and ends up breaking the idols a bit.”

While known for characters with big eyes and catwalk poses, manga is also defined by a laconic, cinematic style, with characters often doing more than talking.

In a blurb for the Manga Bible, which is published by Doubleday, the archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, is quoted as saying, “It will convey the shock and freshness of the Bible in a unique way.”

No doubt. In the Manga Bible, whose heroes look and sound like skateboarders in Bedouin gear, Noah gets tripped up counting the animals in the Ark: “That’s 11,344 animals? Arggh! I’ve lost count again. I’m going to have to start from scratch!”

Abraham rides a horse out of an explosion to save Lot. Og, king of Bashan, looms like an early Darth Vader. The Sermon on the Mount did not make the book, though, because there was not enough action to it.

We wouldn't want any of that soft 'blessed are the peacemakers' or blessed are the poor' stuff to get in the way of Rambo Jesus. But maybe I am being unfair as Mr. Akinsiku has said the "biblical message he wanted to underscore was justice, especially for the poor." More at the Manga Bible website.

Death Penalty Sought for 6 at Guantanamo

From the New York Times:

Military prosecutors have decided to seek the death penalty for six Guantánamo detainees who are to be charged with central roles in the Sept. 11 terror attacks, government officials who have been briefed on the charges said Sunday.

There is nothing that happens in this Administration that is not political. The White House knows that a Dem. administration is likely to shut down Guantanamo and expedite the reviews and/or trials if necessary of everyone in there. It is likely going to be embarrassing for Bush. So we get a pre-emptive strike. In the middle of an election year let's put 9/11 back on the front page and feed the right-wing swamp with visions of executing bad guys. This is likely just Act 1 in the play The Terror Card that will be on our screens during the next year.

McCain to Court Evangelicals

The Washington Post reports that Sen. John McCain, now the presumptive Republican nominee for President, is seeking to court evangelical leaders:

While the senator tried to appeal to conservatives on the stump, his top advisers were trying to set up meetings with some of the nation's more influential evangelical ministers, including Rick Warren, author of "The Purpose Driven Life," and Joel Osteen, to find common ground. The effort has been spearheaded by Sen. Sam Brownback (Kan.), who endorsed McCain after dropping his own presidential bid in November.

When asked about that effort, McCain said, "I'll be glad and willing to meet with anyone who wants to meet with me." He added that there is no formalized strategy to reach out to religious leaders.

Notably absent from this list is James Dobson who has said he will never vote for McCain. If these meetings happen, I will be very interested to see whether Warren or Osteen would endorse McCain. I would be surprised. Warren could very well back Obama if he gets the nomination based on what I have read. At the very least both Warren and Osteen have publicly moved towards the middle and embraced a broader (and I would argue more Christian) agenda than that espoused by the likes of Dobson.

Jews Not Happy with Latin Mass

Last year Pope Benedict gave the green light to traditionalists in the Catholic Church who want to celebrate the old Latin Mass. But the Good Friday Mass in Latin prayed for the conversion of Jews, referring to their “blindness” and calling upon God to “lift a veil from their hearts.” It was considered a major step forward in Jewish-Christian relations when the post Vatican II mass celebrated in the vernacular removed this phrase. So in reinstating the Latin Mass the Pope approved a slight change in the offensive language. It hasn't helped:

The revision of a contentious Good Friday prayer approved this week by Pope Benedict XVI could set back Jewish-Catholic relations, Conservative Judaism’s international assembly of rabbis says in a resolution to be voted on next week...

The draft resolution states the prayer would “cast a harsh shadow over the spirit of mutual respect and collaboration that has marked these past four decades, making it more difficult for Jews to engage constructively in dialogue with Catholics.”

On Tuesday, the pope released new wording for the prayer, part of the traditional Latin, or Tridentine, Mass..

An unofficial translation of the new prayer reads: “Let us pray for the Jews. May the Lord Our God enlighten their hearts so that they may acknowledge Jesus Christ, the savior of all men.”

We are long past the time when we should be praying for the conversion of Jews, or those of any other faith tradition. There is more than one way up the mountain. We ought to be praying instead for the strength and wisdom to lives our lives in a manner that someone who is looking for a faith community or a spiritual path might look at us and say: 'I would like to learn more about your path.' Let our life be our way of sharing our faith.

The 2000 year history of Jewish Christian relations is filled with one shameful act after another of persecution and violence and blame and discrimination by Christians against Jews. A very sobering account of it can be found in James Carroll's book Constantine's Sword. Near the end Carroll says:

...there is no apology for Holy Week preaching that prompted pogroms until Holy Week liturgies, sermons, and readings have been purged of the anti-Jewish slanders that sent the mobs rushing out of church.... Forgiveness for the sin of anti-Semitism presumes a promise to dismantle all that makes it possible.

The Catholic Church has apparently not learned this lesson.

Suffer the Children

Two children stand together as heavy rain falls at a temporary shelter for around 19,000 displaced people during post-election violence in Eldoret, Kenya, February 7, 2008.

REUTERS/Georgina Cranston

Archbishop Canterbury Advocates for Sharia Law

As if the world-wide Anglican community doesn't have enough to fight about, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has set off a firestorm across the pond. Here is the BBC report:

Dr Rowan Williams told Radio 4’s World at One that the UK has to “face up to the fact” that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system.

Dr Williams argues that adopting parts of Islamic Sharia law would help maintain social cohesion. For example, Muslims could choose to have marital disputes or financial matters dealt with in a Sharia court.

He says Muslims should not have to choose between “the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty”.

Here is some of the response:

Following the archbishop's comments, Home Office Minister Tony McNulty said: "To ask us to fundamentally change the rule of law and to adopt Sharia law, I think, is fundamentally wrong."

Shadow community cohesion minister Baroness Warsi told BBC News 24: "Dr Williams seems to be suggesting that there should be two systems of law, running alongside each other, almost parallel, and for people to be offered the choice of opting into one or the other. That is unacceptable."

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg said he had "an enormous amount of respect" for Dr Williams, but could not agree with him on this issue.

He said: "Equality before the law is part of the glue that binds our society together. We cannot have a situation where there is one law for one person and different laws for another."

Trevor Phillips, who chairs the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said the "implication that British courts should treat people differently based on their faith is divisive and dangerous".

In an interview with BBC correspondent Christopher Landau, Dr Williams said Muslims should not have to choose between "the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty".

He stressed "nobody in their right mind would want to see in this country the kind of inhumanity that's sometimes been associated with the practice of the law in some Islamic states; the extreme punishments, the attitudes to women as well".

The Times religious correspondent Ruth Gledhill put it more bluntly: Has the Archbishop Gone Bonkers? If you read the posts you will see that he has defenders as well who argue that his words are being mis-characterized. Still, given the troubles he is having with conflict in his own communion, it is difficult to imagine what possessed him to stir up this hornet's nest.

GetReligion.org has much more on this.

Friday with Sampson and Sadie

Excited about toys and birds.

The "Benefits" of Ethanol

A Star Tribune article this morning casts doubts on the environmental benefits of ethanol:

Renewable fuels such as ethanol have long been hailed as a cleaner-burning alternative to fossil fuels and a potent way to reduce the climate-changing gases pumped out of car tailpipes.

The 2007 Energy Act signed by President Bush last December doubles the nation's use of corn-based ethanol. Ethanol production in Minnesota, a pioneer of the technology, is expected to double during the next three years.

But research by Minnesota scientists is challenging the underpinnings of the biofuel rush. Ethanol and similar products may do more harm than good because of the changes they bring to the landscape, some scientists say.

The exploding demand for ethanol, soy diesel and other products is causing farmers to clear forests, grasslands and peat lands on a massive scale, unleashing far more carbon dioxide than is saved by the lower emissions of the biofuels, the study said.

"If we keep moving to get large amounts of energy by growing it on newly cleared land, which is what's happening around the world, we're going to be releasing much more greenhouse gas than the benefits we get from those biofuels," said David Tilman, ecology professor at the University of Minnesota and one of the study's authors.

The study, published Thursday in the online version of the journal Science, was funded by the National Science Foundation and the University of Minnesota. Another study published Thursday in Science, with estimates from economists at Iowa State University, concluded that corn-based ethanol could double greenhouse gas emissions, rather than reducing them, during the next 30 years because of the dramatic changes in land use.

From another more in-depth article:

The land-use issue makes the balance sheet far more problematic: The clearance of grassland releases 93 times the amount of greenhouse gas that would be saved by the fuel made annually on that land, said Joseph Fargione, the lead author of the other study and a scientist at the Nature Conservancy. "So for the next 93 years, you're making climate change worse, just at the time when we need to be bringing down carbon emissions."

I am sure that the ethanol industry is a godsend to the many farmers who are growing corn and actually making some money. And I am sure a similar scenario is playing out in other countries where palm and soy bean plants are replacing grasses and forests. But it is difficult to justify from any other environmental or economic perspective.

It's Time to be Creatively Maladjusted

My newsletter article this week:

Something remarkable happened on Tuesday. It wasn't the events of Super Tuesday, although the caucus in Minnesota was pretty amazing in its own right. No, I am talking about the Tuesday admission by the Bush Administration that they have in fact used torture as a means of extracting evidence from suspected terrorists.

It appears that the news first slipped out a few days before so they decided they might as well fess up. Appearing before a Congressional Committee CIA Director Michael Hayden admitted that waterboarding had been used on three terrorism suspects. He assured the committee that it had been done only in this narrow window after 9/11 when there was a great fear of more immanent attacks. But he would also not rule out the possibility that it might be used again.

Since then the Administration has been conducting a PR offensive to suggest that although waterboarding might be considered as torture by the Geneva Conventions and by current US law (and by Republican frontrunner for President John McCain who has flatly stated that it is torture), if the Attorney General of the United States rules that it is lawful to be used in certain extraordinary circumstances, then no harm has been done and no law has been broken. We can trust our leaders.

It is a dangerous argument in its own right. But I think it is important that we see it is part of a larger narrative that we been fed for the past 6 years, a narrative that reminds us again and again that we were attacked by terrorists on 9/11 and at any moment it could happen again. We should be afraid, perpetually afraid. And we should not wait for that attack to come but take the battle to the terrorists wherever they are, and they could be, and are, everywhere. It follows, then, from this frightening fact that the enemy is widely dispersed and hard to find that we are going to need to be in a war with no end in sight, a war that will require an enormous proportion of our nation's resources to be devoted to the military; other pressing needs will have to take a back seat. This endless war will also require periodic suspensions of civil liberties, like illegal wiretapping, and violations of the law, like the use of torture. But it will all be done by our government which is made up of good people we elected to office, and it will serve the larger cause of protecting our American way of life. So we can feel OK about it.

A carefully thought out and concerted effort is being made to get us adjusted to a way of life that sounds like it was taken right out of George Orwell's novel 1984. "Reasonable," "deep-thinking" men who see the world "as it really is" are suggesting to us that perpetual fear, endless war, illegal wire-tapping, and torture are respectable and normal.

I strongly suggest that we must not become adjusted to this way of life. I offer as support these words from Martin Luther King , Jr., talking about the need to be "creatively maladjusted":

Everybody passionately seeks to be well-adjusted. But there are some things in our world to which (those) of goodwill must be maladjusted. I confess that I never intend to become adjusted to the evils of segregation and the crippling effects of discrimination, to the moral degeneracy of religious bigotry and the corroding effects of narrow sectarianism, to economic conditions that deprive (people) of work and food, and to the insanities of militarism and the self- defeating effects of physical violence.

Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.

We must make a choice. Will we continue to march to the drumbeat of conformity and respectability, or will we, listening to the beat of a more distant drum, move to its echoing sounds? Will we march only to the music of time, or will we, risking criticism and abuse, march to the soulsaving music of eternity?

The time and the issues are different. But our task, our calling, remains the same: to be a creatively maladjusted people. This is the very definition of a healthy church.

White House Says Torture is Legal

From the Los Angeles Times:

The White House said Wednesday that the widely condemned interrogation technique known as waterboarding is legal and that President Bush could authorize the CIA to resume using the simulated-drowning method under extraordinary circumstances.

The surprise assertion from the Bush administration reopened a debate that many in Washington had considered closed. Two laws passed by Congress in recent years -- as well as a Supreme Court ruling on the treatment of detainees -- were widely interpreted to have banned the CIA's use of the extreme interrogation method.

But in remarks that were greeted with disbelief by some members of Congress and human rights groups, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said that waterboarding was a legal technique that could be employed again "under certain circumstances."

Here's what Republican Candidate John McCain has to say about waterboarding:

In a recent GOP presidential debate, McCain said it was inconceivable that "anyone could believe that [waterboarding is] not torture. It's in violation of the Geneva Convention. It's in violation of existing law."

Hillary and Obama have said the same. But we have a president who believes that with the stroke of his signing pen he is above the law. It is inconceivable to me that lying about sex is an impeachable offense but brazenly breaking the law of the land regarding torture is not. Clinton brought disgrace upon himself. Bush has brought disgrace on everything this country stands for.

Beatles Yogi Dead

From the Washington Post:

The man who introduced transcendental meditation to the West, who briefly became a guru to the Beatles and other pop musicians and who built a multimillion-dollar global business based on teaching people how to pause and close their eyes twice a day, died Feb. 5 at his home in Vlodrop, Netherlands. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was thought to be 91.

George Harrison's hit My Sweet Lord might have been my introduction to eastern religion.

A Dental Vacation

It's not my idea of a fun getaway, but for more and more families who don't have dental insurance, combining a vacation outside the US with dental care is a necessary choice:

JENNIFER GATES, 40, a hairstylist and makeup artist from Northern California, hadn’t seen a dentist in a decade when she got the call last spring. Her father, Jerry Halley, 64, phoned to say he desperately needed crowns for a few back teeth and other work. Without insurance, Mr. Halley, who owns a landscaping business in Oregon, would have to pay the estimated $8,000 bill.

“We all needed quality dental care, fast,” said Ms. Gates, whose own dental-work estimate was $20,000 and whose immediate family was also uninsured. “So, I started planning.”

Ms. Gates found a reputable dentist through friends of her parents who had traveled to Mexico for care. Six weeks later, Ms. Gates flew to join her parents for a week of massages and tanning in San José del Cabo, Mexico, punctuated, in her case, by daily visits to Dr. Rosa Peña for five procedures including a root canal.

In the last year, Ms. Gates, who had a tooth so deteriorated she could touch its nerve with her tongue, has returned with her parents, husband and 14-year-old son to scuba dive and to open wide for Dr. Peña. Her 20-year-old daughter and son-in-law also have made a trip. All told Ms. Gates’s extended clan has had 12 crowns, 6 dental veneers, 4 root canals, over half a dozen fillings, 6 whitening treatments and 2 broken teeth fixed at a savings, they say, of tens of thousands of dollars. “Dr. Rosy is now our family dentist,” Ms. Gates said.

Perhaps this is not everyone’s idea of a worry-free family getaway.

Nevertheless, for at least two decades, medical tourism has been an increasingly popular alternative for the uninsured desperate for care, and for middle-class Americans willing to travel to secure affordable health care.

Roughly half a million Americans sought medical care abroad in 2006, of which 40 percent were dental tourists, according to the National Coalition on Health Care, an alliance of more than 70 organizations. That’s up from an estimated 150,000 in 2004, said Renee-Marie Stephano, the chief operating officer for the Medical Tourism Association, a nonprofit organization that researches global health care.

In how many different ways is our healthcare system broke?

Buddhism

Many Westerners have been introduced to Buddhist meditation practices and have found the writings of Thich Nhat Hanh and Jack Kornfield, among others, to be helpful in deepening spiritual practices. But Buddhist meditation practice is not all there is to the religion of Buddhism. Today's New York Times gives us a look inside a Buddhist temple in NY City as it prepares to celebrate the Chinese New Year:

Sing Sun See is from Hong Kong and, at 56, is one of the older nuns at the temple. She rises at 4:30 a.m. to begin her daily routine of studying, chanting and maintaining the temple, while working on the qualities of awareness, kindness and wisdom that define her spiritual path. At the temple, there is no television or radio.

“Outside they have their own life; inside we have our own life,” said Ms. Sun, adding that the nuns lead humble lives so they can cultivate good karma for the next life.

“A lot of things,” she added, “you cannot explain.”

The nuns recite Buddhist chants at specific times of the day while sitting on saffron cushions placed around low tables. They always begin with multiple bows to the 1,000-armed Buddha, which involves getting down on all fours and pressing their foreheads to the ground. At the close of the afternoon chant, one of the nuns deposits some rice or water on a pedestal outside as a symbolic offering for the invisible spirits that they believe wander the streets of New York.

Because some lost souls did not lead good lives, the nuns explained, they are agonizingly stuck between this life and the next. So each night, at precisely 8:30, the nuns take turns striking a large gong with a wooden mallet and reciting a “hell-breaking mantra” to release them from their pain.

“When they hear the bell, they get peaceful,” Ms. Sun said.

A tenet of Buddhism is not to kill animals, and sometimes local devotees request that their donations be used to free caged birds or animals. The temple’s founder used to buy big lots of live frogs, turtles, fish and lobsters from Chinatown vendors and release them into the city’s rivers and ponds. That is, until the New York Police Department threatened to ticket him.

Now, Ms. Sun said, they buy and free animals outside the country. “Everybody likes freedom,” she said. “Nobody wants to be killed.”

There is an interesting slide show attached to the article.

There's Something About Mary (1)

The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene, by Jane Schaberg

Chapter One, Virginia Woolf and Mary Magdalene, is a reflection on the life and writings of Virginia Woolf and her importance for the author. Each subsequent chapter begins with a quote of Woolf.

In Chapter Two, Meditations on Migdal, Schaberg talks about the town of Magdala, where Mary Magdalene was from. The town is usually associated with the ancient town of Migdal, on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, five kilometers north of Tiberias. In NT times the town was thriving. As late as the thirteenth century there was a Christian church there over the purported site of Mary Magdalene's home. But by the seventeenth century only ruins were reported there. Apart from one archaeological dig in the 1970's Migdal has been largely ignored by archaeologists and scholars.

Chapter Three, Silence, Conflations, Distortions, and Legends, takes us into the scriptural references to MM and the making of her legend. This is what we know about MM from the Christian scriptures:

According to all four Christian New Testament Gospels, MM is a -- perhaps the -- primary witness to the fundamental data of the early Christian faith. She is said to have participated in the Galilean career of Jesus of Nazareth, followed him to Jerusalem, stood by and his execution and burial, found his tomb empty and received an explanation of that emptiness. Two texts mention that seven demons had come out of her (Luke 8:2; Mark 16:9). According to three accounts (Mark 16:7; Matthew 28:7; John 20:17) she is sent with the commission to deliver the explanation of the empty tune to the disciples. Also according to three accounts (Matthew 28:9-10; John 20:14-18; Mark 16:9) she was the first to experience a vision or appearance of the resurrected Jesus...

In the Gospels MM a spoken to only by the figure at the empty tomb and by the risen Jesus. She speaks only to and of them, or of the empty tomb. Dialogue with her as individual occurs only in the Gospel of John, in the Garden tomb scene. Mark 16:8 depicts her and the other women fleeing from the empty tomb and saying nothing to anyone because of their fear, so that Gospel ends in their silence. In Luke 24:34 (as in first Corinthians 15:5) the first vision of the resurrected one is said to be Peter's; John 20:8 presents the mysterious figure of the beloved disciple as the first to believe.

Outside the Gospels, she is mentioned by name nowhere else in the Christian Testament, not even in first Corinthians 15:5-8 which lists those to whom the risen Jesus appeared...

Schaberg notes that an analysis of these texts in their historical context shows that as early as the second half of the first century her role in the events of the death and resurrection of Jesus is disputed. Other disciples, Peter or the Beloved Disciple, are given priority. But she is there in each of the gospels - in either a primary or secondary role - as a witness to the death and resurrection of Jesus. This is her part in the canonical gospels.

So how, then, did she come to be associated with a whore? To be continued...

Caucus Thoughts

Four years ago our senate district had the largest caucus turnout ever, with over 800 participating. Dems were jubilant to see so many waking up and getting involved. Last night at the same building there were nearly 3000 in attendance. Cars were backed up trying to get into the parking lot; the line of people waiting to get in snaked out through the parking lot; the presidential balloting had to be held open an extra fifteen minutes; we ran out of ballots for the presidential preference vote, and had to print more. It was an exhilarating experience.

The vast majority of those in my precinct were first-time caucus-goers. It was a bit chaotic but fun leading them through the process. The resolution process in particular was crazy. In the DFL process the party platform is a grassroots effort; everyone attending caucuses has an opportunity to suggest resolutions, and if they are passed they go on to the County Unit conventions for further voting and then possibly on to the state convention. Some folks present represented groups, like a nursing association, that had resolutions ready on healthcare. Others came on the fly from the floor. Our most contentious resolution came from an insurance agent who wanted to cut off workers comp payments to illegal immigrants. He may have had some good points to make in terms of the way the system is (not) working, but he didn't have a chance in this crowd.

In the presidential preference ballot my precinct voted 2-1 for Obama over Hillary. The final Senate District vote was 1899 to 978 for Obama, helping Obama take MN.

I thought it was interesting that the Republicans bucked the nationwide trend and picked Romney over McCain. It appears that our Republicans may be more conservative than the national average. It is also safe to say that our Dems are more liberal, so we have a strongly divided house.

As much as I enjoy the caucus process, I think it is a bad system. We need a primary. Caucusing discourages participation. Only the most committed show up. Only those who can vote in a very narrow window of time get to vote. I received an email from an unhappy member of my Senate District last night saying they sat in line on County Road 42 waiting to turn onto Hayes Road towards the High School and then finally gave up and went home. I wonder how many others had the same experience. So as fun as the evening was for me, the caucus system is no way to run an election process.

No Guns in Church

The MN Court of Appeals has spoken:

In another victory for churches wanting to ban guns from their premises, the state Court of Appeals issued a 32-page decision Tuesday agreeing with the district court that religious institutions are exempt from the so-called Minnesota Citizens' Personal Protection Act of 2005.

Churches also are not required to post the statutorily proscribed signs that say that the building operator "BANS GUNS ON THESE PREMISES."

"The uncontroverted affidavits before us establish that the sign provision does compel churches that wish to exclude firearms to act in a manner that is inconsistent with their religious beliefs by requiring that they place specific, conspicuous signs at every entrance to the church," said the opinion written by Judge David Minge and signed by Judges Jill Flaskamp Halbrooks and Terri Stoneburner.

The decision means the Edina Community Lutheran Church can continue to legally bar guns with signs saying "Blessed are the peacemakers. Firearms are prohibited in this place of sanctuary." Other churches may choose their own wording.

The decision also means that parking lots, day-care centers and other charitable, educational and nonprofit facilities owned by churches may ban firearms.

Obama Bites Hillary

A carnival float carries large papier-mache effigies during the traditional Rose Monday carnival parade in Duesseldorf February 4, 2008. The Rose Monday parades in Cologne, Mainz and Duesseldorf are the highlight of the German street carnival season.

REUTERS/Ina Fassbender

CIA Admits to Torture

It's Super Tuesday, a great exercise in American democracy, but also a day when the news media and the nation's attention is focused on the presidential race. Apparently the CIA decided it was a perfect day to fess up to the fact that they have tortured detainees. From Reuters:

The CIA on three occasions shortly after the September 11 attacks used a widely condemned interrogation technique known as waterboarding, CIA Director Michael Hayden told Congress on Tuesday.

"Waterboarding has been used on only three detainees," Hayden told the Senate Intelligence Committee. It was the first time a U.S. official publicly specified the number of people subjected to waterboarding and named them.

Critics call waterboarding a form of illegal torture. Congress is considering banning the technique.

Those subjected to waterboarding were suspected September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and senior al Qaeda leaders Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, Hayden said.

He said waterboarding has not been used in five years but was used then because of concerns of imminent catastrophic attacks on the United States and because authorities had limited knowledge of al Qaeda.

"The circumstances are different than they were in late 2001, early 2002," Hayden said.

So presumably the circumstances could change and they would torture again. Hayden says these were extraordinary times, but it is precisely in extraordinary times when moral character is tested. Hayden says the interrogations were "fruitful" and led to useful information about al Qaeda. Because it worked, it's justified. We don't know, of course whether it worked or not. We have the word of people who are willing to torture to get information, but who also happened to destroy the torture tapes.

Regardless of whether it worked or not, torture is never justified. It is not the mark of a civilized democracy. Let's hope we get a President in 2009 who says 'never on my watch' and 'never again.'

Maryland Legislation Would End Civil Marriage, Create Domestic Partnerships

From the Washington Post:

Advocates for same-sex marriage plan to introduce legislation in the Maryland General Assembly today that would abolish civil marriage ceremonies now confined to heterosexual unions in the state and replace them with domestic partnerships for all couples.

The bills represent an unusual new tactic in the effort to push legal rights for gay couples through the House and Senate during the legislature's 90-day session. Sponsors of the measure say they are attempting to address head-on the concerns of lawmakers who oppose same-sex marriage on religious grounds.

Under their proposal, all couples -- straight or gay -- would be on equal footing with secular unions. Religious marriage in churches, synagogues and mosques would be unaffected, as would existing civil marriages.

The word "marriage" would be replaced with "valid domestic partnership" in the state's family law code.

This is the way to go, in my opinion. I have long believed that the state has no business being in the marriage business. Marriage is a religious ceremony. The state's role should be to confer legal protections of civil unions or domestic partnerships to straight or gay couples. Then, if the couple wants to be married in a religious ceremony they can find a community that is welcoming. And churches that don't want to marry gays don't have to. They can be as un-Christ-like as they want to be, but it will have no bearing on legal protections granted by the state.

Fat Tuesday

Having grown up in a counter-Reformation church tradition, Lent, like most Christian holidays apart from Easter and Christmas, passed me by with little notice. To my memory we never had any Lenten observations in my home church. But most of Christendom observes Lent, which begins tomorrow, and celebrates on Shrove (or Fat) Tuesday, today. According to the food writer for the Los Angeles Times, pancake or crepe suppers are part of the tradition:

In England and here in the U.S., many churches mark the day with pancake suppers; it's also a day when people who don't ordinarily make crepes will get out their battered French crepe pan to make the thin French pancakes. As I wrote a year ago in a story about crepes, the tradition was born from kitchen economy: Cooks made pancakes or crepes in order to use up eggs, butter and milk before Lent.

I'll be celebrating Fat Tuesday at the caucuses tonight.

The Military Appeal

In a discussion group this past Sunday, we had some conversation about what it was that made joining the military appealing. Just in the nick of time, a reply comes from William Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF). He has taught cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy, officers at the Naval Postgraduate School, and currently teaches at the Pennsylvania College of Technology. He writes an occasional post for the liberal blog TomDispatch.com. Why do Americans trust the military and why do so many young people join? Apart from the simple fact that most Americans are patriotic and the fact that there is much higher trust in the military than in the politicians we elect to office, he says:

Despite often compelling evidence to the contrary, Americans like to think of their societal institutions as being open, fair-minded, and democratic. If you look without prejudice at our all-volunteer military, you quickly realize that it truly is one of the least elitist, most diverse institutions of power in American society. Most progressive voices fail to recognize this. Yet it's my belief most Americans do and it's a big reason why they say they trust it.

Our military is demonstrably diverse -- racially, by class, and even more politically than most critics imagine. As a retired military officer who now finds himself a liberal arts professor in academia, I'm struck by the relative conformity of the latter, at least when contrasted to the diversity I found in my former life. Racial minorities from the lower classes are well represented in our military. (Some critics have claimed that they are over-represented, at least in frontline infantry units.) I've seen more black or brown faces in positions of authority within our military than in academia. (In my last job in the Air Force, my boss was a black female colonel.) Indeed, until very recently in American society, our military was one of the few places where African Americans and Hispanics routinely bossed around whites. (Louis Gossett Jr.'s drill instructor in the 1982 movie An Officer and A Gentleman was not exceptional; many times I've witnessed real versions of him in action.)

Politically, our military tends, of course, to be conservative, though not necessarily monochromatically Republican. Again, the world of academia provides a stark contrast, especially in liberal arts departments in top-tier colleges and universities, which do tend to be overwhelmingly Democratic and left of center. To cite only one example, of 42 professors in the English, history, sociology, and political science departments at Brown University who registered to vote, all registered as Democrats.

Ordinary Americans trust the military, in part, because the "have-nots" have direct access to it -- far more access than most will ever have to elite universities, elite law firms, mainstream media outlets, Washington lobbying outfits, or other institutions of influence and power. Indeed, our military remains deeply rooted in the broad middle-and working-class elements of society...

Astore says that the one notable exception to this egalitarian spirit is based on gender (one might also add sexual orientation). But this is another piece of the puzzle that liberals often don't get:

This leads me to the second blind spot in the academic/progressive critique of our military -- the failure to recognize the enduring attractiveness of military service to young men seeking to construct their own identities. To many of these potential recruits, American culture today appears feminized -- or, at least demasculinized -- a mommy-state, a risk-averse society with designer drugs and syndrome-of-the-day counselors to ease our pain. In response, what we're seeing is a romantic yearning among young men for the very hardness, the brutality even, epitomized by military service and warfare.

In talking to young men in the rural, conservative area of Pennsylvania where I live, what strikes me is how many of them have seen all 10 episodes of the HBO World War II series, Band of Brothers, and how many admire the bravery, camaraderie, and sacrifice it depicts in portraying paratroopers of the 101st Airborne fighting their way across France and into Germany in 1944-45. Seasoned Marines, a colleague reports, confess that one thing working to sustain recruiting, despite the war in Iraq and regular news reports on an overstrained and exhausted military, is young men who, raised in self-esteem-touting, gender-bending environments (on TV, if nowhere else), sign up to experience "the other side."

It's easy to dismiss such yearnings as Neanderthal. The irony is that that very dismissal creates an inviting taboo for a whole segment of young American males to challenge. For academia and progressives, war is today what sex was to society in the Victorian age, involving as it does emotions nice people don't feel and acts nice people don't opt to commit. Yes, many volunteers join the military with educational or career possibilities in mind, but among young men who enlist, there is also a certain element, conscious or unconscious, of taboo-breaking -- and of self-affirmation.

For women, gender identity is often shaped by biological rites of passage: menstruation, pregnancy, menopause. Male identity is arguably less secure and defined more by the gaze of other men -- you're a man when other men, men you respect, say you are. Men have gender too -- and many seek to construct and assert their maleness within the military, a cultural setting they perceive as patriotic, meritocratic, and sanctioned by the trust and respect of friends, family, and community.

The challenge for progressives is to recognize this and then to work to create viable alternatives to military service in which masculinity and patriotism can be demonstrated in non-lethal settings...

He suggests, for instance, that there is a need for a stronger civilian conservation corps/Peace Corp kind of program that offers a rigorous and patriotic alternative to the military.

I think this is a very good post. Many of us in the progressive camp are quick to dismiss - as mindless or uncritical - military service, but we miss what is behind it: the urge to serve and sacrifice for a larger cause. This, in fact, is a good character trait that often burns strong in young people who are full of idealism. For young men in particular, the military offers a path to serve and to learn how to become a man. And I can attest to the fact that even in the home of an ardent critic of the military, Band of Brothers was a requested, and granted, Christmas present for a teenage son. We watched many of them together and I get the appeal.

So instead of looking down on those who choose to serve in the military, we need to honor the desire to serve and do a better jobe offering alternatives.

New Mormon Leader

From the New York Times:

An 80-year-old former advertising and publishing executive, Thomas S. Monson, was named on Monday to be the 16th president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, one week after the death of the previous president, Gordon B. Hinckley.

Mr. Monson’s appointment was expected. Leadership changes in the 13-million member Mormon Church are based on seniority in the upper ranks, which makes the transition free of politics, but also guarantees a certain mantle of age. Mr. Hinckley was 84 when he got the job in 1995. He died at age 97...

Mr. Monson, whose elevation to the church presidency also makes him a prophet of God in the eyes of Mormon believers, was born in Salt Lake City, and has lived a life — common in the Mormon church, where there is no professional paid clergy — that has straddled the business and religious worlds.

His career, beginning in the late 1940s in advertising and later as sales manager for the Deseret News Press, a commercial printing firm then affiliated with the church, went hand-in-hand with his advancement into bigger and bigger assignments for the church itself.

They pick 'em' young, don't they.

From BC to BZ

That's before Zeus:

Before Zeus hurled his first thunderbolt from Olympus, the pre-Greek people occupying the land presumably paid homage and offered sacrifices to their own gods and goddesses, whose nature and identities are unknown to scholars today.

But archaeologists say they have now found the ashes, bones and other evidence of animal sacrifices to some pre-Zeus deity on the summit of Mount Lykaion, in the region of Greece known as Arcadia. The remains were uncovered last summer at an altar later devoted to Zeus.

Fragments of a coarse, undecorated pottery in the debris indicated that the sacrifices might have been made as early as 3000 B.C., the archaeologists concluded. That was about 900 years before Greek-speaking people arrived, probably from the north in the Balkans, and brought their religion with them.

The excavators were astonished. They were digging in a sanctuary to Zeus, in Greek mythology the father of gods and goddesses. From texts in Linear B, an ancient form of Greek writing, Zeus is attested as a pre-eminent god as early as 1400 B.C. By some accounts, the birthplace of Zeus was on the heights of Lykaion.

After reviewing the findings of pottery experts, geologists and other archaeologists, David Gilman Romano of the University of Pennsylvania concluded that material at the Lykaion altar “suggests that the tradition of devotion to some divinity on that spot is very ancient” and “very likely predates the introduction of Zeus in the Greek world.”

As Dr. Romano remarked, quoting a quip by a friend, “We went from B.C. to B.Z., before Zeus."

Just as Jewish holy sites became Christian holy sites became Muslim holy sites, apparently. And what is with the BC (Before Christ) stuff? It's BCE (Before the Common Era) now.

Wall Street Caps Coal

Easy money for coal-fired power plants may be coming to an end, according to this post in the Wall Street Journal:

Three of Wall Street's biggest investment banks are set to announce today that they are imposing new environmental standards that will make it harder for companies to get financing to build coal-fired power plants in the U.S.

Citigroup Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley say they have concluded that the U.S. government will cap greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants sometime in the next few years. The banks will require utilities seeking financing for plants before then to prove the plants will be economically viable even under potentially stringent federal caps on carbon dioxide, the main man-made greenhouse gas.

The banks can see the political hand-writing on the wall, but their actions may force change more quickly than the politicians.

Brethren Minister Challenges County Immigration Policies

From the Washington Post:

More than 50 religious leaders have sent a letter to Prince William County's elected officials saying the county's illegal-immigration crackdown has divided the community and created an "unwelcoming spirit."

The 58 leaders of Prince William congregations who signed the letter offered to "work constructively" with county officials and urged them to respond to public concern with legislation that upholds "the dignity and rights of all people."

"It's an invitation to elected officials to be part of a greater conversation," said the Rev. Jeff Carter of the Manassas Church of the Brethren. "It's an offer for some help in mediating and moderating this dialogue."

Corey A. Stewart (R-At Large), chairman of the board of county supervisors, called the group illegitimate and misguided.

"We don't need them as an intermediary," he said. "They need to do what they do best: serve their congregants and attend to their denominations and not get involved in partisan politics."

The religious leaders have been meeting since September, a month before supervisors approved a resolution to increase police enforcement of immigration laws and deny some services to undocumented immigrants. The group, which represents 25 houses of worship and 10 denominations, spent several months crafting a collaborative response.

There is nothing that unjust rulers want more than churches to close their eyes and pray and ignore the injustice going on in their communities. In the sweet, by and by...

Exorcism Leads to Wife's Death

So says the husband:

A man accused of killing his wife says he was trying to exorcise a demon from her when the devil entered his body and caused her to die, according to a police probable cause statement.

Jan David Clark, 60, was arrested Friday after authorities went to his home and found Susan Kay Clark's body wrapped in a bed sheet with a cross and sword on top of it.

Progressive Evangelicals

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof sees a sea-change taking place among evangelicals and thinks liberals need to stop demonizing and start building coalitions:

Bleeding-heart liberals could accomplish far more if they reached out to build common cause with bleeding-heart conservatives. And the Democratic presidential candidate (particularly if it’s Mr. Obama, to whom evangelicals have been startlingly receptive) has a real chance this year of winning large numbers of evangelical voters.

“Evangelicals are going to vote this year in part on climate change, on Darfur, on poverty,” said Jim Wallis, the author of a new book, “The Great Awakening,” which argues that the age of the religious right has passed and that issues of social justice are rising to the top of the agenda. Mr. Wallis says that about half of white evangelical votes will be in play this year.

A recent CBS News poll found that the single issue that white evangelicals most believed they should be involved in was fighting poverty. The traditional issue of abortion was a distant second, and genocide was third.

Look, I don’t agree with evangelicals on theology or on their typically conservative views on taxes, health care or Iraq. Self-righteous zealots like Pat Robertson have been a plague upon our country, and their initial smugness about AIDS (which Jerry Falwell described as “God’s judgment against promiscuity”) constituted far grosser immorality than anything that ever happened in a bathhouse. Moralizing blowhards showed more compassion for embryonic stem cells than for the poor or the sick, and as recently as the 1990s, evangelicals were mostly a constituency against foreign aid.

Yet that has turned almost 180 degrees. Today, many evangelicals are powerful internationalists and humanitarians — and liberals haven’t awakened to the transformation. The new face of evangelicals is somebody like the Rev. Rick Warren, the California pastor who wrote “The Purpose Driven Life.”

Mr. Warren acknowledges that for most of his life he wasn’t much concerned with issues of poverty or disease. But on a visit to South Africa in 2003, he came across a tiny church operating from a dilapidated tent — yet sheltering 25 children orphaned by AIDS.

“I realized they were doing more for the poor than my entire megachurch,” Mr. Warren said, with cheerful exaggeration. “It was like a knife in the heart.” So Mr. Warren mobilized his vast Saddleback Church to fight AIDS, malaria and poverty in 68 countries. Since then, more than 7,500 members of his church have paid their own way to volunteer in poor countries — and once they see the poverty, they immediately want to do more.

“Almost all of my work is in the third world,” Mr. Warren said. “I couldn’t care less about politics, the culture wars. My only interest is to get people to care about Darfurs and Rwandas.”

Helene Gayle, the head of CARE, said evangelicals “have made some incredible contributions” in the struggle against global poverty. “We don’t give them credit for the changes they’ve made,” she added. Fred Krupp, the president of Environmental Defense, said, “Many evangelical leaders have been key to taking the climate issue across the cultural divide.”

It is true that change is happening among younger evangelicals. In another generation the culture wars may by a relic of history.

Immoral Budget

If a budget is a moral document the last budget of the Bush Administration is obscenely immoral:

President Bush unveiled a $3.1 trillion budget that supports sizable increases in military spending and protects his signature tax cuts. The spending proposal, which shows the government spending $3 trillion in a 12-month period for the first time in history, squeezes most of government outside of national security, and also seeks $196 billion in savings over the next five years in Medicare and Medicaid. Even with those savings, Bush projects that the budget deficits in coming years, which had been declining, will soar to near-record levels.

Feeding the military industrial complex and protecting the tax cuts for the wealthiest while cutting spending for the poor, the elderly, for healthcare, for a middle class. 351 long days to go.

Super Bowl

It turned out to be a great game, and given the renewed allegations of cheating by the Patriots, perhaps a bit of Karmic justice too.

I thought the commercials were sub-par this year.

Norwegians Strike Back

As I suggested in this post a couple days ago, the Norwegians didn't take too kindly to Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten's put down about Norwegian neutrality and peace-making efforts. Frankie Shackelford is a professor of Norwegian at Augsburg College. He corrects some of the "facts" in Kersten's column:

First the facts: Norway did not abruptly or naively declare neutrality in 1939 in the face of the Nazi threat, as Kersten claims in a recent column ("In a violent world, Ellison dreams of peace," Jan. 30). It was Norway's successfully neutral stance during World War I that led the country to believe that its neutrality would continue to be respected. Norwegians are neither naive nor naturally peaceful. (Remember the Vikings?) Their military response to the German invasion was vigorous, given the lack of preparation, and their resistance over the next five years tied up more than 400,000 German troops in this "small, peripheral country" -- troops Hitler could well have used elsewhere. After the occupation ended, Norwegians did not rush to create a department of homeland security. Instead they concentrated their efforts on domestic welfare, on collective solutions to health care and transportation issues, and on education. A healthy and literate electorate is partially responsible for Norway's topping the United Nations list of best places to live.

Second: Kersten's assumptions. She assumes that the existence of violent forces in the world relegates all peace efforts to wasteful dreaming. Her reductionist view of human nature breeds fear and discounts education. The folks she derides for putting their "faith in transforming human awareness" include all the teachers on the planet. And her assertion that Norway has the luxury of the moral high ground certainly does not recognize the high-risk back channels, where Norway indeed does the "tough work of grappling head-on with the bullies of the world," a task Kersten reserves for the U.S. military.

Kersten is one of those Americans who assumes that a big hammer is always the best tool to use in a conflicted world. And she is far too certain that it is also the hammer of God.

Priest Sues Parish

In Buffalo, MN, a priest alleged by parishioners to have had an affair sues the church as he leaves:

A telephone call intercepted by a baby monitor, charges of an affair and a long-running war of words between a Roman Catholic priest and disgruntled parishioners has rocked a church in Buffalo and could land the participants in court.

The Rev. Thomas Rayar resigned Friday from the Church of St. Francis Xavier, but not until he had sued 11 members of the congregation for defamation of character, saying that they "threatened to publicly humiliate me" at a sit-in scheduled for Sunday.

The priest denies having the affair, but a parishioner claims to have overheard an incriminating phone call involving the priest over a baby monitor. The priest claims use of the baby monitor in this manner is a form of illegal wiretapping.

Churches Can't Have Big-Screen Super Bowl Parties

From the Star Tribune:

You may be doing the Good Lord's work, but that won't matter as far as the NFL is concerned.

If any house of worship -- or nearly anyone else, for that matter -- intends to show Sunday's Super Bowl game on a large screen for a group of people, the league says you are violating its copyright.

That's news to the Rev. Mark Shockey of St. Peter's Lutheran Church in Edina. St. Peter's has just such a gathering planned for Sunday, when it will project the Big Game on a 5- by 7-foot screen, Shockey said.

That's way larger than what the NFL allows. The league bans public exhibitions of its games on TV sets or screens larger than 55 inches because smaller sets limit the audience size.

"We have no objection to churches and others hosting Super Bowl parties as long as they ... show the game on a television of the type commonly used at home," NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said. "It is a matter of copyright law."

Large Super Bowl gatherings around big-screen sets outside of homes shrink TV ratings and can affect advertising revenue, McCarthy said. The section of copyright law giving the NFL protection over the content of its programming exempts sports bars, he said.

We're in the clear here.

Six More Weeks of Winter

Jeff Swensen, GETTY/AFP - Getty Images








The most pampered groundhog in the world, Punxatawney Phil sees his shadow.

A Step Forward for Gay Marriage

A New York appellate court says the state must recognize gay marriages legally performed in other states:

A New York appellate court ruled Friday that valid out-of-state marriages of same-sex couples must be legally recognized in New York, just as the law recognizes those of heterosexual couples solemnized elsewhere. Lawyers for both sides said the ruling applied to all public and private employers in the state.

Even though gay couples may not legally marry in New York, the appellate court in Rochester held that a gay couple’s 2004 marriage in Canada must be respected under the state’s longstanding “marriage recognition rule,” and that an employer’s denial of health benefits had discriminated against the couple on the basis of their sexual orientation.

“The Legislature may decide to prohibit the recognition of same-sex marriages solemnized abroad,” a five-judge panel of the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court ruled unanimously in rejecting a 2006 lower court decision. “Until it does so, however, such marriages are entitled to recognition in New York.”

Little by little the battle for justice makes progress.

There's Something About Mary

This afternoon I started reading The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene by Jane Schaberg. From her introduction:

I used to think of the apocryphal texts as branching out of the canonical tree; I see now that both canonical and apocryphal go down to the roots; their biology is interactive, radically symbiotic. The profile of the Gnostic/apocryphal Mary Magdalene seems at first to bear little relation to that of the Christian Testament character. But we are learning that the sources of conflict between different forms of early Christianity, especially those under the names of Mary Magdalene and Peter, are deeper and older than was thought. She represents women's prophetic power in the Gnostic/apocryphal literature, as well as in the source I reconstruct behind John 20. Some scholars like Bovon think that the reason Gnostic literature was declared heterodox, and therefore fell into disuse, may have less to do with its doctrinal content than with Mary Magdalene's priority among the disciples, especially in relation to Peter.

Mary Magdalene is probably the most misunderstood character in the New Testament. She is popularly depicted as a prostitute, and has been since shortly after the NT period. But there is no support for that image in the NT. More on that later. With the discovery of other gospels we are learning that in some traditions she was regarded as the disciple who understood Jesus. It should be an interesting read.

At the Feeder

Since the first of the year, this guy has become a regular at the feeder on "warmer" days.

Why, I wondered, am I seeing this nocturnal animal during the day? Here, from the Opossum Society of the United States, is the answer:

There are a number of reasons for opossum sightings during the day. If it is winter in an extremely cold area, usually covered with snow, then the opossum may be hungry. It is often difficult for an opossum to find food in extremely cold, snowy areas. During sever weather the opossum may stay in a den a few days until hunger drives it out of hiding. The opossum may have to forage for food during the day, often while it is warmer.

Friday with Sampson and Sadie

Bath time and nap time today.