Need some Halloween Costume Ideas?

People for the American Way is here to help you out! I think I'll go as Ann Coulter. Now that's SCAREY!

Happy Halloween!--Are you ready to celebrate?

Tomorrow is Halloween which originally started as a pagan holiday and marks the half point between the fall and winter equinox. Read more about it from Beliefnet here.

If I wasn't responsible for handing out candy to my neighbor kids and/or walking my own kids around the neighborhood, I'd go to Liberalchurch for the meditation ceremony which will no doubt will celebrate this holiday. It is at 7pm tomorrow -- 10/31/07.

The Fracturing of the Evangelical Movement

David Kirkpatrick has a fascinating article in this week's New York Times magazine on the fracturing of the evangelical movement. As an older generation of leaders - Falwell, Dobson - move to the sidelines the base is rethinking its wedding with right-wing Republican politics.

I was particularly interested in Kirkpatrick's conversation with Bill Hybels, the pastor of the Chicago area mega-church Willow Creek. Some fifteen years ago as I was contemplating the possibility of starting a new church in the twin cities I attended a Willow Creek training session. They were among the pioneers of the seeker-church model and much of what they had to say about unchurched Harry and Sally, as they talked about their target audience, was on target.

But one of the most memorable take-aways from my time there for 2 days was the life-size cardboard cutouts of Oliver North in uniform standing everyone on their massive campus. He was scheduled to speak at Willow Creek that fall and they were proud to have this "American hero" stopping in to speak to their folks about his Christian faith. Here, though, is Kirkpatrick's profile of Hybels today:

As his stature has grown, Hybels has seemed more willing to irk Christian conservative political leaders — and even some in his own congregation. He set off a furor a few years ago when he invited former President Bill Clinton to speak at one of his conferences. And the Iraq war has brought into sharp relief Hybels’s differences with conservatives like Dobson.

Most conservative Christian leaders have resolutely supported Bush’s foreign policy. Dobson and others have even talked about defending Western civilization from radical Islam as a precondition for protecting family values. But on the eve of the Iraq invasion, Hybels preached a sermon called “Why War?” Laying out three approaches to war — realism, just-war theory and pacifism — he implored members of his congregation to re-examine their own thinking and then try to square it with the Bible. In the process, he left little doubt about where he personally stood. He called himself a pacifist.

Hybels traced the “J curve” of mounting deaths from war through the centuries. “In case you are wondering about this, wonder how God feels about all this,” he said. “It breaks the heart of God.”

At his annual leadership conference this summer, Hybels interviewed former President Jimmy Carter. To some Christian conservatives, it was quite a provocation. Carter, after all, was their first great disappointment, a Southern Baptist who denounced the conservative takeover and an early critic of the Bush administration. Some pastors canceled plans to attend.

“I think that a superpower ought to be the exemplification of a commitment to peace,” Carter told Hybels, who nodded along. “I would like for anyone in the world that’s threatened with conflict to say to themselves immediately: ‘Why don’t we go to Washington? They believe in peace and they will help us get peace.’ ” Carter added: “This is just a simple but important extrapolation from what a human being ought to do, and what a human being ought to do is what Jesus Christ did, who was a champion of peace."

In a conversation I had with him, Hybels told me he considered politics a path to “heartache and disappointment” for a Christian leader. But he also described the message of his Willow Creek Association to its member churches in terms that would warm a liberal’s heart.

“We have just pounded the drum again and again that, for churches to reach their full redemptive potential, they have to do more than hold services — they have to try to transform their communities,” he said. “If there is racial injustice in your community, you have to speak to that. If there is educational injustice, you have to do something there. If the poor are being neglected by the government or being oppressed in some way, then you have to stand up for the poor.”

In the past, Hybels has scrupulously avoided criticizing conservative Christian political figures like Falwell or Dobson. But in my talk with him, he argued that the leaders of the conservative Christian political movement had lost touch with their base. “The Indians are saying to the chiefs, ‘We are interested in more than your two or three issues,’ ” Hybels said. “We are interested in the poor, in racial reconciliation, in global poverty and AIDS, in the plight of women in the developing world.”

He brought up the Rev. Jim Wallis, the lonely voice of the tiny evangelical left. Wallis has long argued that secular progressives could make common cause with theologically conservative Christians. “What Jim has been talking about is coming to fruition,” Hybels said.

Wow. I am surprised and impressed.

Do-it-yourself Christianity

In today's USAToday, a Presbyterian minister reflects on the loss of denominational identity:

Of course, denominational pastors like myself have some lessons to learn from successful independent churches. I need to accept that today's spiritual seekers want quality, clarity, convenience and community in their practice of faith, and they will choose the church that offers the programs that best meet their personal needs. Few people will join my church simply because it is Presbyterian, just as a shrinking number of people will buy a car because of loyalty to General Motors. Consumers today want a product with the best features, whether it is a church with a dynamic youth program or an automobile with an excellent crash-test rating.

Individual choice and control are affecting all of our institutions, from financial organizations (Internet banking) to journalism (blogging) to education (distance learning). The church is not immune from this, and we'll see increasing diversity in the "emerging churches" that are attracting a new generation of people in their 20s and 30s who are suspicious of organized religion. Overseas, independent churches are experiencing explosive growth, especially in Brazil and South Africa, and it won't be long before churches in the USA feel the effects of this movement.

Sadly, what is lost in this fracturing of church and society are the worldwide networks that have long been maintained by Protestant denominations. Isolated congregations can certainly meet the spiritual needs of individuals, but they cannot do the work of denominations in supporting thousands of missionaries around the world, creating seminaries for the training of clergy, or taking stands for peace, justice, and religious freedom on the national and international levels. In addition, independent congregations cannot be counted on to preserve a historically based understanding of the Christian faith, or to maintain the unity of the church across geographical or cultural boundaries.

I wonder how many "isolated" congregations there really are. There is no doubt that denominational identity is flagging but I suspect that it is being replaced by new cross-denominational coalitions of congregations that share a similar theology. It will take awhile for the education piece to catch up with this reality but these coalitions are already working together on mission and politics.

SOS--Stressed Out Students

I remember the feeling well! Almost like it was yesterday ;-)

Too much stress can lead to many, many, problems including anxiety, depression, gastrointestinal distress, lowered immune system, high blood pressure etc. I read today in the NYTimes that public and private schools are now doing what our health care system, our religious and secular groups, and families haven't been able to do effectively--help teach children "preventative practices" for mental and physical health problems related to stress.

This Friday night my daughter's Girl Scout troop will be having an overnight at the council office in St. Paul and a couple of the fun things we will be doing is to begin earning the "Stress Less" badge. The Director of Spiritual Health for Fairview Ridges Hosptial (who is the mom of one of the girls) will be leading us in a guided meditation. We will also do yoga together using a DVD by Rodney Yee. At our Monday Nov. 12 meeting we will be taught the Emotional Freedom Technique by Liberalchurch's own Wellness Ministry Team leader. I'm looking forward to it! I wish someone had done this for me when I was 9,13,17,21,25 or 29...

On the Lighter Side...

Kudos to LiberalChurch's Wellness Ministry Team Leader, Kathy, for a successful retreat last weekend. I have heard several people say how wonderful it was.

Along the lines of Wellness, since it has been a long week for me personally, I'm posting something on the lighter side today...

Here's a fun quiz to take from Beliefnet to find out how good your mind/body connection is!

October 25, 2002

It was five years ago today that Paul and Sheila Wellstone died. This day created a memory for my children much as 11/22/1963 did for me when I was their age. It was a national tragedy that was deeply felt personally and publically both around the world and in our family.

Here's nice article from the AP.

Civics 101

In the lead editorial in today's Wall Street Journal Robert F. Turner, a former Reagan lawyer who specializes in intelligence law, argues that the President is bound by the Constitution and not laws enacted by Congress if they impinge on the power of the Presidency. Thus, he says, every President since Roosevelt has been justified in engaged in warrantless wiretapping in the name of national security.

I don't doubt that what Turner says about past Presidential action is true. But I think he is missing the point here. I can imagine a scenario where situations arise in national security issues that are not covered by existing law. Or, where quick action is required in the name of national security. But my understanding is that FISA was designed to cover just these kinds of situations. FISA approval, even if gained after the fact, brings the action under the umbrella of the law. I don't see what the problem is with this. Nobody, including the President is above the law.

But what I find incredible is this assertion by Turner:

Much contemporary debate over presidential claims of power to ignore "laws" fails to appreciate the modern congressional practice of enacting flagrantly unconstitutional statutes. This helps explain the increased use of presidential "signing statements" in recent decades. On June 11, 1976, Sen. Robert P. Griffin (R., Mich.) inserted a lengthy statement I'd drafted into the Congressional Record explaining why "legislative vetoes" of executive agency actions were unconstitutional. Seven years later, the Supreme Court echoed those arguments in reaching the same conclusion in the Chadha case. The congressional response? It has since enacted more than 500 new unconstitutional legislative vetoes.

Legislative vetoes? Does he mean laws? Laws drafted by the legislature and signed by the President? If the law is so "flagrantly" unconstitutional why is the President signing it?

Again, I think Turner is missing or perhaps distorting the issue here. This President doesn't on rare occasions issue a signing statement stating his disagreement with a particular aspect of a newly enacted law. He routinely, flagrantly, issues signing statements. He is above the law. He is dismissive of the whole constitutional process: "Go ahead and enact whatever laws you want; I am free to ignore them."

With this President we are not dealing with those rare shades of gray in the legislative process that all Presidents face, we are dealing with a rogue branch of the government bent on abusing power.

Climate Change

Atlanta is almost out of water; California is burning; the West is in perpetual drought; the Great Lakes are losing water levels; across the world glaciers are disappearing at a rapid rate. Over at Minnesota Monitor, Jeff Flecke has this to say about it:

The problem of global climate change does not lie simply in warmer temperatures. It also lies in the way that the world's biomes will be reshuffled. Richard Seager, a scientist at Columbia University, put it bluntly when asked about the west. In an interview with the New York Times, he said, "You can't call it a drought anymore, because it's going over to a drier climate. No one says the Sahara is in drought."

We have reached a point where the impact of global warming is undeniable to any but the most determined skeptic. Some of the impact is inevitable; I fear that within our lifetimes, we'll see the states in the mountain west facing severe water shortages, and demand for states like Minnesota, where we have a great deal of fresh water available, to share the wealth. We must begin immediately to plan for that future, to ensure that we can help our fellow Americans without destroying our own state's environment. And humans must immediately begin to work to curb global carbon emissions. We are already seeing negative effects from our previous lackadaisical attitude, and I fear that we are already too late to avoid catastrophe. We must act soon to avoid apocalypse.

I think he is absolutely right. This water crisis is unfolding at an amazing rate. We need to be ready.

Iran in Perspective

The President says World War III could happen if Iran gets nuclear weapons. The Vice President says Iran must not be allowed to acquire them. Rudy Giuliani suggests that Iran is a greater threat than China or the USSR were during the Cold War. Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek puts the Iranian threat in perspective:

The American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality. Norman Podhoretz, the neoconservative ideologist whom Bush has consulted on this topic, has written that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is "like Hitler … a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system and to replace it in the fullness of time with a new order dominated by Iran and ruled by the religio-political culture of Islamofascism." For this staggering proposition Podhoretz provides not a scintilla of evidence.

Here is the reality. Iran has an economy the size of Finland's and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?

...In a speech last week, Rudy Giuliani said that while the Soviet Union and China could be deterred during the cold war, Iran can't be. The Soviet and Chinese regimes had a "residual rationality," he explained. Hmm. Stalin and Mao—who casually ordered the deaths of millions of their own people, fomented insurgencies and revolutions, and starved whole regions that opposed them—were rational folk. But not Ahmadinejad, who has done what that compares? One of the bizarre twists of the current Iran hysteria is that conservatives have become surprisingly charitable about two of history's greatest mass murderers.

If I had to choose whom to describe as a madman, North Korea's Kim Jong Il or Ahmadinejad, I do not think there is really any contest. A decade ago Kim Jong Il allowed a famine to kill 2 million of his own people, forcing the others to survive by eating grass, while he imported gallons of expensive French wine. He has sold nuclear technology to other rogue states and threatened his neighbors with test-firings of rockets and missiles. Yet the United States will be participating in international relief efforts to Pyongyang worth billions of dollars.

Born Rich

Via Talking Points Memo, I found myself reading this Washington Post Style page article about the messy divorce of right-wing financier Richard Mellon Scaife, the Mellon heir who bank-rolled a continuous effort to smear the Clinton's when Bill was President. Scaife, who started dating his current wife while still married to his first wife, also has a long history of funding "family-values" organizations like the Heritage Foundation, which publishes articles about restoring the sanctity of marriage. But Republican hypocrisy about family values is as old as Newt Gingrich. And Rudi Giuliani. And John McCain. And Larry Craig. And, well you get the picture.

What caught my attention was the sums of money being talked about in this article. The soon to be ex-wife, who caught him cheating on her, is collecting "$725,000 a month. Or about $24,000 a day, seven days a week." It seems he forgot to have her sign a prenuptial agreement.

It's an astronomical amount of money - to me. But Scaife gets by on a miserly $4 million a month in trust money. What does he do? The lawyer for his soon-to-be ex-wife says:

These massive streams of income are attributable to no employment, business enterprise or other effort -- intellectual, physical, creative or ministerial -- past or present.

Ministerial?

Ron Paul on a Federal Marriage Amendment

At yesterday's Republican debate Ron Paul was asked to clarify his position, his opposition, to a federal amendment to the constitution to "protect" marriage:

PAUL: OK. Well, if you believe in federalism, it's better that we allow these things to be left to the state. My personal belief is that marriage is a religious ceremony.

PAUL: And it should be dealt with religiously. The state really shouldn't be involved. The state, both federal and state-wise, got involved mostly for health reasons 100 years or so ago.

But this should be a religious matter. All voluntary associations, whether they're economic or social, should be protected by the law. But to amend the Constitution is totally unnecessary to define something that's already in the dictionary.

We do know what marriage is about. We don't need a new definition or argue over a definition and have an amendment to the Constitution. To me, it just seems so unnecessary to do that. It's very simply that the states should be out of that business, and the states -- I mean, the states should be able to handle this. The federal government should be out of it.

The state should be in the business of recognizing and protecting the legal rights of civil unions, straight and gay. Marriage is a religious ceremony. The state has no business wading into the issue of marriage. It should be up to religious communities to decide if they want to bless civil unions with the religious rite of marriage. This is what we call the separation of church and state, and state-recognized marriage gets the state involved in the middle of religious issues where it has no business.

Valerie Plame Wilson Speaks

Sort of. I watched her interview last night on 60 Minutes. She really didn't say much except to firmly state that she was an undercover CIA agent in 2002 when her cover was blown by the Bush Administration. But, as I just learned from this post by former CIA operative Larry Johnson, the CIA is forbidding her to speak about her time in the CIA. So Larry Johnson is doing it for her:

It is as if Rod Serling has returned from the dead with a 21st Century version of the Twilight Zone. The CIA won the initial round in Federal Court and insists Valerie cannot acknowledge working at the CIA prior to February 2002. Because of a pending appeal in her freedom of speech case against the CIA, she cannot say anything about joining the CIA in September of 1985 fresh out of college. She cannot say anything about her initial impression of her Career Trainee classmates–such as Jim Marcinkowski, Brent Cavan, Mike “the Griz” Grimaldi, Precious Flower, and mois. She is proscribed from telling you about wandering the forests of Camp Peary learning land navigation and she certainly will not, at least for now, be able to tell you about being taken hostage and subjected to torture for two days.

Valerie especially cannot tell you about her first tour overseas as a case officer. Ironically, her first boss overseas–Fred Rustmann–has gone on the record and tried early on in this scandal to argue that she was not a NOC (i.e., Non Official Cover officer). But Fred, who was forced out of the CIA and into early retirement because of misdeeds overseas, was not around long enough to learn that after her first tour Val was given the opportunity to become a NOC.

Not only did she get the opportunity. She took full advantage of it and embarked on a career that would change her life in ways she never imagined. She walked away from diplomatic cover and was left naked of the protection normally accorded to diplomats. She had to rely on her wits and tradecraft, and did so successfully for many years, until betrayed by the Bush Administration. But she cannot tell you about that period. At least not now.

Her publisher, Simon and Schuster, came up with a nifty idea to tell the story of the period of service Valerie cannot talk about. They hired Laura Rozen and she interviewed people like me, who served with Valerie. Laura does a great job but it is still a second best solution.

Come Monday you can read for yourself the legal documents surrounding Valerie’s case. They will be posted at www.fairgameplame.com.

We do know this one key thing with certainty–Valerie was not some low level, desk jockey, secretary taking up space and using oxygen at the CIA. The CIA does not prevent such people from telling their story. Nope. Valerie’s very existence as a CIA operative is deemed by the CIA to be so sensitive a topic that she can say nothing about activities prior to February 2002. But she can admit that in February 2002 she was a senior covert operations officer involved in projects that went to the heart of the President’s highest priority–finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Valerie’s identity and ability to carry out that mission during a time of war were compromised by Dick Cheney, Sccoter Libby, Ari Fleischer, and Karl Rove. Their actions were both treasonous and cowardly. Yet the person being penalized and compelled to sacrifice her constitutional right of free speech is Valerie Plame Wilson. The good news is that the American people will finally get to meet the classy, smart lady I served with at the CIA. She achieved her aspiration to be good intelligence officer and still found balance in her life to be a good wife and a good mother. She lost her career and her ability to help support her family. As a nation we have been deprived of her service because of the pettiness and stupidity of the Bush Administration. A successful book tour will be small recompense for the loss Val has experienced. But let’s hope its enough to ensure that Val, Joe, and the kids have a happy, long life.

Father, Lesbian Daughter Prohibited From Speaking at Church

From the Minnesota Monitor:

The Archdiocese of St. Paul/Minneapolis has prohibited a father and his lesbian daughter from giving a talk Monday night at a Minneapolis church.

Robert and Carol Curoe were scheduled to give a talk about their book, "Are There Closets in Heaven? A Catholic Father and Lesbian Daughter Share Their Story," about a Catholic family coming to terms with their daughter's coming out. The announcement of the talk several weeks ago spawned discussion on Catholic blogs, and according to the archdiocese statement to the church, "the number and intensity" of phone calls and emails opposing the event led the archdiocese to ban the event.

The Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities (CPCSM) and Catholic Rainbow Parents had sponsored the talk at St. Frances Cabrini Church. "Obviously, we're disappointed, and we are still trying to understand it," said Carol Curoe in a statement Sunday. "Our book, Are There Closets in Heaven? talks about an 82 year-old, life-long Catholic father trying to understand and practice his faith within his church while also loving his daughter as he does her siblings. Neither our journey, nor writing the book, was an easy task."

They will speak at the House of the Beloved Disciple located at 2930 13th Ave. S., Minneapolis on Monday, October 22, at 8:00 p.m.

What Worries Me About You is Your Optimism

Nearly a month before the war in Iraq began, while the Bush Administration was publicly saying it would wait for on-the-ground WMD inspections to be concluded, the President hosted Spanish Prime Minister José Marìa Aznar at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, and told him that the war was coming. We all know now, of course, that the Administration was hell-bent on taking out Saddam regardless of what inspections found, but this article by Mark Danner in The New York Review of Books provides another interesting look at Bush's state of mind and the response it elicited from a world leader who wanted to support the President but who was wary of rushing to war. Bush, of course has no doubts:

Aznar: The only thing that worries me about you is your optimism.

Bush: I am an optimist, because I believe that I'm right. I'm at peace with myself. It's up to us to face a serious threat to peace.

Says Danner:

It is worrying, as Aznar remarks, to rely on optimism grounded only in belief. The Spaniard knows that gaining that second Security Council resolution, and thus the critical international legitimacy for the war, will be very hard; in many nations, launching a war against Iraq, particularly before the UN inspectors have finished their work, is deeply unpopular. Faith cannot replace facts, nor can a historic sense of mission. Both may be personally comforting—they plainly are to George W. Bush—but they don't obviate the need to know things.

Bush came to office a man who knew little of the world, who had hardly traveled outside the country, who knew nothing of the practice of foreign policy and diplomacy. Two years later, after the attacks of September 11 and his emergence as a self-described "war president," he has come to know only that this lack of knowledge is not a handicap but perhaps even a strength: that he doesn't need to know things in order to believe that he's right and to be at peace with himself. He has redefined his weakness—his lack of knowledge and experience—as his singular strength. He believes he's right. It is a matter of generations and destiny and freedom: it is "up to us to face a serious threat to peace." For Bush, faith, conviction, and a felt sense of destiny —not facts or knowledge—are the real necessities of leadership.

And the whole world has paid the price.

A Treat for Insomniacs

I've been having a little trouble staying asleep all night lately. Usually it gets very tiresome laying in bed thinking or watching late night t.v. or reading in a state of semi-consciousness. However tonight if I wake up at my usual time somewhere between 2 - 4am, I'll be in for a real treat! The Orionoid Meteor Shower will be visable after 1:30am and the best viewing is supposed to be just before sunrise Sunday according to this article from Space.com. After a week of rainshowers, it will be quite refreshing to watch a star shower instead!

Pandering Update

Giuliani was not pandering this morning when he spoke at the Values Voter Conference:

Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, walking into a political lion’s den, told the year’s largest gathering of social conservatives that he is “not always the best example of faith” but that their similarities are much greater than their differences.

“Isn’t it better that I tell you what I really believe instead of changing all my positions?” Giuliani told an audience of 2,000 at the Family Research Council's Values Voters Summit at a Washington hotel. “I believe trust is more important than 100 percent agreement.”

...

“We’ve got to find a way to be more inclusive,” Giuliani said. “Christianity is all about inclusiveness. It’s built around the most profound act of love in human history, isn’t it? … I’m running for president of the United States because I believe I can bring us together. Strong leadership can help us find common solutions to our problems.”

State Turns Down Abstinence-Only Money

I was surprised to read this in this morning's Star Tribune given the politics of the Governor:

Publicly funded abstinence-only sex education in Minnesota has nearly disappeared.

Last month, for the first time in a decade, Minnesota officials quietly said no thank you to $500,000 in federal abstinence-only money. That leaves a budget of only $331,000 for a statewide program that as recently as 2004 received $2 million.

The decision not to apply for the federal funding came at a time when the value of abstinence-only sex education is being fiercely debated in Minnesota and nationally.

At issue is the question of whether adolescents and teenagers should be taught the view embraced by social conservatives -- that abstinence is the only sure way to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. According to that view, comprehensive sex education that also teaches kids about birth control or safer sex practices encourages them to have sex. Rules tied to the federal funding forbid any mention of the effectiveness of contraception or of sexual practices that reduce the risk of disease.

But apparently even our socially conservative Governor had a problem with these rules:

Among other things, it required all such programs to also teach that sex outside of marriage was psychologically and physically harmful.

And the messages had to be directed toward everyone ages 12 to 29, officials said.

Another fine example of "faith-based" science.

Rowling Outs Dumbledore

From Entertainment Weekly:

First things first: At last night's talk at New York City's Carnegie Hall — an event for thousands of young Harry Potter fans and their parents — J.K. Rowling outed the kindly headmaster.

Responding to a question from a child about Dumbledore's love life, Rowling hesitated and then revealed, "I always saw Dumbledore as gay." Filling in a few more details, she said, "Dumbledore fell in love with Grindelwald.... Don't forget, falling in love can blind us. [He] was very drawn to this brilliant person. This was Dumbledore's tragedy." She added that in a recent meeting about the sixth movie, she spied a line in the script where Dumbledore waxed poetic about a girl, so she was forced to scribble director David Yates a note to correct the situation.

Pandering Update

At the Values Voters Conference:

Thompson got polite applause for his pledges to oppose abortion and same-sex marriage, then promised that in his first hour as president, he would "go into the Oval Office, close the door and pray for the wisdom to do the right thing."

The crowd leapt to its feet, applauding and yelling its approval to a smiling Thompson.

I guess they do like it.