Matthew 6

16 “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

John 8

1 But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
7 But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
11 “No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

Had some real life interactions that left me frustrated and angry.

Of course I know quite well that such passages are just as applicable to me as to anyone else.

I’ll try to remember that.

For some reason, Old Oligarch more often than not sends me into rant mode. Not sure why, just must be talent. Usually I just mutter to myself, but this time I must call BULLSHIT!

Old Oligarch talks about women and modest dress, and specifically mentions women’s bathing suits. Don’t get me wrong—I’m not necessarily disagreeing with him on the state of women’s clothing. I work in a university; I know precisely how bad things can get.

However.

The female body is no more evil or dangerous than the male body. Modesty in dress should be important to females AND to males. If you think that the female chest should be covered, then you should also believe that the male chest should be covered. If Daisy Dukes are immodest, then so are men’s running shorts. If one sees the human body as something that should be treated respectfully with modest dress, than such treatment should apply equally to men and women.

Let me say one more time: Women’s bodies are not inherently dangerous. Women’s bodies are not inherently evil. If we believe that women’s bodies should be covered, then we must also believe that men’s bodies should be covered.

If most women look ridiculous wearing cropped tops and short shorts, men look no less foolish in running shorts and a bare chest.

As far as swimwear goes, my thoughts are this: If you’re in the water swimming, it doesn’t much matter what you’re wearing, as long as it’s comfortable and doesn’t hinder you. I own a one piece swimsuit, and when I wear it I’m seen as I walk to the pool, and as I walk from the pool. The rest of the time I’m in the water swimming laps, and you can’t tell what I’m wearing. So I’d say the problem is as much why we are wearing as what we’re wearing.

However.

I strongly believe modest dress is a matter of choice. I think that many people today dress atrociously. Hideously. I often wish I had a camera so I could show people precisely how they look, because I’m pretty sure they don’t really know.

But that is their choice. I do wish that people would learn how to dress in a flattering manner, and that fashion styles would take such things into consideration. No one fashion looks good on every person, but you’ll never hear that from the fashion industry. But people have the right to look terrible if they choose. (If nothing else it provides hours of entertainment for me and my co-workers.)

I suppose it comes down to why we dress the way we do: the deep-down honest reasons. If you dress in a way that makes you feel good about yourself, and allows you to feel comfortable, then you’re dressed correctly. But if you’re dressing solely to impress other people, to get their attention, then you’re doing it wrong.

It’s always strange, those moments where you read or hear something that distills your random ideas into one clear thought. I had one of those moments reading this editorial by Nicholas D. Kristof:

If the latest in the “Left Behind” series of evangelical thrillers is to be believed, Jesus will return to Earth, gather non-Christians to his left and toss them into everlasting fire:

“Jesus merely raised one hand a few inches and a yawning chasm opened in the earth, stretching far and wide enough to swallow all of them. They tumbled in, howling and screeching, but their wailing was soon quashed and all was silent when the earth closed itself again.”

These are the best-selling novels for adults in the United States, and they have sold more than 60 million copies worldwide. The latest is “Glorious Appearing,” which has Jesus returning to Earth to wipe all non-Christians from the planet. It’s disconcerting to find ethnic cleansing celebrated as the height of piety.

If a Muslim were to write an Islamic version of “Glorious Appearing” and publish it in Saudi Arabia, jubilantly describing a massacre of millions of non-Muslims by God, we would have a fit. We have quite properly linked the fundamentalist religious tracts of Islam with the intolerance they nurture, and it’s time to remove the motes from our own eyes.

I read this and wanted to yell, “Yes! Yes! That’s it precisely!”

I find it quite disturbing that there are millions of people out there who not just believe that I and others will be cast into the fiery pits of hell, but are happy about this. Especially as these are the people who gleefully brand all Muslims as bloodthirsty monsters who behead Christians.

Close-mindedness has never been a trait I admire, but close-mindedness that revels in the suffering of others–sounds far more like mental illness and innate cruelty than the love of God described by Jesus in the New Testament.

The news that Southern Baptists vote to leave alliance doesn’t particularly upset me, as I’m not a Baptist, and I am disturbed by the ultra conservatism of the Southern Baptists.

But it did lead me wonder about the splits in the Christian church.

Certainly the Christian church was never a single, unified group, although following the council of Nicea, there was a small degree of unity until 1054, and the split of the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox church. Following the Orthodox/Catholic split, things were relatively calm until the 16th century and the Protestant Revolution, after which such divisions became increasingly frequent, continuing today till we have almost innumerable Christian sects.

Each sect has its own slightly different set of beliefs, and typically asserts that all those who belong to a different sect, with a slightly different set of beliefs, are going straight to hell, those damned papists/heretics/infidels.

Is this really how Christianity was supposed to end up? Damning others for technical doctrinal positions? Spending time in debate over questions of doctrine instead of spending time helping others?

And you wonder why I don’t care for organized religion?

I’ve been thinking about the latest horrors in Iraq, and once again I am thinking about the nature of responsibility. Various people are saying that the soldiers were possibly told what to do and how to do it by Military Intelligence. Some soldiers are claiming that they weren’t trained in how to handle prisoners. Our president has said that these actions were shameful and appalling.

But no one is apologizing. No one is taking responsibility. No one is saying “I’m sorry this happened and I’m going to do my best to make sure nothing like this happens again.”

I was loathe to say anything about the abuses in Abu Ghraib, because I don’t know anything about it other than what I’ve read, and my only claim to the situation is that those actions were taken in my name. So what is my responsibility in this? Should I stand up and say that this is wrong, and I do not approve of what has been done by my country in my name? Or are my words only joining the name calling and finger pointing?

Is it my responsibility to stand up and point out evil where I see it, to let people know that these actions were the actions of a few and that those who are part of the majority will not stand for such abuses? Or should I stay out of the way and allow those who know what they are talking take care of the problem, and be effective in their actions instead of drowning out those who could effective with a chorus of “Me too!�”

Where does my responsibility lie?

I think that perhaps I must stand up and point out wrongs where I see them. That perhaps silence is a tool of the enemy (and I don’t mean any specific enemy here, but rather the enemy that once might have been called Satan–the enemy of allowing evil to exist uncontested.)

The problem is that there are so many battles to be fought, and so little time in which to fight them.

It’s pledge time for WV Public Radio, but I’m such the geek that I don’t bother to change the station (I will, however, change the station when Prarie Home Companion comes on. Yetch.)

I’m glad I didn’t change the station, because All Things Considered has been doing a series on Nelson Mandela and South Africa to mark the ten year anniversary of democracy in South Africa.

Today’s segment was Robben Island, which is the island to which the ANC leaders were sent to serve their life prison sentences. But they also talked about what else was going on in the country at the time, and described the student march in Soweto where children marched to protest the fact that they were being required to learn in Afrikaans. Chills went down my spine as the woman being interviewed matter-of-factly described how the police and soldiers fired upon the peacefully demonstrating school children.

I suppose that after nearly thirty years, the horror of the experience would have, perhaps, rubbed off for her, but it was absolutely chilling to me. Yet again I’m confronted with the concept of evil. Apartheid was evil. But were all those who enforced apartheid evil? What about the rest of us? The rest of the world sat by and allowed apartheid to continue. What guilt do we have in this?

And once again, I don’t know the answers. The questions lead only to more questions.

But, if you have the time, and the bandwidth, I’d highly recommend listening.

Several weeks ago there was a discussion at Making Light on the nature of evil, and what constitutes evil. Does taking an evil action make you evil? How many evil acts do you have to commit before you are irredeemable?

Thinking about it has brought to mind several other questions: Can you be evil without committing evil actions, or is evil necessarily defined by actions? How common is evil? Is it something that is found everywhere or is it a rare thing, to be found only in the most unusual circumstances?

It seems to me that some of the stories that fascinate me the most don’t have a set line between good and evil.

Thieves’ World contains lots of characters who commit lots of actions that could easily be construed as evil, except that when viewed in a different way, you can often understand why the character acted as they did. The fact that so many of the stories were written from multiple viewpoints really emphasizes this; that is how things tend to be. Different people see things in different ways, and the same incident is going to be told different ways by different people. This makes motive all the more foggy.

Deep Space Nine is full of characters who walk the line between good and evil. Garak is definitely not a good person, yet he’s one of my favorite characters. He takes many actions that could easily be considered evil, yet I find it hard to consider him so, and in fact frequently find him admirable, if for no other reason that he always acts upon his convictions, whatever they may be. Gul Ducat is easily despisable, but I find it hard to say he’s evil. He seemed to truly believe that he was doing the right thing, even if he was going about it the wrong way. And after that, he went insane, and I find it hard to claim that someone who is insane is truly evil. Even the “good” characters commit evil acts. There is no clear line between what is good and what is evil. And it fascinates me.

I just finished rereading Steven Brust’s Vlad Taltos series, and there is yet another character who should be evil, yet isn’t really. He’s an assassin. He kills people for money, and is part of a giant criminal organization. But he clearly isn’t unredeemable. I can’t say that he is evil either.

Yeah, those are all fictional examples, but it’s easier than using real people. And I think that it pans out a similar way in the real world.

I think that this is how I have changed most in recent years. When I was younger I saw things clearly as good and evil, right and wrong. But the more people I know, the more life I experience, the harder I find it to categorize people as such. There is no longer any black and white. Sometimes good people have to do bad things, and doing bad things doesn’t necessarily make one a bad person.

I no longer know where to draw that line.

Everyone has motives, and it’s very easy to allow those motives to blind us to the morality of the actions we take, or even to forget about the morality of our actions as we become caught up in the moment. That doesn’t make us bad people, and it doesn’t make us evil.

To put it another way, how many evil actions does one have to take to become evil? How many good actions must they take to redeem themselves? Can just a single action make us unredeemably evil?

I don’t know the answer to any of these questions, and I’m learning that I’m unlikely to find the answer, as the deeper I delve, the more questions I find.

(This was written as we were driving to Akron. I am, of course, not spending time on the web right now. Because I’m studying. Really.)

I said several months ago, that the idea of Nativism was strange to me, and that anti-Catholicism was a foreign concept that seemed part of another time. I found it hard to believe that people feared Catholics and the Roman influence of the pope.

I believe that I spoke too soon.

Regardless of how one feels about his stance on abortion, it is profoundly disturbing that the Catholic church–or at least some individuals of the Catholic hierarchy–are attempting to influence Catholic politicians by saying that they should be denied Communion if they don’t tow the Catholic line.

Not only is it disturbing that a religious body is attempting to dictate American political policy, it is also, as was mentioned elsewhere, profoundly hypocritical. There has been no backlash against Catholic politicians who support the death penalty. There has been no backlash again Catholic politicians who have voted against Universal Health Care.

As I said earlier, and others have said more eloquently, the political stance of “right-to-life” groups makes no sense, as it provides no solutions or support for women’s health, or for the health and well-being of children.

The Catholic Church is right to ask its members to support life–and to support life from birth to death–but it crosses the line when it attempts to dictate political policy in the United States. We have a constitutional separation of Church and State, and American Catholics, just like most other Americans, have a highly individual streak.

I have heard for years that if the Vatican has taken stances that are driving away American Catholics, and could even lead to a split within the American Catholic church. I’ve always taken such pronouncements with a grain of salt; after all despite the split with the Orthodox church a thousand years ago, and then the Protestant reformation, it has always seemed to me as if those splits were far in the past, and the continuing splits have occurred within Protestant branches of Christianity. But then I don’t know the rate at which Catholics leave the Catholic church for other denominations. Perhaps this is something that has been occurring for years and I’ve just not paid attention. Perhaps Catholics who become disaffected with the church will simply leave for Anglican or Orthodox churches, or any other denomination that they find compatible, or perhaps there finally will be a major division within the American Catholic church. Regardless, I don’t see it as a good thing that Rome seems to be attempting to place American Catholics under greater control.

But I don’t really know. As I’ve said before, as a disaffected Catholic, I am hardly one to make pronouncements upon what the Catholic church should be doing. After all, if I really cared I’d be doing it from inside the Church.

It’s obvious he means well, but this post by Old Oligarch epitomises everything that I cannot stand about the right-to-life movement. Mind you, I believe that abortion is a wrong that society should fix, but as far as I’m concerned, the so called “pro-life” movement doesn’t care about life at all, it cares only about fetuses and doesn’t give a damn about those children once they are born.

He talks about all the people entering the clinic, and goes on about the workers and the patients, and a huge dialogue about how he felt about the entire thing, but just like almost every other pro-life person I’ve heard, ends it there. As if ending abortion is the only consideration and all will be well once that goal is achieved.

There is no discussion of what will happen to these pregnant women and their babies. As always, it as if once abortion is stopped, there will no longer be a problem. There is no discussion of helping pregnant women, and helping those women then care for their babies. There is no mention of groups like Birthright, that provide maternity clothes, baby clothes, arranges for baby supplies and toys, and most importantly provides someone to listen. There is no mention of these groups and how they need support, through cash donations (which can be made through the United Way), donations of maternity clothes or baby clothes and items, or even through donations of time.

There is no mention of the evil of parents who throw their daughters out onto the street when they discover the pregnancy. Or of parents who tell their daughters that out on the street is precisely where those girls will end up if they do become pregnant.

Nothing about supporting rape and domestic abuse crisis agencies.

No support of adoption agencies, or information about how to become a foster parent.

Nothing about the need to support families with children; no concern for those unborn once they become children.

Just a strong sense of good versus evil, and of self-righteoutness, with no sense of the gray areas, and no consideration of any of the support structures that exist (or in so many cases don’t exist) for pregnant women, infants, and children.

There is also no consideration of how to keep women from getting pregnant in the first place. No discussion of making birth control cheaply available or free. No support of sex education programs, or for day care programs that allow pregnant teens to remain in school.

It is this blindness that I find so maddening about “right-to-life” groups. It is as if the only life they value is the life of the unborn child, and once the child is born their work is done, and they could care less what happens to the child. No interest in affordable day care for the poor. No interest in health care for and and children. No interest in clean and safe housing for children. No interest in providing these children quality education so that they can keep from making the mistakes their parents made, and our generation is making.

You want to impress me with your right-to-life idealism, then start showing some support for the world these children will enter once they are born.

Yes, I’ve missed the last three Festival of Ideas talks. (Two of the three I wanted to see, but Leon Winter was the first day back after spring break, and I just plain forgot, and John Meecham was missed due to a house project.

But…

Just got notice of two talks next week that look interesting:

7) NEW TESTAMENT SCHOLAR TO GIVE LECTURE MONDAY
A renowned New Testament scholar will visit campus Monday, April 12, to give the Manfred O. Meitzen Outstanding Guest Theological Lecture. Amy-Jill Levine will speak on “Lost History of Women in the Bible” at 7:30 p.m. at Erickson Alumni Center. Dr. Levine is a professor at Vanderbilt University Divinity School, where she directs the Carpenter Program in Religion, Gender and Sexuality. The lecture is free and open to the public.

12) GUEST PHILOSOPHER TO DISCUSS ‘FREE WILL AND SELF-EXPRESSION’
The Department of Philosophy announces an upcoming lecture by 2004 Outstanding Guest Philosopher John M. Fischer. Dr. Fischer, professor of philosophy and Director of the Honors Program at the University of California, Riverside, will speak on Wednesday, April 14, from 7:30-9 p.m. in G-15 Life Sciences Building. His lecture, titled “Free Will and Self-Expression,” has been designed for a general audience interested in these issues.

How exciting!

There’s an interview with Karen Armstrong in this weeks NY Times Magazine.

It’s quite an interesting interview; despite the fact that the interviewer comes across as a total prig, Karen Armstrong holds her own:

Could you feel compassion for someone who wrote a negative review of one of your books?

I spent so many years as an abject failure that if I get a good review, I am surprised. I didn’t get anywhere near success until I was 50 years old.

Perhaps you should have given more thought to the biblical belief in an eye-for-an-eye-style revenge?

An eye for an eye is about limiting vengeance. You can only take an eye out for an eye; you may not kill someone for knocking out your eye. It means restraining tribal violence, and it is in the Koran.

That’s fascinating, but I still find your emphasis on compassion simplistic. We know from Freud that all true achievement derives from selfishness. Who cares if Michelangelo was nice to his next-door neighbors?

Religions are not dealing with geniuses. They are dealing with ordinary people.

This came in through my work e-mail, so I thought it would be a good time to post something here about it as well.

CHRISTIAN HELP OFFERS CAREER CLOSET
Christian Help, Inc. reminds students and employees – men and women alike – that they can donate and obtain professional clothing through the agency’s “Career Closet.” The working men’s and women’s closets are free and open to the public during operating hours at 219 Walnut St.

I could write in detail about the panel discussion of Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” but what struck me more was a folktale that kept running through my head as I thought about the movie and the impact it is having upon society. One speaker did say something that I think can’t be emphasized enough. He said (and I’m paraphrasing) that if one act of anti-Semitism—if one synagogue is burned because of this movie, then it should never have been made. The story of gospels is not one of murder and vengeance, but of love and compassion and caring for those who can not care for themselves. If that message is missed, then the point of the whole story has been ignored.

But to the story that kept running through my mind….
(more…)

Minnijean Brown-Trickey spoke Thursday night as part of WVU’s Festival of Ideas program.

Minnijean Brown-Trickeywas one of the “Little Rock Nine”-students who desegregated Central High in Little Rock Arkansas in 1957, and she spoke about how that time affected her personally, as well as changed America.

She said that the Little Rock Desegregation Crisis is part of American history, not just black history, because at its core it was a constitutional conflict. This crisis gave individuals an understanding of the theory and practice of racism, was one of the elements that helped to end segregation across the country, and was key to helping people realize some sense of self-determination.

She said that non-violence is a way of life and quoted the title of a poem by a the Spanish poet Antonio Machado “We Make the Road by Waking” saying that we can not predict the future, we instead make the future ourselves.

She said that we are challenged to take responsibility for the world we live in.

She discussed the history that led to the Little Rock Desegregation Crisis. The Plessy V. Ferguson (1892) decision was the ruling that set up separate but equal and authorized the segregation that separated black from whites in all aspects of life as the justification for Jim Crow laws. She said that there was resistance to this ruling and during this time there were unparalleled acts of violence against blacks, with 10,000 lynchings in 30 years.

Brown v Board of Education (1954) was the ruling that led to desegregation and the time that most Americans would mark as the Civil Rights Movement. She said that it was believed that if young people interacted together, it would make things easier, that children who grew up together would later get along. She said that this ruling affected not just blacks, but also Chinese, Mexicans, Japanese, and other people of color.

Her history in the Little Rock Desegregation Crisis was that in 1957, the Little Rock School Board proposed to desegregate the schools, and when they asked for volunteers and Minnijean Brown and others added their name to the list. That summer the names and addresses of the students who were to desegregate the school were published in the paper, and the violence started immediately.

On the first day of classes, the governor placed troops around the school, and there was a mob outside, as well as media from around the world. When the soldiers closed ranks to keep the students out, this was shown all around the world. This took three weeks to straighten out, and finally the guard left and the students snuck into the school, only to be evacuated for their safety as the mob outside attacked three black newsmen, one of whom died later from his injuries.

Because this was the cold war, and Eisenhower was afraid of what the Russians might think and do, he eventually sent troops to desegregate the school and provide guards for the students.

She said that she wanted to go to school, despite everything, because if they were going to be so threatened to keep them out of that school, then “there must be a treasure in there.”

Minnijean Brown-Trickey said that she never wants what she went through to happen to anyone ever again, yet it did happen again, which disappointed her. She is also disappointed that we are regressing and again becoming a segregated society, although this time the division is occurring on the basis of class and neighborhood and not the outright color segregation that occurred in the past. She asked whether we as a society have decided to allow these cultural enclaves, with the implied question of what will we do to make the change, to keep this from happening.

She said one of her favorite things was what she called the “mirror trick”, or “Seeing myself in every other person.” and she also quoted Gandhi: “We must be the change when we want to change the world.”

She mentioned several of the Principles of Non-Violence, and suggested that they should be a guide for everyone.
1. Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people.
…
5. Nonviolence chooses love instead of hate.
6. Nonviolence believes that the universe is on the side of justice.

(Martin Luther King Jr’s 6 Principles of Non-Violence)

She said most importantly, “I believe non-violence is the strongest force on earth”