How the Moral Have Fallen

The evangelical Christian college Liberty University announced on Monday that it is opening an independent investigation into its recently resigned president Jerry Falwell Jr., heir to its founder, Moral Majority leader Jerry Falwell. It's been a long time in coming.

Some may say that all the signs were there for a long time before last week. It’s certainly fair to say that there were questionable comments made, worrying behavior, and inappropriate social media posts, but all the signs were not there until the start of last week. While we still didn’t know the full scope of the matter, we have learned enough about the past to know that we had no choice but to take the leadership of Liberty University in a new direction.

So now we know what it takes to push this bastion of moral rectitude into decisive action. Notably it's none of the issues specifically stated in the university's announcement, "financial, real estate, and legal matters." It wasn't the self-dealing and cronyism that have been raising serious, internal concerns for some time. It wasn't even the "racy" photos that have appeared and disappeared from social media, or been handled by Donald Trump's former fixer, now convicted felon, Michael Cohen. No, what finally pushed the board of directors to act was a salacious sex scandal involving his wife, Becki. One even wonders if sexual indiscretions on his own part would have been enough. Falwell has been exposed, horror of horrors, as a cuckold.

Falwell Jr.'s problems started in earnest a few weeks ago when he bizarrely uploaded, then removed, an eyebrow raising photo of himself with a young woman later identified as his wife's assistant.

Religious Literacy: Midterm

I have been taking this class through Harvard edX on religious literacy and enjoying it very much. It's also been taking up a lot of my writing time, so in lieu of a blog post, I thought I'd post the Midterm I recently posted to the classroom. The assignment was to apply the cultural studies method to a contemporary article, relevant to my cultural context. I chose this article for analysis. The questions posed are in bold. It's a little brief, because there was a word limit. My first draft was about twice the length, but oh well.


1) Does the article represent the religion or religions in question as internally diverse?

Yes and no. The authors specify that the focus is biblical literalists, including "Evangelical and fundamentalist churches, the Church of Latter Day Saints, and other conservative sects." They distinguish these sects from "liberal, progressive Christian churches with a humanistic viewpoint, a focus on the present, and social justice."

There is no acknowledgment of diversity among Evangelical sects and LDS, and that not all are rigidly "conservative." For example, the authors claim that these groups "focus on the spiritual world as superior to the natural world." However, there are Evangelical movements with a strong focus on ecology and "stewardship" of the natural world.

Aside from the caveat about “liberal” sects, they are not represented in the article. There are no examples of benign or positive influence in other Christian sects. Yet, they make many generalizations about the destructiveness of Christianity and religion, writ large, rather than confining these assessments to these "conservative" Christian practices.

To say that some religious expressions are “more toxic than others” implies that they’re all at least somewhat toxic. This broader implication is not supported in the text. While there is acknowledgment of the internal diversity of Christianity, the authors do not present a balanced portrait of that diversity.

Blaming Religion

I noticed a link on my Facebook feed this morning to a Salon article on the "6 reasons religion may do more harm than good." The first reason listed: religion promotes tribalism.

Religion divides insiders from outsiders. Rather than assuming good intentions, adherents often are taught to treat outsiders with suspicion. “Be ye not unequally yoked with unbelievers,” says the Christian Bible. “They wish that you disbelieve as they disbelieve, and then you would be equal; therefore take not to yourselves friends of them,” says the Koran (Sura 4:91).

At best, teachings like these discourage or even forbid the kinds of friendship and intermarriage that help clans and tribes become part of a larger whole. At worst, outsiders are seen as enemies of God and goodness, potential agents of Satan, lacking in morality and not to be trusted. Believers might huddle together, anticipating martyrdom. When simmering tensions erupt, societies fracture along sectarian fault lines.

No fan of tribalism, me, but religion is hardly unique in this tendency.

Case in point: In a link right under the one for that article, I noticed another Salon article, really a book excerpt, on "toxic atheism." In it, atheist Chris Stedman describes the same kind of tribal exclusivity, judgment, and othering among his compatriots.

That Time Reza Aslan Smacked Down Bill Maher

I've never much cared for Bill Maher's commentary on religion. I think his views on the issue are shallow and reasoned backwards from the most extreme examples. So I very much enjoyed Reza Aslan's recent take-down of Maher's thoroughly ignorant, Islamaphobic rant. In the process he schooled the equally simplistic Don Lemon and Alisyn Camerota.

Comedian Bill Maher recently made some comments about Islamic countries that characterized them as more prone to violence, misogyny and bigotry, and now religious scholar Reza Aslan has called Maher out on his own “bigotry.” Aslan, who became famous when he skewered Fox News, appeared on CNN to pick apart Maher’s “not very sophisticated” and “facile arguments” that characterize Muslim nations as all the same. As is evident from the CNN bit, these arguments are not unique to Maher, making Aslan’s nuanced argument an essential one to keep in mind as we increase military action in the Middle East.

Here’s Aslan’s point: “To say Muslim countries, as though Pakistan and Turkey are the same… it’s frankly, and I use this word seriously, stupid!”

“The problem is that you’re talking about a religion of one and a half billion people,” he explained, “and certainly it becomes very easy to just simply paint them all with a single brush by saying, ‘Well in Saudi Arabia [women] can’t drive,’ and saying that’s representative of Islam. That’s representative of Saudi Arabia.”

The Beautiful Unfoldment of an Episcopal Diocese

"I just stopped believing God was a mystery you could nail down with one book." ~ Keanu Reeves in The Private Lives of Pippa Lee

I was contemplating last evening, apropos of nothing, just why I did not become an Episcopal priest. I strongly considered it in my youth and even well into my college years. I knew I was "called" to religious service. But I outgrew the Church. What it came down to, I finally realized, was that as open and forward leaning as the Episcopal Church is, it's dogmatic enough to make me uncomfortable. I still felt too limited by doctrine. I couldn't be comfortable devoting my life to it, and worse, teaching things I really couldn't endorse.

I drifted in and out of the Church for some years. There were so many things about it that I loved but other things that were quite jarring. I vividly remember being at a funeral, after not having been at a service for a year or two, and hearing the "Prayer of Humble Access" as if for the first time.

We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table...

I'd heard it hundreds of times before but suddenly it was like nails on a chalkboard. So shame-based. What possible good could come from such self-denigration? That moment crystalized in my thinking the reason that Christian orthodoxy was just never going to work for me. It probably didn't help that I've always had an inherently mystical orientation. How could we be so much less than God when we we are God, I thought. I began to realize that, in fact, that central belief of mine wasn't actually endorsed by the Church. As egalitarian as the Episcopal Church was, it was also hierarchical. God was "up there" and outside of us. It didn't really make sense to me. So I went another way.

Cardinal Dolan on Losing the Culture Wars

Last night I had the strangest dream. I dreamt that Pope Francis had resigned and been replaced by yet another pope. How many retired popes, I wondered, could Vatican City accommodate? Would this become the new normal in the Catholic Church? And what about the Malachy prophecy? Because it looks very likely that Pope Francis is, in fact, Peter the Roman. Mostly, I was just really disappointed because I like this pope. He's not perfect but his heart is in the right place.

I was somewhat relieved to find this morning that Francis was still the pope and all was, more or less, right with the world. But then I was disheartened to hear that Cardinal Dolan was on Meet the Press spinning like a top. Because it's never about the regressive views of US bishops. It's about how they're being unfairly portrayed in media. Why oh why do they have so much trouble getting their message across?

They're not anti-gay says Cardinal Dolan. That's just how they've been "caricatured" by the media, simply because they're so pro "traditional marriage." But they've been "outmarketed," says Dolan.

"When you have forces like Hollywood, when you have forces like politicians, when you have forces like some opinion molders that are behind it, it is a tough battle.”

What the round-faced, red-hatted one never seems to understand is that if you're for something to such an extent that you want to prevent everyone else from doing differently, you are by definition, "anti." And Cardinal Dolan is "anti-anybody" who wants to get gay married. But he seems somewhat resigned to the fact that the "stampede" of same sex marriage support is crushing formal Catholic opposition.

Also horribly unfair, says Cardinal Dolan is the misconception that the Catholic Church is opposed to universal healthcare. They were way ahead of the curve, says he, going all the way back to 1819. But they can't support Obamacare because, you know, birth control mandate. It goes against the teachings of the Church. Never mind that 98% of Catholic women in America have used birth control.

This tells us a lot about the priorities of US Bishops. Landmark legislation that the Catholic Church has been wanting for nearly a century and they can't support it because of a handful of wedge issues. This is called letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. There were many things the political left wanted from Obamacare and didn't get -- a public option for instance -- but they didn't let that stop their support for the overall aims of the bill. Because that would have been letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. That US Bishops were willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater over contraception tells you very quickly that they are far more preoccupied with our wombs than our health.

Pope Francis has gone on record regarding the Catholic Church's priorities and found them wanting. The relentless obsession with things like abortion, gay marriage, and contraception, are contrary to the overall aim of spreading the Gospel, says the pontiff.

A few days ago His Holiness made waves again when he released an exhortation addressing the injustices of modern capitalism.

Pope Francis has taken aim at capitalism as "a new tyranny" and is urging world leaders to step up their efforts against poverty and inequality, saying "thou shall not kill" the economy. Francis calls on rich people to share their wealth.

The existing financial system that fuels the unequal distribution of wealth and violence must be changed, the Pope warned.

"How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?" Pope Francis asked an audience at the Vatican.

The Bible contains over 300 verses on social injustice and caring for the poor. It is, in fact, a major theme. Whereas a smattering of verses on homosexuality say nothing about marriage rights and actually call for execution. That traditional marriage Cardinal Dolan waxes on about loses out big time to polygamy. And the tireless obsession with our lady parts is ridiculously counter-biblical in all respects but the misogyny. News flash: Abortion isn't forbidden in the Bible.

I know that Cardinal Dolan is adhering to Catholic doctrine but he's cherry-picking that just as he is the Bible. Pope Francis seems to have his priorities in better order. I hope he remains pope for a good, long time, or until the end of time, whichever comes first.

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Pat Robertson Takes an Odd Break from The Crazy

Is this whole Christian leaders not judging people becoming a trend? I don't know. Maybe.

The 83-year-old televangelist [Pat Robertson] sat down on Sunday for the "Bring It Online" advice portion of his Christian Broadcasting Network show, "The 700 Club." A viewer named David wrote in asking how he should refer to two transgender females who work in his office and have legally changed their genders. Instead of criticizing the trans individuals, Robertson approached the situation in a seemingly level-headed manner.

"I think there are men who are in a woman's body," he said. "It's very rare. But it's true -- or women that are in men's bodies -- and that they want a sex change. That is a very permanent thing, believe me, when you have certain body parts amputated and when you have shot up with various kinds of hormones. It's a radical procedure. I don't think there's any sin associated with that. I don't condemn somebody for doing that."

. . .

When his co-host said the viewer doesn't know the intentions or medical history of his co-workers, Robertson rebutted, "It's not for you to decide or to judge."

It seems a strange exception to his usual judge, condemn, and blame everybody rule.

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Biblical Scholars Shred 1 Man, 1 Woman Argument

I've been saying for some time -- notably here, here, and here -- that the Biblical case against gay marriage isn't very strong. The case for polygamy and female slavery is much stronger and to say otherwise is to really cherry-pick the good book. But I'm not a religious scholar. These three men are and they've taken their case to Des Moines Register.

The debate about marriage equality often centers, however discretely, on an appeal to the Bible. Unfortunately, such appeals often reflect a lack of biblical literacy on the part of those who use that complex collection of texts as an authority to enact modern social policy.

As academic biblical scholars, we wish to clarify that the biblical texts do not support the frequent claim that marriage between one man and one woman is the only type of marriage deemed acceptable by the Bible’s authors.

. . .

In fact, there were a variety of unions and family configurations that were permissible in the cultures that produced the Bible, and these ranged from monogamy (Titus 1:6) to those where rape victims were forced to marry their rapist (Deuteronomy 22:28-29) and to those Levirate marriage commands obligating a man to marry his brother’s widow regardless of the living brother’s marital status (Deuteronomy 25:5-10; Genesis 38; Ruth 2-4). Others insisted that celibacy was the preferred option (1 Corinthians 7:8; 28).

All three, Hector Avalos, Robert R. Cargill and Kenneth Atkinson, are  professors at prominent Iowa universities, but that hasn't insulated them from hostile reactions.

He explained that it is obvious to scholars (and some religious leaders) that the Bible endorses a wide range of relationships. But he noted, however, that professors are "terrified" of the potential backlash that might result from opening a dialogue about these relationships. Cargill also noted that the initial response to the Register column has included its fair share of vitriol.

Ultimately, said Cargill, a Biblical "argument against same-sex marriage is wholly unsustainable. We all know this, but very few scholars are talking about it, because they don't want to take the heat."
He suggested that academics who continue to be cowed by a strident opposition do a disservice to their communities.

. . .

Anyone who argues that "the Bible speaks plainly on one issue, especially something as complicated as marriage ... haven't take the time to read all of it," he added.

I have wondered many times if the people who quote the Bible as the definitive source on a range of hot-button issues have actually read it. I don't think it means what they think it means.

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Score One for Religious Tolerance

Hat-tip to George Takei for digging this gem out of Jezebel's archive. It all started when Reddit user european_douchebag tried to make a little hay out of the unusual appearance of a Sikh woman.

Writes Jezebel:

The mind of european_douchebag was SO INCREDIBLY BLOWN by the fact that women have hair on their bodies—and, yes, faces—and that some women are bold, self-assured, and pious enough not to cave to western beauty standards (and gender expectations), there was nothing for him to do but post her photo online and wait for the abuse to flood in.

When I was in beauty school -- yes I went to beauty school -- I read in my cosmetology textbook that 85% of women have "superfluous hair." (Subtext: There's big money in waxing and electrolysis.) Even at that tender, young age I thought, if 85% of women have it, how is it superfluous? Isn't it the other 15% of us who have a hair deficiency? But I digress.

The woman in the photo learned that she and her facial hair were being featured on Reddit, so she responded with such grace, humility, and self-possession, that it would be hard not to completely adore her.

Hey, guys. This is Balpreet Kaur, the girl from the picture. I actually didn't know about this until one of my friends told on facebook. If the OP wanted a picture, they could have just asked and I could have smiled :) However, I'm not embarrased or even humiliated by the attention [negative and positve] that this picture is getting because, it's who I am. Yes, I'm a baptized Sikh woman with facial hair. Yes, I realize that my gender is often confused and I look different than most women. However, baptized Sikhs believe in the sacredness of this body - it is a gift that has been given to us by the Divine Being [which is genderless, actually] and, must keep it intact as a submission to the divine will. Just as a child doesn't reject the gift of his/her parents, Sikhs do not reject the body that has been given to us. By crying 'mine, mine' and changing this body-tool, we are essentially living in ego and creating a seperateness between ourselves and the divinity within us. By transcending societal views of beauty, I believe that I can focus more on my actions. My attitude and thoughts and actions have more value in them than my body because I recognize that this body is just going to become ash in the end, so why fuss about it? When I die, no one is going to remember what I looked like, heck, my kids will forget my voice, and slowly, all physical memory will fade away. However, my impact and legacy will remain: and, by not focusing on the physical beauty, I have time to cultivate those inner virtues and hopefully, focus my life on creating change and progress for this world in any way I can. So, to me, my face isn't important but the smile and the happiness that lie behind the face are. :-) So, if anyone sees me at OSU, please come up and say hello. I appreciate all of the comments here, both positive and less positive because I've gotten a better understanding of myself and others from this. Also, the yoga pants are quite comfortable and the Better Together tshirt is actually from Interfaith Youth Core, an organization that focuses on storytelling and engagement between different faiths. :) I hope this explains everything a bit more, and I apologize for causing such confusion and uttering anything that hurt anyone.

And, indeed, even the photographer went from having his mind blown to having it expanded.

I know that this post ISN'T a funny post but I felt the need to apologize to the Sikhs, Balpreet, and anyone else I offended when I posted that picture. Put simply it was stupid. Making fun of people is funny to some but incredibly degrading to the people you're making fun of. It was an incredibly rude, judgmental, and ignorant thing to post.

/r/Funny wasn't the proper place to post this. Maybe /r/racism or /r/douchebagsofreddit or /r/intolerance would have been more appropriate. Reddit shouldn't be about putting people down, but a group of people sending cool, interesting, or funny things. Reddit's been in the news alot lately about a lot of cool things we've done, like a freaking AMA by the president. I'm sorry for being the part of reddit that is intolerant and douchebaggy. This isn't 4chan, or 9gag, or some other stupid website where people post things like I did. It's fucking reddit. Where some pretty amazing stuff has happened.

I've read more about the Sikh faith and it was actually really interesting. It makes a whole lot of sense to work on having a legacy and not worrying about what you look like. I made that post for stupid internet points and I was ignorant.

So reddit I'm sorry for being an asshole and for giving you negative publicity.
Balpreet, I'm sorry for being a closed minded individual. You are a much better person than I am
Sikhs, I'm sorry for insulting your culture and way of life.
Balpreet's faith in what she believes is astounding.

'Nuff said.

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The Beautiful Church is Empty

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Religion is on the decline, and "nones" are on the rise. People with no religious affiliation, here in the United States is now at 20 percent -- double what it was two decades ago.

Even as the election of a new Pope in Rome dominated the day's news, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and Duke University reported that Americans are increasingly "parting ways" with religion.

In 2012, one in five people surveyed claimed no religious preference -- that's double the number who said that as recently as 1990. And religious affiliation in the United States is at its lowest point since researchers began tracking it in the 1930s.

Not religious is not the same as atheist, however. Atheists are currently at 3 percent, according to the survey data. People are abandoning organized religion, not spiritual belief. As discussed, the number of those who define as spiritual but not religious is on the rise.

People are separating from religious institutions for a range of reasons, from their misalignment with changing social values, to hypocrisy about their own.

Jerome Baggett, a professor at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, said changes on three levels -- individual, institutional, and societal -- have contributed to declining American membership in organized religion.

. . .

Religious institutions themselves have lost their legitimacy in the eyes of many Americans due to sexual and financial scandals, or political overreaching "by the so-called Christian right," said Baggett. "Americans have a wariness to institutions in general, but a particular wariness to religious institutions," he said.

In other words, there are people who probably would be religious but have become disaffected. I know a lot of those.

I know, for example, a lot people who loved the Catholic Church but have lost patience with its intolerance for homosexuality, birth control, premarital sex, and other matters of personal morality -- even as it thoroughly bungles the problem of sexual abusive priests in its employ. It's a deeper irony than many people can stand to see in their religious leaders.

So I found this commentary from Bill Donohue's Catholic League particularly risible. Faced with polling that showed more than half of Catholics, 54 percent, now support gay marriage, Donohue pulled a Dick Morris and  attempted to unskew the poll. As per Donohue, Quinnipiac's mistake was in counting Catholics who don't go to church every Sunday.

This takes on added significance when we consider that 4 in 10 of the Catholics sampled do not practice their religion (28 percent go to church “a few times a year” and 11 percent say they “never” attend). That these nominal Catholics are precisely the biggest fans of gay marriage is a sure bet, though the poll fails to disclose the results.

The Quinnipiac Polling Institute has some explaining to do.

The weak impression of Ricky Ricardo aside, Donohue is articulating something very important about the Catholic mindset, which increasingly has more to do with purity tests from the hierarchy and a less to do -- okay, nothing to do -- with responding to the people who make up the Church. Who knows how many of these "nominal Catholics" could be brought back into the fold, if they felt like the Church wasn't totally out of step with the modern world.

As per Donohue, under journalistic scrutiny, Quinnipiac fessed up. If you only count those real Catholics, the numbers are about reversed.

After our news release was distributed, reporters from CNSNews.com contacted Quinnipiac. What they admitted totally alters the outcome: 55 percent of Catholics who are regular church-goers are opposed to gay marriage, and only 38 percent favor it. This is important because Quinnipiac’s Peter A. Brown was cited all over for claiming that “Catholic voters are leading American voters toward support for same-sex marriage.” Nonsense.

What I find kind of funny about all that is that 38 percent is still a pretty healthy chunk of the regular church-goers Donohue thinks of as legitimate. Anyone paying attention to the overall trend might be very concerned about the growing disconnect between the Church and even its most ardent followers. But people like Donohue, and it would appear the Catholic hierarchy, seem to be digging their heels in. As a simple matter of organizational theory, this seems short-sighted.

In the 1950s, a lot of companies had the same organizational structure as the Catholic church. You reported up the hierarchy, and you did what the leaders told you to do. And then, in 1961, a surprising study discovered that innovative companies were just the opposite:

They are adapted to unstable conditions....Interaction runs laterally as much as vertically. Communication between people of different ranks tends to resemble lateral consultation, rather than vertical command.

. . .

Maybe the Catholic church doesn't need to be innovative. After all, if you're following the word of God, if you have knowledge of the absolute truth, then perhaps you'd never need to change. And that's often the sort of statement that comes out of Rome. After all, the church is growing (although the new members come from developing countries), so the leadership can argue that it's been successful by sticking to an organizational structure that was invented a few thousand years ago, in the age of monarchy and serfdom--three or four major economic and societal transformations ago.

It's hard to miss that even in its election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio to the papacy -- a departure for the Church in many ways -- they're still hewing strongly to the very regressive policies that are disenfranchising so many Catholics. Pope Francis may be a breath of fresh air when it comes to respect for the poor, but when it comes to gay people, he's a fire-breathing hater. Frankly, it seems sort of incongruous to me. In so many ways, he seems like such a sweet man. Then he says things like this:

In 2010, as Argentina debated a marriage equality bill, Bergoglio called on Catholics to oppose the move, calling it the devil's handiwork.

“Let's not be naïve, we're not talking about a simple political battle; it is a destructive pretension against the plan of God,” Bergoglio wrote in a letter calling on followers to join a protest rally in Buenos Aires.

“We are not talking about a mere bill, but rather a move by the Father of Lies which aims to confuse and deceive the children of God.”

Bergoglio went on to say that gay adoption is discriminatory to children: “At stake are the lives of many children who'll be discriminated against in being deprived of the human growth that God wanted to be given through a father and a mother.”

Agrentina went on to ratify gay marriage, which underscores just how out of step the Church is on this issue. President President Cristina Fernandez de Kircher called his statements a "throwback to the Inquisition."

Pope Francis is also stridently opposed to birth control and abortion rights. I doubt that anyone could have been elected pope who wasn't completely regressive on these issues of sexual morality. That seems to be the litmus test of. And the farther behind that puts them with new generations, the more rigid and unyielding the Church becomes. This, according to Joan Chittister of the National Catholic Reporter has made Catholics weary.

The problem is that weariness is far worse than anger. Far more stultifying than mere indifference. Weariness comes from a soul whose hope has been disappointed one time too many. To be weary is not a condition of the body -- that's tiredness. No, weariness is a condition of the heart that has lost the energy to care anymore.

People are weary of hearing more about the laws of the church than the love of Jesus.

People are weary of seeing whole classes of people -- women, gays and even other faith communities again -- rejected, labeled, seen as "deficient," crossed off the list of the acceptable.

They are weary of asking questions that get no answers, no attention whatsoever, except derision.

They suffer from the lassitude that sets in waiting for apologies that do not come.

There's an ennui that sets in when people get nothing but old answers to new questions.

So, yeah... I know a lot of lapsed Catholics.

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Robert Jeffress Questions Tim Tebow's Manhood

It's getting ugly between Robert Jeffress and Tim Tebow. Well, Robert Jeffress is getting ugly. Tim Tebow seems like a decent enough guy. But he bowed out of a scheduled appearance at the First Baptist Church in Dallas, when Jeffress's record was made clear to him. And Jeffress, who made a series of more politic statements in the immediate aftermath, seems to have finally snapped. Some of the statements in the sermon posted above seemed to be aimed a bit south of the belt-line.

Jeffress is no stranger to controversy. During the Republican primary, for instance, his anti-Mormon views created a little trouble for his good friend Rick Perry. But his belief that Mormonism is a cult wasn't as controversial as his belief that Catholicism is "a Babylonian mystery religion that spread like a cult," which demonstrates "the genius of Satan."

He says things like that but somehow he always manages to look completely mystified when he gets push-back. In the video above, for instance, he explains that he just doesn't understand why anyone thinks he's antisemitic simply because he believes that all Jews will go to hell unless they accept Jesus. It's not like he's singling Jews out. He believes Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, atheists... they're all going to hell, too. He's not antisemitic. He's anti-everything that isn't Christianity, because it's all evil and hellbound. What's wrong with that? And he doesn't know why people think he's anti-gay just because he says that sex should only be between a man and a woman.

You see? It's so crazy the way people take the things he says out of context like that.

This little dust-up is further evidence of a growing divide in the evangelical community that is, at least partly, defined along generational lines. As I wrote here, young evangelicals are not so much about the social issues that defined the rise of the Christian right. That's puts someone like Jeffress at odds with a growing segment of what he fully expects to still be his base.

Tim Tebow is well-known for his Christian views and it's a little unclear where he stands on all the various issues that were cited after he agreed to appear at the dedication ceremony for Jeffress's new church in April. But something in Jeffress's documented history of hate speech pushed him too far and he canceled his scheduled appearance in a series of tweets.

While I was looking forward to sharing a message of hope and Christ's unconditional love with the faithful members of the historic...
— Tim Tebow (@TimTebow) February 21, 2013

... First Baptist Church of Dallas in April, due to new information that has been brought to my attention, I have decided to cancel my...
— Tim Tebow (@TimTebow) February 21, 2013

...upcoming appearance. I will continue to use the platform God has blessed me with to bring Faith, Hope and Love to all those...
— Tim Tebow (@TimTebow) February 21, 2013

...needing a brighter day. Thank you for all of your love and support. God Bless!
— Tim Tebow (@TimTebow) February 21, 2013

At around the 7:00min mark in the video, Jeffress takes on Tebow's namby-pamby, lovey-dovey faith for the wimpianity it is. Oh, he doesn't mention him by name. He doesn't need to. He makes it abundantly clear what a "real man" of God is.

"I am grateful for men of God like these who are willing to stand up and act like men rather than wimping out when it gets a little controversial and an inconvenient thing to stand for the truth," said Jeffress, who received a standing ovation before he spoke. "God bless men like that."

. . .

"There are some people who would say,'God's given me a different ministry. God has called me to go preach about the love of God. I'm not called to preach about sin and controversial things. I've been called to preach about the love of God.' And they're sincere when they say that. But they are sincerely wrong. The fact is you cannot talk about the love of God. The love of God has no meaning whatsoever unless you understand the judgment of God that all of us deserve."

Is it terribly wrong of me to think that deep down this is about this guy making Robert Jeffress feel like about a half a man?

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Fox's War on Paganism

The news network that every, bleedin' year goes on and on about the "war on Christmas" has never had much interest in the religious holidays of other, non-Christian faiths. As Jon Stewart famously said to Bill O'Reilly, "If you think Christmas isn't celebrated in this country, walk a mile in Hanukkah's shoes."

Fox did, however, go out of its way to marginalize Wiccan and Pagan holidays. In fact, they were outright derisive.

The trouble started last year when the University of Missouri added the eight sabbats of the Pagan year to the university's holiday guide. Graduate student Christopher White was not amused by the move towards inclusiveness and took to The College Fix to complain

The Wiccan and pagan festivals are listed right alongside major religious holidays such as Easter, Christmas, Ramadan, and several other Jewish and Buddhist observances.

Their inclusion in the religion guide may be considered an indication by some of the mainstreaming of Wiccan and pagan beliefs in America.

. . .

While the percentages of Mainline American Christians have declined over the past twenty years, from 86.2 percent in 1990 to 76 percent in 2008, they still, in terms of percentage, dwarf the 1.2 percent of American Wiccans and Pagans, according to the American Religious Identification Survey of 2008. These statistics beg the question: why put both Christianity and Wiccans in equipollency?

Not only does the, ahem, graduate student misuse the phrase "begs the question," he apparently doesn't understand that here, in these United States, our rights aren't contingent on majority status. And even if they were, one wonders why Jews at 2.1% of the population deserve to be in the university guide, but Pagans at 1.2% don't. Yes, Judaism comes in at a very distant second to Christianity. Wicca, by the way, is the fifth largest religion, putting it ahead of Buddhism, which White also considers legitimate enough to be in the holiday guide. So I don't know what Mr. White is studying there at the University of Missouri but one assumes it's requires no working knowledge of Constitutional law, logic, or statistics.

Fox News, which has apparently given up fact-checking entirely, took the ignorance wide. They erroneously deduced that this meant that these would all be vacation days and students would no longer need to "cram for exams" on Pagan holidays, prompting a stern correction from the university. From there it was pretty much open season on the "fringe belief systems" that those kooks in Missouri strangely consider legitimate enough to be in a calendar.

Tammy Bruce described the decision as "beyond political correctness; it's almost like an excuse to do nothing. It's like social nihilism, where nothing matters."

Honoring Pagan holidays, according to Bruce is "less about elevating other religions and other individuals and more about diluting the dynamic about what's important in people's lives," which I think is her way of saying that including Pagan holidays is all part of the "war on Christmas."

If you can suffer through the video above, you'll hear Bruce explain that respecting Pagan holidays is exploitative... of Pagans. Pagans and Wiccans "should be very angry at how they're being used by the establishment," says Bruce, "to downgrade what's important to the majority of Americans."

Dizzy yet?

Tucker Carlson seemed to find the whole thing too trivial and geeky to be threatening.

"Any religion whose most sacred day is Halloween, I just can't take seriously," Carlson said on the Feb. 17 broadcast of "Fox and Friends" weekend show that touched off the controversy. "I mean, call me a bigot."

"Every Wiccan I've ever known is either a compulsive deep Dungeons and Dragons player or is a middle-aged, twice-divorced older woman living in a rural area who works as a midwife," he said.

Two petitions totaling more than 40,000 signatures, a Facebook page demanding an apology, and outrage on the Missouri campus later, Carlson apologized... twice.

Once on Twitter:

Two days after the Feb. 17 show, Carlson apologized on Twitter: "To Wiccans and pagans: Sorry for my pointlessly nasty remarks. Your holidays still confuse me, but you seem like nice people."

And later, on the show:

"Comments in the story offended a number of people -- that was never my intention," Carlson said on the show Saturday (Feb 23). "I also violated one of my basic life rules, which is live and let live. The Wiccans have never bothered me or tried to control my life. I should have left them alone. Sorry about that."

To my knowledge, no one else from Fox News has apologized.

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Spiritual But Not Religious

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"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience." ~ Teilhard de Chardin

If it were up to me, I'd retire the phrase "spiritual but not religious." I consider it effectively meaningless. To my way of thinking, we can't not be spiritual. We are spirit. But I'm not being fair to the idiomatic meaning of that phrase, which could be more fairly stated as, "searching for meaning beyond the confines of organized religion."

However problematic the phrase, it is a growing trend. This seems to rankle a number of religious authorities. A quick search through the Huffington Post religion section brings up a fair sampling of disdainful diatribes against all these dilettantes who think they can have God without the hard work of religious practice in like-minded community. I read a number of these posts when they came out, sighed, and moved on.

There's Pastor Lillian Daniel who is sick and tired of hearing from anonymous strangers on planes that God can be found in sunsets. She just wishes the nonreligious would stop boring her with their irrelevant observations. And, no, I'm not overstating her tone. "Please stop boring me," is her subtitle.

There's Alan Miller's lightning rod of a post bemoaning the religious illiteracy of a populace that can't name more than four of the ten commandments. He casts religion almost entirely in Judeo-Christian terms and dismisses all else as superstition. A good rebuttal can be found here.

Most recently, I read this jeremiad from Michael P. Murphy of Loyola University. Murphy bemoans a religiously untethered generation that has filled that void with technology and begun worshiping at the altar of Steve Jobs by default. I agree with Murphy that we seem to be wired to seek out both communion with other human beings and an experience of the transcendent. But his post is a muddle. And it reeks of contempt for people who think they can find something better than church.

As I paused to watch devotees of Apple products engaging in communion with the items of their religious practice, I was struck once more not only by how religion and spirituality have reached an almost comic level of topsey-turveyness, but also with the stark recognition that Marshall McCluhan's prophetic insight from 1964 is made manifest every minute of of every day in the digital age: the medium has indeed become the message.

Murphy clearly knows nothing of McLuhan's work... or the spelling of his name, apparently. His attempt to posthumously enlist him, of all people, in his war with modernity is risible. McLuhan's famous statement wasn't meant as prophecy. He didn't say, the medium will become the message. He said it is. It always has been. The medium to which McLuhan referred wasn't some future vision of high tech. It was any technology -- any extension of our human capacities -- going back to the stone age. McLuhan's point was that the way information is conveyed is more important than the information itself, because the means of conveyance shapes both psyche and society. As we moved from the printed word, for instance, to film and television, we stopped thinking so linearly and began to take in multiple messages/images simultaneously. These newer media force us to develop new ways to prioritize and cognize that information. Information influences what we think. The medium influences how we think.

Murphy continues.

The word "religion" finds its root in religio, which means "to bind." And herein lies the main point: we like being "spiritual" because the concept, as we perceive it, makes no claim upon us. It binds us to nothing -- or at least nothing communal, confessional or public. Of course, it is liberating to be masters of our own faith practices. To be both founders and adherents of a "Sheila-ism" or a "Murph-ism" -- that is, to participate in the postmodern practice of inventing and practicing one's own hodge-podge religion -- is a uniquely empowering proposition. The problem is that it is also an isolating, atomizing and ultimately inauthentic approach to spirituality.

In fact, the etymology of the word religion is a matter of some dispute. But this is a small point. More concerning is the paternalism. Murphy seems certain that those who do not seek God through the proper channels of an organized religion cannot possibly find connection or meaning.

An assumption spans these various writings that those who define as spiritual but not religious are isolated in their experience and have no sense of community with which to share their spiritual discovery. Leave say, I have not found this to be true.

To Miller, where organized religion is real and diligent, other spiritual practices are entirely ephemeral.

Back to the Spiritual But Not Religious-ers, they seem to have appropriated the worst of all worlds. They have retained the superstitious outlook and yet do not want to engage or present anything more broadly life affirming. Selecting a superficial mixture of "nice-feeling" items from Yoga to a slice of Zen and a moment of Tao is hardly progressive as far as options for humanity is concerned. They have jettisoned the hard work, diligence and observation of organized religion for a me-me-me what-ever kind of lifestyle.

Far be it from me to claim that there aren't a fair number of dabblers in the new age marketplace and among those who define as spiritual but not religious. But we're kidding ourselves if we pretend that churches aren't also packed with people who leave their faith at the church door after Sunday services, that there are no hypocrites who give the tenets of their religions lip-service, or worse, that there aren't those who cherry-pick and twist scripture to justify whatever abuses against humanity they indulge.

I can agree that some problems arise when we have no shared, clear cosmology. I can also agree that there is a downside to a pluralism that allows people to pick and choose nothing but appetizers and desserts from an a la carte menu of world religions. Spiritual expansion requires grounding in the deeper lessons and safeguards that come by way of well-worn tradition. Where I disagree is in the assumption that shallow practice is inevitable among the nonreligious or that a prescriptivist approach to spiritual practice is the only possible corrective.

Absent in all these posts is any sense of the responsibility organized religions might have for their dwindling numbers. This is particularly galling coming from Murphy -- a professor of  Catholic Studies. Conspicuous by its absence is any discussion of the abuse scandal that has left large numbers of practicing Catholics disillusioned and demoralized. He dismisses all of it as "the troubles and intrigues that the Catholic 'brand' has experienced." But the extent to which the Church has broken faith with its followers has caused even Catholics in Ireland to abandon organized religion in droves.

Disillusionment has always been a driver, not only of religious attrition, but also of religious innovation. But it is not just the disappointment with the flaws and limitations of religious institutions. It is the thirst for the divine that often goes unsatisfied in hidebound institutions.

In so many instances, what drives people from their churches to the spiritual path less traveled is the beginnings of spiritual awakening. Organized religion has historically been suspicious, even condemning, of mystical experiences other than those of their founders and prophets -- especially if those experiences challenge orthodox beliefs. This leaves people who have their own brushes with the numinous, experience moments of conscious oneness with the all, or in any way begin to pierce the veil, at odds with their religious institutions.

Historically these spiritual quests have resulted in sectarian conflicts, new religions -- Buddhism springs to mind -- and more than a few have led to war and wide-scale persecution. Such things still happen in much of the world. So, perhaps, it's petty of me to worry about the carping of a few religion writers.

Here, in the West, the spiritual but not religious trend is just the newest wrinkle in a consciousness expansion that began in earnest when psychedelics and Eastern thought exploded in the popular culture.

Astrologer Adam Elenbaas describes the complexity of the search for spiritual truth in a pluralistic society with an ever-expanding panoply of traditions. Spiritual but not religious has become a kind of shorthand for an experience that doesn't fit neatly into any category.

I'm an astrologer so I can't help but approach the questions I ask or the concepts I'm interested in through the lens of the system I study. From the astrological perspective I think most new agers, including astrologers like myself, struggle to define a coherent belief system for ourselves because of the times we are living through: moving now from the age of Pisces to Aquarius. Are we "believers" in astrology? Can I call myself a Buddhists even though I might be a raw foodist who practices yoga, urban tantra, and gnostic Christianity in between Christian Santo Daime works? Maybe it's just become easier to answer, "I'm spiritual not religious." Maybe it's just a shorter way of saying, "I'm looking for oneness; whatever you call it it's all the same to me. I yearn for mystical fusion. I yearn to get out of this mundane world and go home once and for all!"

Elenbaas places the debate over spiritual and religious definition in the context of the Piscean age giving way to the age of Aquarius, and our thirst to dissolve into the numinous as a Piscean (Neptune) drive.

For example, this past Friday night I went to a Dharma talk at a local Buddhist temple. The female priest giving the talk was speaking about the fundamental premises of Buddhism, and she spoke about the reality of suffering as the base condition that inspires our path toward nirvana. She talked about crossing the ocean of suffering with single pointed focus. When I left the dharma talk I felt an emotional connection to something outside of myself for sure -- at least for the rest of the evening. But it wasn't what she had to say about suffering, necessarily. It was the people in their robes, and it was the crystals glowing behind carefully arranged lamps. It was the images and icons, the quietness as she spoke to the few of us gathered together. It was the way in which the temple was filled some other-worldly magic, and how I could literally feel the presence of Neptune, like a golden trident poking through the fabric of the "Buddhist" reality. And THAT was surreal. That felt sacred to me.

It's not the words, the philosophy... it's the potency of symbols, the irrationality of myth, the sensory and intangible, that tips us toward transcendence. As per "freelance monotheist" Karen Armstrong, that is the purpose of religion. And it is precisely the common lack of that which has led so many to instead be spiritual but not religious.

"Matter is spirit moving slowly enough to be seen." ~ Teilhard de Chardin

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If I'm Not Free to Control You...

"Religion is a FREEDOM. Let's keep it that way." No duh, huh?

My mother was fond of saying, "Your freedom stops where the next person's begins." It was her paraphrase of an aphorism of uncertain origin. It always stuck with me as a statement of one of the most obvious elements of a free society. So, I have been brought up short by the roiling debate over freedom of religion in this country. Last year Catholic Bishops threw down the gauntlet over President Obama's access to birth control mandate, taking the position that anything that infringes on their right to impose their beliefs on people who do not share them is a violation of the First Amendment. It is a thoroughly nonsensical position.

Now comes survey data that shows that evangelical Christians, in large numbers, view any erosion of Judeo-Christian dominance of the country as a threat to religious freedom. (???) Oh... and it's all because of "the gays."

While these Christians are particularly concerned that religious freedoms are being eroded in this country, "they also want Judeo-Christians to dominate the culture," said Kinnamon.

"They cannot have it both ways," he said. "This does not mean putting Judeo-Christian values aside, but it will require a renegotiation of those values in the public square as America increasingly becomes a multi-faith nation."

. . .

Asked for their opinion as to why religious freedom is threatened, 97 percent of evangelicals agreed that "some groups have actively tried to move society away from traditional Christian values."

And 72 percent of evangelicals also agreed that gays and lesbians were the group "most active in trying to remove Christian values from the country." That compares to 31 percent of all adults who held this belief.

The whole thing just makes my brain hurt.

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The Changing Face of Christian Evangelism

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Tammy Faye was a woman ahead of her time. May she rest in peace. As discussed here, her son Jay Bakker has been on the vanguard of a movement towards a far more tolerant evangelical Christianity. In fact, his name was floated recently, by a GLAAD spokesman, as a reasonable replacement for Rev. Louie Giglio to perform the Inaugural Benediction. Giglio was pushed out when his homophobic record came to light.

There are more and more indicators that the sexual politics traditionally associated with the evangelical movement are falling out of favor. Not just with the Presidential Inaugural Committee, or with the military (the Marine Corps in particular), or with the society at large, but with the evangelical community itself. While evangelical Christianity has attracted youth in large numbers, younger evangelicals are not rallying around the sexual morés of the old guard. Even those who accept those values on a personal level, don't want to their social agenda to be defined by them. From Buzzfeed:

Ricky, a 21-year-old evangelical Christian college student, isn't necessarily committed to abstinence before marriage: "If two people are in love and are willing to take the next step, I believe God would approve." He respects both sides of the abortion debate, but thinks churches shouldn't have a say in the matter. And he's an enthusiastic supporter of gay marriage; he thinks Christian opposition to it will be "a black eye on our religion for decades."

He may be progressive, but Ricky isn't alone. A variety of experts say young evangelicals care less and less about the issues of sexual politics — abstinence, abortion, and same-sex marriage — that their forebears brought to the center of the political conversation. And churches that keep focusing on these issues may risk becoming obsolete.

A study released in December by the National Association of Evangelicals found that 44% of unmarried 18-29-year-old evangelicals had been sexually active — but the study defined "evangelical" as someone who attends church at least monthly, believes Jesus Christ is the only path to salvation, and believes the Bible "is accurate in all that it teaches," requirements that may leave out some who still consider themselves part of the group. Another study puts the figure at 80 percent. And a recent poll found that 44% of 18-29-year-old evangelicals favor same-sex marriage, lower than the national figure but much higher than their elders.

An accurate statistical representation of this very broad movement seems to be lacking, and much of the reporting is anecdotal, but there is a pronounced feeling on both sides of the cultural divide that evangelism is going to have to shift its messaging in order to stay relevant in the coming years. Younger evangelicals want to talk about the environment, poverty, war, and stopping sexual trafficking. In other words, they seem much more interested in helping people who are hurting than preventing people from doing the things that make them happy. What's evolving looks more like a compassion agenda.

The Giglio incident has sadly been very polarizing, pitting evangelism, once again, against the prevailing cultural climate. It has sparked outrage amongst the usual suspects about the perceived marginalization of Christians.

Over at Lifeway Research, Ed Stetzer pens a blog on the topic. "This Louie Giglio moment, and the Chick-Fil-A moment that preceded it, and the Rick Warren moment which preceded that, raise the question: Where do people of faith with long-standing traditional religious/scriptural convictions go from here?," he writes.

 And Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council opines:

This is another example of intolerance from the Obama administration toward those who hold to biblical views on sexuality. Why is the president surprised that an evangelical pastor would teach from Scripture on homosexuality? One would be hard pressed to find an Evangelical pastor who hasn't preached on what the Bible teaches about human sexuality.

But Perkins is mistaken. There are a number of evangelical ministers who don't share Perkins's cherry-picked and blinkered interpretation of the Bible. There's the aforementioned Jay Bakker and others recommended by GLAAD's Ross Murray. There's Jim Swilley, the now openly gay megachurch pastor. The evangelical community is changing all around Tony Perkins. He just hasn't noticed.

Meanwhile, the cultural conservatives are starting to age out of the system. Jerry Falwell, who once upon a time led the charge of the culture warriors, has gone to his reward. And some who are still with us seem to be in the horrible grip of senility -- which is my backhanded way of saying that I'm really starting to worry about Pat Robertson.

I recently wrote about Robertson's jaw-dropping comments on General Petraeus's adultery, which basically amounted to, come on, the chick was hot.

Now comes a diatribe from the ever-moralizing 700 Club preacher on the marriage killing powers of unattractive women. Asked to respond to the Maxim letter of a 17 year old boy who was concerned for his lonely mother, due to his father's immersion into online gaming, Robertson offered this penetrating insight: It's probably your mother's fault, kiddo.

“You know, it may be your mom isn’t as sweet as you think she is; she may be kind of hard-nosed. And so, you say, it’s my father, he’s not paying attention to mom, but you know mom …” he trails off and offers a spiteful little chuckle.

. . .

He launches into another story: “A woman came to a preacher I know — it’s so funny. She was awful looking. Her hair was all torn up, she was overweight and looked terrible …”

So far, this story sounds hilarious Pat, Please continue.

“And she said, ‘Oh, Reverend, what can I do? My husband has started to drink.’”

The hateful punchline is coming. I can feel it. I’m on the edge of my seat.

“And the preacher looked at her and he said, ‘Madam, if I were married to you, I’d start to drink too.’”

Methinks the reverend's Freudian slip is showing. Anyone who was paying attention to Robertson's agenda over the years had to know that underneath it all was simple misogyny. But if you had any doubt, now would be the time to the let that go. (Who is it who's always telling women to stay sweet? Oh. Right.)

Anyway, I think the one-time presidential candidate is losing control of his mouth. It's a hard call, given his long-time propensity for saying incredibly offensive things. But it looks like now he's even offending his sidekicks. It's time for him to retire before he ruins his own dubious legacy.

Many of the stalwarts of the Christian Right are not aging too well. But the evangelical movement seems to be maturing.

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A Tale of Two Anglican Churches

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Here in the US Capitol...

The Washington National Cathedral had been ready to embrace same-sex marriage for some time, though it took a series of recent events and a new leader for the prominent, 106-year-old church to announce Wednesday that it would begin hosting such nuptials.

The key development came last July when the Episcopal Church approved a ceremony for same-sex unions at its General Convention in Indianapolis, followed by the legalization of gay marriage in Maryland, which joined the District of Columbia. The national church made a special allowance for marriage ceremonies in states where gay marriage is legal.

Longtime same-sex marriage advocate the Very Rev. Gary Hall took over as the cathedral's dean in October. Conversations began even before he arrived to clear the way for the ceremonies at the church that so often serves as a symbolic house of prayer for national celebrations and tragedies.

The Episcopal bishop of Washington, the Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, authorized use of the new marriage rite in December for 89 congregations in D.C. and Maryland. Each priest then decides whether to marry same-sex couples.

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Meanwhile, back in Merry Old England...

The Church of England on Friday (Jan. 4) confirmed that it has dropped its prohibition on gay clergy in civil partnerships becoming bishops -- but only if they agree to remain celibate.

Speaking on behalf of the Church's House of Bishops, Bishop of Norwich Graham Jones said in a statement: "The House of Bishops has confirmed that clergy in civil partnerships, and living in accordance with the teaching of the Church on human sexuality, can be considered as candidates for the episcopate. There had been a moratorium on such candidates for the past year and a half while the working party completed its task."

Jones added that the bishops agreed it would be "unjust" to exclude gay men from becoming bishops if they were otherwise "seeking to live fully in conformity with the Church's teaching on sexual ethics or other areas of personal life and discipline."

Ah, well. Baby steps, baby steps.

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Putting the Hate Back in Christmas

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Pope Benedict has a heartwarming message this holiday season. Let's put a stop to the gay... or words to that effect. In his annual State of the Church speech before the Curia yesterday, his holiness made clear that the top priority of the Vatican is to stop the march toward modernity that has already displayed itself in numerous countries and a growing number of states in the US.

Gay marriage is a threat to "traditional marriage" says the Celibate in Chief.

Benedict XVI made the comments in his annual Christmas address to the Vatican bureaucracy, one of his most important speeches of the year. He dedicated it this year to promoting traditional family values in the face of gains by same-sex marriage proponents in the U.S. and Europe and efforts to legalize gay marriage in places like France and Britain.

In his remarks, Benedict quoted the chief rabbi of France, Gilles Bernheim, in saying the campaign for granting gays the right to marry and adopt children was an "attack" on the traditional family made up of a father, mother and children.

Well. At least it was ecumenical. But I can't help wondering what these Jewish-Christian allies in leadership are basing their ideas of "tradition" upon. Not their holy books, certainly, wherein those "mothers" are little more than transferred property and often consigned to large harems.

Mostly, His Holiness seems to be distressed by the all the gender-bending that goes on.

In his speech, the pope cited Bernheim as lamenting how a new philosophy of sexuality has taken hold, whereby sex and gender are "no longer a given element of nature that man has to accept and personally make sense of: it is a social role that we choose for ourselves, while in the past it was chosen for us by society."

He said God had created man and woman as a specific "duality" – "an essential aspect of what being human is all about."

This follows his "peace message" of a week ago, in which he cited gay marriage as a key threat to world peace. Nothing like a demonstration of love and compassion as the Church prepares to celebrate the birth of Christ.

The pontiff did, however, grant an act of kindness to his former butler, whose Christmas-time pardon was widely anticipated. He will also secure housing and employment for this fallen angel somewhere safely away from Vatican property.

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Putting the Ass Back in Christmas

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Speaking of the War on Christmas, here is Jon Stewart's hilarious take. This is not the first time Stewart has gone head to head with Bill O'Reilly on this issue. Notably in his recent debate with the Fox pundit, he delivered this pithy assessment:

If you think Christmas isn’t celebrated in this country, walk a mile in Hanukkah’s shoes.

But nothing ever seems to pierce O'Reilly's bubble of narcissistic myopia.

Even Fox's Catholic priest on call, Father Jonathan Morris, thinks their obsession with this imaginary war is over the top. His reasoning still manages to drip with the requisite victimhood.

The reason I’m not angry is that, yes, I think it’s silly, it’s out of place for people to dedicate so much energy to try to get rid of Christmas scenes like this. The good news is when Christianity has been persecuted, when it has been outlawed, when people have died for their faith, it hasn’t gone away. Everybody has an opportunity to make sure their faith does not go away in this Christmas season to live that faith as a family, as a community. What should we do about these, I think very small percentage of people who are working to try to get rid of these public expressions of faith? I think we should speak up. That’s why I am doing it. That’s why I think it’s important we have these stories to show what they are trying to do — without losing the peace. If our Christmas is going to be all about getting a upset at people trying to take away Christmas, isn’t that silly too?

So that's about as clear as mud. Christians have always been persecuted, outlawed, and killed, but we don't need to get all het up about it.

O'Reilly, though, is taking a very different tack. This has nothing to do with religious persecution because Christianity isn't a religion. It's a philosophy. And Christmas trees are secular symbols. Yes. You heard me. They're secular. And somehow the fact that they are secular is the reason you have to call them Christmas trees -- not holiday trees. Get it? Because they're secular symbols they can't have a secular name.

Oh, and we can all go to work, if we want, on the secular, federal holiday that is Christmas, even though our offices are closed.

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Missouri Preacher's Speech Against Gay Rights

Wow.

At first, this Missouri pastor's anti-gay speech seems akin to those delivered by a number of conservative preachers and other right-wing pundits nationwide over the past year.

. . .

But, as video of his speech reveals, the pastor has a few surprises up his sleeve.

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How To Kill Your Rebellious Child

It's become quite fashionable to compare the "clobber verses" in the Bible condemning homosexuality to scripture no one in the modern world would endorse. I, myself, have written extensively on the hypocrisy of shrimp munching, polyester blend wearing, homophobes. An increasing number of gay-positive, evangelical Christians have likewise taken to pointing out the socially unacceptable passages that are avoided by the vast majority of fundamentalists. But every so often some Biblical purist calls our bluff.

Deuteronomy 21:18-21 is one of those scriptural passages no modern Christian could love.

18 If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: 19 Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; 20 And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. 21 And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear. ~ Deuteronomy 21:18-21

Yup. If your son is worthless lay-about, have him put to death.

Openly gay megachurch pastor Jim Swilley likes to point that one out as an example of the outrageous scriptural obscurities that no one would endorse today. But the Pastor Swilleys of the world are just not prepared for Charlie Fuqua, GOP candidate for the Arkansas legislature. Fuqua thinks a death penalty for rebellious youth is an idea whose time has come.

Via the Arkansas Times, here is passage from Fuqua's book God's Law.

The maintenance of civil order in society rests on the foundation of family discipline. Therefore, a child who disrespects his parents must be permanently removed from society in a way that gives an example to all other children of the importance of respect for parents. The death penalty for rebellioius children is not something to be taken lightly. The guidelines for administering the death penalty to rebellious children are given in Deut 21:18-21:

…

This passage does not give parents blanket authority to kill their children. They must follow the proper procedure in order to have the death penalty executed against their children. I cannot think of one instance in the Scripture where parents had their child put to death. Why is this so? Other than the love Christ has for us, there is no greater love then [sic] that of a parent for their child. The last people who would want to see a child put to death would be the parents of the child. Even so, the Scrpture provides a safe guard to protect children from parents who would wrongly exercise the death penalty against them. Parents are required to bring their children to the gate of the city. The gate of the city was the place where the elders of the city met and made judicial pronouncements. In other words, the parents were required to take their children to a court of law and lay out their case before the proper judicial authority, and let the judicial authority determine if the child should be put to death. I know of many cases of rebellious children, however, I cannot think of one case where I believe that a parent had given up on their child to the point that they would have taken their child to a court of law and asked the court to rule that the child be put to death. Even though this procedure would rarely be used, if it were the law of land, it would give parents authority. Children would know that their parents had authority and it would be a tremendous incentive for children to give proper respect to their parents.

Fuqua has also advocated expelling Muslims from the United States, as a way to cure the "Muslim problem." But I'd be willing to bet that it's not because of extremist Muslim practices like honor killings of adulteresses and rape victims. He seems mystified at the idea that this view might place him outside the mainstream.

Fuqua said Saturday that he hadn't realized he'd become a target within his own party, which he said surprised him.

"I think my views are fairly well-accepted by most people," Fuqua said before hanging up, saying he was busy knocking on voters' doors. The attorney is running against incumbent Democratic Rep. James McLean in House District 63.

I don't know. Maybe there's something in the water in Arkansas. Two Republican pols in that great state have come out swinging for slavery. And at least one of them has turned to the holy scriptures to defend it.

In two letters, [State Rep. Loy] Mauch wrote about the Bible and slavery. The Arkansas Times quotes from a letter Mauch wrote in 2009:

If slavery were so God-awful, why didn’t Jesus or Paul condemn it, why was it in the Constitution and why wasn’t there a war before 1861?

Goodness knows he could have dug deeper. You just have to flip around the Old Testament a little. The book of Exodus is a particularly rich source of wisdom on how to properly keep, beat (21:20-21), and breed (21:2-6) your slaves. I've long said that I could make a better Biblical argument for slavery than against homosexuality. But maybe I shouldn't risk giving lawmakers like Mauch and Fuqua any more ideas.

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