Maikimo.net taxonomy tags

Friday’s news that “in 96 hours of fighting and ambushes in far western Iraq, [this Marine] squad had ceased to be” hoists my ass once more onto the [theological] soapbox.

Bill Moyers: “Why don’t we feel the world enough to save it for our kin to come?”

Sojo.net: Bill Moyers: ‘How do we nurture the healing side of religion over the killing side? How do we protect the soul of democracy against bad theology in service of an imperial state?’

I just watched the Bill Moyers NOW episode that’s been sitting on the TiVo since December 26: James Forbes, Jr., Speaking to Power.

(The Rev. Dr. James Forbes, Jr. is the senior minister at Riverside Church in New York City.)

The whole piece was profoundly moving to me. Here’s a place, a pastor, and a people whose worldview and inclusive understanding of faith provides a community in which I could immerse myself. I felt like a lonely man catching a glimpse of home. I wept.

In a snippet of a sermon (captured in episode’s transcript) I see one of the gentlest pastors I’ve ever observed speaking truth to power more forcibly than almost anyone else I’ve observed:

Dr. Forbes: When Jesus was led into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, one of the temptations was the devil took him on a high mountain, showed him all the kingdoms of the world and said to him, all this I will give you if you will fall down and worship me. [Matt. 4:8, NIV]

I fear that the ideology informing the present policies of the nation are coming from some people who took the devil up on it, who said, “You elite, you handful of people with your special interests, if you act quickly all the kingdoms of the world, their oil, their land, their money, their resources, I will give it to you.”

Jesus said no. But somebody helping to set policies in this nation got duped by the devil and said yes! And the policy is moving in that direction.

I think this succinctly explains the Bush Administration, its ambitions for empire, and its disregard for life and all that is holy. Someone in it said yes.

Now we outside it must assert our responsibility as followers of Jesus and say no. (I will boldly say no on Election Day.)

Interesting that Riverside is “affiliated with the American Baptist Churches and the United Church of Christ.” This tells me the word “Baptist” in a denomination name no longer conveys anything meaningful. I went to a Southern Baptist funeral a few months ago where I experienced the most fear-drenched church service I think I’ve ever been to.

In sharp contrast, this NOW episode’s depiction of Riverside Church shows a hope-drenched place of welcoming, scripturally-aware, Spirit-led people of all colors, stations, and gifts that looks to me like the coalescing Kingdom of God on earth.

Now. Where is Riverside’s spiritual kin in Memphis?

2004-01-11 update: Wow, this NOW program motivated me more than anything else has in the last six months — I went to church today, visiting Grace-St. Luke’s in Memphis because it’s listed in The Center for Progressive Christianity network directory (as I had noted back in August).

Welcoming place, that. More to learn …

Thom Hartmann discusses well the differences between conservative vs. liberal perceptions of morality:

[Conservatives] define [morality] first and foremost in terms of personal behavior: What goes on in people’s bedrooms, what drugs others may be taking in their own living rooms, whether a woman should be allowed to prevent or terminate a pregnancy. In their fervor for these issues, many conservatives think they are the only ones concerned about morality in an otherwise decadent society. …

While personal morality is key in the conservative world-view, public morality is the overarching concern of liberals. Some are so passionate about this morality that they’re led to acts of civil disobedience.

Then Thom mentions a most compelling reason for conservative Christians to rethink/expand their understanding of morality, IMO: Jesus, according to the Gospels, indisputably emphasizes public morality:

Perhaps best summarized in Jesus’ description in Matthew 25 of who will (and who won’t) get into heaven, liberal morality asks: “Are the hungry fed? Does everybody have the housing, clothing, and health-care they need? Are those in prison treated humanely? Are we caring for the “strangers” — the less fortunate or less competent among us — in the same way we’d want to be cared for if we fell on hard times?”

Many liberals would say that what people do in [their] private lives is their own business, and that if we hold to the ancient standard that only those among us without sin may cast stones at those with personal failings, we’ll have a more humane and decent society.

It’s not that personal morality isn’t important. It is. But it’s not a useful behavioral emphasis because we’ve all fallen short. Personal morality is a fruit of the Spirit, an ongoing outcome of a changed life; it’s nothing we can effort into place. (As Mr. Limbaugh and Mr. Bennett are learning.)

Public morality, OTOH, is a behavioral choice that’s crucial toward effecting a just and sustainable society. That is, if you’re theologically inclined, toward effecting the real Kingdom of God. Hence, it’s the kind of morality Jesus emphasizes we’ll be judged for.

What I observe here in the U.S., to my dismay and revulsion, is a thoroughgoing lack of public morality among loud conservatives in general and the Bush Administration in particular. There’s no excuse, and there’s no hiding: more and more, by their fruit we recognize them. The time of playing along that black is white, up is down, is drawing to a close.

See also related Farai Chideya encouragement, Avoiding the Rush to Gloat.

2003-10-28 update: Bob Herbert in a New York Times op-ed illustrates present intra-U.S. consequences of this Administration’s lack of public morality quite clearly IMO (also archived at Truthout).

And absolutely square-on to the point: Bill Moyers interviews Union Theological Seminary’s Joseph Hough —

There is a definite intentional move on the part of political leadership in this country … [that] is not at all compatible with the prophetic tradition in Islam, Christianity, or Judaism. And that is the obligation on the part of people who believe in God to care for the least and the poorest. That central teaching, that sacred code, I think, is very well summed up in Proverbs [14:31] where the writer of Proverbs says, “Those who oppress the needy insult their maker.”

Steve Gilliard: “Our inability to respond to Al Qaeda in a meaningful way comes from this impulse to bolster the state in time of war, to embrace the myths of heroic violence.”