Chad Comello

Tag: religion

  • DDC 270-279: Persecution junction

    A Teach Me How To Dewey production

    This Is How We Dewey:

    • 270 Christian church history
    • 271 Religious orders in church history
    • 272 Persecutions in church history
    • 273 Heresies in church history
    • 274 Christian church in Europe
    • 275 Christian church in Asia
    • 276 Christian church in Africa
    • 277 Christian church in North America
    • 278 Christian church in South America
    • 279 Christian church in other areas

    As with any honest historical assessment, this section’s books take on the good, the bad, and the ugly of Christianity’s past. 272 Persecutions could fill up an entire library. But many forget that though the Catholic Church has been responsible for some pretty heinous persecution over the years, the Christian church in general were also persecuted themselves for a long time. And even though Western Christianity (and religion in general) is fairly protected from persecution, there are places in the Middle East and Asia where being a Christian can get you killed. That’s what makes books like The Irresistible Revolution (see below)—which call for radical, countercultural living—get real real fast. In whatever time or place, people who really take their faith to heart will face the consequences of it, good and bad. And that makes one hell of a story.

    The Dew3:

    The Irresistible Revolution: Living as An Ordinary Radical
    By Shane Claiborne
    Dewey: 277.3
    Random Sentence: “I’m not sure the Christian Gospel always draws a crowd.”

    The Habit: A History of the Clothing of Catholic Nuns
    By Elizabeth Kuhns
    Dewey: 271.9
    Random Sentence: “Walking was to be accomplished in a calm, demure manner–hurrying was discouraged.”

    The Grand Inquisitor’s Manual: A History of Terror in the Name of God
    By Jonathan Kirsch
    Dewey: 272.2
    Random Sentence: “The old authoritarian impulse was still fully alive.”

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  • DDC 260-269: Fred Phelps would hate this

    A Teach Me How To Dewey production

    This Is How We Dewey:

    • 260 Christian social theology
    • 261 Social theology
    • 262 Ecclesiology
    • 263 Times, places of religious observance
    • 264 Public worship
    • 265 Sacraments, other rites & acts
    • 266 Missions
    • 267 Associations for religious work
    • 268 Religious education
    • 269 Spiritual renewal

    Is Christianity cool? Starting with this section through the next few, a lot of the books would give you some proof in the affirmative and in the negative. Obvious examples include the first book featured below, which explicitly asks that question, but also the books that don’t overtly make a claim yet by merely existing make a case.

    Sadly, much of what people see on cable news is the worst of so-called Christian social theology, propagated for clicks and viewers but not based in the day-to-day reality of living out the biggest religion on earth. If you love history or tradition, there is a lot of interesting stuff to explore in Christianity’s past that conveniently also has 0% to do with Westboro Baptist.

    The Dew3:

    Hipster Christianity: When Church and Cool Collide
    By Brett McCracken
    Dewey: 261.1
    Random Sentence: “For some pastors, this means they include references to Paris Hilton and The Hills in their sermons.”

    On Heaven and Earth: Pope Francis on Faith, Family, and the Church in the Twenty-First Century
    By Jorge Bergoglio
    Dewey: 261.83
    Random Sentence: “Christianity condemns both Communism and wild capitalism with the same vigor.”

    Rest: Living in Sabbath Simplicity
    By Keri Wyatt Kent
    Dewey: 263.2
    Random Sentence: “In play, we shed the shackles of schedule, efficiency, even purpose.”

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  • DDC 250-259: Parish Administration: The Movie

    A Teach Me How To Dewey production

    This Is How We Dewey:

    • 250 Christian orders & local church
    • 251 Preaching (Homiletics)
    • 252 Texts of sermons
    • 253 Pastoral office (Pastoral theology)
    • 254 Parish government & administration
    • 255 Religious congregations & orders
    • 256 No longer used—formerly Religious societies
    • 257 No longer used—formerly Parochial schools, libraries, etc.
    • 258 No longer used—formerly Parochial medicine
    • 259 Activities of the local church

    Are you ready for the explosive, blockbuster, wham-bang awesomeness that is 254 Parish government & administration? Can’t wait for a movie to be made out of books in that section. Meanwhile, I was surprised to find a lot of interesting material here. It ranged (as is evident below) from silly to sincere, with some strange mixed in too. I think it’s very important for any subculture to be able to make fun of itself, and there’s a good amount of evidence for that within Christianity, whether by current or former adherents. Of course, as a old religion it has its more rigid types, but we all need to laugh, especially when things are funny. Sounds obvious, but it’s easy to get trapped in the thinking that all sacred things must also be serious and earnest. Sometimes serious things are funny.

    The Dew3:

    Nuns Having Fun
    By Maureen Kelly
    Dewey: 255.9
    Random Sentence: “Protect us, O Lord, for we are upright women–at least for now.”

    Church Signs Across America
    By Steve Paulson
    Dewey: 254.4
    Random Sentence: “A good angle to approach any problem is the ‘try’-angle.”

    Strength to Love
    By Martin Luther King
    Dewey: 252
    Random Sentence: “We can master fear through one of the supreme virtues known to man: courage.”

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  • DDC 240-249: Ain’t your mama’s Christian writing

    A Teach Me How To Dewey production

    This Is How We Dewey:

    • 240 Christian moral & devotional theology
    • 241 Moral theology
    • 242 Devotional literature
    • 243 Evangelistic writings for individuals
    • 244 No longer used—formerly Religious fiction
    • 245 No longer used—formerly Hymnology
    • 246 Use of art in Christianity
    • 247 Church furnishings & articles
    • 248 Christian experience, practice, life
    • 249 Christian observances in family life

    The thing I like about sections like this is how it surprises. Even though (or perhaps because) I grew up in the Christian world and am very familiar with its tropes, biases, and tendencies, I love when I find new things—perspectives that challenge conventional wisdom or allow for greater nuance and a rich, learning experience.

    Anne Lamott (featured below) is a good example of this: though she is a Christian writer, she could hardly be more unconventional or irreverent in her approach and writing style. People who have either struggled with religiously oriented literature or written it off entirely would be pleasantly surprised by writers like her who, as the saying goes, ain’t your mama’s Christian writer. This is just one example of how Dewey, and really libraries in general, can surprise you if you take the time to browse and let serendipity be your guide.

    The Dew3:

    Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God’s Will
    By Kevin DeYoung
    Dewey: 248.4
    Random Sentence: “Wisdom sounds good but how does it work?”

    Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith
    By Anne Lamott
    Dewey: 248.4
    Random Sentence: “I was an out-of-control alcoholic then–but in a good way, I had thought.”

    Sin Bravely: A Joyful Alternative to A Purpose-Driven Life
    By Mark Ellingsen
    Dewey: 248.4
    Random Sentence: “Such a diminution of sin is what the American public wants.”

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  • DDC 230-239: Fresh loaves and fishes

    A Teach Me How To Dewey production

    This Is How We Dewey:

    • 230 Christian theology
    • 231 God
    • 232 Jesus Christ & his family
    • 233 Humankind
    • 234 Salvation (Soteriology) & grace
    • 235 Spiritual beings
    • 236 Eschatology
    • 237 No longer used—formerly Future state
    • 238 Creeds & catechisms
    • 239 Apologetics & polemics

    Probably because, not in spite of, Christianity’s hitherto cultural/religious hegemony in the United States specifically, it has inspired a lot of writing. Some good, some terrible, and some I’m not quite sure about. Reading Jesus (below), for example, seems to bring a new approach to the Gospels, which are arguably the most published and referenced texts in world history. At weddings, funerals, and many events in between we hear many of the same verses quoted as inspiration and encouragement, or as argument or counterargument. It’s easy to cherry-pick and plug in a verse for an occasion, but how often does it go beyond that? There’s a lot to consider if we want to get past the tired, old interpretations of religious orthodoxy, so as someone reared in the Christian world I appreciate those who try to look at Jesus and his teachings in fresh ways.

    The Dew3:

    Disappointment With God: Three Questions No One Asks Aloud
    By Philip Yancey
    Dewey: 231.7
    Random Sentence: “Richard does not know Mother Theresa, but he does know me.”

    Reading Jesus: A Writer’s Encounter With the Gospels
    By Mary Gordon
    Dewey: 232
    Random Sentence: “The darkness of my grandmother’s bedroom.”

    The Great Divorce
    By C.S. Lewis
    Dewey: 236.2
    Random Sentence: “‘Whisht, now!’ said my Teacher suddenly.”

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  • DDC 220-229: Blessed is Samuel L. Jackson

    A Teach Me How To Dewey production

    This Is How We Dewey:

    • 220 Bible
    • 221 Old Testament
    • 222 Historical books of Old Testament
    • 223 Poetic books of Old Testament
    • 224 Prophetic books of Old Testament
    • 225 New Testament
    • 226 Gospels & Acts
    • 227 Epistles
    • 228 Revelation (Apocalypse)
    • 229 Apocrypha & pseudepigrapha

    Regardless of how accurate it is in a given situation, deploying “Old Testament” as an intensifying adjective/adverb–i.e. “It’s about to get Old Testament up in here”–is one of my favorite things. To me in implies a righteous fury or a majestic/violent power that descends from above in order to make a plain scenario a whole lot less plain.

    I guess what I mean to say is that “Old Testament” seems like Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction: wide-eyed, vindictive, and not at all safe for work.

    Whether it’s a fight scene in a movie or an argument with a friend, the metaphorical and rhetorical power of the Old Testament is a lot more interesting than people (religious and secular) give it credit for. Those who saw the Darren Aronofsky film Noah will understand this, as that well-worn Old Testament tale got an authentically Old Testament retelling that both does justice to the text and brings that aforementioned righteous fury to the filmmaking and the story.

    What were we talking about again? Oh yeah… It is pretty evident by now that the 200s have a strong predilection toward Christianity. This is probably a remnant of the original Dewey classification of the mid-to-late 19th century, which was born in a much more faith-infused time than ours. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, since Christianity is often woefully misunderstood (or not understood at all) by its critics but also by its proponents. That’s certainly the case, too, for other major religions, so I guess the moral here is: Learn!

    The Dew3:

    The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible As Literally As Possible
    By A.J. Jacobs
    Dewey: 220
    Random Sentence: “The floor is exactly like a Seattle mosh pit circa 1992.”

    The Book of Books: The Radical Impact of the King James Bible, 1611-2011
    By Melvyn Bragg
    Dewey: 220.52
    Random Sentence: “Gravity was God’s other face.”

    Water from the Well: Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah
    By Anne Richardson Roiphe
    Dewey: 221.922082
    Random Sentence: “She must have been wrapped in regret.”

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  • DDC 210-219: Are you there, God? It’s Melvil

    A Teach Me How To Dewey production

    This Is How We Dewey:

    • 211 Concepts of God
    • 212 Existence, attributes of God
    • 213 Creation
    • 214 Theodicy
    • 215 Science & religion
    • 216 No longer used—formerly Evil
    • 217 No longer used—formerly Prayer
    • 218 Humankind
    • 219 No longer used—formerly Analogies

    Once again we’ve got a number of winning Ghosts of Dewey Past. Perhaps it’s fitting that formerly evil is in the section about God. Whether by divine intervention, miracle, or the fortuitous maneuverings of an OCLC employee, Dewey #216 is no longer the damnable hellscape of sin and evil it once was, and I for one am thankful. I was pleasantly surprised to find a quite varied field of God-related books: some that argue for the existence of God, others that aren’t so sure, and some that make a federal case out of their certitude either way. Personally, I’m more interested in the former than the latter. Doubt, like any tool, serves an important purpose in its right context, so leaving some room for it, I think, is a healthy way to look at the world.

    But what do I know anyway?

    The Dew3:

    Einstein’s God: Conversations About Science and the Human Spirit
    By Krista Tippett
    Dewey: 215
    Random Sentence: “But ‘wonder’ for St. Augustine was a religious experience that drove back to a creator.”

    Divinity of Doubt: The God Question
    By Vincent Bugliosi
    Dewey: 211.7
    Random Sentence: “I’ve said that I don’t believe Jesus was insane.”

    Galileo Goes to Jail: And Other Myths About Science and Religion
    Edited by Ronald Numbers
    Dewey: 215
    Random Sentence: “As Stark sees it, chimneys and pianos, and all the more so chemistry and physics, owe their existence to Catholics and Protestants.”

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  • DDC 200-209: The R Word

    A Teach Me How To Dewey production

    This Is How We Dewey:

    • 200 Religion
    • 201 Religious mythology, general classes of religion, interreligious relations and attitudes, social theology
    • 202 Doctrines
    • 203 Public worship and other practices
    • 204 Religious experience, life, practice
    • 205 Religious ethics
    • 206 Leaders and organization
    • 207 Missions and religious education
    • 208 Sources
    • 209 Sects and reform movements

    Y’all ready for this? It’s about to get contentious up in here. Religion has been and always will be a hot topic to tackle no matter where you’re from or what you believe. But the first ten-spots of the 200s is a nice way to ease into such a gargantuan topic, as it covers religion in the broadest way possible. Hence, a book about religion in Star Trek sitting comfortably near another about zen and mysticism by a Trappist monk. There’s a lot to enjoy and delve into in this section, and it’s diverse enough to appeal to many interests. That won’t necessarily be the case moving forward, so I hope you’re prepared for some spice…

    The Dew3:

    Religions of Star Trek
    By Ross Shepard Kraemer
    Dewey: 200
    Random Sentence: “Is the Q Continuum Star Trek’s answer to the Force?”

    Mystics and Zen Masters
    By Thomas Merton
    Dewey: 204.2
    Random Sentence: “This pilgrimage, let us repeat it, does not end at the monastery gate.”

    The Language God Talks: On Science and Religion
    By Herman Wouk
    Dewey: 201.65
    Random Sentence: “What Dick Feynman needs is a swift kick in the arse.”

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  • Now Is The Time

    I’d like to thank two like-minded quotes for not leaving my conscience alone. I’m not thankful in the happy Thanksgiving sense—more like how someone keeps fighting an argument, if only with himself, though he already knows he’s toast. Fine, I give in, but I’m not happy about it.

    The first is from John Wesley’s “Sermon 50” on the use of money:

    That wherein you are placed, if you follow it in earnest, will leave you no leisure for silly, unprofitable diversions. You have always something better to do, something that will profit you, more or less. And “whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.” Do it as soon as possible: No delay! No putting off from day to day, or from hour to hour! Never leave anything till to-morrow, which you can do to-day. And do it as well as possible. Do not sleep or yawn over it: Put your whole strength to the work. Spare no pains. Let nothing be done by halves, or in a slight and careless manner. Let nothing in your business be left undone if it can be done by labour or patience.

    The second is from The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis:

    Do not lose heart, then, my brother, in pursuing your spiritual life. There is yet time, and your hour is not past. Why delay your purpose? Arise! Begin at once and say: “Now is the time to act, now is the time to fight, now is the proper time to amend.” When you are troubled and afflicted, that is the time to gain merit. You must pass through water and fire before coming to rest.

    These dudes must have had some intense New Year’s resolutions.

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  • The Purple Rose of Heaven

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    Just read this in the peroration of N.D. Wilson’s (magnificent, challenging, tempestuous) Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl:

    If the Maker of the world were to descend to earth, how would you expect him? If you heard that the Infinite, the Spirit Creator was entering into His own Art, wouldn’t you look to the clouds? Wouldn’t you look to the cherubim in their storms; wouldn’t you expect a tornado chariot?

    There really must be meaning in the universe, because I read this passage the morning after watching Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo, which asks similar questions N.D. Wilson does. Cecilia, the downtrodden waitress in Depression-era New Jersey with a tool of a husband, goes to see the film-within-a-film The Purple Rose of Cairo so many times that the character of Tom Baxter, the wide-eyed archaeologist, feels compelled to call out to her in the midst of the movie. Tom is so transfixed on Cecilia that he breaks through the screen into the real world and runs away with her.

    Tom isn’t the creator (or the Creator) in the story here, but he is the infinite made finite. The eternal, the Art, come down to earth. Not by a cherubim storm or tornado chariot, but by a brave step into another dimension. Cecilia is astonished. All those times she came to the theater alone to watch the film for hope or escape, they are now dwarfed by the source of her hope made tangible before her eyes. Looking at the screen was her way of not looking at the ground, but now, in a way, she gets to look at the clouds.

    Alas, the dream would just be a dream, seemingly over as quick as it started. The entr’acte cannot last forever, for the show must go on. The art must return to its frame, and the viewer to her life. But the film’s bittersweet resolution doesn’t negate Cecilia’s soulful resurgence. She watches Fred croon to Ginger: Heaven… I’m in heaven.

    Fade to black. Next showing in twenty minutes.

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  • In Heavenly Peace

    “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7 NIV)

    Paul beckons us to present with thanksgiving our requests to God. But he doesn’t say that by doing that those requests will be granted. The only thing Paul says we’re going to get for sure is the peace that comes from trusting that one’s desires are being heard. At that moment, whether they are eventually fulfilled isn’t the point.

    And why is this holy peace called upon to guard our hearts and minds in the first place? We need only look back at the beginning of the passage. The anxiety Paul refers to, and that we all feel, is often the impetus for praying at all (at least for me). I worry, therefore I pray. Paul, and the savior he speaks on behalf of, knows that prayer contains multitudes more uses than that, but I think he gives us a pass here. He knows how hard it is to send requests to the stars without knowing if or when you’ll hear back.

    Job hunters can sympathize well. When I click “Submit” on a job application, I have surrendered control over that process and am now at the mercy of someone else’s divine judgment. I worry my application for a job I’d be great at won’t even make it out of the résumé-infested swamp of the hiring manager’s inbox. I worry I’ll never stop hearing an assembly line of “no”s. I worry I’ll never get a great job again, that I’m doomed to endless days as a grocery store clerk or professional SimplyHired stalker.

    But this peace offered by the Comforter is tailor-made for worriers of all kinds. No matter what compels someone to pray, God has the same reply: Message received. Don’t worry, I’ve got your back.

    Gives new meaning to “sleep in heavenly peace.”

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  • The God of Freedom

    Andrew Sullivan highlighted this post by a woman named Rachael, the daughter of Matt Slick, the founder of Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry (CARM). Rachael is now an atheist, largely in response to what (at least according to her post) was a spiritually abusive upbringing at the hands of her fundamentalist father.

    To sum up: For a long time, Rachael was the “perfect” Christian child. She memorized Bible verses, passionately debated esoteric theological principles, and even “spouted off” religious arguments in college philosophy classes. She was so certain of her beliefs and took solace in the strength of her intellectual prowess. But soon the arguments she would make turned into questions of her own. The one that particularly stood out: “If God was absolutely moral, and if the nature of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ surpassed space, time, and existence, then why were some things a sin in the Old Testament but not a sin in the New Testament?” She concluded that there wasn’t an answer for this:

    Everyone had always explained this problem away using the principle that Jesus’ sacrifice meant we wouldn’t have to follow those ancient laws. 
But that wasn’t an answer. In fact, by the very nature of the problem, there was no possible answer that would align with Christianity.
 [Emphasis hers.]

    She felt a “vast chasm” opening up in her identity, hearing a voice that said The Bible is not infallible. If it’s not infallible, you’ve been basing your life’s beliefs on the oral traditions of a Middle Eastern tribe. The Bible lied to you. “

I was no longer a Christian,” she said.

    I recount her story here because I think it’s important to see how Rachael has jumped from one religious extreme to another without considering that there’s a middle ground. I’m blessed to have been reared in a positive, spiritually loving Christian home, so I can only imagine how difficult it was for Rachael to have endured such a destructive and rigid environment, and then to have her long-held and cherished assumptions smashed. In that context, I can understand why she has swung so strongly to the opposite end of the spiritual spectrum.

    But I don’t think Rachael ever understood the crux of Christianity. She certainly understood it intellectually (or at least her father’s version of it), but by being so thoroughly fixated on the word of the law she seems to have ignored its spirit and its embodiment in Jesus. Reason was her idol, her “summum bonum identity” that was so easily destroyed when it came under attack.

    But she has a new idol now. When asked whether she would have traded her childhood for another, Rachael said she wouldn’t:

    Without that childhood, I wouldn’t understand what freedom truly is — freedom from a life centered around obedience and submission, freedom to think anything, freedom from guilt and shame, freedom from the perpetual heavy obligation to keep every thought pure. Nothing I’ve ever encountered in my life has been so breathtakingly beautiful. 

Freedom is my God now, and I love this one a thousand times more than I ever loved the last one.

    This is ridiculous. Again: she has an understandably emotional aversion to the concepts of obedience, purity, and God. To her, obedience equals blindly following orders; purity equals punishing oneself for one’s humanity; and God equals a distant deity. But God is not the one who has lied about these things, and worshipping freedom is just as destructive as worshipping religion. Lord knows we Americans love to worship the god of freedom, but that also means we’re enslaved to it. We must have our guns, sugary drinks, money, land, power, sex, and so many other desirable but worthless things. We’re so subject to our whims and selfish desires that anyone trying to fight against them — a politician, pastor, or Jesus himself — is shouted down and has the Constitution thrown in his face.

    I believe in freedom just as I believe in beauty, love, grace, joy, and many other blessed things in this world, but I don’t want to be enslaved to them. Only when used in tandem with obedience to their creator can they be fully realized. Since she barely mentioned Jesus in her article, I’m guessing this is why Rachael has such a perverted view of Christianity. Good things alone will never satisfy without the will to obedience towards Jesus. This true obedience — not the abusive, authoritarian kind of obedience so many erstwhile Christians like Rachael have unfortunately endured — gives us the freedom to rely upon something bigger than our fractured selves.

    Despite becoming an atheist (and kind of a smug one at that), Rachael is no less religious than when she was a kid. Now, instead of worshipping words, she’s worshipping the god of her own volition. That probably feels better for her than what she had before, but it’s just as misguided.

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  • Terror Will Lose

    At the climax of The Dark Knight, Joker has Batman trapped on the top of a skyscraper while he waits for the boats full of prisoners and civilians to blow up. The clock strikes midnight — the deadline the Joker gave to those on the boat — but there’s no explosion. For the first time in the movie, the Joker looks surprised and out of control. Batman, despite being momentarily trapped and defenseless, chides him: “What were you trying to prove? That deep down, everyone’s exactly like you? You’re alone.”

    I thought of this scene when reading about this brave British woman named Ingrid Loyau-Kennett who confronted the knife-wielding terrorists immediately after their barbarous acts today. They told her they wanted to start a war in London, to which she replied: “It is only you versus many people. You are going to lose; what would you like to do?”

    Terror and fear don’t get to win. These men can be angry about people who are dying in Afghanistan, but propagating the “eye for an eye” principle leads only to self-destruction. These cowardly villains can make a grand show of their hate, but they won’t start a war in London nor anywhere else they wish. They won’t win converts to their twisted ideology, save for a few other confused souls. They are alone. And people like Ingrid Loyau-Kennett prove that every day.

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  • The Summum Bonum Identity

    Someone on the Internet once said something to the effect of: “I’m not a writer; I write.” Writing, for example, is something you do, but it’s not who you are. You might really love writing and consider it integral to your life, but it isn’t your very essence–at least, it shouldn’t be.

    I’m re-reading Tim Keller’s The Reason for God. In a section about the social consequences of sin, Keller argues that when societies and individuals cling too strongly to any belief or entity other than God, that ultimately broken belief will become the essence of their identity and will let them down. He quotes Jonathan Edwards’ The Nature of True Virtue, which argues that a human society fragments when anything but God is its highest love: “If our ultimate goal in life is our own individual happiness,” Keller summarizes Edwards, “then we will put our own economic and power interests ahead of those of others. Only if God is our summum bonum, our ultimate good and life center, will we find our heart drawn out not only to people of all families, races, and classes, but to the whole world in general.”

    The question then becomes: What is your summum bonum? What is your utmost identity? Our recently endured presidential election season provided ample proof that many people cling so tightly to their political views that it basically becomes who they are instead of merely what they believe. When that happens, civil discourse becomes impossible and anything approaching compromise is deemed impure and even cowardly. Keller sees the problem with this: “If we get our very identity, our sense of worth, from our political position, then politics is not really about politics, it is about us. Through our cause we are getting a self, our worth. That means we must despise and demonize the opposition.”

    I think it’s especially easy for religious people to fall into this trap, despite good intentions. It understandably becomes hard not to transfer the ardent passion attached to a deep-seated belief in God or whomever onto other less divine issues. But as Stephen Colbert said, the road connecting politics and religion runs both ways; if we insist on forcing our religious identity into our politics, our muddied and corrupt politics will come right back into our religion.

    Walt Whitman was right: I contain multitudes. I act as a son, brother, friend, significant other; I study, I write, I read, I work, I create… I identify with all of these roles, but any one of them doesn’t define me because I don’t rely on one to give my life meaning. I can argue with people who disagree with my views on politics or music or religion because my views aren’t me. They’re just the tools I use to try to make sense of life. They can be beautiful, inspiring, enraging, or intriguing–but they can’t be everything.

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  • Colbert and The Constitution

    I want to highlight this recent interview the real Stephen Colbert did with NPR’s Fresh Air, because he shows yet again how intelligent, empathetic, and savvy is the man behing the blowhard.

    You should listen to the entire thing, but one part that stuck out to me was his take on churches who wish to abolish the law that prohibits religious institutions with a tax-exemption from endorsing or opposing political candidates from the pulpit. The real Colbert believes preachers should be allowed to talk politics, but also sees the problem with it:

    I think they should be able to do it, but I also think that it’s a very dangerous thing to do — not just for our politics, but it’s also dangerous for the faith of people who are exercising that right. Because they seem to think that it’s a one-way membrane — that they’ll get religion into our politics. But they’re ignoring the fact that politics will come right back through that gate onto our religion…

    …And if you actually have a political party that is this religion, or a political party that is that religion, I think that’s a short road to the kind of religious civil war — whether or not it’s actually an armed war — but religious civil war that we fled in Europe. America has avoided that. And I think our politics are so horrible these days. … Why anyone would want that horrible tar on something as fragile as faith is beyond me.”

    It’s a common trope among Christian fundamentalists that religion ought to be inserted into their politics out of an obligation to “fight the good fight” or what have you. As someone with a faith background, I understand the impulse but find it completely wrong-headed and even portentous.

    To illustrate: You show me a fundamentalist Christian who believes his religious dogma ought to purposefully influence his country’s political policies, and I’ll show you a radical Muslim who believes the same thing. I’ll bet you $1 million from Colbert’s SuperPAC that that Christian would likely have a problem with that. (Though most conservative Christians these days don’t seem to have a problem with Mormons.)

    That Christians or any other faith-group would want to see the faith they profess to love so much dragged through the festering mud-swamp that is the American political process in order to prove a point is dismaying and downright depressing. It’s not just your faith you’re messing with; it’s mine and many others’ – the shared property of people who see the Constitutionally-sanctioned separation of church and state as protecting the church, not holding it back.

    So by all means, vote as you please based on your religion, values, favorite color, whatever. But don’t come knocking at the gate wanting your religion to be let in, because I don’t want to know what could be on the other side.

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  • Bringing Old Orthodoxies to a Boil

    I just finished reading Fergus Bordewich’s Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America, a history of the Underground told through a series of vignettes. I enjoyed learning about the unheralded individuals of all stripes who served on the Railroad as “stationmasters” or support staff along the way. But one particular passage stood out for its relevance in today’s tempestuous times.

    Some context: The Fugitive Slave Law, passed in 1850, was part of Congress’ infamous compromise of that year and was arguably the most controversial part of an already contentious piece of legislation. The Act imposed legal consequences upon those who aided in the escape of fugitive slaves to the North in order to support Southerners’ legal right to their slave property. But the Act’s draconian measures perturbed even non-abolitionists outside of the South, so much so that the law, according to Bordewich, “became a virtual dead letter” in the North.

    This spirit of civil disobedience was not unique to the 1850s, as the book thoroughly illustrates; rather, it was who was being disobedient that was novel after the Act passed. Benoni Fuller, a county sheriff in Indiana—a nominally free state with a proslavery bent – had this reply for proslavery citizens who complained to him about the hundreds of fugitives coming through: “Let ’em!” What made Fuller’s response unique was that he wasn’t an abolitionist nor Underground Railroad stationmaster, but a Democrat, a member of the party of the South and of slavery. Bordewich’s conclusion: “Old orthodoxies were boiling away.”

    That last line is what stuck out to me. Even then, before the Civil War had even been fought, the antebellum orthodoxy that said slavery had been and ought to remain a protected social and economic institution was beginning to crumble. While in many ways the orthodoxy continued for decades after slavery was constitutionally disallowed through Jim Crow laws and state-sanctioned discrimination, the idea that a Democratic sheriff who most likely disagreed with abolitionism in a state that was sympathetic to slaveowners would openly balk at implementing a proslavery law demonstrated that the culture was being changed, at least partially, by the Underground Railroad and its lofty ideals.

    This is significant because culture changes very slowly. Perhaps it was the animus produced by the Civil War and the events that preceded it that accelerated the culture change, or perhaps it was the overarching sense of divine destiny promulgated by the Quakers and evangelicals who founded and propelled the abolition movement. Whatever it was, it all contributed to the heat that, as per Bordewich, was boiling away the old traditions.

    Which got me thinking: what are the beliefs and conventions our culture holds today that are in the process of being “boiled away”? The attitude toward gay marriage is the first one that comes to mind; like the slavery proponents of old, opponents of gay marriage often cite Biblical precedence and the importance of tradition as reasons for keeping the status quo (as Fox News’ [!] Megyn Kelly recently pointed out). But old assumptions about gay people and marriage, especially in the last decade, have been slowly boiling away.

    On the issue of slavery, things began to change when regular people, who were neither abolitionists nor slaveholders, started becoming exposed to the horrors and humiliations of slavery (often because of the fugitive slaves that came through their towns on the Underground Railroad). Similarly, opposing gay rights likely becomes more difficult when you merely know a gay person as a friend and can empathize with their struggle to win basic civil rights.

    I wonder if the average slaveholding Southerner, knowing now in hindsight that the institution for which he fought and died would crumble and that he would be viewed dismissively as an enemy of what we now consider basic human rights, would still cling tooth and nail to his (at the time) legal right to own a slave. With this in mind, what are the chances our great-grandchildren will look back on this decade and cultural era and judge us harshly for clinging to unjust or flat-out wrong beliefs and dogmas for too long? What sort of blind spots can we see, without the benefit of hindsight, in our own lives?

    Will we, for lack of a better phrase, be on the right side of history? For some, that won’t matter: They believe what they believe and that’s that. But for others, it’s an important question to keep in mind when pondering what you believe, why you believe it, and what societal good you do to support those beliefs.

    If you consider all of these things yet are not satisfied with the answers, perhaps that which you hold dear—for better and for worse—will one day be boiled away.

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  • You Can’t Argue With Goodness

    Like many people, I enjoy This American Life. I only started listening regularly about a year and a half ago. One episode from April 2011 called “Know When To Fold ‘Em” in particular struck a chord with me, specifically the first act, which you can listen to here (or read the transcript). It’s a short story from David Dickerson, adapted from his memoir House of Cards, about the evangelical Christianity he embraced, rejected and came to understand anew through an interaction with his born-again father.

    I didn’t relate so much with the author’s life story so much as with his take on religion. Having an anti-religion person seeing it, warts and all, as something that can indeed be a force for good, despite all of the bad press it gets (sometimes rightfully) was an unexpected and encouraging takeaway I got from this story. “You can’t argue with goodness,” Dickerson writes. No matter how hard it’s fought, good wins out.

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  • New Wonders We Will Sing

    Sandra McCracken’s In Feast Or Fallow is a true beauty. This collection of old hymns re-imagined is appropriate for any time and any mood, but especially for Easter. The peril and the promise, the despair and the hope, and the pain and the renewal of this holiday – it’s all in the hymns. The good ones tell Christ’s story from birth to death to rebirth, reminding us of our sin but also of God’s amazing grace and the amazing wonder of creation we witness every spring:

    Look around, every sparrow, every flower,
    All creation sings outloud, of a grand design
    You are small, but you are filled with breath and life
    If you seek, then you will find
    As the Father looks with favor on his child.
    —     “New Wonders”

    Let us continue to rejoice in the new wonders of every day, of every breath we get, and of the grand design that Jesus put into action when he rolled away that stone. Glory hallelujah.

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