COVENANT: ALLIANCE of BAPTISTS

    http://www.allianceofbaptists.org/

In a time when historic Baptist principles, freedoms, and traditions need a clear voice, and

in our personal and corporate response to the call of God in Jesus Christ to be disciples

and servants in the world, we commit ourselves to:

The freedom of the individual, led by God's Spirit within the family of faith, to read and interpret the Scriptures, relying on the historical understanding by the church and on the best methods of modern biblical study;

The freedom of the local church under the authority of Jesus Christ to shape its own life and mission, call its own leadership, and ordain whom it perceives as gifted for ministry, male or female; 

The larger body of Jesus Christ, expressed in various Christian traditions, and to a cooperation with believers everywhere in giving full expression to the Gospel; 

The servant role of leadership within the church, following the model of our Servant Lord, and to full partnership of all of God's people in mission and ministry; 

Theological education in congregations, colleges, and seminaries characterized by reverence for biblical authority and respect for open inquiry and responsible
scholarship; 

The proclamation of the Good News of Jesus Christ and the calling of God to all peoples to repentance and faith, reconciliation and hope, social and economic justice;
 
The principle of a free church in a free state and the opposition to any effort either by church or state to use the other for its own purposes.

MISSION

To keep faith with the covenant we will: 

Make the worship of God primary in all our gatherings.

Foster relationships within the Alliance and with other people of faith. 

Create places of refuge and renewal for those who are wounded or ignored by the church.

Side with those who are poor. 

Pursue justice with and for those who are oppressed. 

Care for the earth. 

Work for peace. 

Honor wisdom and lifelong learning. Hold ourselves accountable for equity, collegiality, and diversity.

Quasi-Acerbic Comments for the Day

The only thing worse than a militant fundamentalist is a militant atheist.

The ignorance about religion found in most TV journalists is exceeded only by their ignorance of their ignorance.

Prius Lovers, Prius Haters

You have a Prius. ... You probably compost, sort all your recycling, and have a reusable shopping bag for your short drive to Whole Foods. You are the best! So, do we really need the Obama sticker? 

The Portland Mercury,

September 04, 2008 Columns 

Some love the Prius, some hate it. I love it. The loathers exult in pointing out how long it will take to gain back the extra money it costs by saving on gas--up to a zillion years, some say.

Funny that they never say about people who get a fancy moon roof on a car that accelerates from 0-60 MPH in 5 seconds  how long it will take to get back the extra money these features  cost them.

The despisers  are hopeless, beyond redemption. They just don't get it. We like our Prii for many reasons. I can hardly wait until my new economical ($20,000)  2012 C   (53MPG city) gets here.   I will drive it until my  3 million$ Bugatti Veyron  arrives  next year--0-60 in 2.8 seconds, top speed 268 MPH.

PS: I plan to vote for Obama, and I hope we get a Whole Foods store soon.

A Geographical Theory of Same-Sex Marriage

The acceptance of same-sex marriage is coming. With a few exceptions it is coming and will come geographically: Northeastern states -- including New York and Maryland, West coast, Upper Midwest, and eventually the Southwest, and the Southeast. Mississippi may be last. Of course, anomalies and deviations from this geographical pattern will occur, but overall it will generally hold. One could predict more accurately perhaps by using zip codes -- still a geographical factor.

For more on a geographical theory of politics and cultural change, see the preceding blogs.

Relevance for Election Day 2012

The following posts written in the past seem so pertinent now that I have reproduced them.

As the election approaches, just keep in mind that we need only watch a few states to know with high certainty which candidate will win.


PS:  June 9, 2012. My ramblings about the importance of geography in politics  should be read alongside:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-swing-states/2012/06/08/gJQAnXxCOV_story_1.html

A Geographical Theory of Winning in 2008

Geography is Everything, Well Almost

In 2008 I DID THE INTERACTIVE ELECTORAL MAP AT REALCLEAR POLITICS AND CHOSE THE STATES (BLUE) I THOUGHT OBAMA COULD PUT IN HIS COLUMN AND THUS WIN THE ELECTION.

THE GEOGRAPHICAL ELEMENTS WERE SO STRONG THAT IT REMINDED ME OF A PREVIOUS BLOG IN WHICH I SET FORTH A GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY OF POLITICS. IT IS SO PRESCIENT AND SO BRILLIANT (HA HA) THAT I DARE TO REPEAT IT HERE.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2004

A Geographical Theory of Winning in 2008

Look at the electoral maps of 2000 and 2004. The geographical pattern is striking, allowing for minor exceptions. The blue Democratic states are the Northeast, the upper Midwest, and the states bordering the Pacific. The red Republican states are the Southeast, Southwest, lower Midwest, mountain and plains states. A pre-Civil War map showing free (blue) and slave (red) states and territories almost exactly matches the electoral map of 2004.

While electoral maps of many other years would not be this striking, a geographical factor is present, except in blowout years like 1936, 1972, and 1984. Look at it another way. Democrats won the large cities, while Republicans won the small towns and rural areas, with the suburbs split. Divisions are also noticeable with regard to income, education,, religion, race and ethnicity, age, marital status, and gender, but geography is relevant to many of these as well. Zip code is an important clue all by itself.

Since this is a blog and not a book, what can we learn from this? Geography is a useful clue to many other things -- history, economics, religion, and culture. The geography of the South, e. g., was conducive to cotton growing and therefore slavery, which has deeply affected its entire history. Geographical factors account in part for immigration patterns and the Protestant domination of the South.

Geography is a component of, if not clue to, how things worked out in other areas with regard to economics, culture, and religion. So what does this mean for 2008? Assuming that the situation will remain much like it is now in terms of red and blues states as is probable, ask how the blue states can be preserved for the Democrats while reaching out to enough other states that can be likely won to win the election. Some decisions are easy. Massachusetts is probably a safe bet if the Democrats don't do something crazy, but forget Utah for a while. Either Florida or Ohio is probably a must, remembering that a shift of only 70,000 votes in Ohio in 2004 would have given the victory to Kerry.

Looking toward 2008, Democrats live in tension between holding true to their values and getting elected. How to win without losing your soul -- that is the question. With Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia, we risk losing our soul. With Sen. Hillary Clinton, we risk losing the election. My sentimental favorites at the moment are John Edwards and Barack Obama, but time may question the wisdom of one or both. But to begin with candidates, issues, and values is to get the cart before the horse. We need to start with geographical, historical-cultural factors and make a structural analysis of where enough more votes can come from next time to enlarge the number of blue states. Then we can match messenger and message to that purpose.

Relevance and Reality: Bain and Romney

It is charming to listen to the all-wise pundits on the news channels argue about whether the Democratic attacks on Romney's career at Bain Capital are relevant. You mean relevant like in:

• the swiftboating of John Kerry,
• the Willie Horton adds against Dukakis,
• the Harry and Louise attacks on the Clinton health plan,
• the daisy ad against Goldwater suggesting he might get us into a nuclear war?

Let's get real, let us have some realpolitik here. The adds about Romney and Bain may or may not be relevant  (they are in some respects), but the more important question is do they  work, do they get votes for Obama, turn people away from Romney?

Homosexuality and Cultural Change: Mill and Whitehead

The entire history of social improvement has been a series of transitions, by which one custom or institution after another, from being a supposed primary necessity of social existence, has passed into the ranks of a universally stigmatized injustice and tyranny.                                                                                                                                                                      John Stuart Mill

Happened with slavery, denial of vote to women, and segregation, and now with gay rights.
  

It is the first step in sociological wisdom, to recognize that the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur: -- like unto an arrow in the hand of a child. The art of free society consists first in the maintenance of the symbolic code; and secondly in fearlessness of revision, to secure that the code serves those purposes which satisfy an enlightened reason. Those societies which cannot combine reverence to their symbols with freedom of revision, must ultimately decay either from anarchy, or from the slow atrophy of a life stifled by useless shadows.

                                                           Alfred North Whitehead        

 Sorry, Tony Perkins, you are on the wrong side of history fighting a lost cause.  The moral code is being revised to serve the purposes of enlightened reason.
   

Advice for Bachelors: When to Change the Sheets

•  The health department quarantines your house.
•  The post office will not deliver mail to you.
•  The dog leaves.
•  You see a line of bed bugs marching toward the exit.
•  You see flakes  fall from the sheets when you bend them.

A Glut of Organizations

Americans are distinctive for voluntary organizations (Tocqueville) that promote a favored cause. They are wonderful, do a lot of good. But can it be that more is always better?  Not necessarily.

I have been members of various voluntary groups usually devoted to social justice causes and religion. I can think of several examples in which I doubt that it could be shown that anyone actually benefited from our work.

One was a Theological Advisory Committee for the denomination. We met at wonderful places, had a great time with each other, prepared papers, interviewed guest experts and  made reports. If anyone were saved, sanctified, or inspired to do good works increasing love of God and neighbor, I was not aware of it.

I was once on the board of an interfaith organization. We spent thousands of hours making a video on local poverty to be shown in local churches. We had a big community gathering to celebrate our video and had some success in getting churches to show it. Was even  one poor person helped by all this? Not that I know of.

I and a friend accepted an assignment by our local church when we were exploring future ministries. We took on housing for low and moderate income families. We interviewed town and city officials, investigated the issue as best we could. The most astounding discovery was that in the city and county there were a huge number of organizations working on this issue. Our message to the church was to urge members to join one of these, not to form another organization! Too many already.

I could go listing many other groups  I have belonged to that I doubt ever actually helped anybody.

Emerging needs may call for a new voluntary organization. But this should be resorted to only after it has been determined no existing group is effective or relevant to present circumstances.

Nostalgia for the Bad Old Good Times: The Daily Assault

Life down on the farm in the 1930's and 40's was no picnic.  I have been there, done that. But it had some advantages we have lost. It was mostly quiet and peaceful. You welcomed the mail man who might bring a personal letter or the semi-annual Sears Roebuck Catalog. It was nice to see a neighbor or go to church for some social contact, etc.

Today we are constantly assaulted by:

• Unwanted postal mail.  If you give to one charity, soon you are receiving requests from forty others of the same or similar sort. This process increases exponentially in this and the following ways.
• Unwanted email. Respond to one cause, and soon forty others want you to join them, send letters, petition Congress, give to the little boy in Thosmonia dying for the nineteenth time of some horrible disease,  ad infinitum.
• Unwanted phone calls. The causes that don't send you postal or email call you, usually at dinner time (likely to be home, right?).
• Unwanted callers at your door. Frequently, these are of a religious sort, wanting to give you literature, talk about your relation to God, Jesus, Thor, or Aphrodite, or convert you to their faith. 

Add to that:

• the constant fight to keep rid of useless mail, old newspapers, cardboard boxes delivered by UPS or FedEx, and other accumulating stuff that threatens to stuff your living space.
• the struggle to keep up with the recycling of paper, plastic (everything labeled from 1 to 7), cardboard, and other approved items listed in the annual message from the city.
• the effort to get the garbage and recycle stuff out on the right day, keeping informed of holidays, when it is a day later.
• getting the cans and bottles back to the store to get back your nickel per item.
• finding a place to recycle old electronic items, cords, plugs, dead computers, hard drives, TV's, VCR's, etc.
• remembering what they said on TV about how to get rid of old prescription medicines without poisoning future generations.
• remembering what the just-published study said about the foods and medicines that are sure to kill you unless you avoid them.
• trying to keep up with the requests on Facebook, e. g., becoming friends with or and sending a penguin to someone I don't know.
• maintaining sanity while enjoying computers: trojans, worms, viruses, privacy settings, broken internet connections, failed hard drives, updating drivers.
• nuclear issues, proliferation, bombs, terrorists and rogue nations using them, global warming, and on and on and on ............

Ah, for the good old days down on the farm when your main concern was keeping the outdoor toilet and the stable shoveled out, cutting enough cord wood for the stove and fireplace, freezing while you got a fire built on cold winter days, getting to the doctor seven miles away when you got suddenly sick and had no car, hoping the Sears catalog in the outhouse will last til the next one comes, wondering if the chicken in the yard will be big enough to feed the preacher and his family, hoping the drought will not ruin the cotton and corn crops,  worrying that someone will rob your sweet potato hill or smoke house, praying that the next tornado will not blow your house away, that the cow will not go dry, and that your kids will not die of measles, mumps, diphtheria, whooping cough, or get polio. Etc., etc.

"Hey, Sweetie, wanna take the bottles back to the grocery store!"

My New Philosophy

I find myself watching and reading about  day to day political occurrences less and enjoying it more.  Avoiding the incessant commentary of alleged experts is especially delightful.

I will occasionally look in on Fox News just for a laugh.

Purgatory for Them Too

See prior blog first.

• Charities sending me coins or gifts with their request. I figure the purpose is to make me feel guilty and more likely to send a gift.  As a rule I don't send gifts to any organization that does this. If  I do send a gift, it is in spite of, not because of, what they sent me.

Almost Wholly Acerbic Reflections

The following  will not to be allowed into heaven until they have spent at least 5000 years dealing with  their own mischief:

• Anyone connected with the packaging industry, especially the hard plastic variety, whose work is designed for the benefit of the producers and sellers, not the consumer.
• People who speed through parking lots as if they are on a super-highway.
• Those responsible for the little sticker on every apple I buy at the supermarket.
• Whoever designed the system that guarantees that when I back out in a parking lot, there will be a huge SUV on either side that effectively  blocks any sight of oncoming cars.
• People who pass me  on an interstate highway at lightening speeds then immediately slow down precipitously  so that I am forced to brake to keep from bumping them into the next state (geographically or eschatologically).
• Folks who leave their shopping carts right where they unload them, creating numerous hazards and inconveniences. 
• Cheaters who park in places reserved for the handicapped with enough ready excuses that take more time to iterate than parking legally would.
• Designers of car door lock systems that blow the horn right when I am walking past, scaring the heck out of me.
 

You can easily add your own. But you get the picture.

Hermeneutics, Relativity, and the Illusion of the One Right Way

The Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski set forth the Law of the Infinite Cornucopia, which notes that no shortage exists of reasons to bolster whatever theory anyone wants to believe  (New York Review of Books (January 11, 1996), 10). I suggest a theological version that I will call the Law of Infinite Hermeneutical Adaptability. This law states that the Bible can be interpreted to make it compatible with nearly every conceivable doctrine. The greatest proof of the operation of this Law is that irreconcilable positions on nearly every theological and ethical question are extant, all of which claim to have the sanction of Scripture. The sublime form of the Law indicates that reasons can always be given to demonstrate that Jesus himself would have approved of the conclusions reached by a given individual or community. When the Law of Infinite Hermeneutical Adaptability is in operation, it is nearly always accompanied by the Phenomenon of Total Surprise. I prefer the description of this Phenomenon in its "Lo and Behold" form: When individuals and groups find the Word of God in the Bible, the results, lo and behold, turn out to be identical with what they themselves believe!.
 http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/bibint.htm

Properly adapted, this principle works whether it is a Christian interpreting the Bible, a Muslim interpreting the Koran, or a SCOTUS Justice interpreting the American Constitution.

Check it out.


http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Questions of the Day: Buffet, Rapoport, Koch, Sanders, taurus feces

What if all  wealthy business people were like Warren Buffet and Bernard Rapoport?
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/23/us/politics/bernard-rapoport-liberal-donor-in-texas-dies-at-94.html?hpw

Suppose all Senators voted like Bernie Sanders and all House members voted like Louise Slaughter. 

 Now suppose all business leaders and super-wealthy folks were like the Koch brothers.

Head still swimming?

Then try this: Suppose that politicians began to tell the truth (within the limits of human fallibility). Given the fact that most  Americans believe that 93.3% of what politicians they oppose say is taurus feces, would anyone believe them, given that 93.3% of Americans believe taurus feces from politicians of their own persuasion 93.3% of the time?
http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Tuscon and the Bountifulness of Confusion

The commentariat has become a cornucopia of speculation about why Jared  Loughner committed mass murder in Tucson. All this  (and more) is being repeated since Newtown.

Two types of theory can be enumerated: (1) monocausal and (2) polycausal.

The monocausal theories come in two extremes: (a) individualistic and  (b) social. Some monocausalists claim that it was the act of a solitary individual with a deranged mind. Explanation is to be sought  solely in the psychology, life-history, and proclivities of the killer.

Other monocausalists look for social sources. His outrage was the product of the sick political climate of our time. The individualistic theories come mainly from the right side of the political spectrum, the social theories primarily from the left.

No particular individual commentator is likely to fit perfectly into one of these categories as sharply defined, but they do help to locate the vicinity in which he or she  can be located.

I have long been fond of polarities and ideal types. But, alas, they are more useful for  analysis and than for discovery of truth. But perhaps a beginning can be made.

I am a polycausalist -- along with many others.

To say that there is  not a  simple, direct causal connection between current social factors or his individual psychology and the the murderous deed is not to say that there is no connection at all. In the last analysis it was the finger of Jared Loughner that pulled the trigger. The fact that he may be schizophrenic, e. g.,  is not predictive of his outrageous behavior (most mentally ill people do not commit murder), but it may be part of the total  ensemble of operative dynamics  in his specific case.

The fact that current political rhetoric is excessive and vitriolic does not necessarily imply that it caused him to do what he did, but his mental derangement may be part of the total configuration of factors involved. Causality may be too strong a term from the outset. Perhaps it is better to think of a complex network of dynamic interacting influences with many levels and dimensions  become concrete over time in this particular person as a self-determining  center of activity expressive of his formed character.

We are dealing with the mysteries and complexities and perhaps contradictions and shifting tendencies that form this individual person as an agent of action. That we do not and perhaps cannot fully understand with the resources available to us. What we can do is remember two of Alfred North Whitehead's dicta:

"Seek simplicity--and distrust it."

"Philosophy may not ignore the multifariousness of the world--the fairies dance, and Christ is nailed to a cross."

In Reference to the Two Posts to Follow

"The chief danger to philosophy is narrowness in the selection of evidence. This narrowness arises from the idiosyncrasies and timidities of particular authors, of particular social groups, of particular schools of thought, of particular epochs in the history of civilization. The evidence relied upon is arbitrarily biased by the temperaments of individuals, by the provincialities of groups, and by the limitations of schemes of thought.  . . . Philosophy may not neglect the multifariousness of the world—the fairies dance, and Christ is nailed to the cross." Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, 337-338.

Happy Thoughts on a Bright Day

Millions of people got up this morning, ate a nourishing breakfast, had a productive day at work with congenial colleagues, and were greeted by adoring children who stay active, work hard at school, and have ambitions to make a positive contribution to society. Uncountable acts of spontaneous kindness occurred all over the country.  Bystanders spring into action to disarm a mass killer. Volunteers showed up at a myriad of organizations designed to help people in need. Name a good cause that benefits people or animals, and organizations galore are active in working on them. In the far flung places of the globe, some of them dangerous and violent, professional groups sponsored by gifts give aid to the hungry, the sick,  the homeless, the helpless, and the afflicted of every sort imaginable. Members of churches, synagogues, and mosques every day are at work doing good deeds  to relieve human misery and to make things better. Conscientious public servants do their best within the constraints of bureaucracy to render service in the name of local, state, and federal governments. Even elected officials frequently do things because they are right and promote the general good, independently of whether it helps them politically or not.

And so the list could grow much longer reciting deeds of love, justice, mercy, compassion by every day folks, celebrities, and all sorts of people who turn good intentions into helpful acts reducing suffering in people and animals. Duties are done routinely without regard for reward or attention but because they need to be done to keep life going and for the good order of families, communities, and societies. Children are loved, husbands are responsible, and wives are busy earning money and keeping the family sane. Thus does the world go round and round, and the sun rises and sets on people doing the best they can with what they have to make the best of life and are content with what they have and generous in sharing it with others while being helpful to friend and stranger along the way.

Thoroughly Acerbic Comments on a Gloomy Day

These observations apply only to those who are correctly described  by them:

• We are rearing a fat and lazy generation whose members have been assured since birth that they are "awesome,"
•  who have absorbed the notion that anything that requires effort should be fun or one can opt out, 
•  who have little capacity for delayed gratification and self-denial, 
• whose educational achievements  (not  totally the fault of their schools) are meager compared to the Chinese (and many others) whose Confucian values have important similarities with the largely defunct Protestant ethic
•  in a society transformed by globalization  and communication technologies that leave those with little  or the wrong kind of education and few marketable skills with low-paying jobs or none at all,
•  especially if they are young, male, and black or otherwise handicapped by region  or ethnicity
•  in a society that lives complacently in a plutocracy that has gamed the system (consider, e. g.,  the health care bill) to serve the  interests of the wealthy (though a large percentage of the wealthy and super-wealthy vote Democratic these days) who benefit from a compliant Congress,
•  resulting  in obscene economic inequalities  (from many causes) and lack of opportunity that corrupt democracy, 
• whose economy is too-much sustained by consumption and too little by productive investment, 
• whose citizens by and large want greater  government benefits, lower taxes,  and deficit reduction hardly realizing that we can have any two of these but not all three, 
• who accept a situation in which presidents can fight wars not paid for with volunteers who do the suffering and dying leaving the rest of us--if we have jobs--free to buy fancy cars, big houses, and all the consumer goods voracious corporations seduce us into buying by reassuring us that we are awesome and deserving of everything our money and credit cards will temporarily sustain
•  while corporations invest abroad reducing jobs for Americans as our old and decaying infrastructure threatens our safety
•  while terrorists plot our destruction in a world in which hundreds of millions go hungry, suffer from curable diseases, and live in fear of violence from blood-thirsty, power-hungry agents of darkness who care not for justice and are undeterred by the suffering they cause, 
• while storms, earthquakes, and floods add  more misery to helpless parents, children, and families the world over.

Otherwise, except for all the other things that are wrong or out of joint, things are great as another year begins in which  large sections of the world are cursed with anti-humane and cruel  religious and cultural practices right out of the dark ages that especially  hurt women and children as we continue to pay culturally backward Saudi Arabia for oil with funds borrowed from the Chinese in order to sustain our idolatrous love affair with the automobile whose wastes poison the atmosphere and warm the global climate.

 http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml