If Hitchens Is Right, Then I Must Not Be Religious

Bertrand Russell famously wrote Why I am Not a Christian. If memory serves me correctly, it was G. K. Chesterton who responded, "If a Christian is what Bertrand Russell says it is, I am not a Christian either." In any case, that came to mind while I was cheat reading Christopher Hitchens' God is Not Great in Barnes & Noble the other day. What he condemns in religion is not what I espouse.

I checked the index and found not one reference to any 20th century theologian or philosopher of religion I ever read and who instructed me on what it is to be a modern Christian. I did find a few brief references to a couple of Roman Catholic Popes and to the Protestant fundamentalists Jerry Falwell, Charles Stanley and Pat Robertson!

Critics of religion typically ignore the cultural context in which religion occurs, seeming to have some ahistorical notion of something they call "religion," and it is always bad. This ignores the fact that religious belief is always particular and occurs in some cultural context, so that what is bad may be in fact as much, if not primarily, a cultural thing and not necessarily a religious phenomenon. Also, they give not much attention to the good that may come out of religion, e. g., opposition to slavery and works of charity and mercy like feeding the hungry and healing the sick. Somehow these things are not part of this abstracted essence of "religion."

They seem to believe that if religion were universally abandoned, the world would be better off.

I suggest that such is not the case. Apparently tthe critics assume that all these non-religious souls would be scientifically enlightened people with high morals, i. e., like the authors of these anti-religious tirades. It would be equally fallacious to assume that all would be well if everybody were the kind of Christian I am.

Efforts to attribute the world's ills to some one cause, private property, e. g. (Marxism), the rectification of which would lead to certain progress, have never been successful.

So, go ahead, Mr. Hitchens, condemn what you call "religion," but, pardon me, if I am equally insistent that whatever you are talking about, it doesn't include me.

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

More Unsolicited Advice for John Edwards

June 26, 2007
Dear Mr. Edwards,

I like your anti-poverty theme, but I fear that your use of the "two Americas" theme may not be wise.

It is too easy a target for Republicans.

It is not precise. There are many Americans, many gradations in the class structure. There is a middle, where multitudes of Americans think they are. It will be regarded too populist, opens you to effective criticism.

I urge you to go light on that theme. I urge you to consider my earlier suggestion that strengthening families be the centerpiece of your strategy.

Around that you can stress the anti-poverty theme but at the same time help a great many Americans to identify with your aims -- health care, help for working mothers with child care, parental leave, increase in EITC, and so on through a long list.

I want to see you elected, but hope you won't seem so left-wing in order to get the nomination that you ruin your chances of winning the general election.

I am a native of Georgia, a graduate of Mercer University and taught of 40 years at the theological seminary where Martin Luther King graduated and where Walter Rauschenbusch, the father of the social gospel taught. I stand in that idealistic tradition tempered by the political realism of Reinhold Niebuhr.

When idealists enter politics they must become hard-nosed, tough-minded realists and pragmatists. That is what I hope for you.

For more unwanted advice, see my blog for Saturday, November 11, 2006. in the archives at http://johnwilfred.blogspot.com/

Best wishes,


Ken Cauthen

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

Father's Day 2007

My Dad was born 100 years ago today. He was the kindest, gentlest, most compassionate man I ever knew. Nobody ever loved a son more than he loved me. My only ambition was to be as good a father to my children as he was to me. He left me on May, 1, 1995 a few weeks short of his 88th birthday. I think of him often, and I will never forget him. So on on his birthday and on Father's Day, I shed a few tears as I look as his picture on the wall in my study and remember with gratitude how fortunate I was to have to have this good man as my Father.

Old Keys and Cosmic Laws

When you have been living in a house five years or longer, you have them -- a collection of old keys you can no longer identify. They hang on hooks out of sight here and there or have been put in drawers, trays, or little boxes. You didn't identify them when you put them away because you knew what they were, and now you have forgotten. So periodically you try to satisfy your curiosity. You try them in in all the locks you suspect, but few fit. Here a major temperamental divide arises: the bold and daring throw them away and risk needing one that is gone -- which they will once they get rid of them. The timid and cautious put them back in the fear they may need them, but they never do, thus the pile grows.

Eventually they will have to be dealt with by your children after you die, prompting exasperated comments like, "What the hell are these keys for, and why didn't they dispose of them or at least identify them."

It's a comic law. You throw them away and need them within a month, or you keep them and never need them. Don't fight it.

Multiple Choice Health Quiz

If a man who has been taking one of the ED drugs has an erection that lasts more than four hours, he should:

A. Go to the emergency room immediately.

B. Call his doctor the next morning at at the latest.

C. Ignore it, unless he has an appointment to see the Pope or Queen Elizabeth.

D. Call all the loose women in the neighborhood and schedule appointments.

Objectivity and the Bible

I have read a lot of debates in recent years in which two biblical scholars on opposite sides of the gay love question squared off on what the Bible had to say about the matter. If I knew the general moral and theological outlook of the opponents, I could nearly always predict in advance the outcome of these objective inquiries. Liberals generally come out saying that what the Bible really rejects is sexual abuse and exploitation and not monogamous, faithful relationships between two gay men or two lesbians. Conservatives are sure that what those passages in the New Testament condemn is the same sort of thing we mean by homosexual sex in our time. The Old Testament, of course, raises other issues, but the outcome really hangs on what is done with those verses in Romans and Corinthians.

I suggest no dishonesty, no tricks. Somehow the objective exegesis always produced results that agree with the personal opinion of the interpreter. That's just the way it turns out. Am I right?

Objectivity functions within a general framework consisting of the total set of assumptions the exegete brings to the task of biblical inquiry. That is the human condition. Nietzsche said, "There are no facts, only opinions." Well, I wouldn't go that far, but the philosopher had a point.

A Strategy for John Edwards

I spent some time yesterday with The New York Times Magazine issue on economics, especially the piece on John Edwards, my candidate for President in 2008. He wants to fight poverty. The conclusion was that he has the personal passion , some good policies that will work, but he hasn't found a strategy to make it a winnable issue. I am a moralist who writes books on ethic, but I agree that appeals to conscience won't work very well here.

My suggestion is that he make his appeal to strengthening families, especially middle and lower-income families. This is a theme that can capture the imagination of large numbers of people because they have a personal interest in strengthening their families and need help.

He can organize a variety of proposals around this central focus, many of them designed to promote the incomes of average and low-income workers whose wages have been mainly stagnant in recent years, with some exceptions. For further elaboration of this, see my contribution dated Saturday, November 11, 2006.

Basic Errors in Theology

Theology can go wrong is lots of ways, but two approaches in particular need to be avoided. The first is to claim that "At last we've got it." The second is to maintain that "We've always had it." The first is typical of liberal theologies -- the tendency to seek change in the light of new historical circumstances. The second is characteristic of conservative and orthodox theologies -- those that think universal truth is located somewhere in the past, so that out task is to reproduce it today in an appropriate form.

Illustrations abound. The Protestant Reformers played "At last we've got it" by recovering the biblical message they thought was obscured in Roman Catholic doctrine and practice. In the 20th century Walter Rauschenbusch played the game with his claim that the social gospel was the old gospel of Jesus recovered for the first time since the early centuries. Neo-orthodoxy (Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, and Reinhold Niebuhr assumed it, although his brother and my teacher H. Richard recognized that a new generation would arise to point out the errors of the current emphases, as they pointed out the errors of social gospel and others liberalisms. Later on liberation theologies (Latin American, black, feminist, Native American, womanist, gay and lesbian, e.g.) claimed to have newly discovered that that the Gospel is a word of this-worldly emancipation for the poor and oppressed, so that at last they have recovered the true Gospel of Scripture).

"We always had it" was the battle cry of 20th century Protestant fundamentalist perspectives that insisted on some fundamentals that must be in all theologies and neglected at the cost of losing eternal Gospel truth. Orthodoxies of all sorts (Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, e. g.,) guard a body of divinely certified body of truth that they have have always possessed they must would guard against all revisionisms.

The point could be elaborated indefinitely, but let it be said that it is dangerous to play either game. Humility is called for on all sides unless some new absolutisms emerge (At last we've got it.) or some old one persist (We always had it.) Holding on to what is good in the past must be balanced by the need to be open to new insights and fresh adjustments to changing cultural settings.

Theologies are human creations, and it is idolatrous to absolutize any of them or to sanctify them by claiming divine authority for what they alone possess. We have this treasure in earthen vessels, and we must be ever vigilant about losing the distinction by committing the idolatry of claiming that our own mud pots are identical with the treasure itself and not merely carriers of some version of it. We can do this by our enthusiasm for something new that has at last got it or something old that has always had it.

Our National Foolishness about Gas Prices

Gas prices are not too high. They are too low. To get perspective, we have just now reached the real price of gas (inflation adjusted) that we had back in 1981 at its historical high point. People have been focused on the price at the pump and have forgotten how that relates to total income now and in the past. High gas prices throughout recent decades would have long ago been integrated into personal spending, and the economy as a whole would have been fine.

We should have put a big tax on gas 25 or 30 years ago, and we would not be in the mess we are in now. That money could have financed health care for all and provided other benefits for the poor and the general welfare, encouraged mass transit, and financed the search for alternative fuels, and on and on.

Low gas prices have encouraged big, powerful, cars with low MPG, has made the government and the auto industry complacent about increasing fuel efficiency and the quest for alternative energy sources, has polluted the environment, increased global warming, built a commuting society dependent on long drives and congested highways, and increased our dependence on hostile or repressive governments like Saudi Arabia.

The problem with democracy -- ours anyway -- is that it does not deal well with the future. Our citizens are too focused on immediate gratification and self-interest. They respond best to the problems of the present that affect them personally. To ask them to take future generations into account is a tough assignment. This presentism is eagerly aided and abetted by politicians running for office whose time span is limited by the next election. We respond best to big issues in times of crisis when the signs of coming disasters cannot be avoided.

My own senior Senator Chuck Schumer is once more beating the drums against the high profits of oil companies, but he has no solutions that can be translated into legislation that will work and hence sounds demagogic.

The following graph shows that oil companies are not chief among sinners but have profit margins only slightly above the industry average.


"By percentage of total revenue, banking is consistently the most profitable industry in America, followed closely by the drug industry."
Washington Post , October 28, 2005.

This is not at to deny that oil companies, like other large corporations, seek to employ strategies that increase their profits. I am no defender of big business but a severe critic. But let us analyze by the facts and not by the gut. Oil companies make huge profits in dollar terms, but they are huge companies. Profit margin is a better indicator.

By now -- had we acted wisely in the past -- we would have cars that get 100 MPH and alternative fuels that would be easing our way beyond the carbon age.

The question is when things get bad enough to force us to act to avoid imminent disaster, whether we will have enough time and sufficient resources to avert global climate catastrophes, and international conflict and chaos as all the big polluters --like us, China, and India -- continue to evade their responsibility and engage in futile blame games.

Of course, given our past foolishness, the poor who are dependent on gas to get to work are suffering and need relief. I have no sympathy for the affluent and their huge SUV's who surround me and block my fuel-efficient Prius every time I park in public places. I get my revenge when they take their GGG's (Gargantuan Gas Guzzlers) to the gas station and cry, while I laugh all the way to the bank in my Prius -- 44 or more MPG in the city.

And, yes, I am an anti-establishment, green, tree-hugging, politically radical elitist. But I also worry about the future of my grandchildren and the poor everywhere now and their grandchildren.

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Memorial Day: Conflicting Moods

Memorial Day uneasily juxtaposes two conflicting moods. For many it is a time of travel, entertainment, vacation, tasting the outdoor life, and generally having fun. Yet is is a somber occasion for all reflective Americans as we remember those who have lost their lives in all the many wars of the past and present. In 2007 outrage is the only appropriate sentiment. It would have been fitting to have hundreds of thousands of people in cities and towns across the nation expressing their intense anger at the tragic catastrophe in Iraq. The heartbreaking story of a young woman prostrate at her fiance's grave in deep, inconsolable grief epitomizes the situation -- the needless loss of life in a war so unjustified and so badly managed that no way out exists that will not produce more death, destruction, and mangled bodies in an atmosphere of terror.

Yet we seem strangely complacent in the face of this horror. Perhaps sit is because the burden of loss is directly experienced by the few families immediately affected by the shattered bodies and minds and the increasing number of dead soldiers returned to their sorrowing loved one. Meanwhile, the rest of us go on with our lives essentially untouched. There is something badly wrong with a picture in which the human costs of war are not shared by us all. That only compounds the awful debacle of the Iraq mess.

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Sorry State of Public Discourse

No good solution exists for Iraq, illegal immigration through Mexico, and abortion. Good means benefiting nearly everyone and hurting few or none, serving mostly worthwhile purposes and having few or no negatives. We have to search for the least bad policy or the best of available, workable ones. Yet who in public life clamoring for our votes is saying this? Many proposals are out there, but their sponsors see only the good in them and either don't know or don't say out loud what counts against it.

Which public voice is saying, 'Taking everything into account, by and large, generally speaking, this is the best available practical option. Even though it is not very good, it is the best we can do under the circumstances." Yet this is closer to the truth than all the confident claims that exaggerate the benefits and underplay the downside of whatever policy is being advocated.

Will people not hear or accept the notion that some problems are complex, ambiguous, and difficult, that only proximate solutions are available that try to achieve as much good and avoid as much that is bad that is possible under the circumstances? I don't know. Apparently our leaders think they won't, or they themselves don't know any better and are simply ignorant, naive, or purely opportunistic, i. e., look for the greatest political gain that they can milk out of the situation.

I have written in other blogs on this site of the particulars of Iraq, illegal immigration from out southern border, and abortion. Here let me say that each of these requires an "emergency" answer," i. e., a response to a dire situation that arises because something has gone wrong. Something went wrong in Iraq when we invaded and before, but now that we are in the tragic, catastrophic mess, we have to do the best we can. That probably means violence, chaos, and disorder if we leave, and more needless, futile loss of lives, perhaps a protracted civil war, if we stay. The only solution to the illegal entry of immigrants through Mexico is to make living conditions decent in their own countries so they can stay home and prosper instead of risking their lives to work for meager wages under exploitative conditions here employed by people who want an endless supply of cheap labor who will not complain about harsh working conditions due to their desperation. The only solution to the abortion issue is to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

Meanwhile, we live with the simplicities and shallowness that mark our public conversations because nobody wants to present the hard choices, ambiguities, and complexities inherent in problems. And isn't this because so many people want unambiguous certainties from their leaders? Or do they? And would they hear the hard truth if their leaders would talk straight to them instead of seeking advantages when their opponents dare to mention how difficult, complicated, and ambiguous choices really are when reality is confronted without blinking?

How do we account for the shortcomings in our democracy? We have shallow minds thinking in shallow ways about complex issues in a setting where honest conviction is mixed with the desire to get, keep, and expand political power in the struggle of competing self-interests -- the portions of integrity, conviction, and expediency varying from little to much in our lawmakers.

Besides that is the power of money and lobbies representing large or rich constituencies that distort the process in favor of the politically powerful driven by the self interest of corporations and highly organized groups like the National Rifle Association, the Religious Right.

I think the Founders envisioned or at least hoped for the presence of the best minds in the country who would take office devoted to the good of the Republic and not partisan goals of the rich and powerful. If you had that kind of person with that kind of character and devotion to the common welfare, then compromise would be the best we could get. The compromises we get are usually poor because the negotiating positions we start are so shallow and dictated by the interests of pressure groups.

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It Matters How You Say It

My local paper occasionally has an opinion piece by Cal Thomas, who once was a vice-president of the Moral Majority. When I read him, I do so to get my adrenalin going for the day, since I usually find that his ideas range from the noxious to the nauseous. A recent contribution illustrates how something is said itself may distort the meaning and reality of what is being described. He notes the outrage of religious conservative at "liberal intrusions into their sacred traditions" since the 1960's, offering the outlawing of state-sponsored prayer in public school and the legalization of abortion as examples. One might rephrase this thought by speaking of conservative anxiety and hostility arising out of cultural nostalgia for the values, laws, customs, and mores of the the 1950's that were changing in law and practice.

He also opines that long ago most liberal theologians had baptized the earthly agenda of the Democratic Party instead of preaching about the Kingdom of Heaven. That too could be said another way. I would urge, for example, that liberals were in favor of racial justice, the equal rights of women, gays, and lesbians in law and practice, the freedom of women to choose an abortion, more economic opportunities and equality for the poor, and the like and found that the Democratic Party offered the best available-- though not perfect -- practical instrument for advancing these goals.

The language we use to express our values provides an opportunity to insert our biases in ways that introduce distortions of the factual reality into our social philosophy under the guise of merely stating our moral and political convictions. The applies to all parties in the conversation -- conservatives, liberals, and others alike. This is just another example of how original sin distorts the truth and deceives the innocent.

So let the reader be aware of what they are reading and writers of what they are writing.

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

Learning from Paris Hilton

Paris Hilton's mother, on the occasion of her daughter's imminent time behind bars, said that perhaps young people who look up to Paris could learn something from this. One thing they could learn is not to look up to Paris Hilton!

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Limerick for Today

There was a girl named Petula,
Who detested a boy named Shula.
He invited her to bed.
She said."Drop Dead."
But relented when he offered her moola.

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

More on Facts, History, and Faith

In response to my piece on facts and faith (March 6, 2007) a friend and friendly critic sent me this response. I thought it raised pertinent issues and required a clarification and some emendations from me

Ken,

Regarding your entry on the bones of Jesus: I've been a conversation with my dean at the University of Chicago about the question of whether a factual or empirical claim can ever modify a theological claim. (We started on this when he wrote a paper on theology and intelligent design.) He takes what I see as a Tillichian position and argues "no." I take the other position and argue that I am representing the Chicago tradition of empirical and modernist theology. I see you much closer to my side than his, but I'm not sure you're with me and the early Chicago boys (they all were, as you know, guys). If I understand you correctly, you would say "yes, facts make a difference, but only in forcing one to reconstruct the theological claim so as not to be influenced by the factual claim." I want to argue that some empirical facts and the theories that account for those facts have the consequence of shaping doctrine. I think you would take that position, too, with regard to evolutionary theory, but I'm not completely sure. Shailer Mathews was slippery on such issues, but G. B. Smith wasn't, contending that what we come to know about both history and nature count in making theological claims.

So, in the case of the bones of Jesus, if there were ever real documentable evidence that these were his, there would be both positive and negative consequences: positive in the sense of confirming his earthly existence and, possibly, whether death came from crucifixion; negative, regarding any theological claim about the physical resurrection and what that would entail for related doctrines.

I'd appreciate your clarification of your own position, along with any criticism of mine.

From:
Larry Greenfield

To:
Larry,

You are quite right in noticing my ambiguity, obscurity, and probable error. I was thinking specifically of doctrines like physical resurrection of Jesus, virgin birth, evolution, second coming of Jesus, etc. With regard to these I think my analysis is roughly right.

But as an empirical theologian in the Chicago School tradition, I would say that obviously the experienced facts of nature and history are the materials from which one develops a notion of the divine, values, etc. I would say as a modernist that the highest and best (Wieman) of the biblical tradition are contingently but not necessarily dependent on the facts recounted by the Bible, including the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. We came to have some values that were generated in this history, and they are useful in the continuing analysis of experience. But it is conceivable that a God of unbounded love (Ogden) could have been discovered in other histories by non-biblical persons reflecting upon life, their total body of knowledge (accepted beliefs), and their own experience. In the final analysis the test of any religious claim in our experience. So I accept the highest and best of the Christian tradition (as I understand it) but not because it is in the Bible or comes down in tradition but because it validates itself in our own lives and experience (as shaped, of course, by our own upbringing in this culture and assimilated religious beliefs. It is the what (content) of religious belief that finally counts, not its wherefrom (source), content that is tested, revised, and abandoned by continuing reflection upon experience.

Am I a Christian? By my standards, yes. Many others have ruled me out long ago anyway, but I have convinced some fundamentalists by telling them that I accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal Savior and was baptized at age 8 in Ethridge Mill pond, that I am a sinner saved by grace -- all true.

I guess my conclusion is that while facts or events can generate, alter, revise, undermine, and renew specific doctrines, religious truth is not dependent on any particular fact or set of facts or events in nature and history but is dependent on some ensemble facts and events that can sustain their interpretation. Whether this is a Christian view, I will not judge but am somewhat uninterested in the answer.

So within the limited framework I was originally assuming, my first analysis generally holds, but in a larger content, it is misleading. Remember I said that at this level the questions become as intellectually demanding as string theory.

Your response and corrections, suggestions, etc. would be appreciated.

Ken

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

Underwear Crisis: Mine, not Britney's

The message struck terror in my heart. The email was a long, apologetic piece of information from Jockey telling me that the underwear I have worn for more than fifty years (the style, silly, not the same pair) was being discontinued. They were very sorry, but despite all their marketing efforts, dwindling sales of the Classic Midway brief, which they have made since 1937, had forced them to this extremity.

However, I could still buy from their remaining stock as long as supplies lasted. So I called my doctor and asked her how long I would live. Armed with this information, I made the requisite calculations and ordered a lifetime supply. A major crisis was averted. I am 77 years old.. A man that old should not have to change his underwear.

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

Hillary's Judgment is the Big Issue

Hillary will not apologize for voting for the Iraq war. She ought to, but she won't. She says if she knew then what she knows now, she would not have voted the way she did. What she didn't know then was that the war would become so unpopular.

The big issue here is her judgment. Why didn't she know then that the war was a mistake? Lots of people did and rightly predicted what would happen. She made a wrong judgment when the evidence against her vote was available for all to see. She went along with Bush and made a colossal error of judgment.

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Designer Vagina? Limerick for Today

News item:

"Cosmetic vagina surgery is becoming a hot business. Sample procedures: "laser vaginal rejuvenation," "designer laser vaginoplasty," and "revirginization." Cost: $3,000 to $9,000. Slate," March 7, 2007. http://www.slate.com/id/2161289/

There was a woman named Dinah,
Who wanted a new vagina.
Brimming with elation,
She went for revirginization.
A designer vagina? What could be finer?

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

Factual Claims Can't Kill Doctrines

According to some TV news hosts, whose fondness for the sensational is exceeded only by their ignorance of theology, Christian belief is in great peril as a result of the claim that the bones.of Jesus have been found in a burial box in Jerusalem. This is all presented in simplistic fashion as if the issues were clear cut. Actually, the problems related to science, history, and faith are extremely complex and as intellectually challenging as string theory in physics.

I am here to tell you, however, that the naive TV notions to which we have been subjected are mostly a pile of baloney, either before said substance enters the digestive system or after it exits same.

That some particular theological outlooks would be devastated by certain facts is, of course, obviously true. But that is far from saying that if the bones of Jesus are in a box found in Jerusalem, Christian faith and theology are kaput, period.

To oversimplify for the sake of a brief blog, the logic of the situation is roughly this: One can either deny the claim is true, in which case no problem exists. Or if one is convinced that the factual claim is true, then one can reinterpret the matter and preserve what is held to be essential to faith in a revised theological outlook.

I have heard some theologians on TV who agreed that if these claims are true, then the resurrection did not occur, and Christian faith is doomed. But note that they are sure these claims are false. Exactly!

Examples of this phenomenon abound, but I will mention only the controversy over Darwinian evolution. Some Christians, who agree that evolution and the Bible are incompatible, simply deny the claims of the scientific community on the point either on scientific or philosophical grounds or because the Bible teaches otherwise. Others accept the evolutionary hypothesis but incorporate Darwinian views into a reconstructed theology with no sense of theological loss and certainly no challenge to faith.

Claims about facts can't kill doctrines for the simple reason that you can either refuse to accept them as true, or you can accept them but render them harmless to faith by embracing them in a reformed theological vision.

Does anyone lose faith by being convinced of some factual claim? Of course, it happens, but this simply means they are unable or unwilling to embrace a revision of theology that makes them innocuous. It is not a necessary reaction, i. e., one that lacks alternatives but a contingent response based on circumstances peculiar to those persons. It simply means they have so identified faith with a particular theology they can not tolerate alternatives.

But are there some natural or historical facts or lack thereof that would devastate the truth of faith beyond any possibility of redemption by theological reconstruction? Well, now we are in the stratospheric intellectual level alongside, say, string theory in physics, which may be plausible, probable, or just plain silly nonsense depending on whom you ask. Resolve the string theory problem for me, and I will resolve the question as to whether Christian faith rests on some particular set of natural or historical events-facts or on no necessary fact or cluster of facts-events at all.

Meanwhile, let's be anecdotally empirical about it. Has your faith been threatened by the latest furor about the bones of Jesus allegedly found in that burial box in Jerusalem? Do you know anyone who does feel threatened?

I rest my case.

I like the (I assume apocryphal) story told years ago about Paul Tillich, a famous theologian who was accused of not being sufficiently concerned about the historical Jesus. He was told that it had been proven beyond doubt that the bones of Jesus had been found, no question about it. "Well," Tillich said, "it looks like he may have lived after all!"

Selah

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Logic Lesson for Today

Since the virus that causes cervical cancer is spread by sexual intercourse, requiring young girls to be given the vaccine that prevents the disease might encourage them to have sex, so it would be better risking them getting cancer than having sex.

Making condoms readily available could prevent unwanted pregnancies and the spread of STD's, but it might encourage teenagers to have sex, so it would be better to risk unwanted pregnancy or disease than having sex.

Clean needle exchange can reduce the spread of HIV among drug users, but it might encourage more drug use, so it is better to let them use dirty needles that could spread HIV.

Using seat belts can save lives but might encourage teenagers to drive fast or carelessly, so it is better to forbid their use and risk having them killed or seriously injured.

Thus endeth the logic lesson for today. So all the liberals who want girls and women to be safe from cervical cancer, from unwanted pregnancies , and from sexually spread diseases, who want drug users protected from the spread of HIV, and who want kids to be safer by using self belts take note and learn some logic.


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Mini-Sermon for Today: The Virtue of Showing up

Woody Allen, when asked what a woman needed to do to attract him, replied, "Show up!" Much of the good that is done in this world comes from people just showing up. I propose as a hypothesis for debate that 60% of doing ones duty consists in just showing up.

The world would be better off if more people shut up and just showed up.

Selah!

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For the Record

I would like for the record to show that I am not the father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby. However, I will recheck my schedule over the last 18 months. And I wonder what happened to that missing page in my diary. What! This kid might possibly inherit as much as $400 million? I would like for the record to show that I will submit to any proper court-authorized DNA testing.

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Group Dialogue on Diversity and Equality

To Larry Greenfield and Ken Dean,

I would like to know you think about this book. It articulates clearly some ideas I have had for a long time but never saw the issue with this kind of precision and clarity. I suspect some overstatement. The standard question is why can't we work on both economic equality and diversity. I don't think he answers that sufficiently, but I think his main point is that liberals have substituted diversity (racial, gender, and cultural equality) for economic equality and have allowed the former to embrace and eclipse the latter. Liberals want respect for the poor but are mainly unconcerned about making them unpoor. He is convincing on that one as far as many liberals (I call them cultural liberals are concerned) are concerned. I take the faculty I worked with, especially the younger ones in the later years of my tenure, as a prime example of the truth of his main thesis.

The Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality by Walter Benn Michaels

Book Description (publishers review)
“A brilliant assault on our obsession with every difference except the one that really matters—the difference between rich and poor.

If there’s one thing Americans agree on, it’s the value of diversity. Our corporations vie for slots in the Diversity Top 50, our universities brag about minority recruiting, and every month is Somebody’s History Month. But in this provocative new book, Walter Benn Michaels argues that our enthusiastic celebration of “difference” masks our neglect of America’s vast and growing economic divide. Affirmative action in schools has not made them more open, it’s just guaranteed that the rich kids come in the appropriate colors. Diversity training in the workplace has not raised anybody’s salary (except maybe the diversity trainers’) but it has guaranteed that when your job is outsourced, your culture will be treated with respect.

With lacerating prose and exhilarating wit, Michaels takes on the many manifestations of our devotion to diversity, from companies apologizing for slavery, to a college president explaining why there aren’t more women math professors, to the codes of conduct in the new “humane corporations.” Looking at the books we read, the TV shows we watch, and the lawsuits we bring, Michaels shows that diversity has become everyone’s sacred cow precisely because it offers a false vision of social justice, one that conveniently costs us nothing. The Trouble with Diversity urges us to start thinking about real justice, about equality instead of diversity. Attacking both the right and the left, it will be the most controversial political book of the year.”

Ken Cauthen
****
To Ken Cauthen,
From Ken Dean

Cynic, cynic, cynic. Of course there is truth in what this book says. I compare everything to what the situation was in 1965. Today, I went to Emory Hospital for some tests. The men who greeted me and took my car to be parker were Black. The woman on the desk in the entrance was Black. The secretary in the Nuclear Medicine Department where I was treated was Black. The professional who did my nuclear test( it lasted over three hours and required a specially trained technician) is Black. Her colleague is a woman Jew from Georgia (meaning Russia). Her boss, the doctor who heads up Nuclear Medicine Department is Black. The receptionist who handled my business in the Medical Records Department is Black. A special question I asked in that department was answered by a White, a woman. All this happened in a Methodist hospital which 40 years ago probably would not have welcomed a Black patient much less have had a staff this is simply as Black as it is White. And a Russian Jew; we were trying to have these people imprisoned in the 1960s.

We ain't where we ought to be, but we sure as hell ain't where we were. And, then there is your daughter and other two children. Each of them living life styles that were not permitted in the 1960s. I hope all this has something to do with process theology (which I do not claim to understand), but in it all I see more of the revelation of the good than I have ever known to characterize the world, East or West.

So, I think that we keep up identifying where we are coming up short, but that we not let this totally dominate the scene. As we age, we see things more clearly and this certainly justifies a strong dose of cynicism ( and I agree with the current Catholic Theologian who describes Jesus as a cynic---which is not exactly like what we mean by a cynic, but which is not all that different either when we are talking about ones world view), but I have some hope out of the progress I see being made. I agree that justice is found in economic opportunity and attainment, but not just at that level or just in that quarter. For me justice is equality in community.

Peace, teacher, peace, and thanks,

Kenneth Dean
*****
To Ken Dean,
From Ken Cauthen
You do agree that Democrats and cultural liberals generally have been very quiet on making the poor unpoor but loud on diversity except when compared to Republicans, who want a lot of poor people as cheap labor. That is the point I took away. Of course, diversity counts and I rejoice as you do in all the progress made for blacks, women, and gays. But (cultural) liberals seem to think that is enough. The young faculty that inspired me to retire early did not give a damn about economic equality but they were hot on racial and cultural diversity and seemed to think that was enough. In fact they did not like poor people (and non-poor working class and labor union whites), very much unless they were black or female or needed an abortion because the poor were culturally backward on race and gender and sexual orientation, which they were, but they were poor and don’t need to be in this rich land. I don't think that that is cynicism. I think that is realism. We need to be cultural liberals and economic liberals, like me
Ken Cauthen
****
To both Kens,
From Larry Greenfield

I guess I have a different take on this conflict between diversity and inequality. I certainly agree with the author that economic inequality has taken a back seat to diversity for most political, socio-cultural and theological liberals; I regret that even though I'm deeply committed to diversity for biblical and civic reasons. But, like KC, I don't understand why one has to be sacrificed for the other, especially when economic inequality has become so chronic (built into systems).

I'd want to add one other feature into the mix of diversity and inequality, however, and that is a truncated view of economic freedom. It seems to me that political and socio-political liberals have championed a position in economics that emphasizes individual preference over against some notion of the common good--and, therefore, have joined with the neo-liberals in a kind of individualism that is destructive of social bonds. (Many, though not all, of the neo-liberals argue for that social bond in terms of a "values" or "family values" agenda, without giving a sh*t about basic economic well-being, while liberals have eschewed both, in my humble judgment.)

What is largely absent from the public conversation, then, is a view that argues for what I would call
"mutuality" in economics, politics, and social and cultural policies. This isn't strictly a point of view
that gives top priority to equality or to diversity, and yet sees both as key elements of the good society. The good society, that is, is one that strives to encourage and establish a sense of the different components (persons and peoples and nature) all contributing to and receiving from one another in such ways that all flourish.

I'm indebted to my friend Chris Gamwell for developing this insight. But the more I have worked with it, the more I recognize that it is central to the biblical witness, to the best of America's democratic polity, and to MLK's notion of the beloved community (although recently I've tried to argue that even that notion--beloved community--has its roots in John 15:15). (In another recent effort I've substituted the notion of the "matrix of God" for this community of mutuality so as to make it more possible to think of "nature" having standing in the efforts to promote flourishing.

KC, I hope I haven't taken the discussion off-track by some misunderstanding on my part of what is in question. If so, please put me back on track.

All the best to both of you.

Larry
****
To Larry Greenfield and Ken Dean
From Ken Cauthen
Larry, I agree with your philosophical premises. I have said for a long time that the creation of wealth is a social product with organic features not the sum total of individual efforts, thus negating the views of Robert Nozick. I have also urged in two books that the just and good society will maximize freedom, equality, and social (common) good within the constraints each puts on the others. This is a rough and ready formula that is a general guide not a set of rules. Most views of justice have too many rules, make things too neat, whereas I think real life is messy, complicated, and requires a lot of phronesis, practical wisdom with much ad hoc muddling through contextually. I am a pragmatist with guiding principles.

There are some good signs like the ones you mentioned. Also, John Edwards has the best economic platform as he did in 04. That might be his undoing, but he is out there with a strong message on the war and the economy.,

Thank you both for your responses.

KC


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

Hillary: on both sides of every issue

Overheard in the Junior Senator's bedroom one night.

Bill: Honey, I'm just real horny. Interested?

Hillary: Well, sure, but not really. Oh, maybe. I am too tired, but we could sleep in in the morning. And I have a awful headache, but it's really not that bad. Why don't we wait? Or maybe just a quick one. Hey, I didn't mean that quick!



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

What does Hillary believe, really?

Every time I hear Senator Clinton, she seems programmed. Everything is calculated not to offend anyone among her potential supporters. She is on both sides of every question within that framework. It's OK to offend those not within her reach as a candidate no matter what she says, but those who might be enrolled in her cause can find enough to identify with to make it appear as if she really is a champion of their cause.

She is smart enough to take both sides of the middle without any obvious contradiction. And the needle that defines the center of her orbit can move to the left or right as conditions or public opinion dictates.

Her position on the war epitomizes the approach. She voted for the war and has never said plainly that this was a mistake. She has criticized how the war was carried out. She has condemned the "surge," but, besides Laura, the family dog, and a precious few others, who hasn't? Lately, she has said that if she knew then what she knows now, she would have voted differently. But was her original vote wrong? Not that she has admitted in so many words.

And was not her recent visit to Iowa completely calculated to show her warm, soft, funny, down to earth side and how approachable, friendly, and charming she could be with no rough or sharp edges?

Who are you Hillary, -- really, I mean, when you are not in the programmed mode? The more I hear of her, the less attractive she becomes as a candidate. And who is that right behind her and moving fast? Is that you, Barack?


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

Bush and Iraq

My latest theory on Iraq is that if Bush cannot bring the war to a "successful" conclusion soon, his stubborn obstinacy will lead him one way or another to keep troops fighting there until the end of his term. Then he will leave the mess to the next President to deal with. If his policies are pursued to some sort of final "victory," he will regard this as vindication after all. If his policies are repudiated and the troops brought home quickly, then he will blame his successor for the failure, since his own right course was not followed to conclusion.

His dogged determination to pursue this disastrous, tragic war on and on in the face of almost total repudiation by the American people and growing numbers in Congress is a sad spectacle indeed. Is it ego? Stupidity? Blind adherence to his own dogmas in spite of the facts? Whatever it is, the armed forces there and their families back home are paying a heavy price for his folly along with countless thousands of Iraqis.

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

Bush, Israel, Iran -- the Ultimate Folly

According to a report on Scarborough Country on MSNBC Israel is urging the US to attack Iran so they won't have to. It pains me to criticize Israel. The history of Jewish suffering often at the hands of nations that are predominantly Christian is an indelible stain on humanity. But if this report is true, it is sadly unfortunate.

Nicholas Kristof argues that there are strong reform forces in Iran that we ought to cultivate. He notes that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does not wield the ultimate power anyway. For Bush to go to war with Iran would be the ultimate folly.

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

Hillary Catches ON

Hillary finally catches on to what everybody else has known for a long time, i. e., she is running for President. But do we really want some one who is so late recognizing the obvious? She has still not been able to say that her vote for the Iraq war was a mistake -- a finely calculated position measured by its political implications, as is every word she says these days. As a citizen of New York State I remember all her coy remarks when asked if she would promise to serve a full term as Senator. Everybody knew she did not intend to, but she was allowed to play the game. Well, at last now she knows what everybody else does, except, of course, about the war..

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

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld

Dick Cheney said that Rumsfeld was the greatest Secretary of Defense of all time. And Bush fired him? George, how could you?

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

Everybody/Anybody But Hillary

Everybody but Hillary has known for a long time that she would run for president in 2008. During the recent election she evaded the question and played the coy innocent whose intentions were barely concealed in her sidestepping maneuvers.First she said her concern was solely with winning reelection to the Senate and serving New York. Finally, she indicated that if her evasions were a problem for people, they should take that into account when they vote. How clever, since at that time her election was assured, and Democrats had no good alternative. Honesty may be the best policy, but apparently it is not considered to be good politics in these circumstances.

It is clearer day by day that she intended to run all along. Well, OK, but for many the cry will be "Anybody But Hillary."


Now with the Obama frenzy rising, she apparently is stepping up the time line to make her move. Short of some major unanticipated event, e. g., the return of Jesus, yes she will finally come to know what everybody else has known all along.

Until further notice my preference is for an Edwards/Obama ticket, but ABH.

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

Democrats, Take Note

Since 1968, i. e., since the cultural impact of "the 60's," Democrats have nominated presidential candidates from the Upper Midwest, the Northeast, and the Southeast. All from the first two groups lost-- Humphrey, Minnesota, 68; McGovern, South Dakota, 72; Mondale, Minnesota, 84, Dukakis, Massachusetts, 88; and Kerry, Massachusetts, 04. All from the Southeast won on their first try -- Carter, Georgia, 76; Clinton, Arkansas, 92-96; and Gore, Tennessee, 2000. (OK, Carter lost to Bush the Elder in 80 because of stagflation and the Iranian hostage crisis. Gore in 2000 won if you count all the actual votes intended for him.)

So, candidates from the Upper Midwest lost. Candidates from the Northeast lost. Candidates from the Southeast won.

What can we learn from this? The losing candidates were liberal liberals associated with the most progressive elements of those states. The winning candidates were liberal moderates from the least progressive region of the country, but they were successful Democrats who represented the best the South has to offer politically, especially when compared to Southern Republicans -- among the worst of the worst.

What are the implications for 2008? At the moment, for me it suggests a ticket of John Edwards of North Carolina and Barack Obama. OK, Obama is from Illinois, so he has yet to prove himself a vote getter in all sections of the country. I believe he can.

For further analysis, see an earlier post in which I write a prescription for Democrats in 2008.

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

These Critics of Religion are Boring

The God Delusion by Rickard Dawkins and The End of Religion by Sam Harris are both big sellers. They drag out all the tired old arguments we have heard before. Only the details differ. Their shared thesis is fundamentally this: Religion is irrational and does a lot of harm. Ho hum! Yawn, yawn! What we have is a variation on a theme that is as old as Western philosophy. The pre-Socratic thinkers who wanted to replace the myths and legends of the traditional Greek gods with a scientific-rational world-view were the first in a long line of critics who toot the same horn. From Democritus (Circa: 400 BCE) and his notion of reality as atoms and the void to Bertrand Russell (early 20th century) with his "accidental collocation of atoms" in a universe void of meaning and purpose, the denial of a Creator Powerful and Good on the basis of science and reason has been a standard theme of philosophy, though until recent centuries a minority opinion.

Is belief in God irrational? Let us just say that what reason requires in the way of religious belief is a topic about which there can be a real fight. For every Democritus there is a Plato and for every Bertrand Russell, an Alfred North Whitehead. Let Dawkins, Harris, and their ilk confidently proclaim themselves themselves the voice of reason in our time, while the rest of us find them at this stage of the game not a threat but merely boring. As for science, while it provides valuable data that needs to be taken into consideration, science as science settles nothing with respect to the ultimate questions of life, religion, and morality.

Does religion inspire much that is bad? Of course, but it is the source of much good too. It is ambiguous, neither pure devil nor pure angel. Moreover, religion always appears in a historical, cultural context and cannot be understood as a thing in itself and by itself. That is to deal in mere abstractions. So if you want to whip religion for its associations with the bad, go right ahead, but you will have to get in line. I have been doing it myself for at least half a century. But let us tell the whole story.

So if defenders of religion want to debate the likes of Dawkins and Harris, fine, they have a rational case to make; I just hope they make it well. Meanwhile, I find them so boring I am getting sleepy. Yaaaaawwwwwwn!

See Stanley Fish for a demolition of the logic of the professional atheists: http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/, June 19, 2007.

Postscript: An article in The New York Times, November 21, 2006 (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/21/science/21belief.html?8dpc) describing a new aggressive mood by scientist in attacking religion as a harmful delusion is remarkable mostly for its apparent identification of religion with fundamentalism and God as an External Engineer or Designer. This betrays not only ignorance about other religion possibilities but a false hope that science as such can provide all people need in their search for meaning and morality. I won't even mention the arrogance and dogmatism displayed by some. In conferences of scientists and theologians I used to attend eminent scientists were always calling for theologians to get better acquainted with science. I never heard anyone suggest that scientists had anything to learn from anybody, much less from non-fundamentalist theologians. Now I am not sleepy and bored; I am exasperated and mad.

Prescription for Democrats 2008

The presupposition of what follows is that politics is the art of the possible. Democrats have taken a beating in recent decades by being too far ahead of an electing majority on matters in the moral- social-cultural area. They have been too much in the control of a variety of interest groups that moved the Democrats into an agenda favored by the more progressive cultural elements in society who tended to be more educated, more prosperous, and to be in the professions -- the "knowledge industries" dealing more with ideas and with providing services that require education or special training than with actually producing goods or providing services as the basic level -- manufacturing, driving trucks, working in dry cleaning establishments, the food industries, and the like. Support for labor weakened; in fact, many saw working people as culturally backward racists. Maybe this is enough to suggest the idea, though much needs to be said.

As a result we lost the most conservative area -- the South -- and became alienated from working people and from far too many of the common folks -- the average Joe and Joan across the country -- the plain, good folks many of whom populated the churches of the middle and lower classes.

As a result we got Nixon, Reagan, and Bush 1 and 2.

I am a democratic socialist and very liberal on the cultural issues. But there are not enough of my kind to elect a Congress and a President, except maybe in San Francisco. You cannot wield political power unless you get it. I am not much in favor these days of being a voice crying in the wilderness with my idealistic vision. There is work to be done in the culture winning more people to liberal ideals of peace and justice, but politics is the art of the possible. Therefore:

In preparation for 2008 Democrats should focus on the following:

1. Declare themselves to be against abortion. They should announce that abortion should be legal, safe, and as rare as possible. The only solution to this problem is to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Hence, Democrats should invite Republicans to joins them in a crusade to prevent unwanted pregnancies by every effective means including sex education that focuses on pregnancy prevention, abstinence, and safe sex.

2. They should forget gun control, oppose a federal constitutional amendment to outlaw same-sex marriage, and otherwise leave the matter up to the states. There is further work to be done in the culture before much progress can be made politically on the issue. Gradually, it will happen starting in the Northeast and the West Coast and slowly work its way through the country, as is happening. Democrats should say as little as possible about prayer in school and the like, and take moderate positions when subjects like this cannot be avoided. The cultural issues have been killing Democrats for decades. Democrats should go slow on them and fight in winnable battles on the liberal-moderate side in areas that offer that possibility.

3. On Iraq they should seek a bipartisan solution or let the Republicans settle it. There is no good policy at this point, and whatever course is taken will leave Iraq in chaos for years. Democrats do not want to get credit for a policy that will lead to further disaster and violence, and there is no policy that will not do exactly that. Both parties must bear the blame if necessary, and Republicans should be seen as having major responsibility for the outcome if a genuinely bipartisan solution is not possible.

4. Domestically, Democrats must return to their New Deal roots to the extent they can find issues on which they can be successful. The heart of the agenda should be on the welfare of families. Helping families is the central focus. Around that can be built the following: increasing the minimum wage, increasing support for child care to enable both parents to work if they want to, strengthening welfare policies to make them more humane, i. e., require work but provide the means to make it possible to get decent jobs at good pay with child care and whatever other support is required, improving the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), support labor in its attempt to organize and to remain strong as a counterpoint to big business, assist families and students in getting a college education, and the like. Finally, they should push environmental and energy initiatives to the limits of winnable possibility.

5. Crucial is a reform of health care. Incremental gains may be all that is politically possible at the moment, but movement should be in the direction of a one-payer system that does something like universalize Medicare. Appeal to business by proposing to take health off their agenda as a cost. We must educate the public on the facts and counteract the myths, dogmas, falsehoods, and scare tactic of free-market zealots and Republicans sponsored by the enormous power of the insurance and drug companies. A universal health care plan can provide better care at lower costs with greater efficiencies than the awful system we have now that leaves 45 million plus people without medical insurance.

This suggests a direction and a set of guidelines -- moderate on social-cultural issue, strong focus on helping middle class and lower income families and individuals.

This would help Democrats become the party of Roosevelt, Truman, and Johnson (the latter on the domestic, not the Vietnam side) again. They won.

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

Ted Haggard's Tragedy

I listened to part of the letter that the Rev. Ted Haggard sent last Sunday to his congregation confessing his violation of what he and his church believed. He spoke of a life-strong struggle with what he called a dark and repulsive side of his nature. The man poured out his heart in sorrow and shame. It was heart-breaking to hear, Members of his congregation expressed their deep shock and grief but offered to forgive him.

What I did not hear anybody say was that he was the victim of an oppressive culture and an oppressive religion that would not allow him to be the person he actually was. Therein lies the deepest tragedy of all. He was forced into a life of conflict and struggle, that eventually lead to deception and finally exposure. All this suffering was the result of bad religion in a prejudiced culture. The answer is not simply in forgiveness and reconciliation but more deeply in liberation from false and destructive ways of thinking about sexuality.

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

Kerry's Dumb Remark and Republican Dirty Politics

OK, Senator Kerry said something dumb -- again. This time his statement about the failure of college students to study hard leading to to their being stuck in Iraq coveyed something he did not intend, mean, or believe. It was an error, a mistake in statement. His explanation that his gaffe was a "botched joke" about President Bush is entirely credible. The Senator says dumb things sometimes, but he is not stupid. He is not an idiot. To have deliberately meant what his words said -- and what the Republicans sinfully pretend to take him to have meant -- would have been political suicide. Everybody knows that. The Republicans damn well know that, of course they do.

But Kerry gave them a beautiful opportunity to play dirty, and they are exploiting it, although they know quite well that Kerry made an error in speaking and did not intend an insult to people in the military. They know his explanation was credible; heck, they know it is true. But why should mere truth be a barrier to an opportunity to exploit Kerry's dumb statement to divert attention from their sorry record and the debacle of Iraq? The brazen dishonesty of it all is evident to all whose brains are functioning at 30% capacity or more.

The TV news channels hopped on it and will play it out repeatedly because it is the sort of thing they love -- dramatic, emotional, a fight. It is all a sad commentary on the state of politics and American culture.

Unfortunately, Kerry brings a lot of baggage from 2004, and his gaffe plays right into the perception that he is an aristocratic elitist who does not relate easily to the common folks -- skiing in Aspen, windsurfing off Cape Cod, and the like. The only good thing to come out of this is that it reduces his chances of getting the presidential nomination again to somewhere below zero.

I think everybody should take James Carville's advice for 2006: "If you don't like Senator Kerry, don't vote for him."

Just for the record, courtesy of George W. Bush:

"It's in our country's interests to find those who would do harm to us and get them out of harm's way." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., April 28, 2005.

"But Iraq has -- have got people there that are willing to kill, and they're hard-nosed killers. And we will work with the Iraqis to secure their future." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., April 28, 2005

"I was not pleased that Hamas has refused to announce its desire to destroy Israel."—Washington, D.C., President Bush, May 4, 2006.

"Who could have possibly envisioned an erection -- an election in Iraq at this point in history?" --George W. Bush, at the White House, Washington, D.C., Jan. 10, 2005.

"I stand by all the misstatements that I've made."...Governor George W. Bush, Jr. to Sam Donaldson, 8/17/93

(Taken from the S.F. Chronicle, 5/10/88)

George Bush made one of the all-time misstatements Friday night at the
College of Southern Idaho. Describing his close relationship with President Reagan, Bush said: "For 7 1/2 years I've worked alongside him, and I'm proud to be his partner. We've had triumphs, we've made mistakes, we've had sex."

"Setbacks," he quickly corrected. "We've had setbacks."

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Controlling the Nuclear Genie

The nuclear genie is out of the bottle. Does anyone know how to put the genie back in the bottle? Does anyone believe that in the long run Iran, North Korea, other states, and radical terrorist groups can be prevented from getting the bomb and the means to deliver it if they are determined to have it? We must do whatever we can to slow the proliferation, but we are entering a new nuclear age with unknown dangers and no certain solutions.

If only nation-states get nuclear capability, perhaps a resurrected or continuing form of MAD (mutually assured destruction) would work once more as it did when the USA and the USSR confronted each other with missiles aimed at vital targets. Nations have territories with vulnerable cities. They have leaders with instincts of self-preservation for themselves and their homelands and with fears of self-destruction. But how do you retaliate against a terrorist group with a network of leaders scattered widely? When that is compounded with a suicide mentality that cannot be deterred by threats of death, we have a new menace unlike anything we have known in the past. If terrorists are willing to sacrifice their own existence, they may have no qualms against destroying thousands, even millions, of people regarded as enemies of God and Islam.

Islam has rules of war deep in its history that in some respects is like the just war tradition in Christianity. In particular, it forbids the killing of non-combatants, especially women, children, and other Muslims. It requires good cause and has norms of proportionality that limit the destruction that can be wreaked on enemies. But under the novel conditions of the modern world, one can find scholars who are modifying that tradition to cover suicide killings. One can be sure that warrant can be found by learned scholars and lesser intellects for any horror, any form of jihad, that may be perpetrated if it achieves ends sufficient to justify the means

The underlying problem is deep hatred of the United States and its friends that cannot be easily ameliorated. Contrary to zealots who see us as morally pure and attribute the unprovoked perfidy of others to their own self-generated evil, we have contributed to the rise of anti-American feelings by what we have done and not simply by what we are as shining lights of virtue and innocence.

To focus on the Middle East (North Korea requires a different analysis), two major events may be specified. The first is the unwavering, one-sided support of Israel against the Palestinians. The second is the role of the US in overthrowing the democratically-elected prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran in 1953. We should add to this the presence of American troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other Muslim countries, not to mention US support of Arab regimes considered by the extremists to be corrupt. This is not to deny the reality of internal psychological-cultural factors that may have generated feelings of jealousy, inferiority, humiliation, and hostility in face of the fact that Islam, once a leading force in the advance of civilization, has in recent centuries been in the backwaters of scientific and cultural creativity, as well as military power, as compared to the Judeo-Christian nations.

In the background is the fact that the United States is the only country ever to use a nuclear weapon against another nation. To this should be added the fact that to Muslim eyes it is sheer hypocrisy for the nations that now have nuclear weapons to assume the right of preventing others from acquiring what they already have. This includes Israel, who everybody knows has a nuclear capability, although they do not admit to it. By what logic do we presume to tell others they cannot have what we have? As a matter of practical necessity and realism, it may be necessary to prevent proliferation when we can, but we should not fail to see how all this looks to Muslim eyes. How do we answer their question: If we can't have them, why don't you get rid of yours?

It may be that history will work itself out without a nuclear conflagration and lead to a world free of these horrible weapons. It is clear, however, that for the forseeable future we will live in a dangerous world faced with novel challenges.

If you are having trouble staying awake after you go to bed at night, read an article by Noah Feldman, "Islam, Terror, and the Second Nuclear Age," in the New York Times Magazine, (October 29, 2006), 50ff. Feldman lays out the issues and provides instructive historical background.

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

What's Wrong with Bush: An Expert Diagnosis

It is not well known, but I am a world renowned expert in the science of connecting behavior disorders with brain dysfunction. It is my duty as an American patriot to reveal my conclusions about President Bush. Fortunately, like Dr. Frist, who could diagnose Terri Schiavo from a thousand miles away, I have the ability to discern at a distance in a way that requires no brain scans but only a good newspaper.

Mr. Bush suffers from two related disorders, a major dysfunction along with an enabling malady that makes the first one possible. The major issue is that somewhere along the way he developed a severe form of infallibitism. This refers to the inability to recognize or admit to fundamental errors of judgment. So while a large majority of Americans recognize that Iraq is a mess so messy that there is no good way out, the President cannot acknowledge this because of an attachment to discredited dogmas, assumptions, and unrealistic goals. Because his infallibitism is so profound, he cannot admit to his fallibility. He can only confess that some errors were made but not sufficient to undermine the basic justification for our being there and staying there until victory is ours. The Iraq fiasco is so bad, however, that he needs some way to hide his disability.

The inability to use language that corresponds to reality leads him to disguise the deficiency. Here is where the second disorder comes to his rescue. He is also afflicted with semantitis, which stimulates the use of language designed to bridge the gap between his claims and the facts. This disorder made it possible to keep coming up with new justifications for our being there as facts came to to light that undermined each new rationale.

When weapons of mass destruction were not found and then the connection of Iraq with Al-Qaeda in 9/11 was shown to be baloney, a succession of new reasons was generated by his semantitis until now it seems the fate of civilization depends on our victory

Semantitis enables him at the moment to avoid admitting to the morass of Iraq by saying "mistakes were made." When he is finally forced by public opinion, sensible advisors, and a night watching CNN to make significant changes, this will be announced and defended as flexibility in dealing with changing conditions but not a change of strategy.

Semantitis also enables him to change the meaning of the goal from achieving a fully-functioning, stable democracy to creating a sustainable government with tolerable internal conflict while still calling it victory.

Unfortunately after it reaches the advanced stage present in this instance, there is no cure for either infallibitism or semantitis. The best outcome would be to retire the President to Crawford where time in the sun clearing brush and riding around on a horse will make the world safe for sanity.

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

Debate on Clergy Housing Deduction

Entries appear in chronological order.

Dear Clergy,

The damn New York Times has stopped preaching and started to meddle. I knew our unfair tax breaks on housing would come to light one day. I see no reason why I should be able to deduct my housing expenses while my neighbor cannot. But when it gets threatened, all the church boards, including mine, rush in to lobby Congress with all sorts of dubious reasons why the clergy housing deductions should be preserved. They act just like any other institution to defend self-interest. It is unjust, but I claim every penny of mine, don't you?

KC

FROM KEN DEAN TO KEN CAUTHEN

Dear Brother Cauthen,

Sometimes a matter has to be understood in its proper context. The reason you get a housing deduction is that "the community" once believed that it was helpful to have a "settled" pastor in place as the frontier developed. It also gave free land to school boards. This settled pastor also got a given amount of corn and produce from the fields, and very little money. Pastors still get very little money, but no corn or wheat. Then it was recognized that a pastor was not eligible to use his time and energy to participate in the free economic enterprise system of profit and production....meaning, of course, that he would have a smaller salary than other professionals, so he gets special treatment on housing. Often times the housing is owned by the church, so when retirement comes he is out on his ass with no where to go. (You ought to have yours kicked for writing this piece!) When churches start paying pastors really livable salaries and giving them benefits comparable to doctors and lawyers and other professionals (state retirement programs and health insurance comparable to University professors and civil servants of the state) you go right ahead and take your housing deduction and do not feel for one second that you are slighting your neighbor. Both you and your neighbor bring something important to creating, re-creating and sustaining community and this has nothing to do with where the nub of the issue is for our day. I used "his" in describing the "getting it together years" for defining how a local pastor gets compensated because in those days the pastors were all "he". So you may feel free to go back through my paragraph and insert "he/she" to make it up to date. But the housing allowance issue will still come out the same. I think this issue may come under what you used to teach as "contextual ethics."

Peace and blessings to one and all from down here in your home state of GEORGIA
Kenneth Dean, Sr.

FROM KEN CAUTHEN TO KEN DEAN

My dear apostate Baptist, Colleague, Friend, fellow Southerner, fellow lover of old-time country music,

To steal from Kant, we have here a nest of "dialectical difficulties" that I won't pretend to untangle completely but will make a few marginal comments. I see two arguments in your reply: one about community building and the other about the poor compensation of clergy. Your first argument about settled clergy serving a community-building function meriting state subsidy predates the incomes tax we are talking about and smells like the era of established churches in a state that sees religion as creating disciplined, virtuous, but docile citizens who will not threaten the status quo. That is an argument for the conservative role of religion in society that pleases the state, but it is not one that a Baptist ought to be making. If we fufilled our role as descendants of the OT prophets, Walter Rauschenbusch, and Martin Luther King, Jr. associated with the beloved serminary at which both of us have taught, we would be as often raising hell and disrupting the community -- as you have done more than I have in the past.

In the income tax era, the rationale has been stated in a brochure prepared for Jewish clergy, and I quote:

"History: When the income tax was enacted, clergy salaries were negligible: Many, if not most clergy were given a place to live, minimal provisions, and a very small salary. The fair market value of non-cash items was to be counted as income, but the government recognized that it was unfair to tax clergy on the value of the parish house. Thus the parsonage exemption was created."

Assuming that this is the historical justification, it seems weak to me. Why should the value of a house not be counted as taxable income? It is the functional equivalent of cash paid that can be used to rent or buy a house. In any case it constitutes a direct state subsidy to clergy and indirectly to the religious institutions that employ them. It, in effect, adds income to clergy at government expense. OK, clergy as a whole are poorly paid compared to other professionals. That is a problem, but why is it the state's problem? The near-poverty status of clergy is no justification for a government subsidy unless it is combined with something like your "community building" as a service to the community or some other rationale for uniquely privileging clergy. I have ready rejected that. The argument from poor clergy compensation as such has no merit at all. Lots of working people are as poor or poorer than clergy on the average. Why should they not have a housing deduction too? Of course, we all have more money to spend because of the housing deduction, but to argue that I could not have done X or Y or Z without it is no argument at all. It simply recognizes that the government pays us a certain amount because we are clergy. What is the current justification of the housing bonus? I know of none whatsoever apart from the sheer self-interest of clergy. Just for the record, a housing deduction is in effect a direct grant of money to clergy and eligible religious institutions and as such is a violation of the separation of church and state, understood strictly, as Baptists should interpret it. That is my basic response.

I will offer some concluding thoughts just for the hell of it.

The aides in the nursing home who changed my Mother's diapers are very poorly paid, and they could use a government subsidy to help with housing expense. The same could be said for janitors and maids who clean the toilets of professionals and business types at a pittance of what those who dirty the toilets make. I would argue that such people also contribute to "community." By the way, it should be a law strictly enforced that those who dirty toilets should be compelled to clean them in proportion to their usage. George with a plunger and Laura with a toilet brush in the White House would be a splendid model for America. This task teaches humility, virtue, discipline, and promotes delicacy in using toilets and would be for us all a community-building enterprise. Get this law passed, and I will argue that a housing deduction should be given to all who earn it through toilet cleaning.

By the way not all clergy are poor: In 1995 Pastor Rick Warren of the 18,000 member Saddleback Community Church in California deducted $79,999 for actual housing costs The IRS challenged the deduction, claiming the "“fair market value" (rental per year) would allow only $59,479.

Nevertheless, my fellow-Baptist, you offered the best defense of an erroneous position I have seen lately.

Yours in service to Jesus, our model, who said, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head." Matthew 8:20

Ken Cauthen

LATER REFLECTIONS OF KEN CAUTHEN

Since my impulsive outburst about the clergy housing deduction, I realized how ignorant I was of its history and rationale. Since then I have Googled and learned enough to be an untrustworthy guide. Like so many issues it gets very complicated with many complexities, ambiguities, nuances, subtleties, distinctions, and fine points of law and logic. Courts, Constitutional lawyers, and Judges, including those on the Supreme Court, have argued for and against it. Here is the gist of what I have learned.

1. Exemption of religious institutions from property tax goes back to the beginning of the country. The argument for it is that it is necessary to separation of church and state in establishing sectarian sovereignty as a protection against state action. The tax exemption does not subsidize churches, but leaves them alone. Some judges argue that religion serves a secular purpose that merits state support. Justice Brennan stressed the "secular" benefits to society of these exemptions: these institutions foster "moral or mental improvement" and are "beneficial and stabilizing influences in community life." This is the Rev. Dr. Kenneth Dean's point.(Walz v. commissioner, 397 US 664 (Decided May 4, 1970)

2. In 1921 the parsonage exemption was established in the income tax code, which dates from 1913, enabling clergy to exclude from income the value of the housing provided. Since 1954, the provision had also shielded clergy members from taxes on the entire portion of their paycheck designated by their congregations as a housing allowance, whether they spent it on renting an apartment or buying their own home. But the rules the IRS adopted in 1971 limited the deduction to the smallest of three amounts: the "fair market rental value" of the home, the housing allowance paid to the minister, or the minister's actual housing expenses.

3. In 1996 the IRS ruled that Rev. Rick Warren had exceeded the "“fair rental value"” in his claim and reduced it. On May 16, 2000, the United States Tax Court struck down the IRS cap and ruled that clergy members could deduct "“the amount used to provide a home," however much that might be. The IRS appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco. A great battle ensued in the Court aided and abetted by major Protestant, Catholic, and Protestant church agencies. One question raised was whether the clergy housing deduction was Constitutional. Before the Court could decide, the Clergy Housing Clarification Act of 2002 had been approved unanimously in both houses of Congress and signed into law by President Bush. The law ruled that no limits would hold on past housing claimed but from now on the "“fair rental value" rule would apply.

That'’s where we are now.

For

1. Some clergy who live in employers provided housing as a condition of employment or for the convenience of the employer are eligible for tax relief under general rules of tax law that have nothing to do with religion. Granting a housing exemption to all clergy prevents discrimination against those who don"’t qualify under that rule.

2. Tax relief favoring religion has deep historical roots. Therefore, "the parsonage exemption is well within the accommodation tradition through the early colonial and national period, including most significantly the dis-establishment era, right up until today. Indeed, the parsonage exemption is part and parcel of the types of reasonable accommodations listed by the three dissenting justices in Texas Monthly. These reasonable accommodations, described by the three justices as those which "'today permeate the state and federal codes, and have done so for many years.'"

Against

1. It is a subsidy to religion in violation of the Constitutional separation of church and state. Legal scholars, Constitutional lawyers, and Judges at every level including the Supreme Court have affirmed this point.

2. It privileges clergy in relation to non-clergy and thus discriminates against them. Others whose work is valuable to society and who may be as poorly paid as clergy have no such advantage. These other low-paid care-givers, community builders, and workers essential to society have to provide for their own housing during working years and retirement without benefit of a housing deduction.

Moreover, clergy are allowed to "double-dip" in that they can count mortgage payments and property tax as part of the housing expenses to be deducted and then deduct them again on their 1040 forms just like everybody else. Granted that, unlike most other people, they do have to pay all their Social Security taxes, but so do all other self-employed persons.

I include some references:

http://www.bc.edu/schools/law/lawreviews/meta-elements/journals/bclawr/42_4/03_TXT.htm

"“In the context of tax benefits, the "“subsidy" label is usually deployed in a conclusory and unconvincing fashion. The First Amendment is best understood as permitting governments to refrain from taxation to accommodate the autonomy of religious actors and activities; hence, tax benefits extended solely to sectarian institutions should pass constitutional muster as recognition of that autonomy. Since it is most compelling to conceive of religious tax exemption as the acknowledgment of sectarian sovereignty, rather than the subsidization of religion, there is no convincing constitutional reason to link that exemption to the simultaneous extension of comparable tax benefits to secular entities and undertakings."

Edward Zelinski, friend of the Court in Rick Warren case.

http://www.nlf.net/Activities/briefs/warren_commissioner.nlf.PDFFriend of the Court Opinion in Warren Case


"Therefore, the parsonage exemption is well within the accommodation tradition dating at least to 1601, and extending through the early colonial and national period, including most significantly the dis-establishment era, right up until today. Indeed, the parsonage exemption is part and parcel of the types of reasonable accommodations listed by the three dissenting justices in Texas Monthly. These reasonable accommodations, described by the three justices as those which "today permeate the state and federal codes, and have done so for many years."

”http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/business/11religious.html?_r=1&ei=5094&en=3e7ff24164bf9aae&hp=&ex=1160625600&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print&adxnnlx=1161096995-jaWEMDUwH2oTrg3PEoGziQ

http://www.drbilllong.com/ReligionandLaw/Walz.html
1970 court decision SC of USA upholding tax exemption of church property.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/business/11religious.html?_r=1&ei=5094&en=3e7ff24164bf9aae&hp=&ex=1160625600&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print&adxnnlx=1161096995-jaWEMDUwH2oTrg3PEoGziQ Letters to the editor.


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