“Religious tolerance” wasn’t popular in the early days of colonial America. It began with an experiment launched by Protestant theologian and activist Roger Williams. In the 17th century, Williams, with help from the indigenous people (Wampanoag) of what is now the state of Rhode Island, established, with tremendous resistance from “mainstream” colonial Christians, a settlement that welcomed people who held variant beliefs, particularly Quakers, Baptists and Jews. Williams’ vision and courage helped shape the ideas that ultimately were written into the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Thus, the government is constitutionally restrained from taking any action to promote or obstruct any exercise or expression of anything that presents as “religious”.
Federal, state and local governments sometimes act in ways that some believe transgress the boundaries defined by the First Amendment. Recall the controversies around the fed’s attack on the Branch Davidians in Waco in 1993, or the attempt by Roy Moore and his Christian Nationalists to retain the statue of the Ten Commandments at the Alabama state courthouse. There continue to be Americans who view these intrusions of the government to have violated Constitutional religious liberty. We need to stay vigilant, of course.
I’ve been stunned this week by the stir created by a guy with a religious moniker and the means to make a big banner. How is it that someone like Terry Jones can announce plans to burn copies of the Quran on 9/11, and attempt to extort the Islamic community in New York City to relocate their planned building project, without consequence? Plenty of more moderate religious leaders have decried Jones’ actions, and as I write this, there is still the possibility he may cancel his plans. Yet, he still could follow through with it. And there may be significant, painful consequences for people far from Jones’ church in Gainesville, Florida.
Ideologues disguised as “messengers of God” have, throughout history, always pointed to a convenient enemy to organize the frightened masses they depend upon for their power. These days, with instant media coverage, if you do or say the most outrageous things, you get the most hits on the google search, and attract seas of sensation seekers. In a culture that appears more and more to cultivate and glorify ignorance disguised as “access to information”, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that we are witnessing an escalation of outrage. The frightened masses are massing and desperate for someone, anyone, to point them toward the most available enemy. Religion stands ready as the perennial hose through which the gasoline of xenophobia fuels humankind’s conflagrations.
Yes, I believe there are bad beliefs. And, like bad water, bad air or bad food, they can make us very sick. Our American freedoms grant us full exposure to all of it. How critical, then, to our well-being today that we be very careful about what we breathe, what we eat and drink. And what we believe.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Awakening
I've had this experience several times in my life. I'm just going along through a day, exchanging brief greetings and general observations with others, on my way to this or that meeting or errand. And suddenly something happens - not a crisis or a trauma, just a flashing, momentary shift of perspective - and my way of seeing the world is changed. Long ago the image of an impoverished indigenous African child appeared in my mind for a moment, and I never again was able to imagine my life apart from hers. One day while I was a seminary student, I felt the momentary presence of overwhelming comfort and love, and I knew there was a transcendent reality. I tried to shake it for years, embarrassed to be associated with the kinds of ignorance, cruelty and oppression demonstrated for eons by groups who profess to believe in God. But it stays with me, the conviction that there are higher, deeper, broader dimensions of consciousness that intersect my neural pathways and can transform my entire way of thinking. The Greeks had a word for it: "metanoia". Could be translated "expanded consciousness" or "broad-mindedness". There's so much wonder in life to make mental space for, and sometimes, I change.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Historical Perspective
How long has the world existed? How long have people populated the earth? I got curious about how to understand the span of my own life in relation to how long the whole cosmos has been "here". So I imagined the "Big Bang", which is reputed to have occurred in the neighborhood of 13.5 billion years ago, located in San Diego, California. I imagined "now" to be located right here where I live. Starting on the west coast, I imagined traveling across country.
The whole journey from the birth of the universe until today covers about
13.5 billion years, which I imagine as the distance from San Diego to Woodbury, Connecticut.
Our Solar System took shape about 4.568 billion years ago, the distance from Woodbury to Chicago.
Our planet, the Earth was formed about 4.5 billion years ago ... puts us just about 14 miles offshore of Chicago in Lake Michigan.
Life is believed to have originated 3.7 billion years ago - east across the lake, and I-94 to Detroit, about a four hour trip.
Modern Humans arrived on the scene about 195 million years ago. Now we're in Connecticut, paddling around Candlewood Lake.
The era we refer to as "Civilization", when our ancestors began settling in cities, began between 6,500 and 5,000 years ago. We're suddenly standing on my front porch!
The history of the United States as an independent nation began in 1776, 234 years ago, which means our journey has brought us to within a quarter inch of my front door!
Our current Global Information age, Age of Technology is maybe 50 years old. That's about 1/16 of an inch from stepping inside. (I'm 59 and a half ... maybe 3/32 of an inch away?)
Historical perspective, in my judgment, is missing from so much of the lurching and screaming talk and cyber-verbiage I read and listen to. It appears that as a species we have determined that there can be no future for life unless humans define the parameters of that life. Some of today's rhetoric appears to advocate a studied ignorance of history. Who cares, they seem to suggest, what has happened over mere decades or even centuries (never mind millenia!) to bring us to a day when our human species ... so late to the game and having attained such power over the other creatures ... stands on the brink of making decisions consequential to the well-being of all future beings?
I care. The solution to our global crises begins and ends with the transformation of modern minds, the collective "modern mind". I challenge every human reading this blog to consider whether you are willing to surrender your claim to singular superiority among Earth's living systems, and begin again to seek the deeper, sacred wisdom that has been ever hinted at by ancient spiritual traditions. And I'd love to know if you have hope for the survival of living systems in the future. It could be, in light of our teeny human time-print, and the even more ephemeral success of "civilization", we are on the verge of an age of genuine wholeness for all of Earth's diverse creatures.
The whole journey from the birth of the universe until today covers about
13.5 billion years, which I imagine as the distance from San Diego to Woodbury, Connecticut.
Our Solar System took shape about 4.568 billion years ago, the distance from Woodbury to Chicago.
Our planet, the Earth was formed about 4.5 billion years ago ... puts us just about 14 miles offshore of Chicago in Lake Michigan.
Life is believed to have originated 3.7 billion years ago - east across the lake, and I-94 to Detroit, about a four hour trip.
Modern Humans arrived on the scene about 195 million years ago. Now we're in Connecticut, paddling around Candlewood Lake.
The era we refer to as "Civilization", when our ancestors began settling in cities, began between 6,500 and 5,000 years ago. We're suddenly standing on my front porch!
The history of the United States as an independent nation began in 1776, 234 years ago, which means our journey has brought us to within a quarter inch of my front door!
Our current Global Information age, Age of Technology is maybe 50 years old. That's about 1/16 of an inch from stepping inside. (I'm 59 and a half ... maybe 3/32 of an inch away?)
Historical perspective, in my judgment, is missing from so much of the lurching and screaming talk and cyber-verbiage I read and listen to. It appears that as a species we have determined that there can be no future for life unless humans define the parameters of that life. Some of today's rhetoric appears to advocate a studied ignorance of history. Who cares, they seem to suggest, what has happened over mere decades or even centuries (never mind millenia!) to bring us to a day when our human species ... so late to the game and having attained such power over the other creatures ... stands on the brink of making decisions consequential to the well-being of all future beings?
I care. The solution to our global crises begins and ends with the transformation of modern minds, the collective "modern mind". I challenge every human reading this blog to consider whether you are willing to surrender your claim to singular superiority among Earth's living systems, and begin again to seek the deeper, sacred wisdom that has been ever hinted at by ancient spiritual traditions. And I'd love to know if you have hope for the survival of living systems in the future. It could be, in light of our teeny human time-print, and the even more ephemeral success of "civilization", we are on the verge of an age of genuine wholeness for all of Earth's diverse creatures.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Glen Beck and Jim Wallis
Glen Beck regularly hammers on Christians who belong to churches that promote "social justice". Jim Wallis, founder and president of Sojourners Community in Washington, D.C., has been a voice from within Christian evangelicalism for several decades, and his face gets taped on Beck's blackboard as the symbol of that most sinister thing called "Christian social justice". Jim has been trying to get Glen to participate in a public dialog about the biblical roots of social justice, and his offers have been routinely ignored or refused. No surprise, of course.
Jim is a hero of mine. That said, I want to respectfully suggest that Glen Beck and his sensational baloney owe at least some tribute to Jim's evangelical tradition. The words "evangelical" or "evangelism" come from a Greek word that means "good message" or "good news". "Evangelicals" take as a priority of their Christian faith the biblical admonition to "go therefore and make disciples of all nations", in other words, to use whatever means are at their disposal to spread the "good news" or "gospel" of Jesus Christ.
A little history: In the early 1700s, colonial America experienced what became known as a "Great Awakening". Protestant preachers, notably Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, held public meetings during which they would raise their loud voices and hyperbolic rhetoric to elicit intense emotional responses from those present. A "Second Awakening" occurred in the early 19th century, from which several Christian denominations emerged, notably the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or Mormons, with whom Glen Beck is associated. Some historians identify later "awakenings", including the emergence of the "social gospel" in the late 19th century and the "Renewal" movements of the 1960s and 1970s.
American religion has always tended to the sensational, the spectacular, the theatrical. The names of Billy Sunday, Aimee Semple McPherson or Kathryn Kuhlman may not be familiar to many, but these religious performers set the stage for Billy Graham's career of crusades, the radio ministries of Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland, and the myriad satellite television evangelism empires of the past quarter century.
American evangelicalism has spawned Glen Beck and the other media monsters who use ever more powerful technologies, corporate wealth and sophisticated rhetorical devices to overwhelm the senses and sensibilities of their audiences. Hey - anything to save a soul, right? Since American religion is all about sensations, the shiniest new product or the flashiest political, theatrical or spiritual celebrity is going to sell the most product. The medium hasn't really seemed to matter much to American evangelicals. For a population of consumers, the preaching of "good news" has never really been about awakening humanity to the presence of God in our midst, or building a movement toward social justice, global peace or prosperity.
Beck is just another American spectacle, a product of American evangelicalism. I think when we begin to acknowledge how our own faith tradition has given birth to truly mutant versions of the "good news", at that point a real, planetary spiritual transformation might be born.
Jim is a hero of mine. That said, I want to respectfully suggest that Glen Beck and his sensational baloney owe at least some tribute to Jim's evangelical tradition. The words "evangelical" or "evangelism" come from a Greek word that means "good message" or "good news". "Evangelicals" take as a priority of their Christian faith the biblical admonition to "go therefore and make disciples of all nations", in other words, to use whatever means are at their disposal to spread the "good news" or "gospel" of Jesus Christ.
A little history: In the early 1700s, colonial America experienced what became known as a "Great Awakening". Protestant preachers, notably Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, held public meetings during which they would raise their loud voices and hyperbolic rhetoric to elicit intense emotional responses from those present. A "Second Awakening" occurred in the early 19th century, from which several Christian denominations emerged, notably the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or Mormons, with whom Glen Beck is associated. Some historians identify later "awakenings", including the emergence of the "social gospel" in the late 19th century and the "Renewal" movements of the 1960s and 1970s.
American religion has always tended to the sensational, the spectacular, the theatrical. The names of Billy Sunday, Aimee Semple McPherson or Kathryn Kuhlman may not be familiar to many, but these religious performers set the stage for Billy Graham's career of crusades, the radio ministries of Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland, and the myriad satellite television evangelism empires of the past quarter century.
American evangelicalism has spawned Glen Beck and the other media monsters who use ever more powerful technologies, corporate wealth and sophisticated rhetorical devices to overwhelm the senses and sensibilities of their audiences. Hey - anything to save a soul, right? Since American religion is all about sensations, the shiniest new product or the flashiest political, theatrical or spiritual celebrity is going to sell the most product. The medium hasn't really seemed to matter much to American evangelicals. For a population of consumers, the preaching of "good news" has never really been about awakening humanity to the presence of God in our midst, or building a movement toward social justice, global peace or prosperity.
Beck is just another American spectacle, a product of American evangelicalism. I think when we begin to acknowledge how our own faith tradition has given birth to truly mutant versions of the "good news", at that point a real, planetary spiritual transformation might be born.
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