Courage in the face of terrorism

In a recent sermon, Jim Lawton, pastor of the C³ Center for Spiritual in Spring Lake, MI, observed:

Think of air travel in a larger perspective. In the past decade there have been three terrorist related incidents on US airplanes. Most of them failed or were foiled by other passengers. In the same period of time, according to the Bureau of Transport Statistics, there have been 99,320,309 commercial airline departures that either originated or landed within the United States. That means that there has been one terrorist incident for every 33 million departures. If you look at the total number of passengers on planes in the last decade, the odds of being on a flight with a terrorist incident is 1 in 10 million. By contrast, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are 1 in 500,000. You are more likely to die from falling out of bed than as the victim of a terrorist on a plane.

Do you feel safer on a plane, knowing that there is a rigorous security regimen? Maybe. But at what cost? Are you prepared to sacrifice liberty for security, even though liberty may be your greatest security? And while so much focus is on air travel, what other security threats are being ignored? Now relate the same issue to the belief in the afterlife. To the extent that a belief in the afterlife offers security, it may just as easily rob you of the liberty to live without guilt and pretense, fully in the present.^[1]

Violence alone will never end terrorism. Not only do security measures frequently infringe on human liberty, security measures also often represent capitulating to terrorists. Terrorists strive to instill fear, terror, in those attacked. The vast sums of money and countless hours and lives expended on security measures within the U.S., the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and other, less visible initiatives all represent costs that the 9/11 terrorists inflicted on the U.S. Surely, some proportion of the security measures makes sense; some military operations have directly reduced the terrorist threat. What proportion? Half? Two-thirds? One-third?

Courage is an essential element of responding to terror. Courageously going about one’s daily business, accepting that life is inherently risky, defeats those who seek to make people cower with fear. Several years ago, an Israeli tour guide talked about his young daughter riding a bus along the very street we were then traveling. She had bent over, perhaps to tie a shoe or pick up something she dropped, when a bomb exploded aboard the bus. Although spattered with blood, she was uninjured. The next day, she was again traveling the same bus route, going to and from school on her own. That is courage. That is refusing to allow terrorists to win.

Ironically, many U.S. citizens think of the United States as a de facto Christian nation. The gospel of John portrays Jesus telling his disciples to have courage for he has conquered the world (John 16:33). The remainder of the New Testament repeatedly echoes the theme of Christian courage. Why then do U.S. public opinion leaders – politicians, clergy, sports and entertainment figures – pander to terrorists by talking about the fearful times in which we live rather than urging people to have courage? As Christians, we of all people should know that nothing can separate us from God's love. We therefore have no reason to fear.

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[1] Ian Lawton, “Soul Plane- Jet Lag of the Unconscious,” Sermon preached at C³ Center for Spiritual Growth, January 10, 2010.

Earthquake theology

Various Christian theologians and preachers have confidently pointed to earthquakes as signs of God’s judgment, warnings from God to shake humans out of their sin, and the ultimate sign of God's wrathful intervention. (James Wood, “Between God and a Hard Place,” New York Times, January 23, 2010)

That abruptly began to change in 1755 when on November 1, All Saints Day, an earthquake in Lisbon, Portugal, destroyed thirty churches, killed fifteen thousand people, and injured another fifteen thousand. Many of the killed and injured were attending Mass when the earthquake struck. Why would a good God permit or cause such tragedy and suffering?

Some Roman Catholic preachers attempted to justify the calamity as God's judgment on the vice then flourishing in Lisbon. Unfortunately, the quake seemed to afflict the devout and the impious, the saintly and the flagrant sinner, indiscriminately. Protestant clergy explained the earthquake as God's judgment on the Roman Catholic Church for the evils that Church had inflicted on humanity.

Skeptics cited the quake as evidence that God did not either exist or intervene in earthly affairs, unable to reconcile the notion of a good God with the widespread suffering that the quake caused. The earthquake also led to widespread skepticism about the odds that the world was progressing toward a more perfect condition. (Will and Ariel Durant, The Story of Civilization: The Age of Voltaire (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1965), pp. 719-726.)

More generally, the indiscriminate destruction and suffering caused by natural disasters raises the theological problem known as theodicy: how to reconcile the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent good and loving God with the prevalence of evil. Although history offers numerous diverse suggestions for solving that conundrum, no one approach has achieved anything like majority support, let alone a consensus view.

The view that God is perhaps not omnipotent has gained traction in the last few centuries. In creating the cosmos, God necessarily gave up a certain amount of freedom to allow creation some measure of freedom to chart its own course. This view, anathema among theological conservatives, emphasizes God's loving nature, recognizes that God interacts with creation in a limited manner, and acknowledges some measure of human freedom and hence human responsibility for what happens. This approach may better explain human evil such as the holocaust than natural evil such as earthquakes.

Another option, not necessarily incompatible with the first, is that natural evil is an essential aspect of the creative processes that God employed to construct the cosmos. This view implies that God's options for creating are inherently limited in ways that humans cannot presently understand, i.e., that endowing at least some creatures (humans, perhaps others) with a measure of freedom required introducing an element of violent change and chaos into the cosmos. The cost of doing so was the inevitable toll of death and suffering from natural disasters.

At various times I have found struggling with problem of theodicy fascinating and frustrating. More generally, I admit that theodicy represents a question that humans lack sufficient information to answer. My experience of a force, a power, that lies beyond the physical aspects of creation, yet that permeates creation in a benevolent, life giving manner, leads me to affirm God's existence and love in the face of the unanswerable questions of theodicy. Theological honesty, silence instead of speculation masquerading as knowledge, represents the best option in the face of natural disasters and natural evil.

Scientific advances further underscore the need for theological honesty. Plate tectonics and other geological phenomena produce earthquakes and tsunamis. Similarly, science helps to explain the causes of other natural disasters. The timing of those disasters is not a function of human sinfulness or obedience to God but occurs in a largely independent manner. Pat Robertson’s claim that Hurricane Katrina’s destruction along the Gulf Coast resulted from the United States legalizing abortion is sheer nonsense. If abortion is wrong (a false conclusion in my estimation), then did God really foresee the need to bring judgment on the Gulf Coast billions of years ago when the universe, the earth, the Gulf Coast, the United States, and Roe vs. Wade did not exist? If so, why did God not choose to pattern creation differently so that only sinners suffered? Why strike the good and the evil alike?

The important exceptions to the generalization that disaster results from processes independent of human behavior are disasters that result from human ineptitude or disrespect for creation, e.g., wanton discharge of greenhouse gases or building in flood zones. Good theology reviews and revises its hypotheses in light of the best available applicable scientific data.

Not God's judgment - Haiti, part 5

Some purported Christians, such as the perennial bombastic Pat Robertson, pronounced that the earthquake in Haiti constituted God's judgment on that nation and its people.

God does not cause bad things, much less great evil, to happen to people. An earthquake that indiscriminately kills tens of thousands of people, injuring tens of thousands more, and imperiling the well-being of hundreds of thousands is clearly evil. Contending that God caused the earthquake to punish the people of Haiti says nothing about the living God but speaks volumes about the alleged prophet’s shallowness. The God of the Bible, the God of Christ Jesus, is a God who loves people absolutely and unconditionally, suffering when people suffer.

Lilly Coyle of Minneapolis wrote a letter, from the perspective of Satan, published by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and then further disseminated by National Public Radio, providing a wonderful rejoinder to all who believe the recent earthquake in Haiti to be an act of God:

Dear Pat Robertson,

I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I'm all over that action.

But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I'm no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished.

Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth -- glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven't you seen "Crossroads"? Or "Damn Yankees"?

If I had a thing going with Haiti, there'd be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox -- that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it -- I'm just saying: Not how I roll.

You're doing great work, Pat, and I don't want to clip your wings -- just, come on, you're making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That's working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.

Best, Satan

LILY COYLE, MINNEAPOLIS

(Frank James, “The 'Devil' Writes Pat Robertson A Letter,” The two-way, NPR News Blog, January 15, 2010)

Haiti - part 4

CNN Money reports that Americans have donated over $275 million for Haiti relief (“Open up more than your wallet for Haiti,” January 20, 2010). Offers to go to Haiti to help with disaster relief have also poured into relief agencies; medical personnel in particular fill a critical need.

A recent David Brooks op-ed column in the New York Times raised important questions about giving financial assistance to other countries (David Brooks, “The Underlying Tragedy,” New York Times, January 15, 2010). Brooks identifies four difficult truths: nobody knows how to reduce global poverty; micro-aid is “vital but insufficient”; ending poverty requires honesty and putting cultural issues at the center of global anti-poverty efforts; the need to promote locally led paternalism.

Given decades and billions of dollars expended on foreign aid from nations, non-governmental organizations, and individual citizens, the lack of proven strategies for promoting economic development and human well-being is startling. Jagdish Bhagwati in “Banned Aid” (Foreign Affairs, January/February 2010, 120-125) echoes Brooks’ observation that nobody knows how to reduce global poverty with a carefully reasoned, documented analysis.

Extreme poverty, graphically depicted in images or even words, touches the purses of many and hearts of yet more people. However, the problem of unwise expenditures (not to mention fraudulent or wasteful expenses) compounds the donor fatigue about which I wrote in my second posting about Haiti. Conducting experimental programs one should expect failures as well as successes, perhaps even more failures in the beginning than successes. Continuously throwing large sums of money at global poverty with a very shallow learning curve, with minimal demonstrable results, and with no expectation that additional funds will change that pattern conforms to a popular definition of stupidity, i.e., repeatedly doing the same thing but continuing to expect different results. Furthermore, this pattern of ineffectual aid is rapidly eroding support for continuing assistance even though global poverty, hunger, thirst, and disease are all increasing.

Brooks in his third and fourth observations about cultural issues and paternalism touches on fundamental issues that may explain why so much foreign aid has so little effect. Learning to view the world through the eyes of people in a different culture is exceedingly difficult and time consuming. Resources are limited; the need is unbelievably large; better to get on with the immediate task – at least that seems to describe most relief efforts accurately. The people behind most of those efforts and programs are decent, caring people who perceive themselves trying their best to improve the lot of the least among us, a commitment honoring Jesus’ teachings.

Unfortunately, life is not that simple. Aid recipients who perceive, rightly or wrongly, that donors and their representatives desire to remake the recipient and recipient’s society into an image of the donor/representative and their society often respond by rejecting that as paternalism. Other aid recipients become dependent upon the aid, reducing their motivation to strive for independence (not a new psychological pattern, cf. 1 Titus 5:11). Aid programs sometimes have a structure that intentionally or unintentionally promotes dependence rather than progress toward independence. Bureaucracy becomes entrenched, in both the donor nation and recipient nation, a problem corruption exacerbates in the latter.

What then shall we do?

Responding to immediate need is imperative. No substitute exists for feeding the person who is literally dying for want of a meal, giving water to the person literally dying of thirst, medically treating the person in the grips of disease. We must also name those steps for the band-aids that they are. Those steps offer no hope of resolving the root causes that cause hundreds of millions to live in such a perilous state.

Building bridges that transcend cultural divides, bridges that require identifying and moving beyond our paternalism, is a second imperative. This step is very difficult because of the distances (emotional, cultural, geographical) that separate people and no promise of immediate improvement. But decades of largely futile efforts apart from this step demonstrate that this step is inherently imperative.

In time, such bridges between people and groups that transcend cultural divides will expand the commitment to mutual interdependence intrinsic to reciprocal altruism. That offers the best hope of ending extreme poverty.

Such bridges also imply a question: what can those whom the affluent regard as aid recipients contribute to the affluent? Genuine mutual interdependence requires reciprocity in relationships. If that reciprocity is not fiscal, what might it be? Without reciprocity, avoiding a “messiah” attitude is almost impossible, defining the relationship as paternalistic rather than mutual.

Choosing hypocrisy or consistency

Sometimes Episcopalians feel isolated as they move toward full inclusion of gays into the life of the Church. That feeling results from the mistaken notion that the Episcopal Church is alone in fully welcoming all people, regardless of gender orientation. At its General Synod next month, the Church of England will consider whether to extend full pension benefits to same-sex civil union partners of gay clergy. Presently, the Church of England permits gay clergy to enter into same-sex unions as long as the partners remain celibate. (For news releases and opinions on this, cf. CofE to vote on increasing gay partner benefits for clergy at the Episcopal Café).

The Church of England’s policy strikes me as foolish and hypocritical. Accepting civil partnerships for gay clergy while pretending that partners abstain from all sexual activity is a policy that sees only what it wants to see. I suspect that few couples – of any gender pairing – who deeply love one another and are in good physical health remain celibate for very long. The Church of England policy thus promotes mendacity and diminishes the integrity of the clergy and the Church.

Since the Church of England recognizes same-sex civil partnerships among the clergy, why not bless those relationships? Refusing to do so places those relationships in ecclesiastical limbo, which is probably the policy’s intent. The same state of limbo also applies to civil partnerships among the laity.

The Church of England by not forthrightly addressing the issue with ethical and liturgical consistency has avoided much of the furor that currently embroils the U.S. Episcopal Church. Consequently, the Church of England has preserved a greater degree of unity at a cost that burdens its gay clergy, a move that ignores Christ's call to minister to the outcast. (Needless to say, controversy about these issues nevertheless rages within the Church of England.)

Opponents of same sex relationships in Africa and elsewhere have seen through the Church of England’s hypocrisy, with some African bishops refusing to attend the last Lambeth gathering of bishops because of what they considered to be Archbishop Rowan Williams’ duplicitous stance, i.e., appearing to hold to a conservative line while failing to exercise conservative discipline within the Church of England. Proponents of same sex relationships also realize that attacking the Episcopal Church will gain them more media exposure than attacking the Church of England.

Christians in the Episcopal Church and elsewhere should seek to love fully and with integrity, accepting that the cost of love is often metaphorical if not literal crucifixion.

Haiti - part 3

In the first of these three essays about Haiti, I focused on reciprocal altruism as a large part of the explanation for why humans reach out to help other humans in times of trouble. The second essay explored the three phases of assistance, donor fatigue, and the limits of reciprocal altruism. This essay focuses on the spiritual dimension of helping others when disaster strikes.

Prayer offers no panacea. If prayer fixed everything, then the world would be a much better place and donor fatigue would never occur. Disasters might happen but praying people would telescope rescue, relief, and recovery into rapid and complete restoration to wholeness. Contrary to the ranting of prosperity gospel preachers, prayer simply and obviously does not work that way.

Prayer in the wake of a disaster is vital for three reasons. First, prayer connects people with one another. On a strictly human level, praying for an individual or a group focuses the attention of the person praying on that person or group. Continuing to intercede or give thanks for that person or group, keeps that attention – to a greater or lesser degree depending upon the intensity and frequency of prayer and competing claims – focused on that need. Prayer, if nothing else, ensures that we do not forget the needs of the disaster victims.

Prayer, however, is not merely about the psychological dynamics of the person praying. Prayer connects people with God and one another across the spatio-temporal matrix. In some way that I do not pretend to understand, prayer establishes or enhances a relationship between the one praying and the one for whom prayer is offered. Process theologians may conceptualize this happening in God's mind; Christian theologians more rooted in historic formulations may conceptualize this relationship happening through divine intervention. Proving the connection occurs let alone explaining the mechanisms by which it occurs lies well beyond the frontiers of knowledge today.

The research that Harold Koenig and others have done on the power of prayer unfortunately proves nothing. Although that work suggests that prayer can make a difference, conducting a double blind study is inherently impossible, as this necessitates having a control group that in all relevant particulars (researchers cannot even enumerate these) matches the test group. Furthermore, researchers have no way to prevent persons unknown to the researchers praying for members of the control group.

Nevertheless, that praying for others can make a difference is an article of faith across religious traditions and constitutes the second way in which prayer is vital in the wake of a disaster. At a minimum, such prayers do no harm and may, coupled with gifts of labor, money, and other resources, expedite restoration. Religion is a matter of faith, interpreting one’s experiences in the life of received wisdom in scripture and through the lives of others, not a matter of sorting the evidence to arrive at irrefutable, factually demonstrable conclusions.

Finally, prayer is vital to the work of restoring to wholeness communities hit by disaster because prayer is the antidote to donor fatigue. Remember Jesus. He faced incredible odds in his ministry of declaring, incarnating, God's unconditional and enduring love for all. He persevered at the cost of his life. The grave could not contain that love. A significant number of people who encountered him experienced God's life giving love so powerfully that they were permanently changed. The Church was born and the world set on a different course. The gospels, with all of their differences and rich ambiguities, consistently depict Jesus as a person of prayer, spending substantial periods of time in solitary meditation and prayer.

If I would sustain my commitment to loving others for the long-term and in spite of numerous obstacles, then I should emulate Jesus’ spiritual praxis. Praying for disaster victims not only (1) focuses and sustains my attention on them and their needs and (2) establishes/enhances a spiritual connection with them, but also (3) helps me to have wisdom, courage, and strength equal to the task. That, and that alone, is the cure for donor fatigue. The God who created us with a genetic predisposition for reciprocal altruism also created all people, endowing each with a spiritual nature through which we can connect to God and to one another. This was the way of Jesus and every great spiritual leader. I want this to be my way as well.

Haiti - part 2

Disaster aid has three phases: rescue, relief, and recovery. Rescue provides immediate assistance, for example pulling people from the rubble of collapsed buildings and distributing food/water for survival. Relief entails meeting needs beyond immediate survival, e.g., camps to house and feed refugees. Recovery represents the long-term assistance that will help people restore their lives to some semblance of normalcy.

Rescue efforts feed the adrenalin pumps in our bodies. Rescue produces immediate results, often ones of sorrow, sometimes ones that elate, but always ones that help the living to move forward. Soliciting funds and volunteers to support rescue efforts is relatively easy.

Relief efforts generate less exhilarating sentiments, last longer, and require greater diligence and fervor to solicit sufficient funds and volunteers. Relief efforts may continue, as in the case of Katrina (probably because of mismanagement) and drought (because of prolonged adverse conditions), for years. Fatigue grows steadily and irreversibly among donors and volunteers once relief efforts commence.

Recovery efforts are the most problematic to implement. In addition to having the greatest difficulty obtaining required resources, recovery efforts may either pose problems to which people do not have good answers or for which people and nations lack the collective will to resolve. For example, the world could, if nations so chose, grow and distribute the food to feed every human now alive.

Widespread recognition that mutual interdependence (i.e., reciprocal altruism) rather than competition offers the best odds for human survival has yet to form part of global consciousness. Ensuring that all people have life’s basic needs met (water, food, clothing, shelter, healthcare) represents the world’s best hope for security. Instead, national competition triggers races for resources, arms, and economic flourishing at the cost of other nations.

The current issue of Foreign Affairs has several articles that argue nuclear proliferation represents the largest threat to global security and safety. Those arguments deal with symptoms. The root cause of the problem is that human capacity for waging war has outpaced the expansion of the circle in which we believe reciprocal altruism operates. That circle probably began with the nuclear family, grew to include the extended family, then clan, tribe, and now nation state (although the social fabric of many nation states seems badly frayed).

Healthy religion as found in all of the world’s major religions emphasizes the common humanity of all people and promotes reciprocal altruism toward all, i.e., all major religions teach the precept, “love your neighbor (everyone else) as yourself.”

Three hundred years ago, a natural disaster in another country prompted little outpouring of aid for rescue, relief, or recovery. Since then, the level of those efforts has gradually increased, perhaps in no small measure because of religious influences, especially Christianity. In other words, perhaps the world is on a trajectory toward a global community characterized by reciprocal altruism. Certainly, one can point to many contrary signs. However, the prospects for a peaceful world apart from reciprocal altruism seem very dim. Reliance on arms, necessary to some extent in the short run, offers a greater prospect for mutual destruction than peace.

Haiti - part 1

The earthquake in Haiti devastated much of that impoverished island nation, resulting in the deaths of perhaps 45,000-50,000 people. Photos and videos of the aftermath convey some sense of the earthquake’s destructive power. What the news media has difficulty expressing is the immense human cost. How can we grasp a death toll of 45,000-50,000?

My parish has 800 members. My high school had 1600 students. My hometown had roughly 5000 residents. Chapel Hill, NC, has approximately 55,000 citizens. Even with those comparisons, I still grapple to comprehend fully the immensity of the earthquake’s human cost.

Immediate responses to the earthquake have included an outpouring of prayer, offers of help, and financial contributions. History suggests that the assistance will both fall short of the need and taper off over time. Part of the shortfall results from the difficulty of understanding the full scope of the need. Another factor is distance. For the most part, potential donors know few people (if anyone) who lives in Haiti; new and more immediate concerns cry out for our attention, pushing aside current ones. Donor fatigue is yet another factor: unending need and corresponding demands for assistance in the wake of countless disasters.

Underneath those and perhaps other factors lies a basic aspect of human nature. Human beings are genetically predisposed for reciprocal altruism. Humans help others in the expectation that the giver, in a time of need, will receive aid. The aid may come from those the person has directly helped or from people within a broader community of mutual interdependence. Mutual aid within a nuclear family, an extended family, a parish, and even a nation exemplify the expanding circles to which and from which the reciprocal altruistic can reasonably expect to give and receive aid.

A group’s social fabric evidences fraying, even tears and holes, when reasonable expectations for reciprocal altruism to prevail as an ethical norm no longer hold. Egoism, focusing on self, then becomes the norm. Signs of this happening in the United States are appearing as the nation turns its back on its neediest citizens.

Similarly, reciprocal altruism limits human response to disasters that occur at some distance. The response to Katrina hit that limit. The response to disasters abroad hit that limit even sooner. Haiti is unlikely to prove an exception.

Pragmatism

Another reader of this blog responded to the comments in Dialogue - part 2:

Further, I imagine that William James rolls over in his grave at what people sometimes mean these days by “pragmatism”… which has sadly become a code word for “the end justifies the means.”

I’m no expert in James, but I don’t believe that’s what he intended. When I was working closely with colleagues in France, I often saw misunderstandings whose roots were in the French need for an underlying philosophy or theory when undertaking almost anything -- compared to their perception that Americans will “shoot from the hip”, laying waste through serial trial-and-error and eventually declaring that the first workable idea must be anointed as the best one, even if it can’t be reconciled with any rational philosophy or theory.

On occasion the French predisposition for theory could result in “analysis paralysis”, but there are dangers in the American predisposition too. Just look at Iraq

Pragmatism as a school of philosophy holds “the meaning of a doctrine is the same as the practical effects of adopting it.” (Simon Blackburn, “Pragmatism,” The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 297)

One of the leading exponents of pragmatism today is Cornel West who integrates a version of Richard Rorty’s interpretation of pragmatism with what West terms prophetic Christianity. Prophetic Christianity emphasizes establishing justice on earth. Although my one line summary of prophetic Christianity would probably scandalize a friend of mine who is writing his PhD dissertation on West, prophetic Christianity represents a helpful and much needed corrective for those forms of Christianity that attempt to add a religious imprimatur to the status quo. Two of West’s books are highly accessible to the general public and worth reading: Race Matters and Democracy Matters.

A chaplain colleague often spoke of a “working faith.” A religion that offers no help for daily living seems worthless, i.e., not pragmatic. Pragmatism, however, as the correspondent noted, is not synonymous with utilitarianism, the greatest good for the greatest number. Pragmatism connotes a basic philosophical approach to life and not a rubric for ethical decision making.

The God whom we call Allah

Muslims in Malaysia, the nation with the world’s largest population of Muslims, have attacked Christian Churches in the last few days for using the word “Allah” to denote God. (Seth Mydans, “Churches Attacked in Malaysian ‘Allah’ Dispute,” New York Times, January 8, 2010)

This dispute reflects religious intolerance of the worst kind. The word “Allah” is the Arabic word for God. Arabic speaking Jews, Christians, and Muslims all address the divinity they worship as Allah. In other words, Muslims protesting the Christian use of the word Allah as a form of address for God are ignorant of the word’s meaning and use in locales where Arabic is the native language.

Furthermore, the Koran traces the development of Islam from Judaism through Christianity. Mohammed explicitly worshiped the same God as did contemporary Jews and Christians. The Jewish prophets and Jesus are precursors to the man whom Muslims believe to be the last of the prophets, Mohammed himself. Not only are the Malaysian protesters linguistically ignorant, the protesters are theologically ignorant of their own religion.

Unfortunately, ignorance births bigotry. Ignorance coupled with self-centered aggrandizement births aggressive bigotry of the type evidenced by the Muslims protesting the Christian use of the word “Allah” in Malaysia.

I have had similar discussions with rabid Christian bigots who denounce Muslims as heathen. When I explain that the word “Allah” means God, that the God whom Mohammed worshiped is the God of the Bible, and that the Arabic speaking Jews and Christians refer to God as Allah, my explanations generally fall on deaf on ears.

Truth does not, cannot, set one free unless one is open to receive truth. This is perhaps the greatest tragedy of all with respect to bigotry. The bigot is spiritually dead, does not know that, and unable to come alive, having firmly closed his/her mind against any ideas or facts that do not fit the person’s preconceived, usually hateful, and always severely distorted view of reality.

Instead, I’ve seen bigotry transformed into life only through human relationships that build trust and reveal a common humanity that transcends the differences. This seems to hold for racial bigots, gender orientation bigots, and religious bigots. The persons whose understanding of the common heritage of Jews, Christians, and Muslims that I have successfully helped broaden have been people with whom I had a pre-existing relationship of respect and trust.

Although one can force compliance with official policies, regulations, and laws, compliance does little to alter the bigot’s views in the short run. Compliance, either voluntary or coerced, appropriately ends wrongful discrimination and to that extent constitutes positive change. However, ending bigotry also requires changing hearts, a much more time consuming and personally taxing endeavor.

Dialogue - part 2

What follows is another contribution from my anonymous correspondent:

I fully agree with you on the point that an overly-passionate manner of expression is detrimental to rational discussion. However, I also believe that it is human nature to be passionate on subjects as controversial as religion is. As unfortunate as that may be, it is something I feel I need to deal with as I pursue my own knowledge of the subject.

I have a deeply pragmatic outlook on life, and even though I am still young I do not see that outlook changing. Nonetheless, I do not think that a pragmatic way of viewing life is mutually exclusive to a spiritual perception of the world. As I broaden my knowledge of physics and chemistry, my perspective also deepens. Humankind has answered an awful lot of "how" questions. We know how gravity works, we know how we have evolved into what we are now, we know many things about the cosmos and are constantly learning more, but what we do not know is the "why". Why do all objects attract each other? Why is it that natural selection works in the way that it does? Why has our universe progressed in the fashion that it has?

Some choose to answer those questions by saying that there is no deeper meaning, no answer to the "whys". For me, that seems like an over-simplification.

I enjoy the world around me, I find every facet of it beautiful. However, the perfect order in which it functions does not strike me as random. I simply cannot believe in that everything around me is the result of a few random reactions. I think that there is a higher meaning for the world that we are living in. Contrary to the illusion that some theists choose to believe, Science and Religion are indeed incredibly overlapping but that does not mean that they are mutually exclusive. As someone who looks to pursue an education in Physics and Theology, I see the world as full of wonders that I cannot wait to explore. God placed us in this playground, and I think he wants us to explore it as much as possible.

Passion, rightly directed, is wonderful and enriches life. Indeed, I would dissent from Kant and argue that pure reason does not exist. No matter how objective a human attempts to be, the cognition is inherently an admixture of emotion and reason because of brain physiology.

William James did not find pragmatism and a religious outlook incompatible. Neither do I. I agree with your comments about "whys." The evidence you identity, while inconclusive, seems to suggest rather than to argue against some greater explanation such as God. In life, humans can only identify what seems most likely true. We have no access to objective, provable statements about the nature of reality. For that reason, science relies on theories (even the best-supported theory remains just that, a theory) and religion relies on faith (which if provable, would not be belief).

One of the critical mistakes that fundamentalists of all varieties make is believing that they can know absolute truth with complete certainty. Access to such knowledge of truth presumes either that reality is reducible to the finite or that the human mind can grasp the infinite fully. Neither of those alternatives seems reasonable to me. Life lived in the face of uncertainty represents a much more exciting adventure than life lived in the illusion of false certitude.

Dialogue

I recently received this email from a reader of Ethical Musings (I’ve edited the email slightly to protect my correspondent’s anonymity, as I do have the person’s permission to publish this note):

I have recently stumbled across your "Ethical Musings" blog. I carefully perused it and I just wanted to tell you that I find your sentiments about religion, ethics and politics to be incredibly interesting. In the increasingly secular world that we inhabit, it is harder and harder to find someone as outspoken about the role of faith in our lives as you.

I am of Russian Orthodox descent, and have always believed in God. However, … certain questions arose inside me and I needed answers. I peruse libraries, talk to professors of theology, physics, chemistry and biology, and post on numerous message boards (both theist and atheist in nature). The one, seemingly insurmountable, obstacle that I have come across is the simple-mindedness of most people, regardless of age or intellectual level.

If I go to a theist forum and mention an atheist idea, I am threatened with eternal damnation. If I go to an atheist forum and express a theist idea, I am called intellectually inferior. It seems to me that a large portion of the internet cyber-community is incredibly eager to flame any opinion different from their own. I realize that this is in part due to the fact that statistically speaking, the internet community is skewed toward younger males, but it can still be very frustrating at times.

Lastly, I observe that people with strong negative feelings associated towards a certain topic are more eager to express those feelings than their counterparts. As a result, the number of outspoken atheists on the Internet is simply staggering.

For all of the above reasons, I would like to thank you for your blog as it is one of the few places on the web where one can get a glimpse into the thought process of an incredibly intellectual theist. I hope you read this email so that we can discuss this matter more.

I publish these comments in the interest of promoting this blog, with its option for leaving comments, as an open forum for the type of conversation that this correspondent desires. I have also received verbal comments, expressing a similar sentiment, from another reader of the blog.

Like the correspondent quoted above, I find that remarks determined by passion (feelings so heavily laden with emotion that rational discourse becomes impossible) substitutes for content on the part of many theists and atheists. When that happen, meaningful dialogue becomes impossible, unless one either enjoys shouting matches (even virtual ones) or wants simply to celebrate mutual agreement. As one who believes he has perhaps only a few answers and who knows that ultimate reality, by definition, is infinite and therefore not reducible to words, I find meaningful dialogue essential to my spiritual growth and vitality.

Yemen

Concern about al Qaeda activities in Yemen is beginning to attract media attention, e.g., Steven Erlanger, “Yemeni Forces Kill 2 Qaeda Militants,” New York Times, January 4, 2010, and Stephen Erlanger, “Yemen’s Chaos Aids the Evolution of a Qaeda Cell,” New York Times, January 3, 2010.

The focus of this media attention is on the threat that terrorists pose to the United States and not on solving the problems in Yemen that allow the terrorists to gain traction. Yemen has a notoriously corrupt government, an oil-based economy that will skid to a stop in about seven years when the oil reserves are pumped dry, a secession movement in the south, hundreds of thousands of refugees from Somalia, and an impoverished population that lacks adequate water supplies. That litany of problems for a country with twice the geographic area of Wyoming makes like in the worst American neighborhood sound pretty wonderful. Literacy rates are 70% for men and only 30% for women. The average life expectancy is approximately 63 years.

Not until Yemenis have a realistic hope for a better future, demonstrated through measurable and sustained economic, social, and political progress will terrorists cease finding considerable traction and support among the Yemeni population. In other words, expecting the Yemeni government to act effectively against al Qaeda is foolish. The government’s central is simply to remain in power. Any other agenda takes a distant backseat to that priority.

Opposition from a corrupt, ineffective government that lacks broad popular support actually improves the likelihood of a terrorist group like al Qaeda flourishing. If the government acts to suppress al Qaeda, al Qaeda responds by depicting the government as anti-Islamic, adding to the list of popular grievances. If the government fails to act aggressively against al Qaeda, then al Qaeda grows quietly in the shadows until it has sufficient strength to challenge the government in direct confrontations. No third option exists.

Thus, U.S. counterterrorism policy in countries like Yemen must not begin by focusing directly on the threat terrorists pose to the U.S. and its citizens. Instead, effective counterterrorism in places like Yemen should emphasize improving the quality of government and of life for the average Yemeni. Building strong alliances with the people rather than corrupt regimes, supporting appropriate revolutionary movements, and opposing exploitative rulers are in fact strategies designed to cut off terrorism at its roots, roots essential for it to thrive. Too the extent that Yemenis identify the U.S. and its policies with their government, they identify the U.S. with the forces of injustice and oppression.

Don't ask, don't tell

One issue on which Obama campaigned for the presidency that, post-election, he deferred until later in his administration is the military policy of revising or eliminating “don’t ask, don’t tell.” (That policy allows people of all sexual orientations to serve in the military as long as an individual does not disclose through words or actionss that he/she is not heterosexual.) The Clinton administration implemented the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy as a compromise between automatically discharging homosexual military personnel and allowing all personnel to serve regardless of sexual orientation. The compromise has satisfied few.

Like Obama, Clinton had solicited and received support from the gay and lesbian community during the run for his first term. That support quickly became insistent demands for action when Clinton defeated President George H.W. Bush. The firestorm of adverse reaction from within the military and conservative groups outside the military appears to have taken the Clinton team by surprise. The “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy represents an effort to navigate a middle ground between irreconcilable forces on either side of the issue.

American society is changing. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” has outlived whatever usefulness the policy may have had. Service in the military has nothing to do with one’s sexual orientation and everything to do with serving the nation. Although recruitment often emphasizes education and other benefits of military service and Congress utilizes the military to achieve other national policy objectives (racial integration, e.g.), the military’s fundamental purpose is to defend national sovereignty.

Every citizen shares that obligation. Every able bodied citizen, regardless of gender orientation, equally shares that obligation. Denying non-heterosexuals the burdens and privileges of military service wrongly discriminates against them. The Episcopal Church’s General Convention almost two decades ago united in supporting the claim of all citizens to equal civil rights, regardless of gender orientation. That support came from both people who advocate the morality of same sex relationships and those who oppose that view.

Assertions that the military could not maintain the good order and disciple necessary to be an effective fighting force if gays openly served presume that both military commanders presently lack control of their units and military personnel widely disregard orders. Do military leaders really want to make either of those claims?

U.S. armed forces are predominantly young, with a median age in the early twenties. These young adults are the very people whose attitudes most reflect society’s growing acceptance of diverse sexual orientations. They have grown up and attended school with people who have varying sexual orientations. Why would they suddenly find serving in the military with openly gay comrades problematic? Surely, a majority of military personnel already knows, or suspect with a high degree of confidence, who is straight and who is gay.

Indeed, opposition to eliminating the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy reflects the military’s conservative tenor and that the conservatism of its leadership in particular. If a broader cross-section of society served in the military, making the military more reflective of society as a whole, the military might better serve the nation. Military leaders might advise more caution in waging wars, valuing the lives of potential enemies equally with their own, a view perhaps semi-heretical to nationalism but firmly grounded in religion.

The military promotes itself as an institution that demands the highest standards of integrity from its personnel. Yet, the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy not only sanctions but demands a lack of integrity from the perhaps 5-10% of military personnel who are not heterosexual. In other words, the policy unintentionally promotes hypocrisy.

Individuals are certainly entitled to hold the moral views of their own choosing. Seeking uniformity of belief about the morality of heterosexual or homosexual orientations and behaviors is not the issue. Protecting the civil rights of all by allowing people of all sexual orientations to share equally in the burden and privileges of military service does not move anyone individually or collectively closer to uniformity of believe.

Concomitantly, laws and regulations that prohibit inappropriate heterosexual behavior (e.g., rape and sexual harassment) apply equally to inappropriate homosexual behavior. Flagrant sexual behavior is similarly prohibited when in uniform or in public by members of the armed services.

Not only will changing the policy promote integrity among military personnel and civil rights for all, the change will allow the nation to make fuller use of all its resources. No longer will the military select recruits first based on sexual orientation and then based on best qualified. No longer will the military waste scarce training dollars on service personnel only to subsequently discharge some of those personnel because of sexual orientation. Who can defend such waste of tax dollars as moral?

The time for change is now. People of faith, regardless of their feelings about the rightness or wrongness of non-heterosexual sexuality and behavior, should speak out in support of the change. The military exists to defend the nation, not as a last bastion of immoral discrimination against non-heterosexuals. Let 2010 be a year in which people seek to live with integrity in all things, honoring the image of God in every human by respecting every human’s equal dignity and worth.