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Signs of the Times • 1 August 2017 • No. 130

¶ Invocation. Listen to my 3-year-old grandson recite e.e. cumming’s poem “I thank you God for this most amazing day.” (Special thanks to Marc Mullinax for technical expertise.)

Above: This beautiful “Nature Mandala” collage was created in June by children, and their teacher, Monica Hix, at a “Worship in the Arts” camp at First Baptist Church, Greensboro, NC.

Potpourri edition
(commentary in small bytes)

NORMALIZING CRUELTY

There are at least four ways to normalize cruelty, to make it appear routine, inconspicuous, unnoteworthy.

            One is to make it a statistic. It was the Soviet butcher Joseph Stalin who said, “The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.” So, talking about 15 or 20 or 30 million people without health care, as the various Republican plans have stipulated, isn’t a stretch when there are no faces or names.

            Eh, a million here, a million there. . . .

            A second way to normalize cruelty: Use the word “freedom.” (And if you can stuff it in, insert “religious” as an adjective.) That’s what Vice President Mike Pence did in an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Asked if repealing the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) would be “worth it” if the outcome led to “millions fewer Americans” having health insurance, Pence responded by saying “the very essence of living in a free society is people get to make their own decisions. . . .” —for more see Oliver Willis, Shareblue

            A third way to normalize cruelty: Call it colorful language. That’s what short-term White House communications director Steve Scaramucci did in his non-apology after being called out for using a squalid stream of profanities to describe West Wing colleagues, plus promising to “f***ing kill all leakers.” Tacitly, by his silence, Trump had no qualms with such behavior.

            A fourth way to normalize cruelty: Say it’s a joke. Just kidding. That’s the response from the White House after Trump did one of his famous wink-wink saying-something-without-actually-saying-it comments, this time, in a speech to law enforcement, an endorsement of police brutality. His suggestion was so bald that police chiefs across the country publicly disassociated themselves and their officers from the president. (For the White House press secretary to say it was all in good fun is actually worse.) —for more see Ray Sanchez, “Police push back against Trump’s law-and-order speech,” CNN

§  §  §

Senate vote drama, 1:30 a.m. Friday morning, 28 July. CNN called it “John McCain’s maverick moment,” then the Washington Post headlined, “The night John McCain killed the GOP’s health-care fight.”

        Yes . . . but no.

        It’s true, Senator McCain’s vote was as dramatic as it was surprising, having flown back from Arizona to DC less than two weeks after surgery to partially remove a cancerous tumor above his eye, to deliver a surprising (and deciding) “no” vote on the latest Republican health care bill.

Left: Senators Susan Collins (R-ME), Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Lisa Murkowski

        There’s something about staring mortality in the face that enables the choice for truth over politically-expeditious deceit. The believing community is called to ritually enact such choices in every baptism and memorialize in every Eucharistic observance.

        Renewed confidence that death is not the end is faith’s gambit (and the only reliable source of freedom) while surrounded on every side by the vanity of lies that rationalize cruelty and despotism.

Word. "Madness in great ones must not unwatched go."
—Roman Emperor Claudius, first century CE (Thanks Don.)

§  §  §

However, the efficacy of McCain’s vote was utterly dependent on fellow Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski (AK) and Susan Collins (ME). These two women resisted the moral catastrophe of their colleagues’ attempts to gut health care throughout each of the bill’s three different versions.

        We know, at least in Murkowski’s case, that the Trump Administration explicitly threatened to withhold federal funds for previously approved projects for her Alaskan constituents unless she voted the party line. —for more see Alexia Fernández Campbell, Vox

Right: Delicious irony.

§  §  §

This episode, played out after midnight last week on the Senate floor, illustrates the range of options people of faith may be called upon to practice. It is misguided to argue over which is more important: McCain’s dramatic stand or Murkowski’s and Collins’ endurance. Though it is certainly true that women’s contributions to the commonwealth have long been ignored or discounted.

        I agree with those who say that, in Scripture, the most celebrated virtue is faithful persistence, practiced mostly out of the limelight, no TV cameras or book publishers waiting to tell your story, in out-of-the-way places, by those who scramble when kids are sick and can’t go to school, who regularly squeeze pennies out of paychecks, and contend with getting food on the table and laundry out of the wash.

        Everyone wants to change the world; fewer are willing to do the dishes.

§  §  §

I have come to believe that the true mystics are not those who contemplate holiness in isolation, reaching godlike illumination in serene silence, but those who manage to find God in a life filled with noise, the demands of other people and relentless daily duties that can consume the self. . . . If they are wise, they treasure the rare moments of solitude and silence that come their way, and use them not to escape, to distract themselves with television and the like. Instead, they listen for a sign of God’s presence and they open their hearts toward prayer.” —Kathleen Norris, The Quotidian Mysteries

Left. President Lyndon B. Johnson signing Medicare and Medicaid into law.

§  §  §

On 30 July 1965, “President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare and Medicaid into law, extending health care to millions of seniors and the poor.

        “The idea had been in the works for decades but previous attempts had been unsuccessful. Industry groups were fierce in their opposition and conservatives denounced any plan as ‘socialized medicine.’

        “Johnson persevered. At the time, nearly half of America's seniors didn't have access to health insurance and a third lived in poverty. Today, all seniors have access to affordable health care and the poverty rate has fallen to 9%. The Congressional Budget Office has found that Medicare and Medicaid are more efficient than private insurance. Yet Republicans today seem just as determined to undermine these essential programs as they were before 1965. The fight is far from over.” Robert Reich on Facebook

§  §  §

On a hopeful note, Trumphoolery is actually inspiring some of its antidote. “Much has been said about White House dysfunction and how little President Trump has accomplished in his first six months. But that’s not the whole story: In Washington and around the world, in some surprising ways, things are happening—but they are precisely the opposite of what Trump wanted and predicted when he was sworn in.” —for details see Fred Hiatt, "Behold, the Trump boomerang effect," Washington Post (Thanks Larry.)

§  §  §

¶ Benediction. “There will be no love that's dying here / The bird that flew in through my window / Simply lost his way / He broke his wing, I helped him heal / And then he flew away / Well the death of love is everywhere / But I won't let it be / There will be no love that's dying here for me.” —Gregory Proter, “No Love Dying” (Thanks Al.)

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©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Language not otherwise indicated above is that of the editor, as are those portions cited as “kls.” Don’t let the “copyright” notice keep you from circulating material you find here (and elsewhere in this site). Reprint permission is hereby granted in advance for noncommercial purposes.

Your comments are always welcomed. If you have news, views, notes or quotes to add to the list above, please do. If you like what you read, pass this along to your friends. You can reach me directly at kensehested@prayerandpolitiks

News, views, notes, and quotes

Signs of the Times  •  25 July 2017  •  No. 129

Art ©John August Swanson http://www.johnaugustswanson.com/

Processional. Traditional Samoan Medley performed by Choloration, a combined choir of Westlake Girls and Westlake Boys High School in New Zealand.

Above: Elephants create an impenetrable barrier protecting the mother as she gives birth to a calf in the Amboseli National Park in Kenya. This rare photo—it’s impossible to know exactly when an elephant will give birth—show a formation taken in only two cases: when they are under attack by predators or during birth. —For more photos and this fascinating story, see Daniel Miller, “Try getting past this lot! Elephants huddle round female to protect her from prowling hyenas while she gives birth,” The Daily Mail

Invocation.Do You Call That Religion,” The Norfolk Jubilee Quartet.

We want the kind of health care which Donald Trump repeatedly promised in his campaign speeches: Better coverage, for more people, at lower cost.

Call to worship. “Dare to declare who you are. It is not far from the shores of silence to the boundaries of speech. The path is not long, but the way is deep. You must not only walk there, you must be prepared to leap.” —Hildegard of Bingen

Good news. In India 66 million trees were planted in just 12 hours (see photo at right), utilizing 1.5 million volunteers. The country has pledged to reforest 12% of their land by 2030 at a cost of $6.2 billion. This is part of India’s commitment to the Paris climate agreement. AJ+ (1:26 video. Thanks Harriet.)

Hymn of praise. “He is powerless, Hallelujah / Satan is powerless / He’s disappointed, Hallelujah / Satan is disappointed / He’s fleeing, Hallelujah / Satan is Fleeing” (English translation). —“Akanamandla” (He’s Powerless), South African freedom song, performed by Waldorf Students Choir, Quire, Colchester

I don’t know if the irony could be more bitter: Sen. John McCain, just out of surgery for brain cancer, gets clearance from his government-insurance-paid doctor to fly back to Washington to cast the deciding vote for the Republicans to resume their as-yet-secret health care legislation that will likely remove tens of millions from insurance roles, decimate Medicaid (which covers the poorest of the poor), and shuttle those with preexisting conditions into a high-risk-astronomically-expensive pool.
        Sen. McCain did, however, make an impassioned plea for a bipartisan approach to health care. —kls (1:44 video)

Highly recommended podcast. Jill Lepore, Harvard historian, summarizes a century of presidential attempts to get Congress to approve universal health care coverage in the US and what it will take to make this happen. New Yorker Radio Hour (15:30 audio)

Confession. “Despite having the most expensive health care system, the United States ranks last overall among 11 industrialized countries on measures of health system quality, efficiency, access to care, equity, and healthy lives.” Commonwealth Fund

Primum non nocere. “In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the American Medical Association's CEO James Madara wrote, ‘Medicine has long operated under the precept of Primum non nocere, or ‘first, do no harm.’ The draft legislation violates that standard on many levels.’” Dylan Stafford, CNN

Hymn of lamentation. “O God of earth and altar, / bow down and hear our cry, / our earthly rulers falter, / our people drift and die; / the walls of gold entomb us, / the swords of scorn divide, / take not thy thunder from us, / but take away our pride.” —Iron Maiden “O God of Earth and Altar” (click “show more” to see all the lyrics)

¶ “You say you’re pro-life, but then you want to limit health care for my disabled son.” Preston Yancey, Washington Post

¶ “Healthcare in America is more expensive than in any other rich country. . . . Compared to 35 other countries [in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development], Americans have spent more on their health every year since 2000. . . . Total health spending last year, including private out-of-pocket and government spending, was $8,985 per person in the US while the OECD average was just $3,633. And yet all that health spending hasn’t resulted in better health. The life expectancy of the average American is 78.8 years, putting the US a fraction ahead of the Czech Republic, where out of pocket spending was just $236 last year.” Mona Chalabi, The Guardian

¶ “Health insurance industry rakes in billions while blaming Obamacare for losses. Major insurance companies are enjoying record profits but claim they are losing money under the Affordable Care Act.” Amy Martyn, Consumer Affairs

Words of assurance.Glory, Glory Hallelujah” (Since I Laid My Burden Down), The Staples Singers.

¶ “The median household income in 2015 was $56,515, which the average healthcare CEO made in less than a day. . . . Since the Affordable Care Act  passed in 2010, the ‘CEOs of 70 of the largest U.S. healthcare companies cumulatively have earned $9.8 billion,’ according to a report by Axios's Bob Herman.” Not only is the Affordable Care Act not collapsing, as Trump says, but ‘Stock prices have boomed, and CEOs took home nearly 11% more money on average every year since 2010.’” Jake Johnson, CommonDreams

In case you missed this. Late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel tells a moving first-person story about one element of health care the insurance companies want to limit (by making it unaffordable for most). Washington Post (2:02 video)

McKesson is the largest drug distributor in the US, and the fifth largest corporation. The role of such companies in the opiod epidemic is now coming under scrutiny. Take West Virginia, for example, with the nation’s highest rate of opiod-related deaths. In the small town of Kermit, population 392, drug companies shipped over a two-year period nearly 9 million highly addictive hydrocodone pills to a single pharmacy. “In six years, drug wholesalers showered the state with 780 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills, while 1,728 West Virginians fatally overdosed on those two painkillers.” Eric Eyre, Charleston, (WV) Gazette-Mail

¶ “The state of Ohio has sued five major drug manufacturers for their role in the opioid epidemic. In the lawsuit filed Wednesday, state Attorney General Mike DeWine alleges these five companies ‘helped unleash a health care crisis that has had far-reaching financial, social, and deadly consequences in the State of Ohio.’

The lawsuit accuses the companies of engaging in a sustained marketing campaign to downplay the addiction risks of the prescription opioid drugs they sell and to exaggerate the benefits of their use for health problems such as chronic pain.” Colin Dwyer, NPR

¶ “Hundreds of people nationwide, including dozens of doctors, have been charged in health care fraud prosecutions, accused of collectively defrauding the government of $1.3 billion, the Justice Department said on Thursday.
        “Nearly one-third of the 412 charged were accused of opioid-related crimes. The health care providers, about 50 of them doctors, billed Medicare and Medicaid for drugs that were never purchased; collected money for false rehabilitation treatments and tests; and gave out prescriptions for cash, according to prosecutors.” Rebecca R. Ruiz, New York Times

Hymn of intercession.Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” Chant de la communauté de L'Emmanuel.

¶ “A 12-year study by the American Journal of Public Health documented the fact that “the odds of non-Hispanic white youth using cocaine were 30 times higher than African Americans. . . . Most notably, the findings of the study highlight the incongruity between drug use and incarceration rates along racial lines. According to estimated figures from the U.S. Department of Justice, of the males born in 2001, one in three African Americans and one in six Hispanics will be incarcerated at some point during their lifetimes. By contrast for Caucasians, that number is one in 17.” Robin Schder, AlterNet

When only the blues will do.Blue and Lonesome,” Little Walter.

President Trump’s statement about the Affordable Care Act “exploding” was not an idle threat. There are a number of things the administration can do to tweak the law’s regulations. And Wall Street is notorously fickle: if enough people shout “fire,” health care providers may continue to abandon the market-based plan. —see more at Amy Goldstein & Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post

By the numbers. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that more than half—or $2.5 trillion over 10 years—of the Trump administration’s proposed fiscal year 2018 cuts will come from programs that help low- and moderate-income Americans. To cover that deficit, our nation’s 350,000 religious congregations would each have to raise $714,000 annually, every year for 10 years, to make up that amount. —or more information see Bread for the World

Preach it. “If there is a major problem in spirituality today, it may be that we do not do enough to form Christians for resistance to evil. We form them for patient endurance and for civil conformity. We form them to be “good” but not necessarily to be “holy.” In the doing of it, we make compliant Christians rather than courageous ones, as if bearing evil were more important than confronting it. We go on separating life into parts, one spiritual, one not.” —Joan D. Chittister, OSB

Can’t makes this sh*t up. Essayist David Sedaris recalls an incident from his flight from Hawaii to Portland, Oregon. “This woman said, you are so lucky to be seated up front, it’s a great spot for people-watching. And I said, hmm, it could be, but we don’t really count you as people.” He meant it as wry humor. Alex Clar, The Guardian

Call to the table.Love Is Everything,” K.D. Lang.

The state of our disunion. “The Trump health care and budget plans will be harsh on the poor, which we expected. But they’ll also be harsh on the working class, which we didn’t. We’re ending up with the worst of the new guard Trumpian populists and the old guard Republican libertarians. We’re building walls to close off the world while also shifting wealth from the poor to the rich.” David Brooks, New York Times  

Left: Ricardo Levins Morales, ©RLM Art Studio

For the beauty of the earth. A Japanese puffer fish worked 24 hours a day, for a week, to construct a stunning ocean floor piece of art to attract female attention. (2:59 video. Thanks Laura.)

Altar call. “I was born to ignorance, yes, and lesser poverties / I was born to privilege that I did not see / Lack of pigment in my skin, won a free and easy in / I didn't know it, but my way was paved.” —John Gorka, “Ignorance and Privilege" (Thanks Peter.)

Benediction. “Jesus promised his disciples three things—that they would be completely fearless, absurdly happy, and in constant trouble.” —G.K. Chesterton

Recessional.Djelem Djelem,” Žarko Jovanović, performed by Barcelona Gipsy Klezmer Orchestra. The song, in the Romani language, tells about the atrocities Roma people suffered in World War II and the rise of the Roma people to come. (Click the “show more” button for more background.)

Lectionary for this Sunday. “The Love of Christ . .  / is the still, deep stream amid / Every tempest that knows / nothing, nothing, / can separate us from the / length and breadth / of Heaven’s reach.” —continue reading “The breadth of Heaven’s reach,” inspired by Romans 8:26-39

Lectionary for Sunday next. “. . . I have avoided the ways of the violent.” —Psalm 17:4a

Just for fun. Cat herders! (1:00 video. Thanks Pat.)

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Featured this week on prayer&politiks

• “The breadth of Heaven’s reach,” inspired by Romans 8:26-39
 
Other features

• “Religious liberty, or social mischief? Understanding the ‘wall of separation’ between church and state

Above: The newborn calf (see the story at top) reaches out to grab Mom's tusk to stand for the first time.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Language not otherwise indicated above is that of the editor, as are those portions cited as “kls.” Don’t let the “copyright” notice keep you from circulating material you find here (and elsewhere in this site). Reprint permission is hereby granted in advance for noncommercial purposes.

Your comments are always welcomed. If you have news, views, notes or quotes to add to the list above, please do. If you like what you read, pass this along to your friends. You can reach me directly at kensehested@prayerandpolitiks.org.

News, views, notes, and quotes

Signs of the Times  •  19 July 2017 •  No. 128

¶ Processional. “There’s a Meetin’ Here Tonight,” Cantus.

Above: Strawberry Hedgehog (Echinocereus engelmannii) cactus blooming in the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge in South Texas. A federal official told the Texas Observer that the first section of the Trump Administration’s border wall “will essentially destroy” the Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge, which is often called the crown jewel of the national wildlife refuge system. Melissa del Bosque

Special issue
US MEDDLING IN OTHER COUNTRIES’ ELECTIONS

Introduction. It was an innocent and obvious question. My wife and I were watching a bit of news after dinner. Russian attempts to influence US elections were the background for all the talking heads.

        “Do these folk ever talk about US interference in other countries’ elections?” Nancy asked. “Where do you find information about that?”

        I responded, “Well, you have to look for it pretty hard.”

        Turns out, it’s not so hard to find this information. And since it’s a topic few mainstream news outlets are raising, I decided to do a little digging of my own. A small sampling of what I found is the special feature of this column.

Invocation. “Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua. Osanna, Osanna in excelsis” (“Heaven and earth are full of thy glory. Hosanna, hosanna in the highest”) —“The Ground,” by Ola Gjeilo, performed by the Heritage Concert Choir at Western Washington University

Good News. “The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe won a significant victory in its fight to protect the Tribe’s drinking water and ancestral lands from the Dakota Access pipeline. A federal judge ruled that the federal permits authorizing the pipeline to cross the Missouri River just upstream of the Standing Rock reservation, which were hastily issued by the Trump administration just days after the inauguration, violated the law in certain critical respects.
        “In a 91-page decision, Judge James Boasberg wrote, ‘the Court agrees that [the Army Corps of Engineers] did not adequately consider the impacts of an oil spill on fishing rights, hunting rights, or environmental justice, or the degree to which the pipeline’s effects are likely to be highly controversial.’” theindigeneousamericans

Call to worship. “Merciful One, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you hear my thoughts from far away. Encompass me with your Presence, and lay your hand on my heart.” —continue reading “Wonderfully made,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 139

¶ “Moscow didn’t do anything in America’s election that Washington hasn’t done elsewhere in the world.Stephen M. Walt, Business Insider

Hymn of praise. “Hatred had me bound, had me tied down / Had me turned around, couldn't find my way / Then you walked with me and You set my spirit free / To me and my family down that long highway / Free at last, free at last / Free from the world and all it's sins / Free at last, free at last / I've been to the top of the mountain.” —Joan Baez, “Free At Last” (Thanks Tom.)

¶ “A 2016 study by [Carnegie Mellon University researcher Dov] Levin found that, among 938 global elections examined, the US and Russia combined had involved themselves in about one out of nine (117), with the majority of those (68%) being through covert, rather than overt, actions. The same study found that ‘on average, an electoral intervention in favor of one side contesting the election will increase its vote share by about 3%,’ an effect large enough to have potentially changed the results in seven out of 14 US presidential elections occurring after 1960. According to the study, the U.S. intervened in 81 foreign elections between 1946 and 2000, while the Soviet Union or Russia intervened in 36.” Wikipedia

¶ “A brief history of the times the US meddled in others' elections.” T.J. Raphael intervew with Tim Weiner, author of “Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA,” PRI

Confession. “Indeed, meddling in foreign politics is a great American pastime. . . . For more than 100 years, without any significant break, the U.S. has been doing whatever it can to influence the outcome of elections―up to and including assassinating politicians it has found unfriendly.” —Ryan Grim & Arthur Delaney, Huffington Post

¶ “Over a period of more than a century, American leaders have used a variety of tools to influence voters in other countries. We have chosen candidates, advised them, financed their parties, designed their campaigns, bribed media outlets to support them, and intimidated or smeared their rivals.” —Stephen Kinzer, “We’ve been hacking elections for more than a century,” Boston Globe

Listen as conservative Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) admits during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that the US has interfered 81 times in the elections of other countries. CSPAN video (0:50), 9 January 2017

¶ “While the days of its worst behavior are long behind it, the US does have a well-documented history of interfering and sometimes interrupting the workings of democracies elsewhere. It has occupied and intervened militarily in a whole swath of countries in the Caribbean and Latin America and fomented coups against democratically elected populists.” Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post

Hymn of lamentation.Wayfaring Stranger,” Rhiannon Giddens.

¶ “10 Times The U.S. ‘Hacked’ Foreign Elections and Democracies.” W.E. Messamore, IVN

Words of assurance. “There is coming a day when no heartaches shall come  / No more clouds in the sky, no more tears to dim the eye  / All is peace forevermore on that happy golden shore,  / What a day, glorious day that will be.” —Southern Gospel Revival, “What a Day That Will Be

¶ “Of course, the irony behind these concerns about the interference of foreign nations in the domestic political affairs of the United States is that the US has blatantly interfered in the elections of many other nations, with methods that include not only financial support to preferred parties and the circulation of propaganda but also assassinations and overthrows of even democratically elected regimes.” C.J. Polychroniou interview with Noam Chomsky, truth-out

¶ “Database Tracks History Of U.S. Meddling In Foreign Elections.” NPR's Ari Shapiro talks to Carnegie Mellon University researcher Dov Levin about his historical database that tracks U.S. involvement in meddling with foreign elections over the years. National Public Radio

Professing our faith.С нами Бог” (“God Is With Us”), Divna Ljubojevic and Melodi.

¶ “Acting under a secret National Security Council directive without authorization from Congress, the Central Intelligence Agency set to work” influencing the 1948 election in Italy. Whether its support of the Christian Democratic Party’s win was needed, “the agency was encouraged by the victory and the CIA’s practice of purchasing elections and politicians with bags of cash was repeated in Italy—and in many other nations—for the next twenty-five years.” —Joshua Keating, “Election Meddling Is Surprisingly Common,” Slate

After Salvador Allende was elected president of Chile in 1970, “the Central Intelligence Agency attempted, through a terrorist group, to block Salvador Allende” from taking office.
        “‘Make the economy scream,’ [US President] Nixon ordered the CIA, while Kissinger infamously quipped, ‘I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people.’ In 1973, Allende died in a military coup instigated and welcomed by the American government. And Chile, the nation that I called home, endured 17 years of torture, bloodshed and oppression before we managed to peacefully fight our way back to democracy.” Ariel Dorfman, CNN

Hymn of intercession.Freedom,” Richie Havens, improvising “Motherless Child” at Woodstock in 1969.

By the numbers. There have been only 17 years since 1776 when the US has not be involved in a war. See the list.

Offertory.Paris Blues,” Django Reinhardt.

Preach it. “Earth is so thick with divine possibility that it is a wonder we can walk anywhere without cracking our shins on altars.” —Barbara Brown Taylor

Can’t makes this sh*t up. National Public Radio has a 29-year tradition of reading the US Declaration of Independence on 4 July. This year they took to social media as well, tweeting the document in 113 consecutive posts. Some followers weren’t happy, one referring to it as “propaganda.” Among other responses: don’t want to read “this trash”; “this is why you’re going to get defunded”; and “So, NPR is calling for revolution.” Amy B. Want, Washington Post (Thanks Amy.)

Call to the table. “You have drunk a bitter wine / With none to be your comfort / You who once were left behind / Will be welcome at love's table.” —Julie Miller, “By Way of Sorrow

The state of our disunion. Electoral victories by Republicans are bad for gun sales. On the day after the election last fall, shares of gun maker Sturm Ruger fell 14%; Smith & Wesson fell 15%. “In the gun industry, politics and fear matter.” Uri Berliner, NPR

Best one-liner. The word “listen” contains the same letters as the word “silent.” —Alfred Brendel

For the beauty of the earth. Watch Video of Venus and Earth forming beautiful flower pattern orbiting Sun. (1:03 video)

Featured new essay. “Not so long ago a sermon on religious liberty would likely provoke yawns. The widespread and diverse claims of “religious freedom” are so common and unquestioned in our culture, they mostly go without notice.
        “In recent years, however, a new crop of claims of religious freedom has arisen to give credence to some very old forms of discrimination. Some claims to religious liberty disguise social mischief. How do we distinguish the two?” —continue reading “Religious liberty, or social mischief? Understanding the “wall of separation” between church and state

Altar call. "The way we are, we are members of each other. All of us. Everything. The difference ain't in who is a member and who is not, but in who knows it and who don't." —Wendell Berry’s character Burley Coulter in "The Wild Birds"

Benediction. "Keep knocking, and the joy inside will eventually open a window and look out to see who’s there." —Rumi

Recessional.Walking in Jerusalem,” Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys.

Lectionary for this Sunday. “Sister and brothers, why are we here, again, week after bloody week, weak after so much weary, warring news? . . . / Groaning with sighs too deep for words, singing our woebegone songs for the world that is promised from beyond every prediction, / beyond every market forecast, beyond every rule of engagement, beyond—at times—even our own faltering faith. / It is for that Bright Land that we intercede!” —continue reading “For that Bright Land,” a poem inspired by Romans 8:18-27

Lectionary for Sunday next. “The Love of Christ . .  / is the still, deep stream amid / Every tempest that knows / nothing, nothing, / can separate us from the / length and breadth / of Heaven’s reach.” —continue reading “The breadth of Heaven’s reach,” inspired by Romans 8:26-39

Just for fun. Here’s the ultimate way to quit a job. The Playmakers Comedy (1:00 vdeo. Thanks Chris.)

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Featured this week on prayer&politiks

• “Religious liberty, or social mischief? Understanding the ‘wall of separation’ between church and state,” a sermon

• “For that Bright Land,” a poem inspired by Romans 8:18-27

• “Wonderfully made,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 139

• “The breadth of Heaven’s reach,” a poem inspired by Romans 8:26-39
 
Other features
• 50+ new annotated book reviews in “What are you reading and why?

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Language not otherwise indicated above is that of the editor, as are those portions cited as “kls.” Don’t let the “copyright” notice keep you from circulating material you find here (and elsewhere in this site). Reprint permission is hereby granted in advance for noncommercial purposes.

Your comments are always welcomed. If you have news, views, notes or quotes to add to the list above, please do. If you like what you read, pass this along to your friends. You can reach me directly at kensehested@prayerandpolitiks.org.

For that Bright Land

A litany for worship inspired by Romans 8:18-27

by Ken Sehested

We enter this house of meeting with lips pursed in praise, voicing rejoicing, hearts heaving to the rhythm of mercy and the beat of beatitude.

’Cause we woke up this morning with our minds stayed on freedom. And stayed on Jesus.

Stayed on freedom, about which politicians banter but secretly fear.

Stayed on Jesus, who moves among us, incognito, inviting, enticing, calling from the margins: Over here! Follow me!

Sister and brothers, why are we here, again, week after bloody week, weak after so much weary, warring news?

It’s me, it’s me, it’s me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer.

It’s my neighbor, it’s my nation, its creation that’s groaning, standing in the need of prayer.

Groaning with sighs too deep for words, singing our woebegone songs for the world that is promised from beyond every prediction,

beyond every market forecast, beyond every rule of engagement, beyond—at times—even our own faltering faith.

It is for that Bright Land that we intercede!

Its merciful manna is ours to neither hoard nor dispense. We are not its border guards.

All are immigrants to that Beloved Community into whose citizenship we are invited, for whose establishment we are committed, by whose joyful refrain our tongues cannot be restrained.

©ken sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

Wonderfully made

A litany for worship inspired by Psalm 139

by Ken Sehested

Merciful One, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you hear my thoughts from far away.

Encompass me with your Presence, and lay your hand on my heart.

You know all my comings and goings, and I am never out of Your sight.

Encompass me with your Presence, and lay your hand on my heart.

Even before a word forms in my mind and comes from my lips, you already know it.

Encompass me with your Presence, and lay your hand on my heart.

You are the One who formed me and planted me in my mother’s womb.

Encompass me with your Presence, and lay your hand on my heart.

I have been awesomely and wonderfully made! Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Encompass me with your Presence, and lay your hand on my heart.

Should I ever forget these things, visit me again to remind me.

Encompass me with your Presence, and lay your hand on my heart.

©ken sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

 

Ken Sehested, Circle of Mercy, 9.9.07

 

 

Religious liberty, or social mischief?

Understanding the "wall of separation" between church and state

by Ken Sehested
9 July 2017, Circle of Mercy Congregation, Asheville, NC
Text: Psalm 72

(The text below has been expanded from the original sermon.)

        Not so long ago a sermon on religious liberty would likely provoke yawns. The widespread and diverse claims of “religious freedom” are so common and unquestioned in our culture, they mostly go without notice. (Which, if anything, may be testimony to how tamed our assumptions have become.)

        In recent years, however, a new crop of claims of religious freedom has arisen to give credence to some very old forms of discrimination.[1] Some claims to religious liberty disguise social mischief. How do we distinguish the two?

         First, a little background.

        On a personal level, one of the toughest church-state conflicts I recall happened when we lived in Atlanta. Our congregation, where Nancy was associate pastor, had been given a piece of property behind our church house. Members of the church formed a mission group to build a group home for adults living with developmental disabilities. A few young upwardly mobile professionals in the neighborhood were fearful that such a facility would erode property values, so they began organizing against the zoning exemption needed to build the group home. And they won.

        So . . . was this a religious freedom issue, or just a real estate dispute?

        In recent years the issue of religious liberty has become a hot button in a number of ways. Abortion, of course; but even more dramatically, over whether a company’s health insurance should be required to cover contraceptives. Still in the headlines in numerous places is the controversy over whether county court house clerks can refuse on religious grounds to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

        Barely two months ago President Trump signed his “Presidential Executive Order Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty.” It takes aim at the 1954 Johnson Amendment to the US tax code, specifically prohibiting charitable organizations, including faith communities, from formally supporting or opposing candidates for political office. Truth is, though, that law has almost never been enforced even when flagrantly flaunted.

        Just a few weeks ago the Supreme Court ruled that a church in Missouri had been discriminated against when the state refused to subsidize improvements to the church playground. In the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the state wrongly denied the church “an otherwise available public benefit on account of its religious status.”[2]

        The notion that there should be a “wall of separation” between church and state is, at the same time, one of the more popular notions in our society and one of the most confused. The best way I know to proceed is to lay out a number of premises about what I think is true and what is false. I make no claim to inerrancy. On the one hand, there aren’t easy answers to all the questions. On the other, there’s a whole new pot of mischief brewing, with novel attempts to disguise bigotry as religious liberty. We have some hard intellectual work to do, including the recovery of history, to guide the claims we make and the commitments we take as people of faith and conscience. So let me begin with a list of eight premises.

      1. The “wall of separation” between church and state does not mean public policies are divorced from moral values. Our faith has plenty to say about the impact of moral vision on governing norms. The psalm I read earlier is among the countless texts in Scripture that speaks of holding public officials accountable to the needs of the poor.[3]

      On the other hand, people of faith come to public policy debates without any claim to privileged opinions. That justice should flow like a river is absolutely clear; what the plumbing looks like is a lot more complicated.

      I consider myself a person of relative intelligence, possessing a measure of wisdom, and a vivid moral passion for justice. But I have friends and acquaintances who are at least as intelligent, as wise, and passionate who disagree with me. Until the Reign of God descends and arises in all its fullness, we will always need to debate and negotiate with others about the precise shape of the Beloved Community.

      2. There are plenty of reasons to avoid being identified as a Baptist; but there is one very good reason to claim the tradition. If you believe in the separation of church and state, you must get to know the story of Roger Williams, a Puritan pastor who in 1631 migrated from Britain to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He was a troublemaker from the beginning because of his convictions about what he called “soul liberty.” His thinking about faith includes a firm disavowal of the divine rights of kings and clergy alike. He is the one who first used the phrase about a “wall of separation between church and state,” though Thomas Jefferson would later get the credit for this phrase, one that was built into the First Amendment to the Constitution which says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. . . .”

      It was Williams who said, “Forced worship stinks in God's nostrils."[4] He wrote “It is the will and command of God that . . . a permission of the most paganish, Jewish, Turkish [meaning Muslim] or antichristian consciences and worships be granted to all men in all nations and countries.” The Puritans of Massachusetts kicked him out, and Williams fled to the wilderness of what we now call Rhode Island, where he literally formed the first Baptist church in the western hemisphere.

      3. There is a long history of governing authorities wanting to suppress the scope of faith communities’ influence in public affairs. Robert McAfee Brown wrote that such attempts "have been front and center ever since Pharaoh unsuccessfully tried to persuade Moses that religion had nothing to do with Egypt's domestic policy on the status of non-indentured servants." You may already know this quote from Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels who said: “Churchmen dabbling in politics should take note that their only task is to prepare for the world hereafter.”

      One of the most egregious examples of public officials attempting to undermine religious vision comes from 1962. A group of 200 business executives and university presidents formed what was called the Committee for Economic Development. The report they issued from is titled “An Adaptive Program for Agriculture.” One of the recommendations is this chilling statement: “Where there are religious obstacles to modern economic progress, the religion may have to be taken less seriously or its character altered.”[5]

      4. This privatizing of religious faith, removing its claims from the public square, is among the worst results of political liberalism’s damage to our commonwealth. Remanding the moral claims of spiritual vision to the sphere of private life is a bogus way of separating church and state.

      I have in my files letters to the editor in the Asheville Citizen-Times which claim that “our faith is best practiced privately—not forced upon others”; and another, “We must all remember that one’s spiritual faith is a private and personal matter, best practiced in our homes and churches.”

      We operate in an economy that blesses greed: that is to say, an economy that claims the common good will best be served if each pursues their personal interests. The only way to resist the rule of greed is to foster a transcendent vision which upholds a radically different way of envisioning and constructing our common life. One of the greatest reasons for hope we have is the emergence of leaders like Rev. William Barber who call for a “political Pentecost” of moral vigor.

      5. Despite what most of us were taught in school, neither democracy nor religious liberty had many adherents in colonial America.  In the settlements both in Massachusetts and in Virginia, church and state were intertwined. These early immigrants were generally not in favor of freedom of religion for everyone, but only for themselves. In Massachusetts the Congregational church ruled; in Virginia it was the Anglicans. There were severe civil penalties for refusing the dictates of church authorities. It wasn’t until the 1830s that state taxes to support the church were abandoned.

        6. When you boil it down, religious freedom is the product of social consensus formalized in public policy. There are numerous instances of denying claims of “religious freedom.” Polygamy is an obvious example. Parents who refuse medical treatment for children on religious grounds have been prosecuted and convicted by governing authorities. Local zoning laws which restrict new or expanded houses of worship are often upheld. Two years ago Duke University agreed to allow the Muslim student association to broadcast its Friday call to jum’ah prayer over the chapel tower sound system; but then reneged on that agreement when the school became the target of multiple violent threats.

        Here’s what one doctoral candidate at Duke, which was founded by Methodists and Quakers in 1938, said about the university’s reversal: “I’m a secular person. I’m not against religion. I think religion is good. But it has its place—inside the chapel.” This is the kind of so-called “progressivism” that has gutted prophetic speech.

      7. Having said all this, it must also be admitted that dictators love religion. They love it because religion has the uncanny ability to mobilize commitment under the banner of “God told me to do this,” and thereby justify all manner of deceit and brutality. The European settlers of North America employed the narrative of the Israelites conquering of Canaan to justify near-genocidal policies of Native Americans. They quoted Psalm 2:8 ("Ask of me, and I shall give thee, the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.") and Romans 13:2 ("Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.") to drive native peoples from their lands. The U.S. Supreme Court has on multiple occasion cited Pope Alexander VI’s “Doctrine of Discovery”—which authorized supplanting indigenous populations from the American hemisphere—to buttress their decisions, as recently as 2005.[6]

        During the Nixon presidency, evangelist Billy Graham encouraged the president to expand on the annual prayer breakfast and have Sunday religious services in the White House. Nixon aide Charles Colson later recalled: “Sure, we used the prayer breakfasts and religious services and all that for political purposes. One of my jobs in the White House was to romance religious leaders. We would bring them into the White House and they would be dazzled by the aura of the Oval Office, and I found them to be about the most pliable of any of the special interest groups that we worked with.”[7]

        8. Finally, religious liberty issues aren’t always easy to sort out, which brings us back to what I mentioned at the start, of whether the failed attempt to build a group home was an issue of religious freedom or merely a real estate matter. Common good? Or religious freedom?

        Religious institutions, including this congregation, are considered tax-exempt. Is this exemption a worthy form of church-state separation? Or does the exemption actually muzzle the church and serve as a kind of bribery to keep our mouths shut? The IRS recognizes two categories of citizens that get to claim a housing allowance tax exemption: members of the military and clergy. And what about the fact that military chaplains are paid by the Pentagon?[8] Do these policies serve the common good, or do they compromise truth for security?

        When Nancy and I were in seminary, the school wanted to be environmentally friendly (and save on heating bills) by installing storm windows. But since the building was on the historical registry, the city’s laws on historical preservation prevented the school from altering the building’s exterior. Common good? Or religious freedom?

        Last year several French cities banned the “burkini,” a swim apparel designed to maintain modesty for Muslim women at the beach. Then someone reminded them that Roman Catholic nuns in traditional attire would also be banned from the beach. The French Supreme Court overturned these local laws. Common good? Or religious freedom?

        Several places in Europe have banned burqas and hijabs worn in public by some Muslim women. Common good? Or religious freedom?

        About a decade ago some of the children in our Circle made the conscientious decision to refuse saying the Pledge of Allegiance that begins each day in public schools. For a time a group of families held a lively discussion about this choice. Common good? Or religious freedom?

        The questions pile up. We are pushed to ask, in what ways does the separation of church and state serve to protect the state? And in what ways does it serve to protect the church and preserve its prophetic voice? On what terms should people of faith be explicitly involved in public policy debates, and when should people of faith maintain its distance from partisan commitments?

        Some of the answers are pretty simple. Others are incredibly complex. So we have a lot of work to do.

        Our testimony needs to be clear: Faith is not an abandonment of the conflicted arena of history, but a fierce engagement driven by a particular bias—though to maintain critical independence and redemptive leverage, we must refuse in some circumstances to wield partisan favor. There are times when we rightly practice modesty in the debate over truth claims.

        Yet our witness needs to be adamant: God is more taken with the agony of the earth than with the ecstasy of heaven. The God of Scripture has an incessant, demanding, and overriding bias in favor of those who are pushed to the margins of our social, political and economic institutions. Placing ourselves on the margin—in any number of ways—is at the heart of our calling. And being at those margins as friends, not as managers, is crucial.

        None of these things are easy. But as Jesus reminded his disciples: I didn’t say it would be easy. I said it would be worth it.

#  #  #

BENEDICTION: Hear this benediction from Utah Philips, labor organizer, folk singer, storyteller, poet and Christian pacifist:

      “The state can't give you freedom, and the state can't take it away. You're born with it, like your eyes, like your ears. Freedom is something you assume, then you wait for someone to try to take it away. The degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free.”

#  #  #

ENDNOTES

[1] Since this sermon was given, a stunning example of “religious liberty” mischief occurred. On Tuesday 11 July Attorney General Jeff Session spoke at the “Summit on Religious Liberty” sponsored by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which is considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. No reporters were allowed to attend, and the Department of Justice has refused to release the text of his speech. Founded in 1994, the ADF offers legal training to equip participants to “effectively advocate for religious liberty, the sanctity of life, and marriage and family.” Although Sessions has pledged to enforce federal hate crimes laws, as a Senator he was opposed to the 2009 Hate Crimes Prevention Act. —Laura Jarrett, CNN

[2]Lauren Marko, “Supreme Court rules for Missouri church in ‘playground’ case,” Religion News Service

[3] “Every era manufactures a heresy proper to the times. Quietism is ours. We call it ‘separation of church and state’ now, but the effects are basically the same. Rather than defend the original meaning of the proposition that no single religion shall be our state religion, we misuse the concept to silence ourselves in the name of spirituality. We ignore the public arena and call ourselves ‘spiritual’ for doing so. We silence ourselves in the name of spirituality. We remove ourselves from things that are ‘passing.’ We aspire to ‘higher things’ than civil justice or care for the oppressed. We forgive ourselves our disinterest in the questions of our age on the grounds that those things have nothing to do with being Christian. Only the laws and the customs have something to do with being Christian, we argue, not the gospel.” Joan D. Chittister, Called to Question: A Spiritual Memoir

[4] Letter to Major John Wilson and Connecticut Governor Thomas Prence, 22 June 1670

[5] Quoted in Economic Development, Theory, History, and Policy, Gerald M. Meier and Robert Baldwin (John Wiley and Sons, 1957) n. 2, p. 112

[6] Wikipedia

[7] Kevin M. Kruse, One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America, p. 251

[8] See my Christian Century article, “Loyalty Test: The Case of Chaplain Robertson.”

Loyalty Test: The Case of Chaplain Robertson

by Ken Sehested

Originally printed in the 2 March 1994 issue of The Christian Century

      Lieutenant Colonel Garland Robertson is an Air Force chaplain at Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene, Texas. He is endorsed by the Southern Baptist Convention's chaplaincy office. His military record includes a Distinguished Flying Cross for rescue of a reconnaissance team in Vietnam during the war there. He has commanded a nuclear missile site. A native Mississippian, he is self-effacing, almost shy.

      Despite these conventional contours, Chaplain Robertson is being booted out of the military (pending appeal). He has so threatened superiors that they have resorted to fabricating a psychological exam indicating a dysfunction personality. Stripped of all duties, he has been removed from the chapel offices and sequestered in a windowless, walk-in closet sized room adjacent to the base runway. He now spends his days writing book reviews for a chaplain's resource bureau against the background of B-1B bomber flights. Any day now a Dyess pilot will begin training on the new B2, and Robertson will hear the verdict on his dismissal appeal.

      Robertson, accused of "flouting" the very authority of the President himself,* has made the transition from obscurity to national attention (prompted by a December 21, 1993, feature in The New York Times). His catapult to infamy began with a January 5, 1991, letter to the editor printed in the Abilene Reporter-News. Responding to reporting of former Vice President Day Quayle's speech assuring U.S. troops mobilized to Saudi Arabia that "the American people are behind you," Robertson wrote that the assertion "must be clarified to indicate that the American people are not united in their decision to support a military offensive against the aggression of Saddam Hussein in Kuwait." It was, he thought, a modest attempt to raise the question of justifiable use of deadly force.

      The backdrop to Robertson's desire for public debate stems from several experiences. The first, from his stint as a pilot in Vietnam. After ROTC leadership during his collegiate career at Mississippi State University, Robertson volunteered in 1968 for service in Southeast Asia.

      "I assumed that our leaders were telling us the truth" about the need to support democracy and oppose tyranny in Vietnam, Robertson said in a recent interview. After a year in the area, he came to believe otherwise.

      Robertson resigned from active duty as a line officer in 1976 to pursue a theological degree. In six years he earned both a Master of Divinity and a doctorate in theology from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Wort, Texas. In 1982 he reactivated as an Air Force chaplain. After initial posting in Florida, Robertson assumed chaplaincy duties overseas.

      While in Germany, his patriotic innocence suffered a second setback in the midst of a course in international affairs and foreign policy. He began to see the connections between U.S. appeals to "vital national interests" and the existence of raw materials—like oil—in other parts of the world. Where U.S. intervention abroad had been justified in terms of protecting freedom, he now sensed other motivations.

      Most immediately, however, the urgency of moral questions regarding war in the Persian Gulf was prompted by direct pastoral duties. "Soldiers were asking me in private what I thought about the impending war," Robertson said. "They had troubled consciences. They wanted to know if [fighting this war] was right."

      Robertson was aware that leaders of many Christian bodies were publicly examining the morality of a potential war. A number were arguing—rightfully, he thought—that a U.S. military engagement with Iraq could not as yet be justified according to the traditional criteria of just war theory. So, out of a sense of pastoral duty, he wrote his fateful four-paragraph letter. Although he identified himself as a Dyess AFB chaplain, he omitted his rank, judging that such an omission would satisfy Air Force regulations regarding public statements.

      He knew the letter would raise objections, but the resulting furor caught him by surprise. As revealed in documents produced and testimony provided at his September 1993 Board of Inquiry disciplinary hearing, Air Force superiors engaged in a relentless campaign to intimidate Robertson in hopes of forcing him out of the service. The Air Force psychologist responsible for authoring two of the three evaluations of Robertson testified that the wing leadership "wanted his head."* When an initial psychological examination produced no evidence of mental dysfunction, a second was ordered, and then a third. The very psychologist who provided him a clean bill of health the first time reversed his decision with the third, concluding that Robertson exhibited a "personality disorder so severe as to interfere with the normal and customary completion of his duties."* What's more, this latter evaluation was made without an examination, breaching the most elementary rules of conduct for the profession.

      A civilian employee testified that her former boss, the senior chaplain at Dyess, had taken her aside after one Sunday morning service "to tell me he had to get Chaplain Robertson out of the service. Chaplain Elwell went on to tell me that this task must be accomplished by a certain date . . . so that he [Robertson] would not be entitled to full retirement benefits." It seemed evident, she said that he "had been told that part of his job was to remove Chaplain Robertson."*

      Robertson was soon removed from the chapel's preaching schedule rotation "until the completion of Desert Shield/Desert Storm"* (and, later in the year, removed permanently). The Dyess wing commander indicated he would manage Robertson "as an officer can not as a chaplain."* His orders to relocate to Germany in preparation for the arrival of expected casualties from the Persian Gulf were canceled. One by one his other pastoral duties were withdrawn: leadership of the base chapel choir, special educational classes, even Bible study and prayer services with those detained at the base stockade. Later, a full-scale inquiry by the Office of Special Investigations was instigated. Robertson was cleared of a mysterious charge of fraud.

      At one point an officer from the Chief of Chaplains office in Washington, D.C., paid a visit. "He indicated that compromise was essential for becoming a successful military chaplain," Robertson said. "I suggested that 'cooperation' was the more suitable word, but he quickly confirmed his intentional use of 'compromise.'

      "'If Jesus had been an Air Force chaplain,' he told me, 'he would have been court-martialed.' But he said that compromise is necessary in order to maintain a presence." His meaning was as certain as it was unacceptable, said Robertson. In a letter to Air Force Secretary Widnall, Robertson says, "If this senior command chaplain is correct—that compromise is necessary to survive in the Air Force as a chaplain—then reveal this restriction. The Air Force maintains that chaplains are free to proclaim and practice their witness without fear of reprisal. . . . It is important that we not deceive persons who look to chaplains for assistance in spiritual growth and faith development."

      Maybe the most painful part for Chaplain Robertson in this unfolding drama is the lack of support from fellow chaplains. A letter from the Chief of Chaplains office indicated that Robertson was on his own in this affair. Fellow chaplains at Dyess were supportive at first, but the support waned as pressure mounted. The senior chaplain even went to the trouble of rewriting the official statement of mission of Air Force chaplains, adding to the duty of "providing free exercise of religion" the qualifying statement ". . . consonant with 96th Wing Commander directives."* (The editing was later reversed.) Chaplains, in other words, were to function as morale officers in the service of command directives. (Incidentally, military chaplains accompanying troops deployed to Saudi Arabia were given the functional description of "morale officers" for that action, although this designation was later removed.)

      In a February 1993 letter to officials at the National Council of Churches, Robertson wrote: "No minister of a faith community can comfortably encourage anyone to follow the direction of the state as a way to be at peace with God. By functioning as a morale officer, the chaplain only succeeds in encouraging soldiers to accept the preferences of the state without question."

      Thus far, however, Robertson has maintained private support and official recognition of his certifying agency, along with the very public support of a Southern Baptist congregation in Abilene.

      "We are supporting Chaplain Robertson, and we have no intention of revoking his endorsement," said Rev. Lewis Burnett, director of military chaplaincy for the Southern Baptist Convention, in a telephone interview.

      According to Burnett, himself a former Army chaplain, the controversy regarding Robertson could have been resolved much earlier if both Robertson and the Chief of Chaplains office had handled the situation differently. "I don't necessarily agree with the way [Robertson] handled the situation, but I fully respect his sincerity and convictions." And, he continued, the Air Force's senior chaplaincy should have involved themselves sooner and more forcefully as mediators.

      "Garland is the kind of person who stands up for his convictions, and that sometimes hurts him," Burnett said in The New York Times article. However, he did express hope that the Secretary of the Air Force will overturn the Board of Inquiry's recommendation and that Robertson will be reinstated or at least discharged with full benefits.

      Members of Second Baptist Church in Abilene, however, have been more vocal. Shortly after Robertson's case became known last September, the pastor, Rev. Ron Linebarger—himself an Army veteran—called the church into a business meeting and voted "overwhelmingly" to use all available means to support Robertson. Though none of them have met Robertson, the decision of the congregation was announced in a news conference where Linebarger announced that the church wished to "applaud [Robertson] for taking a stand," and expressed the fear that the he was being "railroaded," according to a front page story in the Abilene Reporter-News (September 11, 1993).

      Actually, the precise case against Robertson is itself a source of contention. After his original letter to the editor, the Dyess base commander issued a formal reprimand, citing him with abrogation of Regulation 110-2, on "Political Activities of Members of the Air Force, a charge leading to court-martial proceedings under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (Article 92). One section of that regulation (5-g) notes Air Force members may "Write a letter to the editor of a newspaper expressing the member's personal views concerning public issues, if those views do not attempt to promote a partisan political cause."

      The issue of Robertson's letter to the editor was also highlighted in comments from the Chief of Chaplains office in Washington, D.C. According to Chaplain Lorraine Potter, the chief of plans and programs for the Air Force Chief of Chaplains quoted in The New York Times article, "The argument is not what he said but that he used his position to express political or controversial issues." In a follow-up phone call, Colonel Potter indicated she was under orders to make no further comment at present.

      However, according to the Air Force's own case against Robertson, heard by the Board of Inquiry (BOI) last September, the seditious letter to the editor was in fact declared "irrelevant."

      Three allegations ("Statement of Reasons") were brought to the BOI administrative hearing. The first, that Robertson was "disrespectful in words and actions towards his immediate superior. . . ." Second, that his "leadership skills were below standard." Third, that he was diagnosed as "having a personality disorder."

      After hearing extensive testimony, the BOI threw out two of the three allegations against Robertson—those of "disrespect" and personality disorder. The remaining charge of substandard leadership was sustained, along with the recommendation of an honorable discharge.

      The one allegation upheld by the BOI was substantiated by an annual evaluation, written in April 1991, noting that Robertson's "leadership style produced minimal results."* This marked a radical reversal, however, from his previous assessment, where he was characterized as "an outstanding pastoral chaplain, always eager to help others and consistently displays industriousness, conscientiousness and diligence in his ministry."* The same senior chaplain and base commander wrote and approved both reports.

      The allegation was further contradicted by the sworn statements of two parish council members of the Dyess AFB chapel community, one of whom testified that she felt "that [Robertson] was being censored. . . . [I]f our chapel is going to be the type of chapel where our chaplains are going to be told what they can and what they cannot say when they come before the flock, then we may as well disband the chaplaincy."*

      Responding to Robertson's appeal of an Officer Performance Report, the Air Force Judge Advocate wrote, in part, that "What the applicant characterizes as pastoral, fairly falls under the characterization of political activity."*

      Robertson responds that it is Air Force authorities, not he, who are engaging in political activity in their recommendation of dismissal. He wonders whether federal funds are being used to turn the chaplaincy "into an agency promoting a kind of civil religion. If the power of the state is unrestricted, then those of us who minister to members of the military forces are guilty of sacrificing the souls of our comrades on the altar of nationalism."

      Moreover—and more importantly, insists Robertson—the very integrity of the military chaplaincy is at stake in this case. His appointed legal advocate agreed. In a final summary statement, Air Force Captain Shaun Riley argues:

      "Discharging Chaplain Robertson would not only be a gross injustice to him and his family, but will also call the constitutional legitimacy of the military chaplaincy into question in subsequent actions. If the government discharges chaplains who refuse to compromise their religious beliefs, speech and teachings to appease military commanders, we will . . . have created a religious body, under federal salary, that exists soley to support government policy and objectives. Yes, this is government establishment of religion in its purest form."

      Robertson is convinced that if the military chaplaincy is to retain any semblance of its Gospel mandate—if its function is to be more than that of morale officers supporting command decisions and U.S. foreign policy directives—then it must be demilitarized. The religious agencies will certify their respective chaplains must "reclaim their pastoral offices" and must be free to speak to the points where religious convictions and command directives collide, said Robertson. This means chaplains must come under the direct employment of their sponsoring bodies and must serve without the privilege of rank.

      The Air Force Secretary's decision is due any day now. She can choose to reverse the Board of Inquiry's judgment of an honorable discharge without pension ($29,000 annually in Robertson's case). Her decision could be significant in answering Robertson's fundamental question:

      "Are we ministers of the state or of the church of Jesus Christ?"

#  #  #

*Quotes so noted are taken from the transcript of testimony of the 16-17 September 1993 Air Force Regulation 36-2 Board of Inquiry, an administrative hearing presided over by three Air Force Colonels to collect evidence and rule on the Dyess Air Force base commander's recommendation of honorable discharge for Chaplain Garland Robertson. This article was based on a personal interview with Chaplain Robertson, January 17-18, 1994, at Dyess Air Force Base.

©ken sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

News, views, notes, and quotes

Signs of the Times  •  11 July 2017  •  No. 127

Invocation. “I will bow and be simple, / I will bow and be free, / I will bow and be humble, / Yea, bow like the willow tree. / I will bow, this is the token, / I will wear the easy yoke, / I will bow and will be broken, / Yea, I'll fall upon the rock.” —a Shaker hymn, “I Will Bow and Be Simple” performed The Christmas Revels

Above: Photo by Gus Ravenwheel

Abbreviated issue

This week’s column is brief to allow for some maintenance.

In his classic book on spirituality and prophetic life, We Drink From Our Own Wells, Peruvian priest Gustavo Gutiérrez writes:

        “At the root of every spirituality there is a particular experience that is had by concrete persons living at a particular time. . . . The great spiritualities in the life of the church continue to exist because they keep sending their followers back to the sources. . . . Spiritual experience is the terrain in which theological reflection strikes root. Intellectual comprehension makes it possible to carry the experience always comes first and is the source.”

        Articulating the faith—in commonplace terms or literate—is always secondary to actual living in the midst of particular, often mundane, circumstances. But we all profit from those whose capacity with words throw light on our common journey.

        In recent weeks I’ve been especially taken by the reflected experience shared by two friends. Below are excerpts.

        Finally, we close with a word of victory from the war against ISIS—which raises the question, what has been won?

§  §  §

Micah Bucey, associate pastor of Judson Memorial Church in New York City, received a damning letter after the recent “Gay Pride” march. I love the way he responds with a fierce mercy and also by affirming this movement in the context of a larger Movement:

        “. . . But this year, our Pride March will be a Resistance Riot, a queer agenda that moves beyond the gay one, an embodied reminder, not only to you, but to ourselves, a reminder that we are only as queer as the last person we’ve saved, that we are only as queer as the last battle we’ve fought, that we are only as queer as the last opportunity we took to step outside our complacent commitments to assimilation and nudge ourselves back to the revolution that saved our lives in the first place.” —you can read the entirety of Micah’s response on Facebook

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Greg Yost, formerly a high school math teacher, is among the founders and leaders of Beyond Extreme Energy, an environmental group that focuses on opposing natural gas pipelines and storage facilities. (Methane, the primary component in natural gas, is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.)

        In a recent sermon in our congregation, Greg used Jesus’ statement, “Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39), then recounted his Witness for Peace trip to Nicaragua when he was 19, during the US-backed Contra War during the 1980s, when the US attempted to overthrow the country’s democratically elected government.

        “. . . That short time in Nicaragua in 1986 was a defining moment in my life of faith. But I want to be clear about what it has meant subsequently. Despite the physical and spiritual drama, I did not experience the trip as some hard-won climb to a higher spiritual vantage point. Rather, it has been less about elevation and much more about orientation. It decisively affected the direction of my life’s compass needle. It has made me hold some things looser and other things much tighter than I ever would have otherwise.

        “I offer this testimony confident that many of you will have experienced a similar orienting moment in your own life of faith. If you have, I invite you to reflect on it now. One time-tested way of speaking of such things is using the language of ‘conversion.’

        “I know common religious misuse and abuse of that word may have made it off putting for some, but I’d invite you to let your guard down. Think about what it means. It’s well and good that together we have such varied ways individually of conceptualizing our spiritual lives. One way that is so, so powerful is that of simply following Jesus. We know from the gospels enough about who he is and what he will dare to do to know that moments of decision, or conversion, are an essential requirement for joining him along that way. He told us, plainly and repeatedly, that his way leads to a cross. No one sets a course thus by happenstance.”

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Benediction. “There will be a jubilee / Oh my lord oh my lord / There will be a jubilee / When the children all go free / Yeah they'll lay down their swords / They'll study war no more / There'll be a great big jubilee.” —The Devil Makes Three, “There’ll Be a Jubilee

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©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Language not otherwise indicated above is that of the editor, as are those portions cited as “kls.” Don’t let the “copyright” notice keep you from circulating material you find here (and elsewhere in this site). Reprint permission is hereby granted in advance for noncommercial purposes.

Your comments are always welcomed. If you have news, views, notes or quotes to add to the list above, please do. If you like what you read, pass this along to your friends. You can reach me directly at kensehested@prayerandpolitiks.org

News, views, notes, and quotes

Signs of the Times  •  4 July 2017  •  No. 126

Processional.Memory,” Barbara Streisand.

Above: Maze Overlook, Canyonlands National Park-Utah-Photo by Tom Till

Special issue
MEMORY AS SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE

Introduction

        Broadly speaking, there are two forms of memory loss, and both involve history.

        Many of us have cared for, or now care for, loved ones enduring the ravages of dementia. It is heart-breaking, exhausting work. But this is not the topic of this column.

        The other form of memory loss is a spiritual condition which also leads to brutal historical disordering but on a larger public scale. Theologically speaking, this kind of confusion—as to whom we belong, to whose purposes we are called, and over which security terms are trustworthy—leads to deceit, to violence, and to death.

        This special issue was inspired by an article by my friend and colleague Joyce Hollyday, celebrating the departure of one of our congregation’s youth on a Witness for Peace delegation to Nicaragua. In 1983 Joyce was among the founders of Witness for Peace, a faith-based response to the Reagan Administration’s secret war against the government of Nicaragua, funded by illegal (some would say treasonous) sales of weapons to Iran

        “I’ve been part of a lot of failures in the past three and a half decades,” Joyce writes. “Despite all our efforts for justice and peace, the world is a colossal mess. . . . Back in the 1980s, when I went to Nicaragua, I was an editor for Sojourners. One morning a call came into the magazine’s office from a friend in Congress. He reported that he had just come from a military briefing in which the Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had announced:

        “‘We could have invaded Nicaragua if we could have gotten the damn Christians out of the way.’”

        (Read Joyce's essay, “Making a Difference.”)

        Getting in the way of all sorts of traffickers of human and environmental misery is not the only thing we do in joyful response to Jesus’ summons, but often it’s a starting place. Such work doesn’t always “work.” We carry on, not so much to succeed but simply to breathe.

        It’s always nice, though, to get an inkling of the results.

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Invocation. “We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with God. God walks everywhere incognito. And the incognito is not always hard to penetrate. The real labor is to remember, to attend. In fact, to come awake. Still more, to remain awake.” —C. S. Lewis

Call to worship.Precious Memories,” Alan Jackson.

¶ Memory recovery. The University of Virginia “is planning to build a large and visible memorial to commemorate the contributions of an estimated 5,000 enslaved people who helped build and maintain the school founded by the third U.S. president.” (See the artist’s rendering at left.) Susan Svriuga, Washington Post (Thanks Sally.)

More than 50 times the Pentateuch uses a variation of this statement, “Remember you were slaves in the land of Egypt and the Lord Your God redeemed you” (Deut. 15:15). Similar expressions occur more than 100 times in the rest of the Hebrew Bible.

Hymn of praise. “When there was no ear to hear / You sang to me. . . / When there were no strings to play / You played to me. . . / When I had no wings to fly / You flew to me. . . / When there was no dream of mine / You dreamed of me.” —Grateful Dead, “Attics of My Life

¶ “A people’s memory sets the measure of its political freedom.—Wilson Carey McWilliams

Confession. “‘Remembering the future’ is at the heart of our redemptive calling. Remembering the future is what we ritually practice in the celebration of the Eucharist, communion, the Lord’s Supper. People on the Way of Jesus are by definition an unreasonable people—if, by reason, you mean . . . that respect comes at the price of threat.” —continue reading “Remembering the Future: a World Communion Sunday sermon

¶ “To forgive is not to forget, but to remember in a different way—in a way that no longer holds us captive to the past.” —R. Schreiter, C.PP.S.

Hymn of lamentation. “By the waters of luxury, we sat and tired to sing again / hung our harps of the traffic signs, ‘cause the music could not come. / In our capital captivity, heated and cooled by central air, / in an alien land that we made for ourselves, we tried to remember home.” —Ken Medema, “By the Waters of Luxury

Words of assurance. What can we do? We can hone our memory, we can learn from our history. We can continue to build public opinion until it becomes a deafening roar. . . . We can re-invent civil disobedience in a million different ways. In other words, we can come up with a million ways of becoming a collective pain in the ass. . . . Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” —Arundhati Roy

Professing our faith. “If you want to be remembered, give yourself away.” — William Bryant Logan

Hymn of resolution. “Though the nations rage from age to age, we remember who holds us fast; / God’s mercy shall deliver us from the conqueror’s crushing grasp. / This saving word that our forebears heard is the promise which holds us bound, / Till the spear and rod can be quelled by God who is turning the world around.” —Gary Daigle, Rory Cooney & Theresa Donohoo, “Canticle of the Turning

Hymn of intercession.Lord Remember Me,” Ruthie Foster, featuring the Blind Boys of Alabama.

Short take. “When people say to me that the [monuments to the Confederacy] are history . . . it immediately begs the questions, why there are no slave ship monuments, no prominent markers on public land to remember the lynchings [540 alone in Louisiana], nothing to remember this long chapter of our lives; the pain, the sacrifice, the shame. . . . So for those self-appointed defenders of history and the monuments, they are eerily silent on what amounts to this historical malfeasance, a lie by omission. There is a difference between remembrance of history and reverence of it.” —New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landreu, explaining why the city recently removed statues commemorating the Confederacy. Read the full text or watch the video (23:04).

Left: Statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee being removed in New Orleans.

¶ “I dare not ask for improved memory, but for a growing humility and a lessing cocksureness when my memory seems to clash with the memories of others.” —excerpt from “17th century nun’s prayer”

By the numbers. The establishment of Confederate monuments [numbering more than 700], which crested between 1900 and 1930 and again during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, didn’t end with the 20th century. Their numbers actually have been increasing. In North Carolina, for instance, 35 monuments have been added since 2000, according to a University of North Carolina survey. One, dedicated in Mitchell County in 2011, commemorates 79 men “who died for their freedom and independence.’’ And not for slavery. Rick Hampson, USAToday

Offertory.Lord Do Remember Me,” Mississippi John Hurt.

Preach it. “Essentially, a church is a community that keeps alive the dangerous memories of its classics. The memory of Jesus, for example, disconcerts all present reality, including that of the church, because He essentially afflicts the comfortable and comforts the afflicted. . . . This is a dangerous occupation.” —David Tracy

Can’t makes this sh*t up. The “Colfax Riot” (see historical marker at right) was not a riot but a massacre. During Reconstruction, following the Civil War, a Fusion-Republican party (coalition of black and white citizens) made significant electoral gains in Grant Parish, Louisiana. A group of white vigilantes attacked the Colfax courthouse in an attempted coup d’état. Most of the 150 African Americans killed were murdered after they surrendered.

¶ "The one who delivers the blow forgets. The one who bears its mark remembers." —Haitian proverb

South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which began hearings in 1996, is the most well known of dozens of such efforts in other countries. The goal for each has been to face a brutal history of repression in order to set the stage for public healing. Here is a list of such commissions elsewhere, including one in Greensboro, NC.

¶ "Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think." —Christopher Robin to Winnie the Pooh (A.A. Milne)

Call to the table. At this table of remembrance, the Blessed One is at work disremembering your soiled and sullied moments, saying, “Won’t you join me in disremembering the slights you still clutch?”

        “Behold,” the Spirit whispers to all with ears to hear, “I am doing a new thing, beyond your wildest dreams and favored calculations!” —continue reading “Remembering in a different way: A call to the Table

¶ “The body remembers what the mind forgets.—Martha Manning

¶ “In In Praise of Forgetting: Historical Memory and Its Ironies, David Rieff quotes approvingly the suggestion of a Northern Irish writer that the next memorial to Irish history should be ‘raising a monument to Amnesia, and forgetting where we put it.’” —Gary J. Bass

¶ "Hope, like every virtue, is a choice that becomes a habit that becomes spiritual muscle memory. It's a renewable resource for moving through life as it is, not as we wish it to be." —Krista Tippett

The state of our disunion. A Confederate memorial in front of the Anderson County, South Carolina courthouse bear this inscription: "The world shall yet decide, in truth's clear, far-off light, that the soldiers who wore the gray, and died with Lee, were in the right.”

Best one-liner. “One day we’ll wake to remember how lovely we are.” —Bruce Cockburn, “Wait No More

For the beauty of the earth. A flock of starlings in startling performance. A film by Liberty Smith and Sophie Windsor Clive, music by Nomad Soul. (2:00.)

Altar call. “To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to

emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives.” —Howard Zinn

What to tell the children? “. . .You tell them / To stand up and fight. / Remind them of all the lawful atrocities / Committed in the sick and twisted history / Of this violent country. . . / Tell them love will win this war, / But only if we remember / That love is not just one unending cuddle puddle, / But fierce as a mother bear protecting her cubs.” —Rachel Kann

Benediction. “Remember your ancestors. Say their names out loud and often. Give thanks that you are not alone. You are not creating this movement out of nothing. It’s been done over and over again. Your work is simply to offer new gifts to old work.” —Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

Recessional. “When I am laid, am laid in earth, / May my wrongs create / No trouble, no trouble in thy breast. / Remember me, remember me, but ah! forget my fate. / Remember me, but ah! forget my fate.” —Alison Moyet, Dido’s Lament from “Dido and Aeneas” by Henry Purcell

Lectionary for this Sunday. “O God of justice, ignite the hearts of our legislators with your commitment to truth and your demand for justice. May their hands be large enough to reach across the bloody divisions in our land.” —continue reading “Give wisdom to legislators,” a litany inspired by Psalm 72

Lectionary for Sunday next. “To the Blessed One of Heaven does my heart heave its burden. / For release from my shame, I wait all the day long. / Silence accusers; still every sharp tongue. / For pardon amid failure, I wait all the day long.” —continue reading “All the day long,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 25

Just for fun. When sculpture and kids interact.

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Featured this week on prayer&politiks

• “Of thee I sing: An Independence Day meditation

• “Remembering the Future,” a World Communion Sunday sermon

• “Remembering in a different way,” a call to the Table
 

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Language not otherwise indicated above is that of the editor, as are those portions cited as “kls.” Don’t let the “copyright” notice keep you from circulating material you find here (and elsewhere in this site). Reprint permission is hereby granted in advance for noncommercial purposes.

Your comments are always welcomed. If you have news, views, notes or quotes to add to the list above, please do. If you like what you read, pass this along to your friends. You can reach me directly at kensehested@prayerandpolitiks.org.
 

Liberating Bible Study

Laurel Dykstra and Ched Myers, eds., Wipf and Stock, 2011, reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

        Here is an excellent compilation of 25 essays dealing with social justice issues as they are dealt with by biblical writers and by current activists. ‘The bible is a record of displaced and dispossessed people who have found a communal identity…. It provides an important perspective for reflecting on responsibilities toward refugees…. The bible is a book by and for refugees…. First century Christianity in Asia Minor, as reflected in 1 Peter, faced the same issues as did the church in Central America in recent years’ (p 198,199).

        The book has well defined subject matter: chs 1-10, the Hebrew bible; 11-19, Jesus and the gospels; 20-25, the Epistles. I found the last section the most moving as the writers dealt with issues of sanctuary: the church as counter-cultural, the biblical emphasis on hospitality, and a powerful poem reflecting on Vancouver’s east side street life of the homeless.

        The fiery trial (1 Peter 4:12) is not so much a case of persecution by outsiders but of collusion with the enemy, capitulation to consumerism, the profit motive, conformity to values diametrically opposed to a gospel celebrating G-d’s favour toward the poor. The ‘Christian nations make and sell the bombs, train the torturers, create and refuse the refugees’ (p 210). A powerful section deals with 17 political dimensions that appeared in the Galilee of Jesus’ day and contemporary forms (‘top down social organizations and control’, p 149-151).

        A powerful look at the bible’s treatment of social dynamics.

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.