A Christian Nation

In January of this year, while speaking at a luncheon of a religious organization, the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court asserted that the First Amendment right of religious freedom applied only to Christians, and did not apply to Buddhists and Muslims, noting that "they didn't bring the Koran over on the pilgrim ship."

This is probably an extreme example of one of the conceits of the religious right, which is that the United States was founded by Christians for Christians, and that our laws and policies should be based on the Christian faith.  However, like many beliefs of the religious right, it is based purely on wishful thinking with no basis in historical fact.

It's true that "In God we Trust" is the official motto of the United States, but that was only adopted in 1956.  The phrase did not appear on any money until 1864.

The Pledge of Allegiance as it was composed in 1892 and adopted by Congress in 1942 did not contain the phrase "under God."  That phrase was added by Congress in 1954.

Most significant is that in 1797, just seven years after the Constitution of the United States was ratified, the Senate unanimously ratifed, and President John Adams signed, a treaty with Tripoli which contained the following Article 11:

Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen [Muslims],—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan [Muslim] nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

 The apparent purpose of this article 11 was to assure Muslim nations that United States had no intention of engaging in any religious wars and that there was no reason why the United States would not peacefully co-exist with Muslim nations.

Which is quite a contrast to the rhetoric that is often heard from the right, many of whom might be described as Islamaphobic.

Chreasters

I recently read a suggestion that people who go to church only on Christmas and Easter should be called "Chreasters" and not "Christians."

There's a certain amount of humor in that, but to me, also a certain amount of sadness.

When I was a Presbyterian, I grew to dislike Christmas and Easter services, because they were always too much.  Too many people, too many flowers, too many hymns or anthems, and too many words in the sermons.

And the sermons were almost always boring.  After all, how can you explain the inexplicable?  Births and deaths are the great joys and sorrows in life, and also the great mysteries.  We don't know where we came from, or where we're going.  So, after you've said, "Jesus is born!" or "Christ is risen!", you've pretty much said it all.

So I feel a sadness for people who think of Christianity as the flowers and songs and hoopla that are Christmas and Easter, and miss everything in between.  They focus on the birth and the death, and don't hear about the things that Jesus said while he was living.  Which is a shame, because Jesus said some very interesting things.

The emphasis on the birth and death of Jesus is also paradoxical when you consider that Jesus came to be regarded as the Savior or Messiah because of his teachings, and yet his teachings have nothing to do with his birth or death.  As I've pointed out before, the "Christmas story" appears in only two of the four gospels, so two of the gospels considered the circumstances of Jesus's birth to be so unimportant as to be not worth mentioning.  And the stories that are told in Matthew and Luke conflict with each other.  But not even the authors of Matthew and Luke went so far as to claim that Jesus ever said anything about his own birth.  So there is a narrative disconnect between the Christmas stories in Matthew and Luke and the telling of the ministry of Jesus.

In the gospels, Jesus also says very little about his own death and resurrection.  Obviously, they hadn't happened yet, but if the great message of Jesus was to be his death and resurrection, you'd think he'd have laid the groundwork a little better.  Instead, the teachings and parables of Jesus seem to be about living, and not about a life after death.

Yes, you can find some passages in which Jesus seems to be talking about his resurrection, or is reported to be talking about is resurrection.  For example, look at Mark 8:31-32:

"The he [Jesus] began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be reject by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.  He said all this quite openly."

And that's it.  The author of Mark claims that Jesus talked about his death and resurrection, but couldn't report what Jesus actually said.  Which is weird.

There are similar passages at Mark 9:30-32 and Mark 10:32-34.  Very abrupt, very conclusory, and not connected with any parables or other teachings.  Jesus is reported to have explained what was going to happen, but not why.  Which seems to have been very short-sighted of Him.

What we "know" about the "why" of the resurrection we learn from the writings of Paul, and not the sayings of Jesus.  Indeed, much of what we call "Christianity" is based on the teachings of Paul and not Jesus.

But I digress.

So, when I was a Presbyterian, my favorite Sundays were the Sundays when nothing was happening.  On a rainy Sunday in October, you could enjoy a quiet, simple service, with a thoughtful sermon about the nature of forgiveness, or what it means to love our neighbors, or why we should love our enemies.  Things that might actually affect our lives, or at least how we think about our lives.

Which is probably why I'm now Quaker, because that's what most meetings for worship are like.  We don't have songs or sermons or responsive readings, so there's even less going on than in my stereotypical Presbyterian service in October when nothing was happening.   A Quaker service is just time for quiet prayer and reflection, and there are often thoughtful messages about forgiveness or love or how we think about our lives.

Not at all what a Chreaster would want.

Evil

Following the Newtown, Connecticut (Sandy Hook Elementary School) shootings, I saw several reports and commentaries that referred to the shooter, Adam Lanza, as "evil."  This struck me as strange, because I never thought of him as evil.  Disturbed, unhappy, or perhaps even defective, but never evil.

So what is "evil"?

I might think of a complete sociopath as evil, but I usually reserve the use of the word "evil" for institutions or large groups of people who are either inflicting intentional suffering on others or who are completely indifferent to the suffering that they are causing.  So (for example), I consider the policies that led us to imprison people at Guantanamo Bay to be more evil than the people imprisoned there.

But that's me.  Others think of evil differently.

And that's the point.  "Evil" is the word we apply to the bad things that we fear the most.

Which brings us to A Course in Miracles.  The introduction states that:

The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence, which is your natural inheritance. The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.

I don't fear individuals, because I can see something of God in them, which is another way of saying that I can love individuals. 

I don't see God in institutions or policies, and I can't love a government.  And so I fear the sufferings that groups of people can inflict.

Stand Your Ground

The Trayvon Martin killing brought publicity to Florida's "stand your ground" law, which was the model for similar legislation that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) had been promoting in other states.  (ALEC has since abandoned its endorsement of "stand your ground" laws.)

"Stand your ground" laws eliminate the common law (sometimes statutory) duty to retreat when attacked.  If you are attacked or threatened, your first thought should be to get away from the danger.  Only if you can't get away are you allowed to use force to protect yourself.  (You're also allowed to use force to protect others, but that's a different issue.)

"Stand your ground" laws are favored by Republicans and conservatives, who often identify themselves as Christian and promoting Christian values, but "stand your ground" laws may be the most un-Christian laws of the modern era.  (I refer to the "modern era" in order to exclude slavery from consideration.)

Jesus said that "if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also."  (Matt. 5:39)  If that brief admonition were re-written to conform to "stand your ground" principles, it would become "if it looks like someone is going to strike you, don't duck or retreat, but strike him first."

But the "turn the other cheek" admonition is about more than violence and our reactions to violence.  It is about our ego and insults to our pride, and the spiritual peace that comes from giving up your pride.

Jesus is talking about being struck on the right cheek, not the left, which makes a difference.  If someone who is facing you slaps your face, and he uses his right hand, he's going to strike your left cheek, not your right.  For a right-handed person to strike the left side of your face, he would have to strike you with the back of his hand, and not his palm.  Giving someone "the back of your hand" meant the pretty much the same thing in Jesus's time as it means for us.  (It was probably worse then, and more insulting.)

So, what Jesus is saying is that, if someone insults you, or even injures you, don't retaliate.  Take the insult, and take another if the other person wants to offer another.  Give up your pride and your sense of righteousness.

"Stand your ground" laws say the opposite of what Jesus said.  Those laws say that, if you're threatened, you don't need to run away.  You don't need to be a coward.  You can maintain your pride and righteousness by using force, even killing the other person if needed.

"Stand your ground" laws therefore represent the triumph of pride and ego over peace, or even common sense.  Truly a most un-Christian law. 

God and Weather

In another blog, I suggested (tongue-in-cheek) that the current drought in Texas might be God punishing Texans for being anti-gay.

This was in response to (among other things) Congressional Representative (and Presidential candidate) Michelle Bachmann's statement last month that:

I don't know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We've had an earthquake; we've had a hurricane. He said, 'Are you going to start listening to me here?'

Last Sunday, on Meet the Press, Bob Schieffer asked, "[D]o you believe that God uses the weather to send people messages?"

Bachmann replied:

I believe in God. I'm not ashamed to say that I believe in God. I'm a woman of faith, and a woman of prayer. But the comments that I made right then was a metaphor, that was very simply what I was doing.

But does Michelle Bachmann believe in Jesus, and what would Jesus say?

In explaining why we should love our enemies, Jesus said:

He [God] causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

(Matt. 5:45)

If you believe in the words of the Bible and the words of Jesus, then no, God does not use the weather to send people messages.

The Parent Metaphor

In my own thinking about God (or the Divine, or whatever word we want to use), the metaphor that I have found to be most useful is the metaphor of the loving parent, because it carries with it the idea of unconditional love.

A truly loving (and wise) parent will not try to control a child's life, and will not try to control what they do or who they love. They will not plan paths for their children, but instead allow their children to go their own ways.

This is very much the imagery that Jesus was drawing upon when he called God "the Father." For example, in the "Parable of the Prodigal Son" found in Luke 15:11-32, what was the plan of the father for his son, and how did he try to control or guide his son's life? The answers are none, and he didn't. When the prodigal son asked for the share of the property that would be his someday, the father gave it to him, and there's no mention of any arguments or questions. And then the son left. Once again, no mention of what the father might have said. And then, when the son had wasted all of the money and had returned home, the father greeted him without questions or recriminations. Unconditional love.

But we also have to raise that bar a notch or two because when we're talking about the difference between God and Mankind, we're not talking about the (metaphorical) difference between a parent and an adult child, but the difference between an adult and an infant. (For a sense of the gulf between God and Mankind, read the diatribe that God addresses to Job in chapter 38-41.)

So when we ask about God's "will" or expectations for us, the best metaphor is that of a parent whose small child has gone to the backyard with other children to play. Does the parent care if the children play hide-and-seek, or cops-and-robbers, or cowboys-and-indians? And does the parent really care whether the child plays the role of the seeker or the sought, the cop or the robber, or the cowboy or the indian?

That's my response to people who ask if God could really love Hitler. If we really are as children to God, then Nazism was just another childish game, and God loves his children regardless of what games they have decided to play.

The Nine Billion Names of God

"The Nine Billion Names of God" is the title of a science fiction story I read years ago, the details of which are not relevant to this message, except that it described a religion in Tibet which believed that God had a specific number of names (about nine billion names), and that the purpose of mankind was to write out all of those names.

I thought about that story after driving with a friend, because I pointed out a red-tailed hawk that was sitting on a fence-post at the edge of the road and I was surprised that my friend didn't really seem interested. I can understand someone not wanting to spend time learning about birds, or spend time looking for them, but it puzzled me that someone wouldn't want to admire and learn about a magnificent, beautiful bird that was sitting in plain sight by the side of the road.

In thinking about my own attitudes, I realized that I felt a certain obligation to learn about the animals and plants around me. I can't know God directly, and I can't understand all of creation, but the least I can do is learn the names of the living pieces of God that are around me.

It started with birds, and I've always been pretty good with trees. Lately I've started trying to identify wildflowers, so I'm now learning about Spreading Dogbane, Cow Vetch, Yellow Spearwort, and Pickerel Weed, among others.

I'm thinking that next I'll try to identify different kinds of mosses, lichens, and fungus.

And I'm hoping that the total will be fewer that nine billion.

The Theology of Health Care Reform

I experience a certain amount of cognitive dissonance every time I hear a politician or pundit express opposition to universal health care when the same politician or pundit has previously advocated "Christian values." For example, the "C Street" members of Congress are all very public in their Christianity, very Republican, and very opposed to health care reform.

I describe my reaction as "cognitive dissonance" because it is difficult for me to understand how anyone who thinks of themselves as "Christian" could possibly oppose health care reform or government support of health care.

Consider one of the most well-known of all parables, the parable of the "good Samaritan" in Luke 10:25-37. The context of the parable was an exchange about what Jesus elsewhere described as "the two great commandments," that you should love God with all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself. Jesus was then asked "And who is my neighbor?" Jesus replied with a story of a man who had been beaten and robbed by thieves and left as dead by the side of the road. Priests and Levites passed him on the road, but a Samaritan (not a Jew) saw him and, moved by pity, bound his wounds and took care of him. Jesus asked which of the three was a neighbor to the man who was robbed and was told, "The one who showed him mercy," to which Jesus replied, "Go and do likewise."

Is there any doubt but that we are required to show mercy to those who are sick or wounded?

In another often-quoted passage, sometimes referred to as the "parable of the sheep and the goats" but more often as the "Judgment of the Nations," Matt. 25:31-45, the context is more complicated, because Jesus is describing future events, and quotes the "Son of Man" when he "comes in his glory" with "all the nations [...] gathered before him." Jesus says that the king will say to those at his right that they are blessed and will inherit the kingdom, because "I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me."

When asked by "the righteous" when it was that he was hungry, thirsty, naked, or sick, the king will reply that "just as you did it to the least of these who are members of my family, you did to to me."

Once again, is there any question but that the righteous will take care of those who are sick, even the least of us?

And yet the self-righteous "Christians" among us are blocking efforts to apply our collective resources to the care of the sick.

I have not seen any public discussion of why someone who calls himself or herself a Christian would oppose universal health care, but the only possible rationale I have been able to imagine is a concern that non-believers would be required to pay tax money for health care for others, and Christians do not want to force their beliefs on non-Christians.

Of course, that same kind of concern doesn't stop those same Christians from being ready and willing to force on others their views on abortion, same-sex marriage, and military spending.

And why don't we let the non-believers speak for themselves? Why don't we who believe in Christian values speak out in support of the principle of health care for all, and be willing (even glad) for our tax dollars to help pay for the health care of the sick and needy? Why is there support for universal health care among atheists and agnostics and so little support among fundamentalist Christians?

Can anyone say "lame rationalization"?

I'm afraid that self-proclaimed Christians oppose health care reform because they are trying to serve two masters, God and wealth, and are failing (as Jesus predicted in Matt. 6:24). If you are so concerned about your own money, and with your own tax liabilities, that you can't support the idea that we should all help each other with the costs of being sick, than you can't really love God and you can't really love your neighbor.

Guns and Jesus

According to the New York Times, the pastor of a church in Louisville, Kentucky, has asked his congregation to bring their guns to church as an "open carry celebration" of "our rights as Americans!”

The pastor, Ken Pagano of New Bethel Church, is quoted as saying that "I don’t see any contradiction in this. Not every Christian denomination is pacifist."

Whether followers of the teachings of Jesus must be pacifists is a good question, but is not the question I want to address today. The question that concerns me today is whether a true Christian should allow his love of his guns to interfere or compete with his love for God, or his love for his fellow man.

The second of the 10 Commandments is that "You shall not makes for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth." (Exodus 20:4-5)

The principle that we should not be attached to physical objects or other worldly things also appears frequently in the teachings of Jesus. Consider these few examples from the "Sermon on the Mount" as reported in the gospel of Matthew: "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth" (6:19), "You cannot serve God and wealth" (6:24), and "do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear" (6:25). And also consider Jesus's advice to the young man in Matt. 19:16-22, which was that he should "sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven." The young man "went away grieving, for he had many possessions."

I believe that God wants us to enjoy our lives, and enjoy the physical world, including our possessions. But our possessions must be tools to an end, and not an end in themselves. We use a tool as long as it serves us, and lay it aside when it does not. Our possessions should be tools we use to enjoy our lives, but should not control our lives.

So someone who enjoys wordworking can take some pleasure in owning good woodworking tools, and someone who enjoys target shooting can take some pleasure in owning a good gun. But only some pleasure. If we take too much pleasure from our tools and cannot put them aside, or if we worry about our tools, then we are addicted to the tools or are worshipping the tools.

Even if we are not commanded to shun tools of violence, we are nevertheless commanded to be indifferent to them, and to treat them as any other tool. We should not celebrate a "bring your gun to church day" any more than we should celebrate a "bring your chisel to church day" or even a "bring your iPod to church day."

But Pastor Pagano is not indifferent to guns, but (according to the Times) "passionate." He responds to critics of guns in churches with passion, describing the issue as "a crusade."

And so my concern about Pastor Pagano is not that he owns guns or enjoys shooting guns, but that he loves his guns, and that his love for his guns is distracting him from more important matters of faith. My concern is not about pacifism, but idolatry.

A Prayer for Friends Hospice

This prayer will need some explaining.

I serve on the board of trustees of Friends Hospice, which is a nonprofit Quaker organization that works to ensure that all peoples in Philadelphia have access to high quality, compassionate care at the end of life, regardless of ability to pay. We offer spiritually grounded, state of the art medical care and counseling to all in the Philadelphia area who are facing serious illnesses, including undocumented residents, people with disabilities, the homeless, and people with little or no family support.

I also believe in the power of intercessory prayer, because I believe that the universe will give you what you want if you clearly state and make known what you want. As Jesus said, "Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks the door will be opened." (NRSV Matt. 7:7-8)

Since the hospice began operations in December 2007, we have provided the quality of care we want to provide, but we have had difficulty attracting the right number of hospice participants (patients), and so our staff and our resources are currently under-utilized.

At a recent meeting of the board of trustees, we agreed on what we wanted in new hospice participants, and this is a somewhat modified version of that request:

Spirit, please send to Friends Hospice Project two disenfranchised, reimbursable people at end of life who live in north or west Philadelphia, and who are emotionally available for hospice care. Please let these people be timely new referrals who can accept home-based hospice care, and who have a community of friends and family who are teachable, will be grateful for our care, and are willing to talk to others about us. Please let some of the participants come to us through an appropriate large referral source such as Project Home or Jefferson Hospital, and let us have a balance of challenge and grace in our work as a result of these admissions. Thank you.

By reading this prayer, you will have helped Friends Hospice in its mission. Thank you.

The Christmas Stories

Yes, "stories" plural.

When thinking about Christmas as the traditional celebration of the birth of Jesus (and not a marketing ploy), Christians should remember that two of the four gospels make no mention whatsoever of the birth of Jesus, and the other two gospels tell stories that are not just different, but actually conflicting.

A traditional Christmas celebration will include readings from both Luke and Matthew, and mix them together, but let's take a look at what the Bible actually says.

In the book of Luke, Mary and Joseph start in the town of Nazareth, but then must go to the town of Bethlehem in order to comply with a census supposedly ordered by Caesar Augustus (for which there is no historical evidence whatsoever). There is no room at the inn so Mary gives birth to Jesus in the stable. Shepherds are told of the birth of Jesus by angels and they come to the stable to see the baby Jesus. Mary and Joseph travel to Jerusalem with Jesus, and then eventually return to Nazareth. No mention of any wise men from the east, no star over Bethlehem, no slaughter of male babies, and no trip to Egypt.

In the book of Matthew, the story is quite different. Mary and Joseph seem to be living in Bethelem already (i.e., no census by Caesar Augustus) and Jesus is born in their home. No mention of any stable, manger, or shepherds. Instead, wise men come from the east, follow a rising star to Bethlehem, and offer gifts to Jesus. Then Mary, Joseph, and Jesus flee to Egypt when Herod orders the death of all children in or around Bethlehem that are two years of age or younger, another seemingly noteworthy event for which there is no other historical evidence. After Herod dies, Mary and Joseph return to Israel, but are still afraid to return to Bethlehem in Judea, and instead settle in Nazareth in Galilea, where they have apparently never lived before.

It is also remarkable that the gospels of Luke and Matthew tell these stories once and then never mention them again. Jesus himself never refers to his own birth, and he is never asked about it, which seems strange given the unusual (to say the least) circumstances of his birth. And there is no mention of the birth of Jesus in the book of Acts, any of the letters of Paul, or any other part of the New Testament.

Finally, we have to confront the fact that the authors of both Luke and Matthew wanted Jesus to be born in Bethlehem in order to fulfill a prophecy, but that he should be "from" Nazareth in order to fulfill another prophesy. So it appears that each of the authors constructed a story to explain why Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and they constructed different stories. The authors also had very different goals for their stories, because Matthew describes Jesus as royalty, descended from King David, sought after by wise men from the east, and seen as a threat by King Herod, while Luke describes a lowly birth in a stable noticed only by angels and shepherds.

What are we to make of all this? Two conclusions seem unavoidable.

The first conclusion is that the stories of the birth of Jesus in Matthew and Luke cannot be considered factual. They contradict each other, so they can't both be accurate, and there are too many problems with them to believe that either is historically accurate.

The second conclusion is that the stories of the birth of Jesus are not very important to Christianity as a faith, and so whether you want to believe or disbelieve the stories is also not very important. You can be a "good Christian" (whatever that might mean) whether you choose to believe the story in Luke, or the story in Matthew, both of them, or neither of them.

The corollary to these conclusions is that, once we have stripped the stories of any historical or theological significance, we can have fun with them. We can transform the wise men of the Bible into three kings, and we can make up names for them, such as Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar. We can construct scenes in which the three kings from Matthew are mixed in with the shepherds and manger from Luke. We can write songs about lame shepherds (Amahl) and little drummer boys.

All good fun. And isn't that what Christmas is all about?

The Meaning of Life

Yes, I know the meaning of life.

It came to me one night as I was thinking about the pain of relationships, and why we have to suffer from self-doubt and embarrassment, and what is the point of having to struggle for happiness.

And then it occurred to me that the struggle was the whole point. Not because we are supposed to struggle and prevail, or because we are supposed to struggle and lose, but we are supposed to experience the struggle.

In Conversations with God, Neale Donald Walsch expresses his own view of the purpose of creation. In his version of Genesis, there was nothing but God in the beginning, and God created a physical reality and people within that reality so that there would be something that is not God. God could not see or appreciate His/Her/Its own divinity until there was something that was not divine against which to compare God. There is a difference between merely knowing something and actually experiencing it, and God wanted the fullness of experiencing Itself. Walsch reports this explanation from God:

[T]he All of Everything chose to know Itself experientially. ... It reasoned, quite correctly, that any portion of Itself would necessarily have to be less than the whole, and that if It thus simply divided itself into portions, each portion, being less than the whole, could look back on the rest of Itself and see magnificence.

Hinduism has a similar view of creation, beginning with a One which is alone and finds no joy in being alone and so fragments Itself into millions of little pieces which then proceed to play a game of hide-and-seek with each other. The fragmentation and diversity of creation is a kind of game that God plays with Itself.

A Course in Miracles says that we each share a part of the mind of God. Quakers talk about "the Light within" each person.

All of these expressions point to the same conclusion, which is that we straddle the line between what is God and what is not God. We experience both the love and joy and communion that is God and the fear and sorrow and loneliness that is not God. It is the experience of both that makes us human.

And we can't choose between them or embrace one and exclude the other. There is no such thing as joy if there is no sorrow, and there is no such thing as love if there is no fear or anger. There is no peace if there is no pain. We must be able to experience what is not God in order to know and appreciate what is God. The purpose of our lives is to experience both so that, through us, God may know just how wonderful God is.

Life is, as is often said, all about the journey, and not about the destination. Once we trust in God and accept the assurances of Jesus that our destinations will all be the same regardless of what path we take, we can stop worrying and take the time to appreciate just how marvelous it all is.

Which is our function, after all.

The "Peace Tax"

I have already explained why I do not agree with the idea of war tax resistance. Many people who support the idea of war tax resistance also support an idea that has been called the "peace tax," and now I am led to explain why I don't agree with the "peace tax" either.

The form of the "peace tax" that is currently before Congress is H.R. 1921, the "Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act." Skipping over findings and definitions, we find the guts of the act in section 4, which states in subsection a that:

The Secretary of the Treasury shall establish an account in the Treasury of the United States to be known as the 'Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund', for the deposit of income, gift, and estate taxes paid by or on behalf of taxpayers who are designated conscientious objectors.

And in subsection b that:

Monies deposited in the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund shall be allocated annually to any appropriation not for a military purpose.

How could anyone object to that? Conscientious objectors get to pay their taxes into a special fund that is used only for non-military purposes, and so get to pay their taxes without contributing to wars. It's a win-win, right?

Actually, it's more like a nothing-nothing. It's nothing but a bookkeeping gimmick that divides tax receipts into two piles, and then allocates expenses between the two piles, but (and here's the important part) the expenses haven't changed. It is clear from the statutory language quoted above that the "Religious Peace Tax Fund" will only be spent on appropriations already approved by Congress and will not increase any non-military spending. The money that passes through the peace tax fund for non-military spending will simply be offset by an increase in the amounts for military spending from other tax funds. So military spending remains the same, and non-military spending remains the same. The path that the monies might take might change, and things might look different on paper, but the end of the path is the same and nothing has changed in reality.

The only way the proposed statute might have any real-world impact is if so many taxpayers directed money to the peace tax fund that there wasn't enough tax money to pay for military appropriations, but there are at least two reasons to believe that will never happen:

First, the number of taxpayers who are likely to direct their tax dollars to the peace tax fund, and the number of dollars directed to that fund, is never going to be large enough to impact the federal budget. According to the figures supplied by the IRS in the instructions to Form 1040 for 2007, in fiscal year 2006 military spending was 23% of the federal budget, while the personal income tax was 39% of the federal budget. The gift tax and estate tax (which are the other two taxes affected by HR 1921) are usually reported to be no more than 2% of the federal budget, so let's assume that 41% of the federal budget could be directed to the peace tax fund. Even if a majority of taxpayers directed that a majority of the income, gift, and estate taxes should go to the peace tax fund, there would still be enough of those taxes (half of 41%, or 20% of the budget), together with the corporate income tax (13% of the budget) to pay for military spending (23% of the budget). But if a majority of the taxpayers were that strongly opposed to military spending, that majority could simply elect a new Congress and actually reduce military spending instead of going through the charade of the "peace tax."

Second, even if enough taxpayers directed money into the peace tax fund to cause some kind of a spending problem for the military, there is nothing in the act that would prevent the Treasury from "borrowing" from the peace tax fund to pay for military spending, just as money is now "borrowed" from the Social Security Trust Fund to pay expenses unrelated to Social Security.

So the peace tax fund will never have any effect whatsoever on military spending, and does no good. And I believe that it will do us moral and spiritual harm.

It harms us because it dulls the pain of war. It would allow us to think that war is no longer our responsibility because we didn't vote for the politicians who sent us to war and because it's no longer "our" tax dollars paying for the war. But it is our responsibility. It is our government, and our responsibility, and we can't wash our hands (as Pontius Pilate did) and absolve ourselves through a bookkeeping gimmick.

If the Peace Testimony means anything, it means that we change our behavior, and not just our accounting methods.

Metaphors Redux

Years ago, in a message entitled "The Finger or the Moon," I wrote about how the words we use for God and our spiritual experiences are only metaphors for the experiences themselves. I was reminded of that recently, while reading The Hidden Gospel by Neil Douglas-Klotz, Ph.D.

According to Dr. Douglas-Klotz, the Aramaic word that Jesus would have used for "God" was Allaha, which is very similar to the Arabic (and Islamic) Allah, both of which can be translated as "Sacred Unity."

And here's where I see a problem: Our word for God is not Aramaic or Arabic, but Germanic, based on the German word Gott. Like the Greek word theos, Gott was originally used to describe an anthropomorphic deity. Odin (a Germanic god) and Zeus (a Greek god) were both depicted in human terms, with human appearances and human emotions, even though possessing supernatural powers. That is the image of "God" that I had in childhood, and it is the idea of "God" that I now reject.

Somehow, we have received the Judaic and Aramaic concepts of the divine spirit that unifies the world through the "lens" (or "filter") of Greek and Germanic language and thought. By contrast, Islam seems to have preserved its purity, maintaining a concept of Allah that cannot be reduced (or limited) to any image or other worldly metaphor, much as Taoism continues to speak of "the Tao" as something that is ultimately indescribable. (The very first line of the Tao te Ching declares that "The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.")

Quakers talk about "the Inner Light" and "the Divine" as things that unite us, and that is the way I like to think now. There is a logic or force or principle in the world that is ultimately unknowable, and yet intimately connected to us all, and comforting. That is what I mean what I say "God."

Quaker Jargon

Soon after I began attending Quaker meetings, I became aware that Quakers have their own meanings for some words and phrases that are different from the meanings used by non-Quakers. That kind of jargon frequently appears in cultural or vocational groups, and can serve an number of different purposes.

One possible purpose of jargon is to act as a shibboleth, or a way of distinguishing the "insiders" from the "outsiders." Although early English Quakers consciously adopted manners of "plain dress" and "plain speech" that distinguished them from other segments of English society, those manners arose out of spiritual concerns (the Testimony of Simplicity) and not out of a desire for separation. And I have found that Quakers are always willing to explain unusual words and phrases, and want people to understand the language they use, so the separation seems to be more of an undesirable side-effect than a goal.

Another possible purpose of jargon is to reduce the number of words needed to communicate complicated ideas by assigning a special or more specific meaning to those words. For example, a lawyer practicing in my area of law (trusts and estates) might refer to a "QTIP trust," which I would understand to be a trust for the benefit of a surviving spouse that qualifies for the federal estate tax marital deduction through a provision in the Internal Revenue Code for "qualified terminable interest property" ("QTIP"). That's a lot of meaning to pack into one abbreviation. And the primary purpose of most Quaker jargon is to pack more meaning into fewer words.

The following are some common Quaker expressions (in no particular order) that I think provide some insight into Quaker ways of thinking and the refinements of meaning that seem to be important to Quakers. This is not intended to be definitive or comprehensive, but just a point of view from this (fairly) recently convinced Quaker.

• Meeting. This word is used in at least four different ways. It can be used in its usual sense, meaning any gathering of people (as in "there was a meeting of the committee last night"). It can also mean a Quaker worship service (i.e., a meeting for worship). It can also be used to refer to those Quakers who are gathered in worship (i.e., what other faiths might call the congregation), or to a group of Quakers as an organizational entity (i.e., what other faiths might call a church).
  

• Leading. Short for "leading of the Spirit," it can be used to describe any spirit-led desire for any action or resolution. A leading might (or might not) result in a ministry or a witness.

• Discernment. A spiritual decision. Specifically, the spiritual process by which leadings are determined. (What might look like a "decision" to other people becomes a "discernment" to Quakers.)

• Concern. Something that is troubling to the spirit. It might be as big as world hunger, or as small as the size of the meeting's electric bill. Through discernment, a concern might (or might not) become a leading.
  

• Ministry. This word can be used to describe almost any kind of faith-based service, but is usually reserved for regular or recognized service to the spiritual needs of others. So, for example, a commitment to regularly visit other Quakers in nursing-homes might be recognized as a ministry.

• Vocal Ministry. The ministry that occurs when Quakers spontaneously rise to deliver messages during meeting for worship.
  

• Witness. Can be used as both a noun and a verb to describe any action that is an expression of faith. So, for example, a refusal to be drafted into the armed forces, or a refusal to pay taxes to support the military, might be described as a "witness" or as "witnessing." See also, testimony.

• Testimonies. Quaker "testimonies" are not words, but actions. So, for example, the Peace Testimony is not a form of words, but the act of living without violence.

• Notion. A somewhat derisive term applied to an idea or belief that has no importance to the speaker, such as a theological concept with no apparent worldly consequences. A question about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin is definitely a "notion," and questions about the divinity of Jesus might also be considered "notions" to some Quakers.

• Inner Light. The "that of God" that Quakers believe is in everyone.
  

The Purpose of Forgiveness

In a previous post, on "doing the right thing," I proposed that the reason we should follow the teachings of Jesus, and God's laws generally, is not for any reward in an after-life, or any material reward here on earth, but in order to achieve an immediate spiritual reward or spiritual peace. Today, I want to talk more specifically about the purpose of one of Jesus's more challenging commandments, that we forgive one another.

The doctrine of forgiveness shows up in a lot of different places, and in a lot of different ways. It is explicit in the Lord's Prayer, but it is also inherent in the commandments that we love our neighbors as ourselves, that we love our enemies, and that we not judge others, because you can't love someone without also forgiving them, and you can't forgive someone while also judging them. Forgiveness is also central to the Quaker "Peace Testimony," which is not just about rejecting violence but also about rejecting hate, anger, resentment, greed, and other emotions that lead to violence.

But why are we to forgive one another? What is the purpose, and what is achieved?

When I hear others speak about forgiveness, it almost always sounds like something we are supposed to do for the benefit of the person forgiven. In other words, it is just a variation on the "be nice to others" theme. But why are we to be nice to others?

Forgiveness is also sometimes advocated (and criticized) because the "world will be a better place" if everyone did it. This is something I often hear from skeptics about the Quaker "Peace Testimony," which is that I am under the delusion that, if I stop fighting then my enemy will stop fighting, and if I disarm then my enemy will also disarm. But that is not what I believe at all.

Along the same lines, forgiveness is also sometimes presented as a matter of self-interest, based on the belief that, if we forgive, we will also be forgiven. This seems like a natural conclusion for statements such as "Judge not, that ye not be judged," and the "Golden Rule," which allows at least the implication that if we treat others as we would like to be treated, they might do the same.

All of these things might be ancillary results of forgiveness, but are not the central purpose of forgiveness, which I believe is our own spiritual peace, which I call "salvation."

Anger, resentment, and judgments are spiritual burdens, and angry, resentful, and judgmental people are unhappy people. It is only by letting go of our anger, resentment, or judgments towards others that we can be at peace with ourselves, and perhaps also at peace with them. And that means forgiving them.

In my own life, I have learned that peace and contentment come only when I have given up my point of view. I was reminded of this just this morning, because I had been turning over a dispute over and over again in my mind for several days, and was very troubled about how to prevail in the dispute, and this morning I realized that what was most troubling about the arguments that kept going through my head was that I felt mean and petty as I voiced them in my head. To be at peace, I need to let go of my emotions towards my opponents and forgive them.

So forgiveness is not something we do for others, but something we do for ourselves. Its purpose is our spiritual peace, and our salvation.

Faith and Taxes

A recent article in the New York Times described the views of a tax professor in Alabama who also has a degree in religious studies and has published articles making the argument that tax
policies that are not progressive violate Judeo-Christian values. Johnston, David Kay, "Professor Cites Bible in Faulting Tax Policies" (New York Times 12/25/2007).

For those who might be interested in reading her most comprehensive article, see Hamill, Susan Pace, "An Evaluation of Federal Tax Policy Based on Judeo-Christian Ethics," 25 Va. Tax Rev. 671 (Winter 2006). (More information about Prof. Hamill and her writings can be found at http://www.law.ua.edu/susanhamill/.)

The law review article is written in a dryly academic style, but I found it to be very comforting
and exciting to read, for a number of reasons.

First, it shows that there are still people who take faith seriously. Not "seriously" in the gay-bashing, defend-against-an-alleged-war-on-Christmas, or put-the-10-Commandments-in-the-courthouse kind of way, but in a "what does it mean to love your neighbor" and "what should we be doing to improve the lives of others" kind of way.

The article also made a number of statements which were consistent with my beliefs, and so provided me with some assurance that perhaps I wasn't as much on the fringe as I often feel.

In that way, the article was also comforting because it provided evidence that a liberal Quaker like myself can find common ground with conservative evangelical (which is how Professor Hamill is described). (That a desire for social justice should unite liberal and conservative Christians was also one of the themes of Marcus Borg's book, The Heart of Christianity, which is highly recommended.)

Finally, the article was comforting because it gave me hope that, if we can all think and talk more about our values, and think less about our own pocketbooks, maybe we can achieve some real progressive tax reforms and social welfare reforms (such as universal health care)

Light, Darkness, and Consciousness

In The Hidden Gospel by Neil Douglas-Klotz, Ph.D. (Theosophical Publishing House, 1999), Dr. Douglas-Klotz writes that the words in Aramaic (and Hebrew) for "light" and "darkness" signify not just different levels of light but also different qualities of thought. Light is orderly and linear, while darkness is chaotic and swirling. He states that, "Psychologically, they are like the start-to-finish, cause-and-effect nature of rational thinking compared to the zig-zag nature of intuitive thinking."

I have previously written that the story of Adam and Eve might be a mythic explanation, or metaphor, for the emergence of consciousness out of breakdown of the "bicameral mind." Our brains have separate hemisphere, one of which is more intuitive and the other of which is more logical, and what we call consciousness may have arisen when the two halves of our brains began to interact more closely.

Dr. Douglas-Klotz believes that the creation story in Genesis expresses a need for balance between light and darkness, which is undoubtedly true, because God did not abolish darkness, but only separated the light from the darkness, calling one "day" and the other "night." (Gen. 1:4-5) But it is also important that the darkness preceded the light, because before God said "Let there be light," a "darkness covered the face of the deep." (Gen. 1:2)

In other words, not just the story of Adam and Eve but also the creation story itself may be a metaphor for the rise of rational thought out of the "swirling" of a brain dominated by its intuitive hemisphere, and the rise of consciousness out of the balance between them.

Seeing God

I have been reading The Hidden Gospel by Neil Douglas-Klotz, Ph.D. (Theosophical Publishing House, 1999), which is about understanding the teachings of Jesus as they might have been understood by someone who heard them in Aramaic, which was the language spoken by Jesus. I will be writing more about this book later, but a few explanations are needed now.

The author does not claim to know exactly what words Jesus used in Aramaic, because the oldest manuscripts of the Gospels are in Greek. There is a very old version of the Gospels in Aramaic, but most Western scholars believe that it is a translation into Aramaic from Greek, rather than a version of the Gospels that pre-dates the Greek versions. The author therefore uses the Aramaic Gospels to explore possible different understandings of what Jesus taught, and makes no claims about what Jesus "really" said or meant.

I had only reached the second chapter of the book when a translation at the beginning of the chapter stopped me in my tracks. The Beatitude that is translated in the King James Version of the Bible as "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God," (Matt. 5:8) was translated from Aramaic into English as "Ripe are the consistent in heart; they shall see Sacred Unity everywhere."

The KJV version is mystical and to me, largely incomprehensible, even though it is familiar. The Aramaic version somehow had instant meaning for me, even though it was unfamiliar.

I had already read that the Aramaic word for "ripe" also meant "good" and "ready." The phrases "consistent in heart" and "see Sacred Unity everywhere" reminded me of an experience from several years ago that profoundly affected my view of the world. As I explained in a much earlier entry, on "Holiness," I once did an exercise in silently blessing those I encountered during the day, and as a result I began to see those I blessed (and myself) differently. Remembering that experience as I read the phrase "consistent in heart," I realized how important it was for me to bless everyone, without any judgment about them In that consistent view of those around me, I saw what I would now (as a Quaker) call "the light within." By consistently viewing all of those around me as blessed children of God, I had "ripened" and come closer to seeing God (the "Sacred Unity") itself.

It may seem like a self-fulfiling exercise, but my experience has been that, if you consistently look for that of God in everyone, you will see God in everyone, and will see that which unites us rather than what divide us.

Doing the Right Thing

In talking about religion and political or social issues, many people want to discuss what is the “right thing” to do. But before trying to decide what is right, you might want consider why you would want to do the “right thing.”

Assuming that the “right thing” is something that is (or has been) determined by God in some way and is knowable by us in some way, I can think of only four different reasons one might want to do the “right thing”:

1. Obedience for the sake of obedience: You should follow God’s laws simply because they are God’s laws, without regard to consequences.

2. Reward in the afterlife: There is a life after death and God will punish you in the hereafter if you don’t do what you’re told, or will reward you if you do what you’re told.

3. Reward here on earth: God will punish you here on earth by bringing misfortunes on you if you don’t do what you’re told, or will reward you with worldly riches if you do what you’re told. Or, if you prefer a more mechanistic and less anthropomorphic theology, you could say that God’s laws represent fundamental physical and social laws, so “doing the right thing” should produce desirable consequences here on earth.

4. Spiritual reward: God will not actively punish or reward you, but has put in you a desire to be at peace with God and your fellow human beings, and you can achieve spiritual peace and contentment by doing the "right thing."

Let’s explore through each of these possible reasons and look to see if they make any sense.

Obedience for the sake of obedience

There are several problems with the idea that we should obey God’s law (or “do the right thing”) just because God says so, without regard to the consequences.

One problem is that it is inconsistent with the idea that human beings can think and exercise free will. Why would God both give human beings the ability to think and expect us to do what we are told without thinking?

Another problem is that the lack of consequences to our actions seems to make the rightness of our actions meaningless. What is the point of spending time figuring out what God wants us to do, and then doing what God wants, if it has no consequences whatsoever. It’s sort of like asking a question and then ignoring the answer. God asks us to do certain things, we do them, and then he pays no attention whatsoever to what we do. It's all a complete waste of time.

Although I said I was going to assume that God's will is knowable, a complete lack of consequences would also seem to make God's will unknowable. If there are no consequences to what we do, how can we ever be sure we’ve got it right? Without any standards to just how well we’ve done in the past, our future actions become increasingly uncertain.

Which makes the concept of “right for right’s sake,” and the people who believe in it, very frightening. If a person can't decide what is or is not the “right thing” by looking at the consequences, then the decision about what is “right” is completely arbitrary, depending in many cases on what the person was taught as a child, or what the person has been led to by a charismatic leader. Without any way of testing their beliefs, people can make all sorts of toxic judgments about what is the “right thing,” which can be relatively mild (such as shunning homosexuals) or more extreme (such as deciding to kill heretics).

Reward in the afterlife

Obeying God’s law in order to achieve eternal life, heavenly paradise, or some other reward after death is a little better than simple obedience for the sack of obedience, because at least we know why we’re doing what we’re doing. But it's contrary to the teachings of Jesus.

Take the parable of the prodigal son. The son who goes off and commits just about every sin imaginable is welcomed back by his loving father without ever having to repent, express regret, or pretend to change his ways. And this is consistent with many other parables and teachings of Jesus, who describes a God of seemingly infinite and unconditional love. I am, for that reason, a "universalist." I simply cannot believe in a God who would ever punish anyone for anything.

Needless to say, if everyone gets into Heaven, then it's no longer a reward for "doing good" on earth and a different motivation is needed for "doing good."

The idea of a reward in an afterlife also suffers from a lack of empiricism. If all the rewards (or punishments) come after we’re dead, and no one comes back from the dead to tell us what works or doesn’t work, how can we ever know if we’re making the right choices?

Reward here on earth

Now we're getting closer to something empirical and verifiable. If there are material consequences for our actions, then we can test whether or not we're doing the right thing by seeing how God reacts. Prosperity means we've been doing good things, and drought, plagues, disease, and calamities mean we're doing the wrong things.

It's a good belief system and is still used in many parts of the world, including parts of the world that call themselves "Christian." Of course, what Jesus said is exactly the opposite.

"[Your Father in heaven] makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous." (Matt. 5:43.)

Just about everyone who has ever thought about it has puzzled over why God would cause bad things to happen to good people (and vice versa).

So scratch the idea that God provide material rewards for good behavior.

Spiritual reward

My fourth choice, that obeying the word of God gives us spiritual peace and contentment here on earth, is more than just a winner by default, but represents the best explanation of the teachings of Jesus and other great religious teachers of history (e.g., Buddha, Lao-Tzu, et al.)

Jesus said that "The kingdom of God is within you." (Luke 17:21) And, as I have argued (and will argue) elsewhere in this blog, the ultimate purpose of the teachings of Jesus is the achievement of what Buddhists call "nirvana" or "enlightenment," what the apostle Paul called "the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding" (Phil. 4:7), and what I call "salvation."

Using spiritual reward as a test for God's will also creates an empirical faith, or what Quakers call "experiential." You can use your own life as a laboratory and see what kinds of thoughts and actions lead to peace and what kinds lead to anxiety or strife.

Try it.