Certainty and Uncertainty

The apostle Paul saw and heard the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. He spent the rest of his life preaching the gospel. He is a hero of the biblical book of Acts. We study his life and letters two-thousand years later.

You’d think that such a man would believe that he knew what he knew. But no. Paul knew that his knowledge was narrow and hindered by life in this world:

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. (1 Corinthians 13:12 (KJV).)

Paul freely confessed the limits of what he knew.

We Americans today are unlike Paul. At the risk of simplifying: spiritually, we are a People Who Know. We do not, like Paul, know the limits of our knowledge. The Unknown is a stranger to us.

Instead, we make a friend of Certainty. We are certain about religion. We are certain about scripture. We are certain that scripture is inerrant. And we are certain about our interpretation of scripture. We believe that scripture is easy, and that to interpret it, we need only to "believe" it, which often means to read it literally. Sometimes, a biblical answer is as simple as finding a Bible verse on an internet-Bible search engine.

Because we are certain about scripture, and because we are certain that we understand it, we are certain about our salvation. We quote Acts 16:31:

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. (KJV)

We are more certain than we should be.

We are certain because our world seduces us into false confidence. Technology hides spiritual risk behind the mirage of easy living.

See how we live. Jets whisper us to far places. Computers in our cars warn us about engine problems before we are stranded on the freeway. Unemployment insurance protects us from the economic wreck of job loss (somewhat), and social security and 401(k) plans shelter us in old age. Police and firemen are a 9-1-1 call away, and 9-1-1 also summons an ambulance to rush us to an emergency room. Please do not infer that I am against these things; I say only that they hide the uncertainty of life in this world by making our lives more cocooned than the lives of our forebears.

Our forebears were moved to accept uncertainty by the uncertainty of the lives that they lived. In this country, they might leave behind what they knew and travel for months by wagon to the unknown. Death along the way was a known risk – death by heat, cold, hunger, thirst, sickness, injury, or attack. Pioneers carried guns because government protection was days or weeks away. Their wagons carried supplies that they would need, because chances to re-supply were few. A lame animal could doom a family.

Even urban life in times past had risks that are rare in our time and in our country. In times past, doctors could help only if you did not get too sick. A wound that modern medicine easily treats could be deadly in the times before antibiotics. Doctors did not wash their hand or clean their surgery tools before cutting into flesh, because they did not know about germs. Pregnancy came with danger, and birth came with only a hope that the child would live to adulthood. This was important, because children were the chief hope for livelihood in old age.

There was no social safety-net.

Diseases regularly decimated populations.

So the lives of our forebears were filled with risks that our own are not. Our benign world must affect the way we see our God, our lives, and ourselves. It leads us to see differently than we would see if we lived in the harsh world of our forebears. The ease and seeming-certainty of our material world mask the danger and uncertainty of the spiritual life.

The world of our forebears taught the right lessons; ours misleads us. They were hardscrabble; we are rich. And riches, we know, deceive. (Matthew 13:22.)

We are all on a countdown to the end of life. This countdown has no visible clock that tells us when our time will be up. That uncertainty is a metaphor for the uncertainty, corporeal and spiritual, of our lives. We turn away from this broad uncertainty at our own risk.

This is the beginning of my argument that we should bind uncertainty to our hearts.

God, Madness, and Me

Madness changed the way I see myself and the way I see God.

Madness for me was foraging in dumpsters and looking for places to sleep out of the wind. (Orange groves are bad.  Bushes next to freeways are good.)  It was disembodied voices and a terrible vision. It was lying strapped to a gurney, howling while a hospital staff-member taunted me. It was hard, degrading, and scary.

I’m well now.

I won’t tell much about my life as a homeless lunatic. Not now, at least. Truth is, before today I've told this story to few people, and I've told the whole story to nobody. I worry that people will look down on me.

But if I keep the larger part of the story to myself, I will at least tell you a truth of its effect. This trauma led me to reject some beliefs that I shared with most American Christians. It fundamentally changed my cozy, easy ideas about God. It shifted the earth under me, and it cleared my mind.

My madness did not draw me closer to God. It did sharpen my belief in him. I know that he exists like I know the lines in my hand. But my experience was the opposite of rapture. It brought me no joy.  It deepened me; it sobered me.

My Christianity was not cursory before my madness. I was a long-time churchgoer. I was a deacon at my Presbyterian church. I tithed. I took courses at a theological seminary in Pasadena. I left a career as a public prosecutor to travel to China, where, under an American Christian-service organization, I taught law at Chinese colleges and universities. I spent years absorbing scripture daily, sometimes for hours. I had read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation several times in several translations.

After my madness, I lost my hunger for scripture. Lately, the Bible has seized my attention again. I don’t know where this inspiration comes from, but I welcome it.

I haven’t gone without biblical musings in the years between my trauma and now. Based upon years of study, I could draw upon a pool of knowledge. These musings confirmed an accord between the Bible and what I learned from my season of madness. I believe that still as I test my beliefs by studying the Word.

The Spanish painter Francisco Goya became deaf.  After his deafness, he produced paintings that were literally and emotionally dark, even monstrous.  My theology after my madness became dark like Goya's paintings after his deafness. 

From this dark place, I see a tidal wave coming.  It's like madness taught me to reckon water that pulls back to sea that foretells a destructive wave to come.  I worry for people, that they don't see this, that they don't talk about it, that they don't take steps to live and not to die.

Instead, I sense that America makes happy-talk about God and salvation.  We are an optimistic people, and our theology is optimistic: God is kind, salvation is easy, and Hell is a place for people worse than us.  Our material comfort fools us into a false sense of a benign universe and a tolerant God.  God is tolerant, but only to a point.

This is because the stakes are supremely high.  We want the world to be a pleasure boat, but it's a liberty ship trying to take us to safety through a sea filled with a dangerous enemy that seeks our harm.  A liberty ship demands sterner discipline that a cruise ship.

So I speak out to warn. I feel like the ancient mariner of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem. He started on a voyage that seemed at first ordinary. But he and his fellow seamen were swept to a far-away, harsh sea. He sinned grievously. All died on this supernatural voyage but the mariner. He returned to the living to tell his sobering tale. It’s not a perfect simile, but like the "grey beard loon" of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, I think my journey gives me something important to tell. I have done this a little in past posts, and I plan to do it more in the future.

And yet:

Come now, ye that say, To-day or to-morrow we will go into this city, and spend a year there, and trade, and get gain: whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. What is your life? For ye are a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall both live, and do this or that. [James 4:13-15.]

Still, these are my plans.

Christians, Nut Up.

We Christians are wont to hiss like punctured air hoses when we are criticized by outsiders. We cast a baleful eye at celebrated mockers like Bill Mahar, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens. We resent films like Religulous and books like The God Delusion and God is Not Great. Books and films like these make us ache for the quick return of the Lord, so that these Christian-mocking miscreants speedily will be separated from their smug sense of superiority. "Amen", we say.

1. Placing the blame.

But these architects of anti-faith have powerful allies. Their allies are us. Jesus said,

Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men. [Matthew 5:13 (ASV)]

The simple, sorry truth is that when enemies of faith tread on people of faith, it is because we have lost our saltiness. The would-be debunkers aren’t to blame; we are. When our adversaries tread us under foot, they only prove that Jesus was right.

2. Knowing our natures.

I think this places blame where it belongs. We are soiled. Increasingly, I nod grimly when I think of the biblical prophet Isaiah saying, "I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips . . .." (Isaiah 6:5 (ASV).) Lies are commonplace in our culture, from bottom to top.

And we love our money and our comfort. We live without qualm to the limit of our means, or beyond it. We buy cars big enough to host hockey games in; now that America is retreating from vehicular behemoths, it is not religious restraint that drums retreat, but the high price of gasoline. We squeeze into the pews of churches that assure us that God wants us to be rich.

Our love of money and comfort crowds out our love of God because we are rich.  In America, the rich don’t repose only in Bel Air; compared to people in biblical times, virtually any resident of Colton, California is rich.  And among nations, America is a rich nation. 

Therefore it is dangerous for us to ignore how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of Heaven. But we don't worry; we clamber upon our camels and amble toward the eye of the needle that stands between us and the kingdom. (Mark 10:25.)

We don't know the Bible as we once did. Instead, we draw our principles from what we put in front of ourselves. We learn ethics from eight seasons of the television series "24", rather than from an equal number of seasons with the Bible.

The Bible instructs that:

[W]hoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me: But whoso shall cause one of these little ones that believe on me to stumble, it is profitable for him that a great millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be sunk in the depth of the sea. [Matthew 18:5-6 (ASV).]

But the Catholic Church had to take costly instruction from secular courts about protecting children in their care. This is only the most dramatic religious scandal in a society that grows accustomed to religious scandals, or accustomed to scandals of the pious.

3. Changing our thinking.

Reckless before chasm-sized topics, I suggest, as a start, three modifications of modern American theology.

First, we need to reevaluate our understanding of God’s grace. We seem to believe that salvation is like buying software online, putting a checkmark in the box next to "I agree". So easy.

Here’s a bleaker simile: we are like diners satiating ourselves at the table of sin, and when the grim reaper presents the tariff, we jerk our thumbs over our shoulders and say, "Give that to that guy over there, dying on the cross."

Theologian Dietrich Bohnhoeffer surveyed the doctrine of grace in his native Germany before the outbreak of World War II. He saw a country like ours, awash in belief in cheap grace. We all know how that turned out then: Christianity in Germany did not resist the war, and it did not resist the mass murder of the Jews.

Bohnhoeffer wrote a study of grace called The Cost of Discipleship. It’s no light read; it requires much time and close attention. But it rewards the reading of it.

Second, we must learn to fear God. This is so biblical that it cries out from the pages of scripture. For example, "[Jehovah] will fulfil the desire of them that fear him; He also will hear their cry and will save them." (Psalms 145:19 (ASV).) And "Jehovah taketh pleasure in them that fear him, In those that hope in his lovingkindness." (Psalms 147:11 (ASV).) And "The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of knowledge . . .." (Proverbs 1:7 (ASV).)  And  "[B]e not afraid of them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." (Matthew 10:28 (ASV).)

Some mornings as I go into the courthouse, I hear lay preachers preaching hellfire and brimstone to the people lined up to go through the metal detectors. I confess, I groan inwardly. This is partly my reaction to the indecency of forcing a biblical harangue upon a captive audience. But it’s also partly that I don’t think that these lay preachers really fear God; they reveal more condescension than love and trembling. Fear of God must be more than lip service; it must be a holy dread.

Third, we would do well to have less confidence in our own salvation. This walks against the wind of popular "assurance of salvation." And yet I find nothing in scripture that establishes assurance of salvation. Instead, I read of a mere remnant of the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob returning to their homeland from Babylonian captivity. I read of many disciples abandoning Jesus when he teaches hard things. (John 6:26-66.) I read Matthew 7:21-23:

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by thy name, and by thy name cast out demons, and by thy name do many mighty works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. [ASV]

Acts 2:21 superficially seems to contradict Matthew 7:21-23:

And it shall be, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

In light of Acts 2:21, what of those of Matthew 7:22 who prophesied, cast out demons, did mighty works "by thy name", and were not saved? On the day of judgment, they could only say "Lord, Lord" (Matthew 7:22), not the name of the Lord (Acts 2:21). The reconciliation of these two passages is this: not all who claim Jesus in their lives on Earth will be permitted to call on the name of the Lord on the day of judgment.

4. Practicing the spiritual disciplines.

Those are suggestions about how to think about our God and ourselves. What then do we do? This is another mountain, one that I’ll try to scale in two paragraphs.

When a flight attendant gives instructions about emergencies, she tells the passengers to put the oxygen cup over their own air passages before helping other passengers. That’s probably pretty good advice for spiritual growth.

Therefore study. Learn. Grow. This, like almost everything else I have touched on so far, is a huge subject, not exhaustible in a blog post. So I’ll just say where to get direction. Aside from the Bible, I recommend three books. Richard Foster wrote a modern classic called Celebration of Discipline. One great thing about Foster’s book is that he lists other resources. I also recommend Dallas Willard’s The Spirit of the Disciplines. Don Postema’s Space for God is good for group study.

5. Conclusion.

I have said grim things. Maybe I’m a crank. But I urge an antidote to the free, easy, empty Christianity of our time. Who wants to spend a lifetime in church and an eternity apart from God? I fear that too many of us will be mocked in Gehenna for our unfinished towers. (Luke 14:28-30.)

John the Baptist said to the multitudes who came to him to be baptized, "Ye offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" (Luke 3:7 (ASV).) Forget who warned us; let's be warned.

I started out this post by mentioning our dislike of criticism by professional skeptics and others.  But here is a saying: "Take care of your character, and your reputation will take care of itself."  This should be the Christians' response to our critics.

Note:

I cite books, from the rank to the sublime, in the text. Where I cite a book, I usually provide a link to that book on Amazon.com. I provide the link only for your convenience. If you want the book, great; but it doesn’t matter to me where you get it.

A Further Defense of the Despised Westboro Baptist Church

I listened to a sermon by Rev. Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church. I would be pleased to say that his sermon reeked from the moment he cleared his throat to his last "Amen".

But I can’t say that. Agree or disagree with it, Phelps’s theology -- at least from this sermon -- is consistent and not outright laughable. It demands to be taken seriously.

1. The serious theology of Rev. Phelps.

Phelps drew the sermon that I listened to from the Biblical book of the prophet Jeremiah. Phelps emphasized from Jeremiah imprecatory prayer: prayer to bring harm upon a person, a people, or a nation; a curse. Phelps directs his imprecatory prayer toward America, just as Jeremiah directed his imprecatory prayer toward Judah, the remnant of the Jewish state before Babylonian captivity. For example, Jeremiah prayed:

O Lord of Hosts who art a righteous judge, testing the heart and mind, I have committed my cause to thee; let me see thy vengeance upon them. (Jeremiah 11:20 (NEB).)

And:

Drag them away like sheep to the shambles;
Set them apart for the day of slaughter. (Jeremiah, 12:3 (NEB).)

So Rev. Phelps preaches imprecatory prayer.

That an American pastor would curse America might shock, but it shouldn’t surprise. We’ve seen this before. Remember Jeremiah Wright? Remember "God damn America!"? Phelps is Jeremiah Wright, version 2.0.

2. God and America.

But here’s the thing. For all we know, Phelps might be right. His monomania about gays reveals shallowness; but it might be that God is in the process of withdrawing his blessing from America.

I say withdrawing his blessing, because I cannot look at American history without seeing divine protection and abundant blessing. Here is the briefest possible proof: in times of greatest peril, we have been gifted with indispensable leaders. We had irreplaceable George Washington when we needed George Washington. We had irreplaceable Abraham Lincoln when we needed Abraham Lincoln. We had irreplaceable Franklin D. Roosevelt when we needed Franklin D. Roosevelt. This is only a glimpse of the hand of God guiding, protecting, and strengthening America.

God has kept us safe in times past, but America today is different than what it has been. We are more distant from God than our forebears. The evidence of this is that throughout our history, our culture was infused with scripture; that is no longer true. "The pervasiveness of the Bible in American culture from the colonial period onward has often been observed . . .." (Robert Alter, Pen of Iron, 1) But "[t]he Bible is surely not ubiquitous in American culture as it once was . . .." (Ibid., 6.)

America’s alienation from God is supported by an argument from scripture.

3. America as Babylon.

I cannot read parts of the Book of Revelation without an unease that I am reading about us. Not necessarily America as it is today, but America that is becoming. Revelation chapter 17 prophecies what will happen just before the end of history and the coming of the eternal Kingdom of God: the destruction of Babylon. And we might be Babylon.

Revelation chapter 17 describes Babylon as "the great whore that sittith upon many waters". (Revelations 17:1 (AV).) It also speaks about "The seven . . . mountains, on which the woman [Babylon] sitteth." (Revelation 17:9 (AV).) These two passages puzzle scholars. Historical Babylon sat on canals – "many waters" – but it had no seven mountains. Historical Rome had seven hills, but although the Tiber flowed through it, this hardly is "many waters." But Babylon and Rome were the superpowers of their day, as we are today. So a plausible interpretation of "Babylon" is not a particular city at a particular time, but any profane superpower. I draw on George Eldon Ladd’s fine A Commentary on the Revelation of John in this analysis, though Ladd’s interpretation of Revelation chapter 17 is somewhat different than mine.

There is more that points from Babylon to America. After Babylon’s swift destruction, nations will mourn her – at least, they will mourn their loss of wealth from trading with her:

The merchants . . . which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing, and saying, Alas, alas that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls! For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off, and cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city! And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate. (Revelation 18:15-19 (AV).)

This passage in Revelation reveals that Babylon was loved for its capacity to make people rich; but it also implies the catalyst for Babylon’s downfall – its love of luxury. (1 Timothy 6:10: "[T]he love of money is the root of all evil . . ..") I submit for your consideration that all superpowers share this vulnerability, including America. Our love of comfort and consumer goods crowds out our love of God. And what nation but America is the vortex of world trade?

There are hurdles to this interpretation of the Book of Revelation’s Babylon; one hurdle is not so insurmountable. That is, the Book of Revelation speaks of Babylon’s deadliness toward the people of God: "And I saw the woman [Babylon] drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus". (Revelation 17:6 (AV).) Well, we aren’t known for assassinating prophets and Christians.

But the time might come. Prophets provoke. In fact, authoritative commentator Abraham Heschel finds it remarkable that the people of Israel and Judah tolerated the prophets at all:

The striking surprise is that prophets of Israel were tolerated at all by their people. To the patriots, they seemed pernicious; to the pious multitudes, blasphemous; to the men in authority, seditious." (Heschel, The Prophets)

I can imagine an America further from God than it now is, and a prophet who desecrates a cherished, even a patriotic, belief, provoking us beyond our capacity to endure. Those who dispose of the prophet or the prophets, and those who give silent assent to this, will become the agents of Revelation 17:6.

4. Signs of America’s plunge.

Just like a person can stand by a river and know that there was a flood upstream by the flotsam going by, an observer of America today can see evidence of America’s flight from God in the pollution of American morals.

When I started out in law, yes, lawyers lied; but the ones who lied stood out. Now I confront in my profession a tsunami of liars. What once evoked my outrage now gets a checkmark in the margin. Also, I hear shameless, unselfconscious lies from political leaders and from the media. I don’t remember this in earlier times. I see this calculated un-tethering from reality as the dead canary in a moral mineshaft foretelling fatal fumes. Jeremiah lamented commonplace lies before God destroyed Judah by foreign conquest.

They . . . never speak the truth; they have trained their tongues to lies; . . . deceit follows deceit." (Jeremiah 9:5-6 (AV).)

5. Conclusion.

So Rev. Fred Phelps’s theology of God’s outrage at America is far from laughable. Perhaps pastors who assure their congregations that God wants them to be rich do worse than Phelps.

The credibility of Phelps’s theology is another reason that I hope that the Supreme Court does the right thing and protects him and his provocative congregation. His theology is serious, but unpopular. And if he commits outrage to call attention to his beliefs, at least he succeeds in bringing attention to a word that is heard in few other places, so far as I know. If you are hearing these kinds of things from your pulpit, I would like to hear about it.

One last thing. Writing about religion makes me self-conscious. I really, really hope that I don’t come across as touting my own holiness. I have none. And I don’t mean that in the Apostle I-am-the-chief-of-sinners Paul sense. I mean that, truly, I am appalling.

Note:

I provide a link in the text to Amazon.com when I cite a book.  This is only for your convenience.

In Defense of Outrage: Westboro Baptist Church

Westboro Baptist Church pickets funerals of fallen American soldiers. They proclaim that soldiers’ deaths are God’s revenge for America’s toleration of homosexuality. They celebrate these deaths as a triumph of the Lord.

On Westboro Baptist Church’s website, I listened to an hour-long sermon by its pastor, Rev. Fred Phelps. He holds himself out as prophetic in the mold of Jeremiah.

He is wrong. For reasons I might go into in a later post, it is clear that Rev. Phelps is self-deceived.

But though he is no prophet, he is like a prophet; he does prophetic things.

To explain: a prophet is not like smooth jazz. He does not calm jangled nerves. He does not sooth agitated spirits. He does not assuage raging souls. He jangles, agitates, and rages against injustice, iniquity, and impiety. He puts the fright on people who have turned their backs on God.

I am rereading the Book of Jeremiah. Here’s a little history. Abraham’s descendants divided into two kingdoms: Israel and Judah. Both sinned against God. God caused Israel to be conquered and its people to be sent into exile. Judah lasted longer than Israel, but it suffered the same fate. After 70 years, God gathered many of his exiled people to resurrect their kingdom.

But before they were exiled, and before they were re-gathered, they were conquered. When the king of Babylon laid siege to Jerusalem, King Zedekiah sent an emissary to Jeremiah to ask if God would intervene with a miracle to save the king and the city. Jeremiah said this:

I will take Zedekiah king of Judah, his courtiers and the people, all in this city who survive pestilence, sword, and famine, and hand them over to Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, to their enemies and those who would kill them. He shall put them to the sword and shall show no pity, no mercy or compassion. (Jer. 21:7(NEB).)

God spoke to Jeremiah and instructed him:

I will compel men to eat the flesh of their sons and their daughters; they shall devour one another’s flesh in the dire straits to which their enemies and those who would kill them will reduce them in the siege. Then you must shatter the jar before the eyes of the men who have come with you and say to them, These are the words of the LORD of Hosts: Thus will I shatter this people and this city as one shatters an earthen vessel so that it cannot be mended, and they shall be buried in Topheth because there is no room elsewhere to bury them. (Jer. 19:9-11 (NEB).)

A career of saying uncomfortable things like this made Jeremiah unpopular and the object of conspiracies.

That was Jeremiah. Let me be clear: when Pastor Phelps’s lips move, I don’t hear God speaking. But make no mistake: prophets outrage. "The prophet is an iconoclast, challenging the apparently holy, revered, and awesome. Beliefs cherished as certainties, institutions endowed with supreme sanctity, he exposes as scandalous pretensions." (Abraham J. Heschel, The Prophets (Perennial Classics).)

Certainly, fallen soldiers and their families are close to our hearts. A piece of us is buried with the soldiers; a part of us stands with their families and friends grieving beside the graves. I won’t say that a true prophet would choose Westboro Baptist Church’s scourge to lash America. But he or she might expose another cherished institution and would similarly provoke outrage.

So we must not get carried away with our outrage against Rev. Phelps and his congregation. Outrageous as they are, they might be prophets. And even if they are not, as is more than likely, our action toward them would set a precedent for disposing of real prophets, should real prophets arise among us.

The genius of our Constitution is that it shelters the genuine and the fake, the prophet and the fraud, the insightful and the foolish. It shelters the fake, the fraud, and the foolish to protect the genuine, the prophetic and the insightful. For a long time, judges have not trusted judges to determine what speech nourishes and what speech taints. They have followed Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.’s admonition that "[T]he best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market."

I agree with Holmes. I think most people do.

So in the court case now pending, I hope the Supreme Court does the right thing and extends a Constitutional safety ladder to this troublesome congregation and its leader.  It matters to me, by the way, that Westboro Baptist Church's protest in this case was out of sight and out of earshot of the funeral.

For brevity, what I have written simplifies Constitutional law, and it simplifies the prophetic mission. In addition to discomfiting, prophets instruct and offer hope. I am practiced in the law, but I am re-limbering my theological muscles after a long hiatus. But I think I mostly got it right.


Note:

I have provided in the text a link to Amazon.com for Heschel's book The Prophets.  I did this for your convenience.  If you want to buy the book, great.  But it really doesn't matter to me where you get it.

Eric Sevareid, Send Help!

If broadcaster Eric Sevaried were alive and working today, he would be like a giant among pygmies. His farewell speech expressed humility and exhibited profundity. It’s worth viewing, both to behold the man and to remember how different broadcasting was when Sevareid retired in November, 1977.

America at that time was neither bland nor homogeneous. The Watergate era ended with Richard Nixon’s August, 1974 departure from the White House in disgrace. Also in that year, the first "March for Life" pro-life rally took place in Washington D.C. Saigon fell in April, 1975, the same month that the last Americans died in the Vietnam War. In 1978, 100,000 persons marched in Washington D.C. to extend the time to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. Sevareid retired in turbulent times.

Yet Sevareid could look into the camera in his farewell address and say that the listening public "applies one consistent test, not agreement with one on substance, but the perception of honesty and fair intent." This generalization astonishes the listener of our era, when people often choose their news programming according to its correspondence with their cherished opinions. Fox News viewers choose Fox News for the Fox News slant. The same is true of MSNBC viewers. Neither station apologizes for its point of view. They revel in it.

These networks evoke extreme reactions. One night, I sat in my bedroom listening to MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, and a conservative friend who shares the house came by my room. Seeing who I was watching, he said he wanted to vomit. I have seen online expressions of raw hatred against Olbermann and Rachel Maddow.

So it would be refreshing if people today heeded Sevareid’s counsel "to retain the courage of one’s doubts as well as the courage of one’s convictions in this world of dangerous passionate certainties." "[C]ourage of one’s doubts" is a deep phrase. An open mind is a dreadful thing for people with no tolerance for uncertainty, of whom there are legions. The quest for certainty among them is like a hunger so intolerable that they will fill their minds with mental empty calories, rather than discriminately seek out what nourishes their judgment.

Instead of counseling the courage to embrace one’s doubt, some networks plant shallow certainties, fertilizing them with us-versus-them rhetoric, and watering them with appealing spokespersons. It is as if, once they implant in their audience's minds a conviction, they want to expel from their audience’s minds any openness to a contrary point of view.

So the media closes minds, and seals them with raw appeals to negative emotion. So Bush is a fascist. So Obama is Hitler. Or a racist, a socialist, or a tyrant. The recklessness of these hyperbolic accusations bears scrutiny. In my five decades, I have learned that reckless disparagement of someone else’s character always indicates the reckless party’s low principles. Low principles in an individual is disturbing. Low principles in a powerful media conglomerate is blood-draining-from-the-face frightening.

Low principles in a network give rise to no consoling belief that that network will heed one of Sevareid’s other counsels: "To elucidate when one can, more than to advocate." Disregard of this principle is not the failing of only one network. But one network fails more conspicuously than others. One network conspicuously promotes a political movement, the Tea Party. One network donated one-million dollars to the Republican Governors Association, a donation unmatched by any other media company to the Democratic counterpart. One network has on its payroll every major Republican candidate for President in 2012, who isn’t presently holding office or named Mitt Romney. I don’t mean to pick on Fox News, but Fox News and its parent, News Corp., go conspicuously beyond any other news organization. If I am wrong, I crave correction.

Sevareid counseled "[t]o remember that ignorant or biased reporting has its counterpart in ignorant and biased reading and listening. We do not speak into an intellectual or emotional void." Sevareid reminds us that a broadcaster can appeal to the better angel or the worse angel of our nature. Those that strive to inform, those who don’t have the motto "We report, you decide" but act as if they did, appeal to the better angel. Those that do have that motto, but only as a farce, appeal to the worse angel.

Let me here promote www.NYTimes.com. It has a point of view that it expresses on its Op/Ed pages, but its reporting is first class. It will satisfy the curious on topics from politics, to travel, to health, to world affairs, and all else. The right fulminates against it for partisan reporting, but it broke the story of Connecticut Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, misrepresenting his military record. Fox News cheerleaded for Bush, but New York Times columnists do not hesitate to criticize Obama. I love the New York Times, and I wish more people would read it on a daily basis.

Just before he said "goodbye", Sevareid said this: "Millions have listened intently and indifferently, in agreement and in powerful disagreement. Tens of thousands have written their thoughts to me. I will feel always that I stand in their midst." Sevareid thought of himself as standing in the midst of those who disagreed with him as well as those who agreed. This is a refreshing thought in times like his and ours when there were/are "dangerous passionate certainties"; and especially in times like ours when media stars use hate-mongering like a scourge to drive apart the American people.

Sources:

Eric Sevareid’s 1977 farewell broadcast: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHGHm8iPeUY&NR=1

The fall of Saigon and the last American to die in Vietnam: http://www.pbs.org/battlefieldvietnam/timeline/index4.html

Timeline of women’s liberation movement, including 1974 pro life rally and 1978 rally to extend ERA: http://novaonline.nvcc.edu/eli/evans/his135/Events/womenslliberation/womensliberation.htm

News Corp. (Fox News parent corporation) donates $1,000,000 to Republican Governor’s Association: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/17/AR2010081704338.html

Every major Republican Presidential candidate for 2012 who isn’t currently in office or named Mitt Romney is on Fox’s payroll:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/opinion/04krugman.html?ref=paulkrugman

New York Times breaks the story of Richard Blumenthal’s false claims that he served in Vietnam: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/nyregion/18blumenthal.html?ref=nyregion

Eliminating Bigotry for a More Perfect Union, Part 3

(Parts 1 & 2 below.)

Anyone who aspires to love his neighbor or love his country should fling bigotry away like a scorpion on the back of his hand.

1. Bigotry’s destructiveness.

Bigotry is wildly destructive. It harms individuals, and it harms the nation.

                    a. Individual harm.

Bigotry harms people socially and in their livelihoods. The law provides few if any remedies for social discrimination. The law provides imperfect remedies for occupational discrimination.

These remedies are costly. And defendants often invent pretexts to justify discrimination. Only the rare employer will admit that he failed to promote a Muslim, or fired her, because she was Muslim. With any foresight and a modicum of cunning, the employer will justify his action based on some employee failing or fault; few employees have none. These obstacles to justice can be overcome, but they make justice more difficult to attain, and sometimes impossible.

Also, bigotry can lead to wrongful conviction. This is true because bigotry toward a person’s race, religion, or sexual orientation can make jurors eager to believe the worst about him. As a longtime lawyer, I know that a even a defendant’s looks can influence jurors, or whether he is substantially overweight. Clearly racial, religious, and like factors can, too.

Some say that the most important right is freedom of speech. Some say that it’s the right of the ballot box. But maybe the most important right is the right to sit on a jury. I’ll be blunt: sometimes a person gets more justice from people of his own race or religion than from people of other races or religions. That’s just reality.

These social, occupational, and penal harms defy the golden rule – a rule anchored in the earliest parts of the Bible. Deuteronomy 10:19 says: "Love ye therefore the stranger, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt."

But instead of the golden rule, nowadays people want to apply a reverse golden rule. People remind us that Baptist churches aren’t welcome in Riyadh. That supposedly justifies opposition to the proposed mosque near the former World Trade Center Twin Towers.

I am less concerned about bigotry’s consequences for those who incite bigotry than about the consequences for their victims. But there are consequences to them, too. Now they may have their day. I do not believe that their day will last forever.

Eric Sevareid, in his final CBS broadcast, said, "There is in the American people a tough, undiminished instinct for what is fair." I think he’s right, but that instinct waxes and wanes. Controversies over mosques on both coasts and in between reflect its waning at this moment in time.

I have faith that this instinct for what is fair will re-surge. And when it does, those who inflamed bigotry will pay a price.

                   b. National consequences.

In a sense, bigotry’s consequence to individuals is a consequence to America, because the individuals are a part of America.

And as a nation, we believe in justice; so, as a nation, we must be appalled at injustice to any part of us.

Also, as injustice broadens, the gap narrows between What Is and some evil What Might Be. Lynching became rare only in the 1930s and 1940s; it declined to about ten a year in the 1930s and three a year in the 1940s. As such, only four generations separate us from the time when lynches became relatively rare. Four generations do not make a practice culturally irretrievable. (I do not imply in any was that there is such thing as a "tolerable" number of lynches.)

About the same number of generations separate us from the World War II internment of American citizens of Japanese ancestry.

I do not take for granted justice, democracy, or the rule of law. History is unpredictable. Hard as it is to remember those times, on September 10, 2001, no one expected that we would spend nine-years-and-counting at war in Afghanistan, and seven-years-plus in Iraq. Because history is unpredictable, we cannot know what circumstances might come that make widespread iniquity arise within our shores.

I can’t predict what apocalyptic circumstances might arise. But nobody can promise that they won’t arise. Therefore, I would like our national morality to be strong and taut to empower us to resist national iniquity, whatever circumstances might arise. But mainstream bigotry implies a lax morality, which would not protect us in truly terrible times.

Between justice as practiced and injustice as feared, I prefer a wide moat. Bigotry narrows the moat.

More immediately, as we become known as an intolerant nation, we risk diminishing the flow of educated, intelligent foreigners to fill positions for which there are insufficient numbers of qualified American candidates. In truth, American depends upon attracting talented scientists and engineers from overseas. We cannot even fill our schools only with qualified American-born candidates. Anything that threatens to diminish the flow of talented foreigners to our schools and companies directly threatens our national well-being.

                    c. International consequences.

I yearn for America to be a beacon to all nations, admired and respected. We cannot be admired or respected if we embrace bigotry. National bigotry dims our prestige in the eyes of any nation worth being respected by.

America hasn't always stood for democracy and justice in her foreign policy. But she has in those times for which I am most proud of her. I yearn to be proud of America. But if we stand for democracy and justice in our foreign policy, we are hypocrites if we embrace bigotry in ourselves. I want America to stand for democracy and justice, and I don’t want America to be a hypocrite among nations.

We need to be powerful in the world. The world is dangerous, and there is safety in power. We can be grateful that our military is more powerful than any the world has ever known. But it makes no sense to rely solely on military might. If we can persuade our international adversaries, we don’t have to engage them in warfare that is costly in blood and treasure. Like military might, persuasion is power.

As persons, we are persuaded by others of goodwill more readily than by persons of conspicuous moral defect. That’s why politics is so occupied with destructive accusations. That’s why politicians are eager to project positive images of themselves. Nations largely are no different.

Therefore, goodwill is a source of power among nations. It makes no sense to slough off a source of national strength. But bigotry undermines our image as a nation of goodwill.

2. Solutions.

The first step to overcome bigotry is recognize that we have a problem with it. I hope that these essays have contributed to that step.

The second step is wanting to overcome it. That means examining the morality of bigotry and its practical consequences. It means evaluating what it means to love our neighbor. It means cultivating a deep concern for our country in this generation and in future generations – in a word, patriotism.

The third step is holding on to the ground we already have – never yielding to popular pressure on this issue. Some politicians have been conspicuously brave in the face of popular opposition to the proposed mosque near the former World Trade Center Twin Towers, for example. New York mayor Michael Bloomberg comes to mind.

Others have yielded to pressure. But we must have faith that the world will turn, and that the innate sense of fairness and justice that Americans have will reassert itself in time. When that happens, that will be the time to reap the rewards of virtue. But that requires patience and the willingness to undertake political risk in the near term. Politicians might take heart that some members of the public admire political courage above conformity with their own position on any given issue. If done with conviction, rowing against the tide can take you to near-term as well as far-off benefits.

Someone once said that righteousness and success go a long way together; but that eventually they go in different directions. When that happens, we learn about our character.

Someone else said that for most of the time, we can muddle along without making hard choices. But times arise when the grey of the everyday world separates into black and white. In those times, hard choices must be made. This might be such a time.

The fourth step is expanding tolerance. The best way to do this is to set a good example. This requires us to be strong in the conviction that tolerance is a virtue. This strength comes from a variety of sources.

Spiritual depth is one source. Earnest spirituality opposes bigotry. I come from a Christian tradition, so I know books on spiritual growth in that tradition. Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth is a modern classic. Dallas Willard’s The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives is also recommended. Don Postema’s Space for God : The Study and Practice of Prayer and Spirituality Study Guide (Bible Way) is good for group study. Foster’s book recommends other books.

Education is another source. Education can take the form of studying other cultures, particularly cultures you would not otherwise be open to. Also, ethnic studies can be valuable. Ethnic-studies departments in colleges and universities should be encouraged and supported for our national well-being.

Language study should not be overlooked. I find myself more interested in people when I try to learn their language. That has been true with learning Spanish. The same was true when I lived in China and spent time learning Mandarin.

I started studying Spanish a few years ago, in my late 40s. My efforts have ebbed and flowed. But over the years I have improved to the point that I am no longer helpless when a Spanish speaker calls my office or drops by. By the way, I have no gift for learning languages, but I do it anyway.

Travel can be a form of education. This is particularly true if you can find a way to engage the locals, instead of sitting in a high-priced hotel where the only local you encounter serves your margarita. Not everybody has the gift of travel. But everybody can learn to do it better. I recommend Alain de Botton’s book The Art of Travel.

Great travel books can shake you out of any seven-cities-in-six-days mentality that you might have, though I don’t want to disparage those kinds of vacations. All travel is good. But even if you will never, never imitate Rory Stewart’s walk across Afghanistan, his book The Places In Between might nudge you to more adventuresome travel, if you have any inclination in that direction.

Good novels from foreign or ethnic or religious authors increase knowledge of other cultures, races, or religions. Foreign cultural, historical, or religious books are valuable to read.

Ditto foreign DVDs.

All of this, of course, is just a beginning.

It’s never inappropriate to quote Lincoln. So this from Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address:

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; . . . – to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

End note:

Where I mention a book, I provide a link to that book on Amazon.com.  This is only for your convenience.  If you are interested in a book, great, but it truly doesn't matter to me where you get it.

Sources:

U-Tube video of Eric Sevareid’s 1977 farewell broadcast: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHGHm8iPeUY

Lynching: http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1979/2/79.02.04.x.html#b

America’s dependence on foreign engineers and scientists: http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/13654/

Eliminating Bigotry for a More Perfect Union, Part 2

(Part 1 below.)

Bigotry against Muslim Americans is headline news, even if the bigotry is not the headline. In contrast, bigotry against Roma makes little news, but it also is not usually recognized as bigotry.

1. Bigotry and Muslim Americans.

Bigotry against Muslim Americans comes from a mix of political calculation and public ignorance. Politicians and pundits exploit ignorance to incite hatred of Muslims. They do this to gain advantage over their political opponents.

                    a. Politically purposeful bigotry.

Politicians and pundits eagerly condemn the planned Muslim mosque in Manhattan near the site of the former World Trade Center. They  assert hateful accusations against Muslim Americans, gaining political capital while our peaceful Muslim neighbors pay the price. They assert that the promoters of this Manhattan mosque are "insensitive" to the victims of 9/11, even though some 9/11 relatives support the mosque, and even though the mosque is intended in part as an interfaith meeting place. They assert without evidence that the mosque is intended to be a terrorist command center.

These politicians, pundits, and most of the public do not distinguish between the responsible, decent Muslims behind the Manhattan mosque and the deeply-evil mass murderers who piloted planes into buildings nine years ago. I discuss other defamations against Muslim Americans in my September 4, 2010 post, "Not Enemies but Friends", in the section called "Wedge issues".

To these cynical politicians and pundits, the Muslim American victims of their political opportunism are mere collateral damage. They victimize Muslims, but to them this is an un-intended but un-important byproduct of their political exploitation of the pain and anger over the events of September 11, 2001. The purpose behind perpetrating hatred of Muslims is the accumulation of political power.

This lingering pain and anger from September 11, 2010 puts most Americans out of sympathy for the rights and well-being of Muslim Americans.  So demagogues enhance their political standing by telling lies about Muslims that the public is eager to believe. And this public anger means that when demagogues denounce Muslims or their freedom to build places of worship, they inflict harm on any adversary who dares to defend Muslims, tolerance, and religious freedom. Any opposing politician or pundit pays a price for appealing to the better angels of our nature.

The political boon of anti-Muslim bigotry goes even further than that. Some eighteen percent of Americans believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim, up from eleven percent in March, 2009. Politicians and pundits disseminate this disinformation hoping to politically damage the President. This is a new incarnation of an oldest, simplest political argument: "He’s not like us." This is the very base of bigotry.

As Republican former Secretary of State Colin Powell stated on Meet the Press, leaders in his own party encourage people to believe that Obama is a Muslim. As Powell points out, this is wrong-headed on two levels. First, there is nothing wrong with being a Muslim; there is no reason that a Muslim child should not be able to grow up to be president. But the accusers insinuate otherwise. Second, Obama is not a Muslim.

                   b. Ignorance as the agent of bigotry.

Eric Sevareid was a television essayist for CBS News. In his 1977 farewell broadcast, he articulated certain self-imposed "rules". Among them: "Not to underestimate the intelligence of the audience and not to overestimate its information." Politicians and pundits know that rule too, not so much honoring the intelligence that Sevareid spoke of, but manipulating the lack of information. They manipulate broad swaths of the American public who never thought about Muslims until planes flew into buildings in New York and Washington; nor learned more about Muslims thereafter; or, if they did, only fitted the information into a template of anger and hatred formed on that day.

Hatred of Muslims as a group is wrong, but I am not completely out of sympathy with my countrymen-and-women who harbor grudges against Muslims. I express this and the reason for it in my August 28, 2010 post, What the Islamic Community Center Controversy Teaches Me about Loving My Country. I also talk about the need for Christian humility among Christians: Muslims are better than we tend to think, and Christians are worse than we tend to think. I note thriving Muslim democracies, and I list relatively recent atrocities committed by Christian countries. I won’t repeat myself here, but if you want to see those positions argued, you know where to go.

On some level we tend to know that it is wrong to judge a group by its most perverse members; we ourselves could not emerge upright from such judgment. But the present political climate makes us overlook that simple truth. Leaders appeal to our baser judgments, counting on a feeble push-back, if any, from a public largely preoccupied with their own anxieties, affairs, and entertainments.

2. Bigotry against Roma.

Roma is the name for the group formerly known as Gypsies.

I’m not aware of national news concerning Roma, like news about African Americans, Latinos, or Muslims. But I have personal knowledge of bigotry against them.

More than other groups that are discriminated against, I find that there is no self-consciousness about holding against Roma the fact that they are Roma. For example, when I was a prosecutor in Alhambra, California, there was a sandwich shop run by Roma. Their sandwiches were good, made with fresh-baked bread. I once invited a detective to go there. He immediately said, "But it’s run by Gypsies – they piss in the bread!" Whether he literally believed this or not, his immediate, un-self-conscious response was a racial put-down. Having almost daily contact with this detective for two years, I never heard him speak that way about any other race or group.

On another occasion, I represented a Roma man in Monterey, California. He was accused of theft; having a loaded firearm in his car; and child endangerment. (The child-endangerment charge was because the children were young, and the gun was loaded and under a seat.)

The theft consisted of money taken for repairing a damaged fender. My client’s repair of the fender was, in the vernacular sense, a "rip-off", because he did a poor repair job. A poor repair job is not a crime, however; but it was treated as such. The officer wrote in his investigation report that this was a scam perpetrated by "Gypsies" all over California. To this day, I have no basis to believe that the officer had actual information to back up that statement; none was stated in the investigation report.

But, true or not, that statement was inappropriate and prejudicial. It was like saying that an African American must have intended to sell the drugs he had (a more serious crime than mere possession) because that is what African Americans do.

Character evidence is frowned upon under California law – generally, in a court of law, you can’t hold against somebody his own prior bad acts. But this was worse than character evidence. This was tarring my client not with his own prior bad acts.  It was tarring him with alleged prior bad acts by others over whom he had no control, and for whom he had no responsibility.

Among the prosecutor, the judge, and me, I was the only one who seemed to perceive the inappropriateness of this statement in the officer’s investigation report. Only after hard bargaining and aggressive argument, I got the theft and child-endangerment charges dropped.

Bigotry against Roma is not inconsequential, even though it is not national news. Hitler persecuted Roma, as he did Jews, Slavs, and homosexuals.

3. Conclusion.

In part 1, I examined bigotry against African Americans and Latinos. Here, I examined bigotry against Muslim Americans and Roma. In part 3, I will discuss how bigotry saps America’s strength and afflicts bigotry’s perpetrators, and what we should do about it.

Sources:

9/11 families who support the Manhattan mosque: http://www.peacefultomorrows.org/

The truth about the promoter of the Manhattan mosque: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/nyregion/22imam.html?_r=1

An article about the promoters for the Manhattan mosque, and the plans concerning it: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/bf1110d8-a5b0-11df-a5b7-00144feabdc0.html

18 percent of Americans think Obama is a Muslim: http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1701/poll-obama-muslim-christian-church-out-of-politics-political-leaders-religious

The complexity of characterizing the "typical" Muslim: an article about the Sufis: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/opinion/17dalrymple.html

An homage to a great, tolerant Muslim elected leader: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704842604574642353284811682.html?KEYWORDS=wahid

YouTube video of John McCain refuting a supporter who calls Obama an "Arab": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzoyADkoFUk

YouTube video of former Secretary of State Collin Powell on calling Obama a Muslim and patriotism among Muslim Americans: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYELqbZAQ4M&feature=related

YouTube video of Eric Sevareid’s 1977 farewell broadcast: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHGHm8iPeUY