More people talk about God than know about God. When it comes to God, we are all, as Marilynne Robinson says, biased toward error.
1. Suffering and the Book of Job.
That’s one of the points of the Book of Job. Job was a righteous man. God loved him. God boasted of him. But God permitted Satan to afflict him. And Satan afflicted him. It was a mauling.
As grief flayed a ruined Job, Job’s friends added to Job’s suffering by pouring the salt of their theology over his raw, wounded spirit. They said that God himself had ruined Job, and that God was in the right. They told Job that it followed that Job was in the wrong. Job defended himself to his friends and to his God.
At the end of the Book of Job, God restores Job. At the end, God addresses Job’s friends. He tells them that they are wrong and Job is right. He commands them to go to Job and offer up a sacrifice of seven bulls and seven rams. God tells them that Job will pray for them, and that God will not deal with them according to their folly, because God will hear the prayers of Job.
2. Richard Mourdock, rape, and the will of God.
Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock said, "[E]ven when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen." Based on this belief, he justifies denying a woman the right to end a pregnancy in a case of rape.
Now, that is not quite blaming the victim; that does not go quite as far as Job’s friends. But it’s not only that Job’s friends judged Job. It’s also that they presumed to tell a person who suffered why he was suffering. In saying what he said, Mourdock sits in the seat of Job’s friends.
But suffering-and-God’s-will is a great mystery. Maybe it’s a mystery that cannot be explained, only known, and only known by experience and reflection.
Everybody should be humble about the suffering of others. That's Job. Certainly, we should be careful about giving to one who suffers the book on suffering.
I’m glad for my suffering. It has made me, by the grace of God, wiser. And it gives me a little knowledge of suffering. But if a friend of mine suffers, I hope that I would have the wisdom and compassion to weep with them, rather then to piously heap on them my pious ideas.
4. Some questions for Mr. Mourdock.
And it’s not the case that Mr. Mourdock’s ideas about God are self-evident. Some questions arise about Mr. Mourdock’s theology. If rape is the will of God, does somebody who talks a would-be rapist out of raping thwart the will of God? Or is the fact that an intention is carried out proof that God willed that act? If that’s true, why would a rapist’s choice be the will of God, but a woman’s choice after rape would not be?
5. Suffering.
I’m going to do the thing I speak against. I’m going to dip into theology of suffering.
The Book of Job notwithstanding, the idea of blame for suffering persists, and it persisted in the time of Jesus. Jesus’s disciples saw a man born blind, and they asked Jesus, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" (John 9:2 (NIV).)
Jesus replied, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him." Then he spat on the ground, made mud with the spit, and pasted it on the blind man’s eyes. Then he told the man to wash the mud in a particular pool. The man gained sight.
This account says tells me that suffering doesn’t call for empty speculation; it calls for mercy and action.
6. Mercy.
Job’s friends put themselves at the mercy of Job and God. Mourdock puts himself at the mercy of rape victims and God. He needs to make his propitiation to God, and he needs to hope for the prayers of victims of rape all over the world and across time. Their pain is not fuel for him to burn under them for their choices.
If those who have been raped, and especially those who have been raped and who have had to make hard choices after being raped – if those women have the good and strong heart to forgive Richard Mourdock and to pray for him, God bless them.
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Monday, October 22, 2012
The Christian Case for Barack Obama
Three Christian principles call for Americans to give Barack Obama four more years.
1. Principle: spirit over technology.
This election presents a clear choice. It's the choice between technology and spirit.
The technocratic candidate is Mitt Romney. He’s the candidate of managerial competence. He proved his managerial competence by making his fortune at Bain Capital, and he promises to bring that same skill-set to the White House. He sloughs off demands for detail and explanation. His answer is: trust me; I know how to do this.
Romney’s history illustrates the triumph of technocratic solutions over spiritual solutions. Here’s a technocratic solution: when you travel to Canada with the family dog, put the dog in a cage on the roof of your station wagon. If distress gives the dog diarrhea, drive into a service station, hose off the dog, and put him back on the roof, still in the wind but now wet.
Barack Obama is the candidate of compassion. Compassion is spiritual. Compassion is passing a law so that sick people don’t die because they are poor, and so that sickness doesn’t send middle-class people to bankruptcy because they couldn’t get insurance because of a pre-existing condition. Compassion is pushing to extend unemployment insurance for the out-of-work. Compassion is making sure that women get equal pay for equal work. Compassion is spending money to educate Americans for high-skill, high-pay jobs. Compassion is risking money to save the American auto industry, to save the livelihoods of many.
2. Truth over lies.
All campaigns step on the truth. But one of the presidential campaigns builds upon a core of falsehood.
The Republican National Convention dedicated a day of its three-day convention to the exploitation of Obama’s statement "If you have a business – you didn’t build that."
I’ve listened to Obama's speech. I’ve read transcripts of that comment and the words that surround it. And so has the Romney campaign. I know and they know that the "that" in that statement was infrastructure and other benefits that businesses get from government. These benefits permit businesses to thrive. These benefits include roads to make shipping easy and efficient. They include public schools that make an educated workforce.
Anyone who listens to any significant chunk of Obama’s speech instead of the famous sliver of it knows what the president really said. The Romney campaign trusted that most people had heard only the exacto-knifed sliver of that speech. The Romney campaign showed the emptiness at its core when it built a day of the RNC convention upon a lie.
3. Principle: the last shall be first, and the first shall be last.
Everyone should want a president who has known hardship. Everyone should be suspicious of a candidate who has led a gilded life. With a candidate who has known hardship, we know that when we go through hard times, he will understand. We can trust that from that understanding action will come.
So it’s a plus that Barack Obama’s father abandoned his family when Obama was a toddler. It’s a plus that his mother was on food stamps for a time. It’s a plus that he made his own way through college. It makes his climb to heights more impressive, but it also gives us reassurance that he knows not only the view from the top down, but the view from the bottom up.
To Barack Obama, hardship is not something he grudgingly studied in an assigned Charles Dickens novel, which he then put back on the shelf.
If you haven’t known hardship, you don’t see problems the same way as someone who has known hardship. If masses of people are losing their homes, that might be alright with you, as it was to Romney. His "solution": let the market bottom out, and have investors buy up homes at a bargain. The people who used to have the dignity of their own homes could pay rent to the investors who raked in their homes at bargain prices.
If you haven’t known hardship, you don’t risk taxpayer money to save the auto industry and to save jobs, as Obama did.
If you haven’t known hardship, you don’t commit money to making educational opportunities for people so that Americans can take the high-skill, high-pay jobs of the future, like Obama did. Your education model is Texas, where the guiding principle is thrift, and the result is a population prepared for low-skill labor.
4. Christians: vote your values!
If you believe in the spiritual over the technocratic, this election should be easy for you. If you believe in truth over lies, your decision is made. If you believe that a leader is stronger for having lived through both good times and bad, you have a candidate.
1. Principle: spirit over technology.
This election presents a clear choice. It's the choice between technology and spirit.
The technocratic candidate is Mitt Romney. He’s the candidate of managerial competence. He proved his managerial competence by making his fortune at Bain Capital, and he promises to bring that same skill-set to the White House. He sloughs off demands for detail and explanation. His answer is: trust me; I know how to do this.
Romney’s history illustrates the triumph of technocratic solutions over spiritual solutions. Here’s a technocratic solution: when you travel to Canada with the family dog, put the dog in a cage on the roof of your station wagon. If distress gives the dog diarrhea, drive into a service station, hose off the dog, and put him back on the roof, still in the wind but now wet.
Barack Obama is the candidate of compassion. Compassion is spiritual. Compassion is passing a law so that sick people don’t die because they are poor, and so that sickness doesn’t send middle-class people to bankruptcy because they couldn’t get insurance because of a pre-existing condition. Compassion is pushing to extend unemployment insurance for the out-of-work. Compassion is making sure that women get equal pay for equal work. Compassion is spending money to educate Americans for high-skill, high-pay jobs. Compassion is risking money to save the American auto industry, to save the livelihoods of many.
2. Truth over lies.
All campaigns step on the truth. But one of the presidential campaigns builds upon a core of falsehood.
The Republican National Convention dedicated a day of its three-day convention to the exploitation of Obama’s statement "If you have a business – you didn’t build that."
I’ve listened to Obama's speech. I’ve read transcripts of that comment and the words that surround it. And so has the Romney campaign. I know and they know that the "that" in that statement was infrastructure and other benefits that businesses get from government. These benefits permit businesses to thrive. These benefits include roads to make shipping easy and efficient. They include public schools that make an educated workforce.
Anyone who listens to any significant chunk of Obama’s speech instead of the famous sliver of it knows what the president really said. The Romney campaign trusted that most people had heard only the exacto-knifed sliver of that speech. The Romney campaign showed the emptiness at its core when it built a day of the RNC convention upon a lie.
3. Principle: the last shall be first, and the first shall be last.
Everyone should want a president who has known hardship. Everyone should be suspicious of a candidate who has led a gilded life. With a candidate who has known hardship, we know that when we go through hard times, he will understand. We can trust that from that understanding action will come.
So it’s a plus that Barack Obama’s father abandoned his family when Obama was a toddler. It’s a plus that his mother was on food stamps for a time. It’s a plus that he made his own way through college. It makes his climb to heights more impressive, but it also gives us reassurance that he knows not only the view from the top down, but the view from the bottom up.
To Barack Obama, hardship is not something he grudgingly studied in an assigned Charles Dickens novel, which he then put back on the shelf.
If you haven’t known hardship, you don’t see problems the same way as someone who has known hardship. If masses of people are losing their homes, that might be alright with you, as it was to Romney. His "solution": let the market bottom out, and have investors buy up homes at a bargain. The people who used to have the dignity of their own homes could pay rent to the investors who raked in their homes at bargain prices.
If you haven’t known hardship, you don’t risk taxpayer money to save the auto industry and to save jobs, as Obama did.
If you haven’t known hardship, you don’t commit money to making educational opportunities for people so that Americans can take the high-skill, high-pay jobs of the future, like Obama did. Your education model is Texas, where the guiding principle is thrift, and the result is a population prepared for low-skill labor.
4. Christians: vote your values!
If you believe in the spiritual over the technocratic, this election should be easy for you. If you believe in truth over lies, your decision is made. If you believe that a leader is stronger for having lived through both good times and bad, you have a candidate.
Sunday, October 21, 2012
The Stoning of Shelomith’s Son
If people think of the biblical Book of Leviticus, they usually don’t think of love. Leviticus, after all, is the book of the Bible that says that the penalty for killing a person is death. It is literally the book of eye-for-an-eye.
Yet it is also the book where the command first appears to "love your neighbor as yourself." It commands kind and fair treatment of the aliens among the Israelites. There is a commandment not to pick clean a field, but to leave some remainders of its grain or fruit for aliens and the poor to glean.
And there is a story that at first seems to illustrate harshness. But it also a sorrowful story of love.
1. The story of Shelomith’s son, part 1.
The story involves a man who in a fight blasphemed against God. Here is the story from Leviticus 24:
This might seem like a straightforward tale of crime and punishment. But it’s not. It solicits compassion from the reader.
That’s true for a couple of reasons. There’s enough detail in this story that a thoughtful reader can see the side of the nameless blasphemer. For example, we know that his father was Egyptian. Entering into this tale with imagination, we can see what his life might have been like among the Israelites.
He was the son of one of the oppressors from whom God rescued Israel. How much was he accepted by his mother’s people? How much was he an outsider? How much was daily provocation a catalyst of the fight that he got into?
I believe that when the Bible gives a detail, it gives it for a reason. So I believe that the story suggests that this unnamed man’s life was hard, his life was lonely, he felt like an outsider, and the fight might not have been completely his fault.
And because he was an outsider, he might have believed that the God of Israel was not his God. At least, he might have thought that God was not his God like God was the God of the insiders who made him feel like less than them.
So in his rage he was provoked to fatal speech about that God. Again, the otherwise unimportant details of this story invite the reader to see why this hot-blooded man might have blasphemed foolishly.
There’s more. Aside from Moses, one person in that story is named. The name of the blasphemer is lost to memory. The name of the man he fought is lost to memory. The names of the witnesses to the fight and to the stoning are lost to memory. The names of the ones who threw the stones are lost to memory. But we know the name of the blasphemer’s mother; her name was Shelomith.
There was a point to giving her name. By naming her, and by naming her alone, Leviticus directs the reader to think on her. It’s like a picture, and everyone is shown in black-and-white except for Shelomith, who is shown in color. This focus on her invites us to weigh her response to this tragedy.
Her husband, the Egyptian, very well might have stayed in the comfort of Egypt, rather than to pack his bags with the slaves. If that’s true, then it might have been that Shelomith's future support and welfare depended largely on her son. The loss of him would have been everything to her, even beyond the natural love she had for her son.
So this is not a simple morality tale of just deserts. It’s a tale of sorrow.
2. The story of Shelomith’s son: Part 2.
This is an exercise in imagination, about the stoning of Shelomith’s son.
Shelomith’s son missed his father. His father had said, "Why should I carry my property in a cart with slaves into the wilderness instead of eating melons in my own land?" But Shelomith’s son went with his mother.
But if he was his mother’s son, he was also the son of an Egyptian, and it was rare for him to have friends among his mother’s people. For that matter, his mother too was slighted for her marriage to an Egyptian. People said, "Were the men among her own people hiding down a well? Did she have to marry with a cock that broke our backs?"
Shelomith’s son and his mother were kind to each other. Few others were.
Shelomith’s son herded goats. On this day, he was bringing his goats back from watering them. He suffered the usual taunts. The taunts were about himself, about his father, about his mother.
Close to his tent, he passed one of his usual provokers. The words stung. They always stung. Every time he took an insult and did not respond, he felt a little of his manhood slip away.
A kinsman of his mother was nearby. He was big, beefy, handsome, and he was younger that Shelomiths’s son. Shelomith’s son always assumed that this kinsman would get a good marriage. His family was well regarded, unlike his own.
The kinsman stepped beside Shelomith’s son and put his hand on his shoulder. He told the taunter to settle down – to leave alone this son of his kinswoman.
Shelomith’s son eyed his kinsman. However the kinsman meant his intervention, to Shelomith’s son it was condescension. It was a pronouncement that Shelomith’s son needed to be defended by his big, beefy, handsome, young kinsman.
Shelomith’s son slapped his kinsman. He slapped him across the face.
Shelomith’s son discovered that that felt good. He tried to do it again, but his kinsman pushed away the second slap. And he pushed away every slap after that that Selomith’s son tried to land on him.
Finally, the kinsman raised his fist as if he were going to strike Shelomith’s son. When Shelomith’s son ducked his head to avoid the blow, the kinsman locked his strong arm around Shelomith’s son’s head. Shelomith’s son wrestled furiously to escape, but his kinsman was too big and strong. A crowd gathered. Finally, Shelomith’s son stopped struggling. Then his kinsman pushed him to the ground.
Shelomith’s son lost any remaining dignity when he landed first on his buttocks and then on his back. His head struck a fist-sized rock, hurting him further.
He clambered to his feet. He shouted, "I spit on your God! I spit in the face of your God!"
The crowd erupted. Shelomith’s son suddenly was afraid. The crowd surged at him and grabbed him. He couldn’t move. Then they bound his hands and feet and lay him on his stomach.
They carried him to Moses. Shelomith’s son waited on his face. Then Moses pronounced judgment. The crowed carried Shelomith’s son, still bound, out of the camp.
There, he lay on his back surrounded by many. He could see faces. Some were angry. Some were glad. Some were grim. Some were blank.
He saw his kinsman. His kinsman’s face was sorrow.
Back in the crowd, he caught a glimpse of his mother. Compared to his kinsman, her face was a mirror of deeper sorrow. And Shelomith’s son knew that she could not save him; nor, in years to come, could he protect her or comfort her.
Then the stones came.
3. The implications of the stoning of Shelomith’s son.
I believe that we are supposed to feel compassion for Shelomith and her son.
In times to come, we would see this compassion in Jesus. Men of high position would wonder aggressively why, if he was a righteous man, he spent time with sinners. Simon the Pharisee would wonder why, if Jesus were a prophet, he permitted an immoral woman to bathe his feet with tears and wash them with her hair.
Jesus was invited to condone the stoning of the women caught in adultery. He saved her life; then he forgave her.
Sometimes I look at people I know with the eyes of Simon the Pharisee. As I judge them, these people exasperate me. The story of the stoning of Shelomith’s son reminds me to have compassion. It is compassion that Jesus taught. These are people he died for.
Salvation is a matter of high stakes. The future of humankind and every human is determined by choices people make from the beginning of history to the end. The ultimate choice was made by Jesus, but the Bible from beginning to end is a story of choices.
In the story of the stoning of Shelomith’s son, we see that choices have consequences. We also see compassion. It is a story of sorrow, but in that story love is the other side of sorrow.
Yet it is also the book where the command first appears to "love your neighbor as yourself." It commands kind and fair treatment of the aliens among the Israelites. There is a commandment not to pick clean a field, but to leave some remainders of its grain or fruit for aliens and the poor to glean.
And there is a story that at first seems to illustrate harshness. But it also a sorrowful story of love.
1. The story of Shelomith’s son, part 1.
The story involves a man who in a fight blasphemed against God. Here is the story from Leviticus 24:
10 Now the son of an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father went out among the Israelites, and a fight broke out in the camp between him and an Israelite. 11 The son of the Israelite woman blasphemed the Name with a curse; so they brought him to Moses. (His mother’s name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri the Danite.) 12 They put him in custody until the will of the Lord should be made clear to them.
13 Then the Lord said to Moses: 14 "Take the blasphemer outside the camp. All those who heard him are to lay their hands on his head, and the entire assembly is to stone him. [NIV.]The man was stoned to death.
This might seem like a straightforward tale of crime and punishment. But it’s not. It solicits compassion from the reader.
That’s true for a couple of reasons. There’s enough detail in this story that a thoughtful reader can see the side of the nameless blasphemer. For example, we know that his father was Egyptian. Entering into this tale with imagination, we can see what his life might have been like among the Israelites.
He was the son of one of the oppressors from whom God rescued Israel. How much was he accepted by his mother’s people? How much was he an outsider? How much was daily provocation a catalyst of the fight that he got into?
I believe that when the Bible gives a detail, it gives it for a reason. So I believe that the story suggests that this unnamed man’s life was hard, his life was lonely, he felt like an outsider, and the fight might not have been completely his fault.
And because he was an outsider, he might have believed that the God of Israel was not his God. At least, he might have thought that God was not his God like God was the God of the insiders who made him feel like less than them.
So in his rage he was provoked to fatal speech about that God. Again, the otherwise unimportant details of this story invite the reader to see why this hot-blooded man might have blasphemed foolishly.
There’s more. Aside from Moses, one person in that story is named. The name of the blasphemer is lost to memory. The name of the man he fought is lost to memory. The names of the witnesses to the fight and to the stoning are lost to memory. The names of the ones who threw the stones are lost to memory. But we know the name of the blasphemer’s mother; her name was Shelomith.
There was a point to giving her name. By naming her, and by naming her alone, Leviticus directs the reader to think on her. It’s like a picture, and everyone is shown in black-and-white except for Shelomith, who is shown in color. This focus on her invites us to weigh her response to this tragedy.
Her husband, the Egyptian, very well might have stayed in the comfort of Egypt, rather than to pack his bags with the slaves. If that’s true, then it might have been that Shelomith's future support and welfare depended largely on her son. The loss of him would have been everything to her, even beyond the natural love she had for her son.
So this is not a simple morality tale of just deserts. It’s a tale of sorrow.
2. The story of Shelomith’s son: Part 2.
This is an exercise in imagination, about the stoning of Shelomith’s son.
Shelomith’s son missed his father. His father had said, "Why should I carry my property in a cart with slaves into the wilderness instead of eating melons in my own land?" But Shelomith’s son went with his mother.
But if he was his mother’s son, he was also the son of an Egyptian, and it was rare for him to have friends among his mother’s people. For that matter, his mother too was slighted for her marriage to an Egyptian. People said, "Were the men among her own people hiding down a well? Did she have to marry with a cock that broke our backs?"
Shelomith’s son and his mother were kind to each other. Few others were.
Shelomith’s son herded goats. On this day, he was bringing his goats back from watering them. He suffered the usual taunts. The taunts were about himself, about his father, about his mother.
Close to his tent, he passed one of his usual provokers. The words stung. They always stung. Every time he took an insult and did not respond, he felt a little of his manhood slip away.
A kinsman of his mother was nearby. He was big, beefy, handsome, and he was younger that Shelomiths’s son. Shelomith’s son always assumed that this kinsman would get a good marriage. His family was well regarded, unlike his own.
The kinsman stepped beside Shelomith’s son and put his hand on his shoulder. He told the taunter to settle down – to leave alone this son of his kinswoman.
Shelomith’s son eyed his kinsman. However the kinsman meant his intervention, to Shelomith’s son it was condescension. It was a pronouncement that Shelomith’s son needed to be defended by his big, beefy, handsome, young kinsman.
Shelomith’s son slapped his kinsman. He slapped him across the face.
Shelomith’s son discovered that that felt good. He tried to do it again, but his kinsman pushed away the second slap. And he pushed away every slap after that that Selomith’s son tried to land on him.
Finally, the kinsman raised his fist as if he were going to strike Shelomith’s son. When Shelomith’s son ducked his head to avoid the blow, the kinsman locked his strong arm around Shelomith’s son’s head. Shelomith’s son wrestled furiously to escape, but his kinsman was too big and strong. A crowd gathered. Finally, Shelomith’s son stopped struggling. Then his kinsman pushed him to the ground.
Shelomith’s son lost any remaining dignity when he landed first on his buttocks and then on his back. His head struck a fist-sized rock, hurting him further.
He clambered to his feet. He shouted, "I spit on your God! I spit in the face of your God!"
The crowd erupted. Shelomith’s son suddenly was afraid. The crowd surged at him and grabbed him. He couldn’t move. Then they bound his hands and feet and lay him on his stomach.
They carried him to Moses. Shelomith’s son waited on his face. Then Moses pronounced judgment. The crowed carried Shelomith’s son, still bound, out of the camp.
There, he lay on his back surrounded by many. He could see faces. Some were angry. Some were glad. Some were grim. Some were blank.
He saw his kinsman. His kinsman’s face was sorrow.
Back in the crowd, he caught a glimpse of his mother. Compared to his kinsman, her face was a mirror of deeper sorrow. And Shelomith’s son knew that she could not save him; nor, in years to come, could he protect her or comfort her.
Then the stones came.
3. The implications of the stoning of Shelomith’s son.
I believe that we are supposed to feel compassion for Shelomith and her son.
In times to come, we would see this compassion in Jesus. Men of high position would wonder aggressively why, if he was a righteous man, he spent time with sinners. Simon the Pharisee would wonder why, if Jesus were a prophet, he permitted an immoral woman to bathe his feet with tears and wash them with her hair.
Jesus was invited to condone the stoning of the women caught in adultery. He saved her life; then he forgave her.
Sometimes I look at people I know with the eyes of Simon the Pharisee. As I judge them, these people exasperate me. The story of the stoning of Shelomith’s son reminds me to have compassion. It is compassion that Jesus taught. These are people he died for.
Salvation is a matter of high stakes. The future of humankind and every human is determined by choices people make from the beginning of history to the end. The ultimate choice was made by Jesus, but the Bible from beginning to end is a story of choices.
In the story of the stoning of Shelomith’s son, we see that choices have consequences. We also see compassion. It is a story of sorrow, but in that story love is the other side of sorrow.
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Why I Pray
1. Without hope.
For over a decade, I believed that I was lost to God. I won’t describe the whole reason for that. But one sliver of the reason was that a voice without a body told me that I was going to hell.
I’ve had a history of hearing voices, and in past decades I was hospitalized for a disorder of the mind that relates to hearing voices. But now that I’m in my right mind, one of the puzzles of my life has been to sort my experiences from when I was homeless and fleeing a vast satanic conspiracy. I put my supernatural experiences from that time into piles. I try to discern what was from God, what was from madness, and what was from evil.
Even as that voice shattered me, I didn’t believe that it came from God; I believed that it was demonic. But I believed that voice because what it said mirrored the upheaval that I had at that moment experienced for weeks and months, and it matched what I saw about myself as I looked back at my life.
In the years after I heard that demonic voice, I would sometimes dream that God had forgiven me, and that he had welcomed me into his good grace. In those dreams I was overjoyed. Nothing else in my life has made me that happy. But then I would wake up, and I would not believe the dream. I groaned under the weight of that hopelessness.
For most of this decade-plus of heaviness, I could not bear to read the Bible in any depth. I could not bear to step inside a church. I could not pray; prayer felt like trespassing.
2. Hopeful.
Within the last two years, I’ve taken steps back to hope. The journey back started with loneliness: I wanted to date. My computer dating service seemed to match me up with Christians. This was a problem. One beautiful woman rejected me after I explained to her my dismal beliefs about myself. I had to confess them to her. I couldn’t build a relationship on pretense about who I was.
I started going to a church so that at least I wouldn’t have to explain to these Christian women why I was un-churched. The teaching at that church was almost always very good, and it got me re-interested in scripture. At first, my reading was topical – I would search the Bible on a topic when the teaching had provoked my curiosity about it. Eventually, I started reading the Bible more methodically. I started reading it to read every book from Genesis to Revelation, as I’d done several times when I was young.
In the meantime, I changed churches. The change came with a blessing.
In my new church, which is Episcopalian, we celebrate communion every Sunday. For months, I didn’t take communion. This was because I remembered reading that it is a poor idea to take communion when you aren’t right with God. And I still felt outside of God’s grace.
But that changed. The story of the prodigal son affected me. I came to believe that I was the prodigal son. I was a man who had squandered God’s blessings and God’s gifts, but, like the prodigal, I came to my senses and made the long journey home. I believed that I could be welcomed back like the prodigal.
One Sunday, I went forward to take communion. When I returned to my pew, I had something like a vision. Looking up at the architecture of the church, I had a sense of its alive-ness – its alive-ness through generations of believers who had worshiped there and in the wider Episcopalian church, of whom I was now a part. I strain to put into words a vision-like experience that came without words.
I’ve described the moment when I heard a voice that convinced me that I was lost. The lead-up to that voice was long, and it came like pronouncement of guilt and sentence after trial. The lead-up to my vision-like experience that caused me to believe in God’s mercy toward me also was long. But it was like a verdict of acquittal.
3. Hope, not assurance.
I don’t believe that my salvation is a sure thing. I accept what the apostle Peter says, that salvation is something that we grow into. (1 Peter 2:2.) This is not the teaching of my former church; it is not mainstream in modern America. But it accords with my reading of the Bible, and it’s supported by other reasons personal to me.
4. The fruit of hope.
Sometimes I marvel that I don’t rejoice more for having the belief in sure damnation lifted from me. And it’s true that, intellectually, I realize that any trauma that I might suffer will be more bearable because of my new hope. This has yet to be tested by adversity.
But my spiritual life now flows as if a dam has burst. I have zeal in my spiritual life – the zeal of someone who thought that he was lost to God, but who has discovered unexpectedly that that isn’t so.
I study the Bible at length. I read, generally, twelve chapters a day.
And I pray. I think that I pray a lot by most standards.
When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God is an excellent study of the admirable Vineyard Christian Fellowship Church. Author and anthropologist T.M. Luhrmann tells that Vineyard members are encouraged to pray for at least half-an-hour every day. Some do, some don’t. Some pray more. Prof. Luhrmann describes a woman who is admired for her ability in prayer; that woman prays for three hours a day.
At first, I would interleave my prayer with my Bible study: read a chapter, then pray for five minutes or so, then read another chapter, etc.
Now I study the Bible and pray in discrete chunks of time. I read three chapters in the morning, and then pray for half-an-hour. I read nine chapters at night, and then pray for an hour to an hour-and-a-half. My evening goal is an hour; usually I go longer.
This hasn’t been going on for very long, but already I sense changes.
Some changes are physical. At first, I prayed largely in my chair. I couldn’t bear to kneel for the whole time of prayer. My legs couldn’t take it. They can now. Part of the reason for that is that I’ve learned to shift kneeling positions. Another reason is that my knees and ligaments and ankles have better stamina from practice.
Some changes are changes to how I pray. I’m learning. I used to check my watch often to see how long I had prayed and how long I had left to reach my goal. (And I said "sorry" to God for watching the clock in the middle of this manifestation of his grace to me – the fact that I could pray.) I watch the clock much less now. (Sometimes I still apologize when I do.)
I learned about ACTS from Prof. Luhrmann’s book. ACTS stands for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. Some teachers teach that those are the four components of prayer. At one time, I tried to divide my time of prayer into four chunks devoted to each of those categories. I still use ACTS, but flexibly. I go among those elements in my time of prayer.
Lately, the C in ACTS has also meant Conversation. I talk to God about things that happened during the day and about parts of the Bible that I don’t get.
Sometimes, the S stands for Silence. I wait in silence for some guidance from God about what to pray for and how to pray. This time of silence is normally brief.
Sometimes I remember hymns in my heart as I pay. Sometimes I sing them out loud.
Sometimes, I pray the same prayers that I have prayed before, pretty much in the same way. More recently, I worship God and pray in new ways for my church, my president, my relatives, my friends, my clients, strangers, enemies, and myself. I pray for the living and the dead.
Bible study is important to my prayers. The Bible gives me ideas about what to pray and how to pray.
5. Gratitude.
I’ve been blessed. I’ve known hopelessness; this new hope is God’s grace, and it is a wonder.
I can look back on my lost years and see God’s grace in them. They have made me more grateful and they have grown my faith and my knowledge of God.
James 4:8 says "Come near to God and he will come near to you." (NIV) In Sunday worship and in my private devotions, I strive to come near to God, trusting that he will come near to me.
For over a decade, I believed that I was lost to God. I won’t describe the whole reason for that. But one sliver of the reason was that a voice without a body told me that I was going to hell.
I’ve had a history of hearing voices, and in past decades I was hospitalized for a disorder of the mind that relates to hearing voices. But now that I’m in my right mind, one of the puzzles of my life has been to sort my experiences from when I was homeless and fleeing a vast satanic conspiracy. I put my supernatural experiences from that time into piles. I try to discern what was from God, what was from madness, and what was from evil.
Even as that voice shattered me, I didn’t believe that it came from God; I believed that it was demonic. But I believed that voice because what it said mirrored the upheaval that I had at that moment experienced for weeks and months, and it matched what I saw about myself as I looked back at my life.
In the years after I heard that demonic voice, I would sometimes dream that God had forgiven me, and that he had welcomed me into his good grace. In those dreams I was overjoyed. Nothing else in my life has made me that happy. But then I would wake up, and I would not believe the dream. I groaned under the weight of that hopelessness.
For most of this decade-plus of heaviness, I could not bear to read the Bible in any depth. I could not bear to step inside a church. I could not pray; prayer felt like trespassing.
2. Hopeful.
Within the last two years, I’ve taken steps back to hope. The journey back started with loneliness: I wanted to date. My computer dating service seemed to match me up with Christians. This was a problem. One beautiful woman rejected me after I explained to her my dismal beliefs about myself. I had to confess them to her. I couldn’t build a relationship on pretense about who I was.
I started going to a church so that at least I wouldn’t have to explain to these Christian women why I was un-churched. The teaching at that church was almost always very good, and it got me re-interested in scripture. At first, my reading was topical – I would search the Bible on a topic when the teaching had provoked my curiosity about it. Eventually, I started reading the Bible more methodically. I started reading it to read every book from Genesis to Revelation, as I’d done several times when I was young.
In the meantime, I changed churches. The change came with a blessing.
In my new church, which is Episcopalian, we celebrate communion every Sunday. For months, I didn’t take communion. This was because I remembered reading that it is a poor idea to take communion when you aren’t right with God. And I still felt outside of God’s grace.
But that changed. The story of the prodigal son affected me. I came to believe that I was the prodigal son. I was a man who had squandered God’s blessings and God’s gifts, but, like the prodigal, I came to my senses and made the long journey home. I believed that I could be welcomed back like the prodigal.
One Sunday, I went forward to take communion. When I returned to my pew, I had something like a vision. Looking up at the architecture of the church, I had a sense of its alive-ness – its alive-ness through generations of believers who had worshiped there and in the wider Episcopalian church, of whom I was now a part. I strain to put into words a vision-like experience that came without words.
I’ve described the moment when I heard a voice that convinced me that I was lost. The lead-up to that voice was long, and it came like pronouncement of guilt and sentence after trial. The lead-up to my vision-like experience that caused me to believe in God’s mercy toward me also was long. But it was like a verdict of acquittal.
3. Hope, not assurance.
I don’t believe that my salvation is a sure thing. I accept what the apostle Peter says, that salvation is something that we grow into. (1 Peter 2:2.) This is not the teaching of my former church; it is not mainstream in modern America. But it accords with my reading of the Bible, and it’s supported by other reasons personal to me.
4. The fruit of hope.
Sometimes I marvel that I don’t rejoice more for having the belief in sure damnation lifted from me. And it’s true that, intellectually, I realize that any trauma that I might suffer will be more bearable because of my new hope. This has yet to be tested by adversity.
But my spiritual life now flows as if a dam has burst. I have zeal in my spiritual life – the zeal of someone who thought that he was lost to God, but who has discovered unexpectedly that that isn’t so.
I study the Bible at length. I read, generally, twelve chapters a day.
And I pray. I think that I pray a lot by most standards.
When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God is an excellent study of the admirable Vineyard Christian Fellowship Church. Author and anthropologist T.M. Luhrmann tells that Vineyard members are encouraged to pray for at least half-an-hour every day. Some do, some don’t. Some pray more. Prof. Luhrmann describes a woman who is admired for her ability in prayer; that woman prays for three hours a day.
At first, I would interleave my prayer with my Bible study: read a chapter, then pray for five minutes or so, then read another chapter, etc.
Now I study the Bible and pray in discrete chunks of time. I read three chapters in the morning, and then pray for half-an-hour. I read nine chapters at night, and then pray for an hour to an hour-and-a-half. My evening goal is an hour; usually I go longer.
This hasn’t been going on for very long, but already I sense changes.
Some changes are physical. At first, I prayed largely in my chair. I couldn’t bear to kneel for the whole time of prayer. My legs couldn’t take it. They can now. Part of the reason for that is that I’ve learned to shift kneeling positions. Another reason is that my knees and ligaments and ankles have better stamina from practice.
Some changes are changes to how I pray. I’m learning. I used to check my watch often to see how long I had prayed and how long I had left to reach my goal. (And I said "sorry" to God for watching the clock in the middle of this manifestation of his grace to me – the fact that I could pray.) I watch the clock much less now. (Sometimes I still apologize when I do.)
I learned about ACTS from Prof. Luhrmann’s book. ACTS stands for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. Some teachers teach that those are the four components of prayer. At one time, I tried to divide my time of prayer into four chunks devoted to each of those categories. I still use ACTS, but flexibly. I go among those elements in my time of prayer.
Lately, the C in ACTS has also meant Conversation. I talk to God about things that happened during the day and about parts of the Bible that I don’t get.
Sometimes, the S stands for Silence. I wait in silence for some guidance from God about what to pray for and how to pray. This time of silence is normally brief.
Sometimes I remember hymns in my heart as I pay. Sometimes I sing them out loud.
Sometimes, I pray the same prayers that I have prayed before, pretty much in the same way. More recently, I worship God and pray in new ways for my church, my president, my relatives, my friends, my clients, strangers, enemies, and myself. I pray for the living and the dead.
Bible study is important to my prayers. The Bible gives me ideas about what to pray and how to pray.
5. Gratitude.
I’ve been blessed. I’ve known hopelessness; this new hope is God’s grace, and it is a wonder.
I can look back on my lost years and see God’s grace in them. They have made me more grateful and they have grown my faith and my knowledge of God.
James 4:8 says "Come near to God and he will come near to you." (NIV) In Sunday worship and in my private devotions, I strive to come near to God, trusting that he will come near to me.
Sunday, October 7, 2012
A Non-Partisan Prayer for Victory in the Presidential Election
Lord,
1.
Let the one win this election who loves you better,
Let the one win this election who needs you more.
Let the one win this election who hears you better,
Let the one win this election who obeys you more.
2.
Let the one win this election who is more humble.
Let the one win this election who is more truthful.
Let the one win this election who will be guided by you.
Let the one win this election who honors you in his heart.
3.
Let the one win this election who will do best for this country and for the people in it.
Let the one win this election who loves us more.
Let the one win this election who is wiser.
Let the one win this election who does not trust in his wisdom.
4.
Let your hand be upon the winner,
To guide his stewardship of his office.
Give him generosity toward his opponents,
Empower him to unite us in common affection.
5.
Let your hand be upon the one who does not win,
To give him strength,
To accept your will in this election,
That your grace may be sufficient for him.
1.
Let the one win this election who loves you better,
Let the one win this election who needs you more.
Let the one win this election who hears you better,
Let the one win this election who obeys you more.
2.
Let the one win this election who is more humble.
Let the one win this election who is more truthful.
Let the one win this election who will be guided by you.
Let the one win this election who honors you in his heart.
3.
Let the one win this election who will do best for this country and for the people in it.
Let the one win this election who loves us more.
Let the one win this election who is wiser.
Let the one win this election who does not trust in his wisdom.
4.
Let your hand be upon the winner,
To guide his stewardship of his office.
Give him generosity toward his opponents,
Empower him to unite us in common affection.
5.
Let your hand be upon the one who does not win,
To give him strength,
To accept your will in this election,
That your grace may be sufficient for him.
Killing
A single case dictates my opinion about the death penalty.
The victim was a devout Christian, a faithful church leader. He was killed for preaching.
One of the murderers did not directly participate in the killing. But he had a role in the killing, and he approved of it. That’s the very definition of aiding and abetting. As an aider and abettor, he was as guilty in the killing as the men who crushed the victim’s skull.
The victim’s name was Stephen. He was the first Christian martyr. You can read about him in the Book of Acts. The man who was keeping the coats of the men who killed Stephen and approved of the killing was named Saul. Now he is better known as the Apostle Paul.
After the killing of Stephen, Paul was on the road to Damascus to imprison Christians. Jesus appeared to him as a voice and as a literally-blinding light. Paul spent the rest of his life spreading Christianity.
God could have destroyed Paul. Instead, he changed his heart.
1. Barabbas freed.
The murderer Barabbas was a notorious renegade who was released instead of Jesus by Pontius Pilate. Pilate had given the crowd the choice to release Jesus instead.
Barabbas’s name means "son of the father". He is the subject of a short novel by Swedish writer Par Lagerkvist. In that novel, Barabbas is curious about Jesus. He seeks out Jesus’s disciples. But though he wants to, he cannot understand, and he cannot believe. He is crucified in Rome.
I have heard that Barabbas is a moving novel. Maybe its story is true. We cannot know because history has swallowed up Barabbas, and his real fate is known only to God.
It offends no Christian notion to see the hand of God in the release of Barabbas in the place of Jesus. His release is a metaphor for Jesus suffering judgment in our place. But that metaphor exists only because Barabbas was released in a living act of clemency brought about by the death of Jesus. And clemency is what this essay is about.
2. Paul killed.
The fate of Paul is better known. After spending his life after his conversion planting and nurturing churches and writing much of the New Testament, he was falsely accused, he appealed to the emperor, and he was sent to Rome in chains. Tradition has it that he was beheaded there. His Christian walk in this world began and ended with killings: the killing of Stephen at the beginning and his own death by the Romans as a supposed lawbreaker at the end.
3. The death penalty abused.
The accounts of Stephen and Paul are the stories of innocent men killed. Innocent me are killed by the state today. For all of the procedural safeguard, for all of the due process, innocent people still are sent to death row. DNA testing has proved hundreds of men on death row were innocent.
And those are just the cases in which there were DNA samples to examine. There were and are cases where the DNA was destroyed, or where there never was DNA to examine. I assume that innocense occurs in non-DNA cases at the same rate as in DNA cases. Among the innocent in non-DNA cases, the criminal justice system has buried its mistakes, or it will likely do so.
4. The killing of Jesus.
Nor are the wrongful executions of Paul and Stephen the only accounts of wrongful executions in the Christian tradition. The epicenter of Christianity is the execution of the one truly innocent man, the one perfect person. As he died on the cross, he did not judge his executioners; he said "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do."
5. Meaning in this.
It is our fortune that the Father favors mercy over justice.
And mercy makes demands on us. Like many Christians, I believe that we are called to struggle, with God’s help, to walk as Jesus did. That means that, like him, our bias must be towards mercy.
The stories of Paul and Barabbas show God’s mercy toward those who commit grave crimes; our God is the God who delights in the death of no sinner. He has often been called the God of second chances. One of the harsher laws in California is known as "Three strikes and you’re out". That is not the motto of our God. And those of us who are not perfect can be relieved at that.
As a lawyer, I have represented prisoners under life sentences for murder who are trying to win release on parole. Some of them, for now, seem to belong in prison. Many, many of them have turned themselves around after decades in prison. Many I would be confident to have as next door neighbors. If the law scrupulously demanded eye-for-an-eye justice, these reformed men might not today have turned around.
Do we need to put murderers in prison? Absolutely. No inclination to mercy should put the innocent, or the relatively innocent, in danger. We cannot have unrepentant murderers free among us.
Do we need to hope in the redemption of those who do wrong? Do we need to make prisons places where souls can be reformed? If Jesus from the cross can plead for this enemies to be forgiven, how can we be like him unless we hold open to prisoners, even murderers, the chance to turn around?
It takes decades to execute a prisoner in California. That gives time for a prisoner to turn around. But this period of potential reformation is not a deliberate part of the system; it is the by-product of a broken system. In November, California voters can vote to repeal the death penalty by voting for Proposition 34. Proposition 34 makes deliberate that which now is accidental.
The victim was a devout Christian, a faithful church leader. He was killed for preaching.
One of the murderers did not directly participate in the killing. But he had a role in the killing, and he approved of it. That’s the very definition of aiding and abetting. As an aider and abettor, he was as guilty in the killing as the men who crushed the victim’s skull.
The victim’s name was Stephen. He was the first Christian martyr. You can read about him in the Book of Acts. The man who was keeping the coats of the men who killed Stephen and approved of the killing was named Saul. Now he is better known as the Apostle Paul.
After the killing of Stephen, Paul was on the road to Damascus to imprison Christians. Jesus appeared to him as a voice and as a literally-blinding light. Paul spent the rest of his life spreading Christianity.
God could have destroyed Paul. Instead, he changed his heart.
1. Barabbas freed.
The murderer Barabbas was a notorious renegade who was released instead of Jesus by Pontius Pilate. Pilate had given the crowd the choice to release Jesus instead.
Barabbas’s name means "son of the father". He is the subject of a short novel by Swedish writer Par Lagerkvist. In that novel, Barabbas is curious about Jesus. He seeks out Jesus’s disciples. But though he wants to, he cannot understand, and he cannot believe. He is crucified in Rome.
I have heard that Barabbas is a moving novel. Maybe its story is true. We cannot know because history has swallowed up Barabbas, and his real fate is known only to God.
It offends no Christian notion to see the hand of God in the release of Barabbas in the place of Jesus. His release is a metaphor for Jesus suffering judgment in our place. But that metaphor exists only because Barabbas was released in a living act of clemency brought about by the death of Jesus. And clemency is what this essay is about.
2. Paul killed.
The fate of Paul is better known. After spending his life after his conversion planting and nurturing churches and writing much of the New Testament, he was falsely accused, he appealed to the emperor, and he was sent to Rome in chains. Tradition has it that he was beheaded there. His Christian walk in this world began and ended with killings: the killing of Stephen at the beginning and his own death by the Romans as a supposed lawbreaker at the end.
3. The death penalty abused.
The accounts of Stephen and Paul are the stories of innocent men killed. Innocent me are killed by the state today. For all of the procedural safeguard, for all of the due process, innocent people still are sent to death row. DNA testing has proved hundreds of men on death row were innocent.
And those are just the cases in which there were DNA samples to examine. There were and are cases where the DNA was destroyed, or where there never was DNA to examine. I assume that innocense occurs in non-DNA cases at the same rate as in DNA cases. Among the innocent in non-DNA cases, the criminal justice system has buried its mistakes, or it will likely do so.
4. The killing of Jesus.
Nor are the wrongful executions of Paul and Stephen the only accounts of wrongful executions in the Christian tradition. The epicenter of Christianity is the execution of the one truly innocent man, the one perfect person. As he died on the cross, he did not judge his executioners; he said "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do."
5. Meaning in this.
It is our fortune that the Father favors mercy over justice.
And mercy makes demands on us. Like many Christians, I believe that we are called to struggle, with God’s help, to walk as Jesus did. That means that, like him, our bias must be towards mercy.
The stories of Paul and Barabbas show God’s mercy toward those who commit grave crimes; our God is the God who delights in the death of no sinner. He has often been called the God of second chances. One of the harsher laws in California is known as "Three strikes and you’re out". That is not the motto of our God. And those of us who are not perfect can be relieved at that.
As a lawyer, I have represented prisoners under life sentences for murder who are trying to win release on parole. Some of them, for now, seem to belong in prison. Many, many of them have turned themselves around after decades in prison. Many I would be confident to have as next door neighbors. If the law scrupulously demanded eye-for-an-eye justice, these reformed men might not today have turned around.
Do we need to put murderers in prison? Absolutely. No inclination to mercy should put the innocent, or the relatively innocent, in danger. We cannot have unrepentant murderers free among us.
Do we need to hope in the redemption of those who do wrong? Do we need to make prisons places where souls can be reformed? If Jesus from the cross can plead for this enemies to be forgiven, how can we be like him unless we hold open to prisoners, even murderers, the chance to turn around?
It takes decades to execute a prisoner in California. That gives time for a prisoner to turn around. But this period of potential reformation is not a deliberate part of the system; it is the by-product of a broken system. In November, California voters can vote to repeal the death penalty by voting for Proposition 34. Proposition 34 makes deliberate that which now is accidental.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Mitt Romney and the Bully Pulpit
This is Mitt Romney at the October 3rd debate, moderated by PBS Newshour executive-editor Jim Lehrer:
This was the moment that Romney affirmed every rich-schmuck idea about him. It was the debate’s one genuine he-shoulda'-stepped-around-that-poop gaff.
And, so far as I know, nobody has named it a blunder. But it is. In so many ways.
Let me explain.
1. Mitt the betting man.
America has an idea of Mitt Romney. It is of his own making, but Barack Obama’s campaign has pushed it. Mitt Romney is the guy who proposed a bet in a debate. He proposed to bet Governor Rick Perry about something that Perry claimed that Romney had said in his book. The amount of the bet was ten-thousand dollars.
Ten-thousand dollars is a rich man’s bet. An ordinary Joe wouldn’t make a bet like that. It is a sum that said, "America, I am not like you. I build a car-elevator in my beach house. I make ten-thousand dollar bets."
David Brooks is a conservative columnist for the New York Times. He pointed out that a ten-thousand dollar bet is large enough to remind Americans of Romney’s great wealth, but small enough so that it wasn’t obviously hyperbole, like, say, a million dollars.
And a ten-thousand dollar bet is a bully's bet. Romney could stake ten-thousand dollars on a bet, owing to his great wealth. Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, could not. Romney used his wealth to push around a poorer man.
2. Mitt the rich job-killer.
Mitt Romney headed Bain Capital. Bain Capital bought up companies, loaded them with debt, took huge profits, and left people without jobs when the companies collapsed under their debt-load.
3. Mitt who likes to fire people.
People remember Bain Capital when they remember that Romney said, "I like to fire people." That statement fit well with people’s pre-existing ideas about Romney. Mike Huckabee was right: "Romney reminds you of the man who fired you, not the guy you worked next to."
Some things ought to be done soberly. Nobody should "like" to do some things. Glee in taking someone’s livelihood away doesn’t sit well with most Americans.
4. Mitt the guy who cuts the outsider’s hair.
Mitt Romney also famously held down a fellow-student at his prep school who was believed to be gay, and he cut his hair. This is bully behavior.
5. Mitt on October 3rd.
So this Mitt Romney tells Jim Lehrer to his face that he, Mitt Romney, is going to eliminate Lehrer’s livelihood.
Some observations about Mr. Romney’s debate comment.
It’s one thing to talk about a ending a program. It’s another thing to talk about it to a man who will lose his livelihood because of it. It’s still another thing to speak of it to him in front of an audience of millions. If you’re going to humiliate a man like that, there should be a good reason.
But it was unnecessary. The federal deficit for 2012 is about one-trillion dollars. The 2012 appropriation for PBS is half of one one-thousandth of that. So the PBS appropriation doesn’t stand out and it doesn’t stand alone among budget appropriations, such that Romney had to mention it, and no substitute would do.
And it wasn’t necessary to highlight that Jim Lehrer was employed by this program that Romney plans to demolish. Was Jim Lehrer less humiliated because of Mitt Romney’s assurances of personal affection? And for being put on the same footing, in that regard, as Big Bird – a comedic character in a children’s program? These questions answer themselves.
Maybe for some unknown reason, like it’s Romney’s only idea for cutting the budget, Romney could name only PBS as a specific program to be cut. But, if that were true, then it was still unnecessary to link Lehrer to that program, specifically pointing out to the millions of viewers that Lehrer’s livelihood would end.
And it was unnecessary for any reason having to do with Jim Lehrer’s character. Jim Lehrer is widely respected. He conducts himself with dignity and fairness. That’s why he’s chosen to moderate presidential debates. Jim Lehrer has done nothing to deserve humiliation.
Jim Lehrer no more deserved this than the probably-gay student that Mitt Romney, in his younger incarnation, held down to cut his hair.
6. A continuum.
There appears to be a continuum of Mitt Romeny’s character that runs from prep school to the debate on October 3rd. It is a continuum of disregard for other people. It is the continuum of a man who is a bully at heart and in his deeds.
7. The bully pulpit for a bully?
And this bully-at-heart wants to be the most powerful man in the world.
If Romney heard that the presidency is a "bully pulpit", he misunderstood. Teddy Roosevelt meant bully to mean good; the presidency is a bully pulpit in the sense that it is a good forum from which to proclaim good ideas. It is not a bully pulpit in the alternative sense of a place of glory for a person who gratuitously afflicts others because he can.
A president must be smart. A president must know things. Mitt Romeny is qualified in both of these. But when the weight of the world in on his shoulders and a decision must be made, the indispensable quality of a president is his good character.
I’m sorry Jim. I’m, I'm going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I’m going to stop other things. I like PBS. I like Big Bird. I like you too. But I’m not going to keep spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for it.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ilv3VLIGJzE
This was the moment that Romney affirmed every rich-schmuck idea about him. It was the debate’s one genuine he-shoulda'-stepped-around-that-poop gaff.
And, so far as I know, nobody has named it a blunder. But it is. In so many ways.
Let me explain.
1. Mitt the betting man.
America has an idea of Mitt Romney. It is of his own making, but Barack Obama’s campaign has pushed it. Mitt Romney is the guy who proposed a bet in a debate. He proposed to bet Governor Rick Perry about something that Perry claimed that Romney had said in his book. The amount of the bet was ten-thousand dollars.
Ten-thousand dollars is a rich man’s bet. An ordinary Joe wouldn’t make a bet like that. It is a sum that said, "America, I am not like you. I build a car-elevator in my beach house. I make ten-thousand dollar bets."
David Brooks is a conservative columnist for the New York Times. He pointed out that a ten-thousand dollar bet is large enough to remind Americans of Romney’s great wealth, but small enough so that it wasn’t obviously hyperbole, like, say, a million dollars.
And a ten-thousand dollar bet is a bully's bet. Romney could stake ten-thousand dollars on a bet, owing to his great wealth. Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, could not. Romney used his wealth to push around a poorer man.
2. Mitt the rich job-killer.
Mitt Romney headed Bain Capital. Bain Capital bought up companies, loaded them with debt, took huge profits, and left people without jobs when the companies collapsed under their debt-load.
3. Mitt who likes to fire people.
People remember Bain Capital when they remember that Romney said, "I like to fire people." That statement fit well with people’s pre-existing ideas about Romney. Mike Huckabee was right: "Romney reminds you of the man who fired you, not the guy you worked next to."
Some things ought to be done soberly. Nobody should "like" to do some things. Glee in taking someone’s livelihood away doesn’t sit well with most Americans.
4. Mitt the guy who cuts the outsider’s hair.
Mitt Romney also famously held down a fellow-student at his prep school who was believed to be gay, and he cut his hair. This is bully behavior.
5. Mitt on October 3rd.
So this Mitt Romney tells Jim Lehrer to his face that he, Mitt Romney, is going to eliminate Lehrer’s livelihood.
Some observations about Mr. Romney’s debate comment.
It’s one thing to talk about a ending a program. It’s another thing to talk about it to a man who will lose his livelihood because of it. It’s still another thing to speak of it to him in front of an audience of millions. If you’re going to humiliate a man like that, there should be a good reason.
But it was unnecessary. The federal deficit for 2012 is about one-trillion dollars. The 2012 appropriation for PBS is half of one one-thousandth of that. So the PBS appropriation doesn’t stand out and it doesn’t stand alone among budget appropriations, such that Romney had to mention it, and no substitute would do.
And it wasn’t necessary to highlight that Jim Lehrer was employed by this program that Romney plans to demolish. Was Jim Lehrer less humiliated because of Mitt Romney’s assurances of personal affection? And for being put on the same footing, in that regard, as Big Bird – a comedic character in a children’s program? These questions answer themselves.
Maybe for some unknown reason, like it’s Romney’s only idea for cutting the budget, Romney could name only PBS as a specific program to be cut. But, if that were true, then it was still unnecessary to link Lehrer to that program, specifically pointing out to the millions of viewers that Lehrer’s livelihood would end.
And it was unnecessary for any reason having to do with Jim Lehrer’s character. Jim Lehrer is widely respected. He conducts himself with dignity and fairness. That’s why he’s chosen to moderate presidential debates. Jim Lehrer has done nothing to deserve humiliation.
Jim Lehrer no more deserved this than the probably-gay student that Mitt Romney, in his younger incarnation, held down to cut his hair.
6. A continuum.
There appears to be a continuum of Mitt Romeny’s character that runs from prep school to the debate on October 3rd. It is a continuum of disregard for other people. It is the continuum of a man who is a bully at heart and in his deeds.
7. The bully pulpit for a bully?
And this bully-at-heart wants to be the most powerful man in the world.
If Romney heard that the presidency is a "bully pulpit", he misunderstood. Teddy Roosevelt meant bully to mean good; the presidency is a bully pulpit in the sense that it is a good forum from which to proclaim good ideas. It is not a bully pulpit in the alternative sense of a place of glory for a person who gratuitously afflicts others because he can.
A president must be smart. A president must know things. Mitt Romeny is qualified in both of these. But when the weight of the world in on his shoulders and a decision must be made, the indispensable quality of a president is his good character.
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