Category Archives: Ethics

#22 How good are we without God?

12 Tuesday May 2009

Posted by in Ethics, God, Religion, Theological Ethics

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handful moneyHow good are we without God? Apparently not as good.  

Several studies have shown that American liberals—namely, those most likely to have little or no God, are least likely to give to charity. Hurts, doesn’t it?  Where’s the proof, you say?

Robert Brooks, who recently wrote a book, Who Really Cares, about charitable donors discovered the following (as reported by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof):

“When I started doing research on charity,” Mr. Brooks wrote, “I expected to find that political liberals — who, I believed, genuinely cared more about others than conservatives did — would turn out to be the most privately charitable people. So when my early findings led me to the opposite conclusion, I assumed I had made some sort of technical error. I re-ran analyses. I got new data. Nothing worked. In the end, I had no option but to change my views.”

Although liberals advocate on behalf of those who are hungry and homeless, Brooks’ data shows that conservative households give 30% more to charity.  A Google poll puts these numbers even higher—at nearly 50% more.  Conservatives even beat out liberals when it comes to nonfinancial contributions.  People in the conservative states in the center of the country are more likely to volunteer and to give blood. 

But what about the relationship between having a God and being generous?

Based on a Google poll (again, as reported by columnist Kristof), religion is the essential reason conservatives give more.  And although secular liberals tend to keep their wallets closed, it turns out that religious liberals are as generous as religious conservatives.

According to Google’s figures, if donations to religious organizations are excluded, the total amount liberals give to charity is slightly higher than that given by conservatives. But according to Mr. Brooks, if the contributed amount is tied to percentage of income, then conservatives are more generous than liberals—even to secular causes.  Ouch.

All of the world’s religions promote charitable giving.  Christians, for example, speak of giving in terms of a tithe required by God.  2 Corinthians 9:7 applauds giving cheerfully, Acts 11:29 advocates feeding the hungry, and James 1:27 exhorts the faithful to help widows and orphans.  Although the New Testament doesn’t discuss tithing per se, congregations generally set at tithing at 10 percent of gross income.  Some congregations don’t ask that the entire tithe be given to support them, but they do ask that moneys given to other charities bring their members’ total contribution to (at least) 10%.  And really–10% of one’s income to feed the hungry, help the destitute, and care for the orphan–is that so much to ask?

Can we agree on the following:

       IF         ‘being good’ = charitable giving

       THEN    ‘being 100% good’ = giving 10% of all gross income from all sources 

Unfortunately a couple of famous liberals—religious liberals at that, illustrate only too well the accuracy of Brooks and Google’s dismal findings.

How about our Vice-President, Mr. Biden (a Roman Catholic), for starters.  The New York Times reported that, according to his 2008 income-tax return, Joe Biden earned $269,000 and claimed—are you ready for this–$1,900 in charitable deductions.  That comes to 0.71% of gross income!  Let’s be charitable ourselves and round that figure to 1%.  Maybe Mr. Biden thought no one would care although he surely knew people would notice, since he’s a public figure and all.  But even more shocking is the fact that he showed no contrition for the sad example he set for his fellow citizens.  His lame response to the numbers cited?  Merely that his total donations were not reflected on his income tax.  He had, he argued, given donations to his church (failing to mention that these are tax-deductible) and donated some of his time!  Hmmmm.  Whatever.  Using the IF-THEN equation above, 1% charitable giving makes Biden 10% good.  A recommendation?  He needs to boost God by 90%.

The President, Mr. Obama (a Congregationalist), fared better in 2008, but even he fell short of the 10% mark.  He donated about 6.5% of his gross income making him 65% good.  A recommendation? He needs to boost God by 35%.

Now, if you turn the microscope to look at your own 2008 income-tax return, will you discover a log in your own eye?  You get a pass if you’ve lost your job or earn less than middle middle-class wages.  The rest of you, please adjust your charitable deduction for donations of time and blood.  Do you need to boost God?  By how much?

Reference:  Nicholas Kristoff, “Bleeding Heart Tightwads,” the electronic version of The New York Times, 21 December 2008;  John McKinnon, “First Couple Reports Income of $2.7 Million,” The Wall Street Journal, 16 April 2009, p. A3.

#18 God and the Devil duke it out in the john

14 Tuesday Apr 2009

Posted by in Ethics, God, Philosophy of Religion, Theological Ethics, Theology

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dreamstime_2557163WC.  Water Closet.  Privy.  Crapper.  Must stripped-down theology sink to the level of the toilet?  But this is precisely where the ‘father’ of Protestant Christianity, Martin Luther (1483-1546), claimed he had been given his most important of realizations. Luther didn’t stop at the marketplace when talking about the presence of God (and the Devil).  If God is present—everywhere—then God must be present in the privy! 

Medievals knew what we, in developed countries, have forgotten thanks to improvements in sanitation.  Because contemporary plumbing has created a near-perfect divide between us and our excrement, if we are to inhabit Luther’s mental space (okay, scatological space), we have to turn to the closest analogy most of us have—the so-called honey-pots at state fairs and fourth of July celebrations.  The state-fair WC isn’t just any old privy, but the most disgusting, degrading, and degraded places that many of us are likely to visit.  The state-fair WC is that space where we have no choice but to come ‘face to face’ (or nose to nose) with s–t, both as biological product and as existential condition.

So what’s with God and the Devil in the WC?  Here’s the scoop, as compactly as possible.  Martin Luther, the prophet of ‘salvation by faith alone’, wanted nothing less than to overturn our genteel, conscience-oriented morality.  Most of us trust our consciences to clue us in on what’s right and what’s wrong.  We rely on our inner voice to tell us what to do.  And then, if sacrifice is required, we struggle to satisfy that voice’s demands.  This describes the conventional morality in Luther’s day—and it remains the conventional morality in ours.

Following that line of thinking, we would conclude that if the God of conventional morality wanted to make us responsible for our wrongdoings in the after-life (a reasonable proposition), such a God would be something of a gentle, accountant type of God.  We would reach the pearly gates of heaven and stand quietly in front of a plain table while God checks a ledger for our name.  Once God finds the entry chronicling our lives, God would carefully weigh what, if any, punishments would be the best match for our bad choices and our lapses (if we’re lucky, God overlooks the majority of these).  Indeed, a liberal Unitarian Christian like William Ellery Channing taught ‘salvation through character,’ and although he believed God was too good to condemn human beings to eternal hell, he still believed that God required wrongdoers to do some kind of penance before they were admitted into God’s presence.  This is an eminently rational belief—God’s punishment will fit the crime, which is why so many people hold onto it.  Tenaciously.

But, for Luther, the issue was not a question of morality versus immorality, but of God versus the Devil.  Luther had concluded (based on his intensive study of Scripture) that God saves us whether we’ve made right choices or not.  All we need to do in order to be saved is have faith that God will save us.  Period.  No requirement for good behavior.  God has promised to save us; we need only believe in this promise and we are saved.  No ifs, ands or buts.  The devil is that voice in our heads (you’re hearing it, right now, aren’t you?) that says—nope.  I don’t believe God would give us such a sweet deal.  Saved no matter what?  Even child molesters who refuse to change?  Come on.  What kind of nonsense is that?  Only someone who is completely irrational could believe such a thing. 

You’ve got the picture though.  For Luther, when we’re sitting on the loo doing our thing, God stands on one side with a promise of salvation (saying all you have to do is believe in my promise), and the Devil stands on the other side (saying, don’t you believe God’s promise, it’s too good to be true).  The Devil is the one who sounds rational—he insists on what we already know–there’s some kind of hitch, some kind of small print God’s not telling us about. 

A contemporary of William Ellery Channing, the Universalist minister, Hosea Ballou, challenged the view of people like us.  In an article, “Salvation Irrespective of Character,” he argued that God was like a Father who loves all of His children whether they are saints or sinners:  “Your child has fallen into the mire, and its body and its garments are defiled.  You cleanse it and array it in clean robes.  The query is, Do you love your child because you have washed it?  Or, did you wash it because you loved it?

Most of us are adept at keeping our minds and hands busy but a visit to the crapper offers a chance to pause.  If, in the toilet, we reflect on our lives for just a few seconds, we come face to face with the degraded choices we’re being asked to make, and with the degrading choices we’ve already made.  And that’s when, if we’re honest, we call into question our ability to choose the right thing and our ability to do it.  We’ll wonder whether our consciences can reliably discern what’s right from wrong.  And we’ll wonder whether we have the self-discipline to do what’s right.  God overlooks all these difficulties, Luther teaches.  Sitting in the privy, this hard truth was revealed to him.  In the privy, he realized that, more often than not, he was powerless.  He also realized that, even here, in this disgusting, unsanitary place, God came to his aid. 

No bull.  For Luther, the crapper is a place of faith.  He insisted that God is there.  The devil too.  And God wins (and we win) if we trust in God’s promise. 

Can you?  And what about that promise?  Do you buy it?

Reference:  Heiko A. Oberman, “The Devil and the Cloaca,” in Luther:  Man between God and the Devil, trans. Eileen Walliser-Schwarzbart (New Haven:  Yale University Press, 1989), 151-7.

#16 Will there be anyone left to speak out?

30 Monday Mar 2009

Posted by in Ethics, God, Philosophy of Religion, Theological Ethics, Theology

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According to the New Testament, Jesus entered Jerusalem without any illusion about what lay in store for him:  arrest, torture and crucifixion.  Prophesying and calling for reform have always been dangerous, but undeterred by the risks, Jesus headed to the temple with his controversial teachings.  Was he afraid?  In the gospel of Mark, the oldest of the four gospels, Jesus prays in the garden of Gethsemane, where he became distressed and agitated.  He pleaded for a reprieve.  “Abba,” he said, “Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me” (NRSV, Mk 14:36).  Although among friends, Jesus was alone.  Several times, he roused his sleeping disciples and begged them to keep him company, but their eyes were heavy and they did not know what to say.

Two-thousand years later, on the day called Easter, Christians sing hallelujah and Gloria to commemorate the brutal trials of this man who went willingly to his death. 

How do non-Christians make sense of this commemoration? 

Analogies to more contemporary events can help us make sense of the past.  Even if we don’t accept the divinity of Jesus, or that he died for our sins, surely we can sing hallelujah and Gloria to commemorate and acclaim him just as we can sing hallelujah and Gloria to commemorate and acclaim others who willingly and willfully put themselves in harm’s way to speak truth to power.  Joan of Arc, Mahatma Ghandi, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr., are but a few of the well-known martyrs who, with just as much clarity as Jesus, knew the risks they faced but still kept on keeping on.

More recently, we have the martyrdom of Lasantha Wickramatunga, shot dead by two assassins on January 8, 2009.  The editor of The Leader, Sri Lanka’s leading independent newspaper, Wickramatunga had written an editorial only days earlier predicting his own assassination by the government.  Aware of the danger, he chose to answer the call of his conscience and to voice ideas some found distasteful.  Aware of the danger, he kept on keeping on although he had a wife and three children.  Should we not sing hallelujah and Gloria to commemorate and acclaim such a man’s life and death?  If he was willing to die to improve the life of his fellow Sri Lankans, should we not honor the sacrifice he was willing to make on their behalf—and, by extension, because we are all part of the human family—on our behalf?

Why was Wickramatunga willing to die for our sake?  In his own words:

“People often ask me why I take such risks and tell me it is a matter of time before I am bumped off. Of course I know that: it is inevitable. But if we do not speak out now, there will be no one left to speak for those who cannot, whether they be ethnic minorities, the disadvantaged or the persecuted. An example that has inspired me throughout my career in journalism has been that of the German theologian, Martin Niemöller. In his youth he was an anti-Semite and an admirer of Hitler. As Nazism took hold in Germany, however, he saw Nazism for what it was: it was not just the Jews Hitler sought to extirpate, it was just about anyone with an alternate point of view. Niemöller spoke out, and for his trouble was incarcerated in the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps from 1937 to 1945, and very nearly executed. While incarcerated, Niemöller wrote a poem that, from the first time I read it in my teenage years, stuck hauntingly in my mind: 

     First they came for the Jews
     and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
     Then they came for the Communists
     and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
     Then they came for the trade unionists
     and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
     Then they came for me
     and there was no one left to speak out for me.

If you remember nothing else, remember this: The Leader is there for you, be you Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, low-caste, homosexual, dissident or disabled. Its staff will fight on, unbowed and unafraid, with the courage to which you have become accustomed. Do not take that commitment for granted. Let there be no doubt that whatever sacrifices we journalists make, they are not made for our own glory or enrichment: they are made for you. Whether you deserve their sacrifice is another matter. As for me, God knows I tried.”

God knows Jesus tried—this one of the messages of Easter.  He sacrificed his life. He spoke out for the poor and the despised and the persecuted.  And they came for him. 

Which leaves us with the most haunting questions of all.  Are our eyes heavy and we do not know what to say?  Or do we speak out?  Do I speak out?  Do you speak out?  Would we speak even if we knew they would come for us?  

Reference:  For a full transcript of Lasantha Wickramatunga’s editorial, see http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=26432.  

#14 Rescued from the iron cage of guilt

15 Sunday Mar 2009

Posted by in Ethics, God, Philosophy of Religion, Religion, Religious Philosophy, Theological Ethics, Theology

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If you don’t have an ear for the music of Christianity, it may be hard to make sense of why the Lenten days tracking the Gospels’ accounts of Jesus’ journey from freedom to arrest, crucifixion, and resurrection are so important to Christians.

The answer partly lies in the doctrine that Christ liberates, or saves, human beings from bondage to sin.  

But what’s this about freedom from bondage to sin? 

Here’s an existential way of thinking about sin or wrongdoing.  If we reflect on the past twenty-four hours, a clear-eyed inventory of what we did, said, didn’t do, didn’t say, either leaves us with a comfortable feeling or it leaves us troubled.  Our consciences are a built-in mechanism that detects some (not all) of the gaps between what we consider to be the good and right thing to say and do, and what we actually did say and do.  When the gaps are wide, we feel bad—our conscience bothers us.  We call that feeling guilt. 

To do guilt is part of the human condition.  True, some people proclaim they ‘don’t do guilt’ as if ‘doing’ guilt was a bad thing and nobody should ever ‘do’ it.  But should Chris really not feel guilty about smacking the beJesus out of Rhianna?  Those who claim they ‘don’t do guilt’ probably mean that they ‘don’t do self-loathing.’  Although we may have been taught otherwise, the anguish of a guilty conscience need not result in self-loathing.  In fact, the anguish of a guilty conscience can prompt us to make some positive changes. 

There’s a difference worth noticing between self-acceptance and self-approval.  Guilt helps us keep the difference straight.  We might accept ourselves as we are, but a guilty conscience reminds us we’re a ways off from the acts and intentions that are in keeping with out-and-out self-approval. 

Back to guilt and sin.  Shall we agree that nobody (except a masochist) likes doing guilt?  Guilt feels bad.  Downright awful.   The problem then is what to do with our guilt.  Live with it?  Make amends to the injured party?  Ignore it?  Suppress it and make it ‘disappear’?  Deny it?  Feel sorry for yourself?  Take it out on other people?  Ask the wronged party for forgiveness?  Ask yourself for forgiveness?  Ask God for forgiveness?

We, human beings, always carry hope and despair within us.  On the despair end, most of us have a low tolerance for the despair of the iron cage of guilt.  We are trapped, bound, imprisoned.  We want release from guilt, some way to feel better, some way to heal the hurt and be reconciled with ourselves. 

Many Christians hand their guilt over to God in prayer or in ritual with the hope that God will hand back forgiveness.  Many Christians believe that thanks to Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross, God forgives their wrongdoings.  The way this forgiveness works differs according to the Christian tradition.  Lutherans, for example, place their trust in Christ and, thanks to that trust, believe themselves forgiven by God (they know they’re still messing up as much as any of us, but they’re forgiven).  Roman Catholics confess their wrongdoings to priests who assign them works of contrition and forgive them in Christ’s name.  In all these Christian traditions, the key to forgiveness is Christ.  Thanks to the crucifixion, the doors of the iron cage of guilt spring open and the Christian is restored to wholeness.

Wholeness!  Stepping out of guilt’s iron cage!  Sounds great.  But if, for us, Jesus was not the Christ, then we must find other ways to seek forgiveness for wrongdoings and soothe our guilt.  Going directly to the party we have harmed and asking forgiveness is one way.  But what if they’re no longer alive, or we don’t know where they are?  

Helpful ideas, anyone?

#13 Giving up Me-Centrism for Lent

05 Thursday Mar 2009

Posted by in Ethics, God, Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion, Religion, Religious Philosophy, Spiritual Exercises, Theological Ethics, Theology

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dreamstime_14845884Think you’re number one?  Who doesn’t?  Are you a narcissist? Hey, who isn’t? After all, our interior world is most vivid to ourselves.  Who could possibly know and care for our well-being and happiness better than ourselves?  A tidy amount of Me-Centrism is desirable (we Americans prefer to call it self-esteem), but in sloppy-sized doses, it turns into self-absorption.  Result:  lack of interest in, and lack of concern for others.  Not you, you say?  When was the last time you stepped out of the internal monologue a-buzzing in your head or the fatigue from a long day‘s work to look the checkout clerk at Dominick’s in the eye?  You know, like he was a real person worthy of your attention (which, of course, he is)?  And did you say, “Hello, how are you today?”  And were really interested in the answer?  Or did you look away before he finished telling you? 

A little thing, sure, this saying hello, how are you.  But imagine how different our every-day would be if we stepped out of our heads and shook off our tiredness just long enough to treat each other like each one of us mattered.  Imagine the ordinary wonderfulness of a simple “after you” as we stepped onto the bus or walked into the elevator.  Or letting a car (or two) merge ahead of us on a clogged freeway, or smiling at the stranger on the street for no good reason, or paying our frenenmy an unsolicited compliment, or turning off our cell phone to give a friend our full attention.  With all that free-flowing kindness, especially in these hard economic times, who knows what we could achieve?  Our quest for meaning could literally end.  We would all find peace of mind.  Messianism would have come to pass.

The great religious faith traditions ask their followers, at some point during the year, to step-out of their daily routines and orient themselves toward something greater.   To demonstrate that they mean it and are 100% committed to the exercise, these followers are asked to sacrifice something—in other words, to give up something they value, like a cow, or money, or food.  The act of having given up something serves as a prod of sorts, a powerful reminder (lest one slack off) to reflect on one’s relationship with the divine.   This giving-up takes place in community so that one gets swept up in a great shift of life-as-usual.  The new normal is a common life focused on God.   Whether one is taking part in the one-day fast of Yom Kippur or the month-long fast of Ramadan or the surrendering of something of one’s choosing for the forty days of Lent, the giving-up has a definite time-table with well-advertised and ritually-marked start and end dates. 

But what about those who aren’t followers of such traditions but want to engage in a similar kind of spiritual exercise (exercise in the sense of an intentional and disciplined activity)?  Yow!  That’s harder.  After all, you’ll give up something without any kind of communal or ritual help.  That’s like deciding to give up cigarettes without a support group and without nicotine patches.  Still, for those who are up to the challenge, it could be even more rewarding.  

So let’s dare to give up something for Lent.  How about Me-Centrism?  Give up Me-Centrism until April 12 and orient yourself toward God.  The phenomenologist and ethicist, Emmanuel Levinas, taught that we might, in the act of treating others as human beings instead of objects, discover a passageway to the extraordinary, the infinite, the transcendent.  No promises though.  Hopefully, even if you don’t find that passageway, the gift of a simple human interaction is gift enough.  And should the checkout clerk or the passenger on the bus respond to your friendly gaze by looking at you like you’re crazy, or looking past you like you don’t exist—well, you’ll know you did your part.  And no one can ask more than that.

Reference:  Emmanuel Levinas, Nine Talmudic Readings, intro. and trans. Annette Aronowicz (Bloomington:  Indiana University Press, 1990).