Category Archives: Theological Ethics

#45 Take to the sea for four days of Lent

23 Tuesday Feb 2010

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Courage!  Howard Westwood’s 1939 Lenten Manual uses outdated, high-flown language, is written in the mode of all-men-all-of-the-time, and mentions several, mostly-forgotten dead people.  Still, his exercises and meditations are worth a look.

Besides, Lent isn’t supposed to be easy.  So, as Westwood might say, abandon your safe haven and sail into the high seas of engaged reflection.

Here are a few more days from his Manual, in grey, one of the colors of the season.

DAY 6 (1st Tuesday):  “We Avow Our Faith”
“Here I stand, so help me God, I can do no other.” These words of Luther remind us of a statement by Prof. Kirsopp Lake: “Faith is not belief in spite of evidence, but life in scorn of consequence — a courageous trust in the great purpose of all things and pressing forward to finish the work which is in sign, whatever the price may be.” So do we avow our faith, without hesitation, equivocation or apology. For the moment we leave argument and discussion behind.  We are engaged in an enterprise that we will defend at all hazards and promote without compromise. We do not ask for a secure haven for we propose to sail the high seas. We do not ask for guaranteed certainty for we possess what is more important, the inward certitude of consecrated purpose.

Exercise: Dwell upon the assertion, “We become what we affirm.” Some psychologists condemn wishful thinking, therefore comment on, “The right kind of wishful thinking leads to creative power.”

Meditation: Spirit of Life, give us the courage to match our purpose, the will to endure and the trust which falters not. Above all, strengthen daily within us faith equal to our high resolve.

[The 2nd week’s theme.]
 IMPLICATIONS OF THE AVOWAL

DAY 7 (2nd Wednesday):  “In God”
In his essay “Is Life Worth Living?” William James utters words of profound insight in declaring “God himself may draw vital strength and increase of very being from our fidelity.” He also quotes William Salter, the late leader of the Philadelphia Ethical Society: “As the essence of courage is to stake one’s life as a possibility, so the essence of faith is to believe that the possibility exists.” In avowing our faith in God, we are staking our life on the possibility that the world is not a meaningless void, but that the highest within us reflects and reveals the Life and Intelligence through which all things exist.”

Exercise: Dwell on St. Paul’s statement, “We are co-laborers with God.” What do you think about the quotation from Wm. James?

Meditation: O Soul of All in the heart of each, help me to trust my deepest intuitions as expression of thy purpose, and in loyal devotion teach me to fulfill them in the experience of life.

DAY 8 (2nd Thursday):  “In Eternal Love”
How keen in their insight these words of the Bard of Avon:

Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove.

How beautiful in its constancy the frequent devotion of husband and wife, of parent and child! Yet human love is sometimes inconstant, for often it is influenced by changing circumstance and the passing of the years. The prophet causes the Eternal to say, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love.” Reflect on the eternal constancy of Nature in the rhythms of day
and night, the seasons, seed-time and harvest, etc. Note the great certainties in the invariableness of Nature’s laws. The manifestations of Nature are infinite, but Nature herself is unchanging. The laws of Love are likewise unchanging.

Exercise: The thought in the lesson is a challenge to our own constancy. This phase of the avowal is a pledge to overcome fickleness of mood and temper. Let us examine ourselves in this.

Meditation: O Spirit of Love, how often have we betrayed thee! By they divine constancy, control our changing moods and the waywardness of our affections. Keep the compass of our spirits ever true.

DAY 9 (2nd Friday):  In All-Conquering Love
It is the nature of Love never to know defeat.  Among the most revealing parables of the Great Teacher is that of the Lost Sheep, in which the shepherd seeks for the wanderer from the fold “until he finds it.” In his majestic poem, “The Hound of Heaven,” Francis Thompson likens the Divine Spirit to a relentless seeker forever on the trail of the soul of man. Likewise, the unknown author of the 139th Psalm, when he exclaims, “Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?”

In his hour of trial George Matheson cried, “O Love, that wilt not let me go!” There is a persistent quality in Love which never surrenders.

Exercise: Read Thompson’s poem referred to in the less. Take the time, even if you have to visit a library to obtain the poem. Treat the thought personally, “Love is destined to have its way with me.”

Meditation: O Love forever seeking us, teach experiences of our lives, thou art indeed the highest expression of the Universal Life. Teach me the secret of thine enduring patience, for in this is the assurance that thou shalt prevail, even with me.

#38 Multifaith squabble–over love!

31 Saturday Oct 2009

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

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If you imagine that multifaith dialogue is easy, this post will change your mind. Continue reading but be warned that you’ll be asked to tease out the intricacies of an argument between the University of Chicago historian, David Nirenberg, a champion of secularism, and His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, the champion par excellence of Roman Catholicism.

Ideally, when we enter into a dialogue about religious beliefs, we do so with a genuine desire for authentic conversation.  We attempt to understand, as much as possible, our interlocutor’s point of view especially when we find his or her point of view offensive.  But, in the present case, even a brilliant scholar like Nirenberg, who’s written insightful books about the three Abrahamic religions, loses his patience and calls on His Holiness to stop speaking like a Roman Catholic.

Nirenberg aired his differences with the Pope in a September 23, 2009, article in The New Republic, “Love and Capitalism,” in which he reviewed Benedict’s book-length encyclical, “Caritas in Veritate:  On Integral Human Development in Charity and Truth.”

The problem, for Nirenberg, is not the Pope’s claim to the Truth:  “Popes,” Nirenberg writes, “have the right, indeed the obligation, to teach believers the truth as they are given to perceive it, no matter how controversial.”

No, Nirenberg’s disagreement with the Pope centers around the meaning of the term “caritas,” a word that can be loosely translated into English as “charity” or “love.”

For Roman Catholics, however, caritas doesn’t mean plain old love or sympathy or concern or even charity in the way that most of us might use such words over a glass of beer. Caritas, as used by Roman Catholic theologians, including Benedict, is a technical term with a history that dates back to the 3rd Century Church Father, St. Augustine.

Nirenberg gets the Augustine connection (he quotes Augustine several times), but he doesn’t seem to recognize that Augustine’s usage of caritas has been superseded.  In the 13th Century, the theologian and so-called Angelic Doctor of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas, redefined caritas.  And Aquinas, it turns out, is the key to an accurate understanding of Benedict’s “Caritas in Veritate.”  Why?  Because since the late 19th century (thanks to Pope Leo XIII), Aquinas’s thought has dominated Roman Catholic theology, including its usage of the technical theological term, caritas.

For Aquinas, caritas is a special virtue—a theological virtue, because human beings are incapable of caritas on their own.  The virtue of caritas requires God’s gracious gift.  It is the most important of the three theological virtues (the other two are hope and faith).  Aquinas taught, and the Pope agrees, that only members of the Roman Catholic Church who participate in its sacramental life may receive God’s gift of the theological virtues, including caritas.

The bottom line, then: if you’re not a Roman Catholic, God will pass you over when it comes to granting caritas.  And without God-granted caritas, you may act in what appears to be a virtuous, loving way, but your actions can never be perfectly virtuous since you, a mere human being, are the source of the virtuous acts.

In his encyclical, Benedict claims that only Roman Catholicism offers the possibility of the kind of universal fraternity necessary for authentic community. But he’s following Aquinas here; only Roman Catholicism offers a path to God-given love (caritas), and God-given love (caritas) is required for universal fraternity.  Only with God-given love are we able to love God first (as the first proper object of our love), and then, and only then, out of love for God, are we able to love God’s creatures—i.e. other human beings.

A bit more familiarity with Aquinas’ thought (called Thomism, another technical term!) is necessary to understand the Pope’s encyclical.  Aquinas (unlike Augustine) has a high anthropology.  According to him, there are some capacities all persons enjoy, whether they are Roman Catholic or not.  For example, he maintained that every person is born with the ability to reason.  Thanks to our natural reason, we can come together and solve problems.

With this brief primer on Thomism, we could have anticipated what Benedict did, in fact, say in his encyclical:  “Reason, by itself, is capable of grasping the equality between men and of giving stability to their civic coexistence, but it cannot establish fraternity.  This originates in a transcendent vocation from God the Father, who loved us first, teaching us through the Son what fraternal charity is.”

Like every good book reviewer, Nirenberg is tasked with picking a fight over some point and so he chooses this one:  “The problem is that Benedict is claiming to offer general answers to global questions that affect people of every faith (and sometimes of no faith), while at the same time insisting that the only possible answer to those questions is Catholicism.  Such a suggestion might be a plausible prescription for global peace and development in a Catholic world, but the world is not Catholic.”

But Benedict offers general answers to global questions that affect people of every faith (including some of no faith) because he believes (following Aquinas) that every human being has reason.  And because we’re blessed with reason, Benedict can issue a global call for us to work together to address global problems.  However (still following Aquinas), fraternal charity, which grows out of caritas or God-given love, is only available to Roman Catholics.  If the rest of the world wants to co-exist in fraternal charity, it must convert and join the Roman Catholic Church.

For Benedict to discuss the global crisis in purely secular terms would be to act without love (in the ordinary sense of that word).  Would it be loving of Benedict to choose silence over sharing with the non-Catholic part of the world the fact (as he perceives it) that there is only one path to fraternal charity?

Nirenberg, however, wants Benedict to set his Roman Catholicism aside and offer global answers “taught in a way that seeks to transcend the boundaries of the traditions that produced them.”  What if Benedict made an analogous demand of Nirenberg?  He’d insist Nirenberg leave his secular commitments aside and offer teachings “taught in a way that seeks” to reflect the Roman Catholic tradition!

Which man has the more loving approach?

At the very least, Benedict engages in authentic multi-faith dialogue.  He doesn’t pretend to set aside his convictions—as if he could!—rather, he shows the full set of cards he’s holding in one hand and extends the other hand in greeting.  We may, like Nirenberg, not like the cards he’s holding, but we can appreciate the fact that he’s showing us what he’s got.

One of the goals of an authentic conversation about religion is to try to understand our conversation partner’s point of view.  For this we must set aside our own religious commitments and adopt a willingness to interpret (i.e. make familiar the unfamiliar) what he or she shares with us.  Nirenberg was tasked with interpreting the Pope’s latest encyclical.  Unfortunately, conversing with an author via his or her book does not offer the possibility of a back-and-forth dialogue.  If he and the Pope had had the opportunity to get together at the local bar and talk over a glass of beer, Nirenberg could simply have asked, “Exactly what do you mean, Your Holiness, by caritas?”  The two could have had a brief discussion about their differing definitions of love.  Then they could have moved on to discuss something more important—the Pope’s central concern of his encyclical—how to solve our global problems.

References:  David Nirenberg, “Love and Capitalism,” The New Republic 240, no. 4868 (23 September 2009): 39-42; Waldo Beach and H. R. Niebuhr, eds, Christian Ethics:  Sources of the Living Tradition, 2nd ed. (New York:  The Ronald Press Company, 1973).

#32 The wait for God is over

09 Wednesday Sep 2009

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

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Like many of us, the religion-scholar and popular author, Karen Armstrong, spent decades waiting for God.  Raised a Roman Catholic, God remained a shadowy figure even as she sat through countless sermons and countless catechism classes.  God, described to her in abstract terms, meant little to her.  God existed—of this, Armstrong was certain, at least on an intellectual level—but God remained out of reach, too remote to become a reality for her.

Sound familiar?

Armstrong has more patience than the average Joe or Jane and so she continued to wait for God.  She was convinced that if she kept up her efforts to find God, she would eventually be rewarded by a vision that “would transfigure the whole of created reality.”  To prepare for this vision, she joined an order of nuns.

Armstrong never did glimpse “the God described by the prophets and mystics.”  She suffered from what some call “spiritual dryness.”  Except that she’d never been blessed with a period of spiritual wetness to help her through the dryness.  Unable to maintain the status quo, she decided, with regret, to abandon the religious life.  Soon, her belief in God’s existence slipped away.

Although she’d stopped hoping for an encounter with God, Armstrong maintained her academic study of the history of religions.  Ultimately, the research that went into writing her bestseller, The History of God, put her in touch with clergy from the three “religions of the book”— Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.  Several of these rabbis, priests, and Sufis offered her this advice.  “Instead of waiting for God to descend from on high,” they suggested, she “should deliberately create a sense of him for” herself.

Reflecting on her many years of waiting (in vain) for God, she realized that she’d always looked for God who, she’d believed, existed “out there.”  But God wasn’t to be found “out there.”  God wasn’t an ordinary object like a glass or a plate or a table.  God wasn’t an object she could pick up and examine.

She wrote that, in hindsight, the rabbis, priests, and Sufis would “have told me that in an important sense God was a product of the creative imagination, like the poetry and music that I found so inspiring.”

They would have encouraged her to stop looking for God “out there” and, instead, to find ways to make God a reality for herself.  Also, “A few highly respected monotheists would have told me quietly and firmly that God did not really exist—and yet that ‘he’ was the most important reality in the world.”

Must something exist to be real?  Tough question.  Lucky for us that Armstrong likes brainteasers of this sort.   After pondering the question, she decided that she could set aside the question of God’s existence.  By setting aside that question, she freed herself to create a sense of God’s reality for herself.  She could even make her sense of God the most important reality.

Hallelujah.  Her wait was over.  She had finally found God.

To recap, Armstrong ended her wait by changing the question from “Must God exist to be real?” to “How can I make God real for myself?”

Here’s a note of concern, though.  Armstrong’s God is no doubt as lovely and gentle as the poetry and music she finds inspiring.  But (there’s always a but, isn’t there?) for the rest of us, are checks needed on the sense of God we create for ourselves?  How do we put a damper on creating a sense of God Who looks like a green-eyed spaghetti monster?  The part about the green eyes is too over-the-top for an acceptable God, don’t you agree?  Seriously, how do we put a damper on say, a sense of God Who looks the other way when we make promises we don’t intend to keep?  Or worst, Who orders us to harm or kill others?  Here, the September-11-2001 terrorists’ God comes to mind.

Reference:  Karen Armstrong, A History of God:  The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam (New York:  Ballantine Books, 1993).

#31 A “why-do-the-right-thing” quiz

30 Thursday Jul 2009

Posted by in Ethics, God, Theological Ethics

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iStock_000008497727XSmallNOTE:  The Naked Theologian will be on hiatus for the month of August and will return after the Labor Day holiday.

A Scenario:

You stop by the convenience store to pick up a gallon of milk.  On your way out, you hand the cashier a $10 bill.  After she gives you your change, you realize she confused your $10 for a $20.  You now have more money than when you walked into the store. (Granted, this scenario is a stretch.)  The cashier has started to ring up the next customer and you have to decide whether to give the money back.

A Question:

Why would you do the right thing? (Ethicists call this “the metaethical question”—and now you can too).

From the list below, choose all the reasons you’d do the right thing.

1.    fear of God’s punishment
2.    you were in a good mood
3.    it was the most expedient thing to do
4.    habit
5.    c’mon, there was only $10 on the line!
6.    because God rewards the virtuous
7.    your better instincts took over
8.    you knew you’d feel good about yourself for doing the right thing
9.    hmmmmm…don’t know
10.  it was the best decision given the circumstances
11.  it was the right thing to do, period
12.  the cashier was cute and you’re between partners
13.  whim; you never really know what you’re going to do ahead of time
14.  you knew others would think you rock when you’d tell them what you did
15.  your happiness comes first—this choice made you happy
16.  the happiness of others comes first—this choice made the cashier happy
17.  you tried to imagine what kind of world you’d like to live in, and then decided
18.  you wanted to set a good example for your kids
19.  God calls, 24/7 for your response to the demand that you bring justice and
loving-kindness into the world
20.  you expected the cashier would thank you profusely; you like being thanked
21.  you tossed a coin; it landed in her favor
22.  the cashier looked like she needed the bucks more than you did
23.  you’re on a personal quest for moral perfection
24.  her brother is 6’5”, 250 lbs.—he hurts people who take advantage of his sis
25.  you were afraid you’d get caught and the police would get called in
26.  you were afraid you’d get caught and be publicly humiliated
27.  _____________________________________  (other)

More Questions:

From the list, select the 3 best reasons for doing the right thing in any moral situation?

Are the 3 best reasons different from the ones you chose with regard to the cashier?

If the 3 best reasons don’t always motivate you, why not?

Can you boil down the 3 best reasons to a single reason?  This is your maxim—in other words, this is the overriding moral rule you would prefer to use when trying to decide what to do.

Comments?

#30 Deists of the world, unite!

22 Wednesday Jul 2009

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Deist, deist, theist—say those words in Jersey (pronounced Joy-zie) and they all sound the same.  Fortunately, spelling will help us keep tabs on which is which.  Besides spelling, there are important differences.  Of note: Deists (capital D) went the way of the dodo bird and deists (lowercase d) are rarer than diamonds.  Theists rule–like it or not.

Now to clarify.  A story about François-Marie Arouet , a.k.a. Voltaire (1694-1778), nicely illustrates the difference between a Deist, a deist, and a theist.  He’s considered by people-in-the-know to have been a “mystical, and even emotional deist.”

Voltaire was already eighty years old when this incident took place.  He rose before dawn and, with a visitor, he climbed a nearby hill to watch the sunrise.  Upon reaching the top, Voltaire was overcome by the beauty of the morning scene.  He took off his hat and knelt, exclaiming:  “I believe, I believe in you, Powerful God, I believe.”  Then, on his feet again, he drily proclaimed, “As for monsieur the Son and madame his Mother, that is a different story!”

Voltaire was a French Deist (note the capital D).  Deism (with a capital D) was a religious movement. Also called the “religion of reason,” it originated in 18th century England.  

Today, if someone adopts tenets like those of the English and French Deists, he or she qualifies as a deist (lowercase d).  How you doing with keeping the capital D’s and the lowercase d’s straight?

Here’s more.  Deism, deism and deists (words derived from the Latin for god, deo) subscribe to a God who created us and the universe.   Since then, the universe has continued to operate under reliable and discoverable laws.  And since then, God has not mucked with the laws of nature or with our personal lives. 

By contrast, theism and theists (words derived from the Greek for god, theos) subscribe to a personal God, active in human history, and guarantor of eternal life. You know—the beliefs to which most of today’s religious believers in the West subscribe.  In case you forgot, let me remind you–theists rule.

Probably because French philosophes like Voltaire were literary individuals, not trained philosophers, they were able to popularize and disseminate the new religious movement.  They believed (wrongly, it turns out) Deism would emancipate society from ignorance and fanaticism. 

Here’s how, in a lightly adapted passage, Voltaire described the deist:

A deist is a person firmly persuaded of the existence of a Supreme Being equally good and powerful, who has formed all existences; who perpetuates their species, who punishes crimes without cruelty, and rewards virtuous actions with kindness.  

The deist does not know how God punishes, how God rewards, how God pardons, for he is not presumptuous enough to flatter himself that he understands how God acts; but he knows that God does act and that God is just.  The difficulties opposed to a providence do not stagger him in his faith, because they are only great difficulties, not proofs.

He does not join any of the sects, who all contradict themselves.  His religion is the most ancient and the most extended, for the simple adoration of a God preceded all the systems in the world.

He believes that religion consists neither in the opinions of incomprehensible metaphysics, nor in vain decorations, but in adoration and justice.  To do good–that is his worship; to submit oneself to God–that is his doctrine.  He succours the poor and defends the oppressed.

Does this describe you?  Then you’re a deist. 

If so, it may be instructive to consider why Deism, the religious movement, was short-lived. 

Yes, Deism died in fairly short order both in England (in its more theoretical and abstract version) and in France (in its more popular and literary version).  

In place of Christianity, Voltaire envisioned a rather vague, popular form of Deism.  Doctrine would be reduced to belief in a just God, whose service was the practice of virtue.  Worship would be simple and would consist primarily in praise and adoration and lessons in morality. 

According to religious-studies scholar, James Livingston, Deism fizzled, in part, because it failed to attract the masses.  Why?

 1.            It was too abstract, too intellectual in spite of its claim to simplicity; feeling and aesthetic sense are required of any religious faith that expects a wide appeal

2.            It lacked unity—its radical demands for autonomy were liberating but did not encourage the shared sense of faith and worship necessary for congregation-building

So, deists of the world, you’re likely feeling pretty alone.  There aren’t many of your kind.  And anyway, you (supposedly) aren’t the sort to seek each other out to worship together.  Which is why there’s not a First Deist Church of insert-your-town’s-name-here.  Why not unite and start one today?  Dare to prove the experts wrong.

HNFFT:  If you qualify as a deist, what do you say to the charge that your beliefs are too abstract and intellectual for most people (this is not necessarily a negative)?  How do feelings and aesthetics come together with your deistic beliefs?

Reference:  James C. Livingston:  Modern Christian Thought:  The Enlightenment and the Nineteenth Century, vol 1, 2nd ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ:  Prentice Hall, 1997), p. 26-28.

#27 Iran and an ethics of yielding

28 Sunday Jun 2009

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dreamstime_5824966There is the world as-it-is, and then there is the world that-could-be. 

In Iran, this is the world as-it-is:  the disputed legitimacy of the recent re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad propelled enraged supporters of his opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, into the sweltering streets of Teheran.   Ahmadinejad (with the blessing of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) pushed back with increasing brutality, deploying riot police and the much-feared, violence-prone, Basij paramilitary forces against unarmed citizens. 

But what if, in a world that-could-be, Ahmadinejad chose, instead, an ethics of yielding?  Yes, an ethics of yielding. 

One must be careful how one draws lessons from the past (thanks to their variety and number, historical events lend themselves too easily to an unscrupulous defense of almost any ideologically-driven claim).  But we can, for the sake of discussing a world that-could-be, draw on the work of Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), a French essayist who lived and wrote during a time of bitter wars of religion between Protestants and Catholics, and a time of violent political conflict between rebellious nobles and the crown.  

A heterodox Catholic, Montaigne believed that God leaves us free to work out our lives on human terms.  And in the process of working out his own life on human terms, Montaigne developed a new ethics of accommodation based on shared trust and on shared humanity.  Opposed to the zealotry of the warring parties, Montaigne pleaded for an attitude of yielding both on the part of the victor and of the vanquished.  He even argued that his ethics of passivity was the best way to preserve each side’s desire for respect:  “You can swallow your pride and have it too, provided you learn how to be a good loser” (this quote comes from David Quint‘s Montaigne and the Quality of Mercy).

To return to the topic at hand–in a world that-could-be, if Ahmadinejad followed Montaigne’s recommendations, what effect, practically-speaking, would this have on Iran?  Having defeated the protestors with a massive and intractable show of force, Ahmadinejad could now preserve both his self-respect and that of the protestors by adopting a stance of clemency.  Toward those he formerly pursued, he could adopt a stance of flexibility, of softness.  And by choosing to identify with those he crushed and reduced to weakness, he would demonstrate courage.  Yes, courage–because he would allow his opponents to remain a threat to him and his government.  In the Iran that-is, Ahmadinejad has elevated himself to God-like status.  In the Iran that-could-be, Ahmadinejad would reclaim his humanity.

Montaigne’s ethics of yielding is not reserved for the victor.  The vanquished must also yield.  In the Iran that-could-be, the protestors would choose not to resist.  Instead, they would demonstrate the highest self-respect by acknowledging the power of Ahmadinejad, and by acknowledging the humanity and weakness they share with him.  They would disarm themselves, and trust in their foe.  A recent Newsweek image captured the difficult kind of clemency Montaigne had in mind; it showed a small group of protestors using their own bodies to shield a disarmed riot cop from the rage of their fellow protestors.  They had the courage to be merciful to their captured enemy even though they knew that he would probably try to harm them again on another day.

But even Montaigne, as much a skeptic in his time as most of us are today, dismissed the efficacy of preaching Christian humility.  He resorted, instead, to the ploy of promising the merciful victor an enhanced reputation.  After all, he pointed out, mercy aggrandizes the merciful one and the vanquished testify to the greatness of the one who has spared them. 

So, President Ahmadinejad, if you’re reading this post, will you show mercy, and yield to your countrymen and women’s longing for greater freedom and opportunity? Or will you maintain the course of the Iran-as-it-has-been and rely on fear and oppression to silence your opponents?  You have, after all, been handpicked by Ayatollah Khamenei to implement his dream of creating an Islamic caliphate.

But let’s try one last argument:  President Ahmadinejad, you miscalculated when you resorted to fraud to over-represent the election that you most likely won anyway.  Thanks to your miscalculation, you unleashed the greatest internal threat to Iran’s government since the Shah was toppled and you discovered the depth of your countrymen and women’s yearning for change.  Yield, Mr. Ahmadinejad, or you too might find yourself toppled.  If toppled you are, may your people yield and have mercy on you.

HNFFT:  Every day, we face situations where we have power-over others, or others have power-over us.  What could intentional weakness look like for you in those situations?  How could you practice an ethics of yielding?  

References:  Christopher Dickey, “The Supreme Leader,” 40-45, and Fareed Zakaria, “Theocracy and its Discontents,” 30-39, both in Newsweek, 29 June 2009; David Quaint, Montaigne and the Quality of Mercy (Princeton, NJ:  Princeton University Press, 1998).

#24 Everybody goes to heaven, right?

31 Sunday May 2009

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

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Most Americans agree that yes, everybody goes to heaven after they die.  Not buying it?  The part about most Americans agreeing that everybody goes to heaven? Here’s the empirical evidence.  A few months ago, a study conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (mentioned by Charles Blow in a New York Times editorial) showed that 70 percent of Americans believe religions other than theirs could lead to eternal life.

So it’s true, 70% of Americans agree–everybody goes to heaven.  

Still not buying the poll data?  Evangelicals didn’t buy it, because they argued that the respondents had obviously not understood the question.  After all, Jesus clearly states in the gospel of John, “I am the way, the truth and the life:  no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”  In other words, there’s a segregationist sign posted over the only gate into heaven.  It says:  Christians only.  To believe otherwise is a heresy called universalism.

So Pew decided to ask the question again.  The results, released in December 2008, confirmed their initial findings.  Sixty-five percent said that yes, other religions could lead to eternal life.  Just to make sure no one was confused, Pew also asked its respondents to specify which religion(s) could lead to eternal life.  The sixty-five percent yes-sayers threw open heaven’s gate to pretty much every religion.  Fifty percent even said atheists would pass muster, and people with no religious faith, too.  How’s that for generous?  So tear down that sign, Mr. Evangelical.

Okay, so the majority of 21st century Americans agree that almost everyone goes heaven after they die.

But if God doesn’t hold us accountable in the afterlife, is it okay to set aside meaningful discussions about moral requirements in this life?

That’s not a rhetorical question, since polls show that religious Americans, whether affiliated with a specific faith tradition or not, whether liberal or conservative, are shearing moral requirements from their theologies (see Post #23 for more on this topic).

The mystic and universalist, Julian of Norwich, offers an intriguing answer to balancing a belief in an all-loving God with the impulse to make people accountable in the afterlife for the harm they’ve caused in this life.  Julian, a woman who sought God actively, was rewarded in 1373, when she was a little over thirty years old, by several mystical experiences that she called showings. 

Try as she might to find the Church’s ‘fatherly,’ angry, and punishing God, she found only a God who “is the goodness that cannot be angry, for he is nothing but goodness.”  The fact that any of us exists, Julian reasoned, is proof that God isn’t an a punishing God.  Since everyone commits sins of commission or omission, if God could become angry, we’d all be gonners.  According to Julian, human beings, not God, are the ones who judge whether a deed is well done or is evil.  As far as God is concerned, even our “lowest deed is done as well as the best”.  And since God is nothing but goodness, Julian concluded that we’re all heaven-bound. 

How does she balance a loving God with moral requirements?  Julian handles this difficult theological quandary by finding a sneaky way to introduce a system of reward.  Based on her showings, she identifies a sliding scale of heavenly bliss.  The first and lowest degree of bliss in heaven is God’s gratitude for our service, a gratitude that is “so exalted and so glorious that it would seem to fill the soul.”  The second degree of bliss in heaven indulges our pride because God makes a public announcement to all the souls in heaven, praising our good deeds.  The third degree of bliss is a pleasure that remains forever “as new and delightful” as it did when we first felt it.  

To assign the appropriate degree of bliss, God uses a formula mostly based on time and length of service.  The formula favors those who “willingly and freely offered their youth”, as well as those who, even for one day, served “with the wish to serve forever.”

According to Julian then, everybody goes to heaven, everybody gets bliss, but depending on our deeds, we are eligible for one of three degrees of bliss.  Her God is perched on the narrow edge of that judge’s bench in the sky but hasn’t been shoved off altogether.  This all-about-love-God, to whom Julian prayed, sits in minimal judgment of us. 

Like her, many religious Americans are quite sure that any God worthy of the name loves us and is too good to condemn us.  The mercy-justice issue may continue to trouble us in spite of a creative solution like Julian’s.  Is a three-bliss kind of God really the kind of God we want?  

Because if we all end up blissed-out in heaven, is God just? 

If God grants first-degree (or second or third-degree) bliss to the daughter who routinely calms her work-rage by pummeling her frail, elderly father, is that God just?  Is that God fair?  

If God grants bliss to the single mother who turns a blind eye while her boyfriend sexually assaults her ten-year old daughter, is that God just?  Is that God fair?

But why dwell on this issue at all?  Must we insist that God be fair when it comes to putting out the welcome mat at heaven’s door?  No.  We need not insist that God be fair.  

Maybe Julian’s right and we get assigned one of three degrees of bliss.  Right or not, we can agree with her conviction that “the more the loving soul sees…generosity in God, the gladder” we will be to serve God all of our days.  Simply put:  belief in a loving God leads us to be more loving ourselves.  And if belief in a loving God leads us to be more loving ourselves–what’s not to love about that?

References:  Charles Blow, “Heaven for the Godless?” The New York Times online edition, 26 December 2008;  Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love LT, trans. Elizabeth Spearing (London:  Penguin Books, 1998).

#23 Generalized religiousness and the American dream

22 Friday May 2009

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

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dreamstimefree_2776077In a recent New York Times editorial, Ross Douthat, describes religious trends in 21st century America as neither shifting towards the extreme of unbelief or the extreme of fundamentalism.  Instead, religious trends are shifting toward a “generalized ‘religiousness’ detached from the claims of any specific faith tradition.”  While growing numbers of Americans are abandoning organized religion (Douthat bases this claim on recent polling data), we are, by and large, not opting for atheism. 

Stay-at-home religionists are actively seeking and building eclectic and high-personalized theologies “with traditional religion’s dogmas and moral requirements shorn away.” 

Pause here, please.  Douthat himself pauses on the part about “moral requirements shorn away.”  It should give us pause too. 

Yes, build-your-own-theology-types are shearing moral requirements from their generalized religiousness.  But they are not alone.  Americans affiliated with specific faith traditions, whether liberal or conservative, seem to be following the same trend.  Douthat complains that religious people of all stripes are showing a distinct preference for a God “who’s too busy validating their particular version of the American Dream to raise a peep about, say, how much money they’re making or how many times they’ve been married.” 

Hmmm.  Not sure what Douthat means here because large incomes and numerous divorces aren’t necessarily moral no-nos. Most likely he’s wagging his finger at Americans whose God doesn’t raise a peep at HOW they make their money or HOW they spend it (see Post #22 “How good are we without God?”).  He’s probably wagging his finger at Americans whose God doesn’t raise a peep even when children are involved in a divorce.

Christians, Douthat says (and here, his meaning is quite clear), are drawn to “a Jesus who’s a thoroughly modern sort of messiah—sexy, worldly, and Goddess-worshipping, with a wife and kids, a house in the Galilean suburbs, and no delusions about his own divinity.” 

Hyperbolic language and claims aside, does Douthat have a point? 

Okay, so polls show that generalized-religiousness Americans are shearing moral requirements from religious ones.  But why are we doing so?

One answer:  we’re done with religions or Gods that ask us to reflect on the harm we may have caused.  These religions or Gods have too often made us feel like we’re bad people and we deserve to go to hell.

Another answer:  many of us are quasi-universalists–any God worthy of that name loves us and is simply too good to condemn us.  We’ve removed God from the judge’s bench in the sky.  The all-about-love God, the one to whom we’re willing to pray, no longer sits in judgment of us.  God loves us, unconditionally.  

And since God loves us, unconditionally, God loves us regardless of how much money we earn (or how we made it and what we do with it) or how many times we’ve been married (even if our kids end up with exponentially-more-difficult lives).

So, is the unconditional-love God really the kind of God we want?  Even a liberal Jewish theologian like Martin Buber, who made a principled decision not to attend worship services, imagined that the soul, after death, would be reunited with God (or not) based on the quality of our deeds.  The Enlightenment philosopher, Immanuel Kant, no lover of worship services, imagined the afterlife as an opportunity to encounter more situations requiring moral choices; in this way we would get all the time we needed to hone our willingness to do the right thing for the right reasons. 

What would Buber or Kant think of a “thoroughly modern” God who is “too busy validating” our particular version of the American dream to care about our moral decisions?

And you, what do you think?  Are you troubled by the current trend to triage moral requirements from religiousness (whether yours is a generalized religiousness or a specific-faith-tradition religiousness)?

Next week’s post will take up this issue again and explore the creative approach of the mystical theologian, Julian of Norwich.

References:   Ross Douthat, “Dan Brown’s America” in The New York Times online edition,18 May 2009.

#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.