Donald Andrew Henson II

Archive for the ‘Religion and Government’ Category

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Buddha for President

In American Enlightenment, American Society, Religion and Government on April 8, 2013 at 12:00 am

Wat Po 2009

I am unequivocally opposed to an established religion in a democracy. Furthermore, I do not believe that democracy is a product of religious belief; more specifically I do not believe that the American Constitution is based on Biblical precepts. Anyone who reads the document and has any understanding of history knows that it is a product of the Enlightenment. If the God of the Bible had been the true inspiration behind it, it would have a lot more to say about eating pork, cleansing oneself from blood contamination, and not spilling one’s seed on the ground.

It goes without saying that, in my opinion, the ills of this country are not due to the fact that we have strayed from God. Getting ‘more God’ into our government would make things worse, not better. If you are not convinced, let me remind you of some examples of pious societies – Oliver Cromwell’s England, Puritan New England, Spain of the Inquisition, Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, present-day Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, David Koresh‘s Waco, Texas, and Jim Jones’s Jonestown, Guyana. If it’s God-and-guns you want, immigrate to the dozen or so countries across the globe that consistently make the ‘don’t travel here for any reason’ list, and leave this country alone. I’m sure you think that running things according to your religion would be kinder and gentler than my examples – so did the Kool-Aid sipping acolytes at Jonestown.

Are there countries that have no interest whatsoever in making their societies ‘more godly’? Yes, there are. They consist of the 20-odd countries that usually outrank the US in ‘happiest places’ and ‘best places to live’ polls that haunt the Internet. These countries, with much lower crime and poverty rates than our own, decided long, long ago that religion had no role to play in government, and their peoples are happier and healthier because of it.

Seriously, no one in the religious mainstream – measured at it’s broadest swath, from Fred Phelps to any lesbian Episcopalian pastor – is truly interested in having the government involved in our personal religious beliefs – no matter what they say to the contrary. Freedom of religion is what allows you to be as loony as you like; once you start trying to legislate morality, you get a religious practice that looks a lot more like the Church of England, and no American is interested in that, not now, not two centuries ago.

So tell your Congressman to give it up already. We all know that the vote to close down the one and only abortion clinic in the state of Mississippi sprung not from any moral conviction, but from the desire to squeeze every last vote out of the uneducated crowd, from Honey Boo-Boos’s inbred cousins to the cast of Swamp People.

However, if I were forced to choose a religion that I think would work well with our American system, I’d have to go with the teachings of the Buddha. Now, I know what you’re thinking – Westerners who get involved in Eastern mysticism are about the flakiest individuals you will ever meet. It’s hard not to think of the words ‘Buddhist’ and ‘Hippie Narcissist’ together. And the Dalai Lama is charming enough in a ten-minute interview, but I don’t think his outlook would be particularly reassuring to Wall Street. But hear me out.

First of all, Buddhism isn’t technically a religion, as it eschews the belief in a deity.This is probably why it never displaced Hinduism in India, its birthplace. In the land of thirty-five thousand gods, they would have accepted the addition of another one, but never the subtraction of them all. In fact, the Buddha considered a belief in god one of the ‘attachments’ or illusions that bring us so much misery. If your life is going to hell and your god never steps in to help you out, you add an additional heartbreak added to the one you are already experiencing. It’s devastating to have your crops destroyed by a storm; to think that your god could have stepped in but didn’t, that you’ve angered him or her in some way, that some deficiency in your worship may have indeed caused it – this is even worse.

In America, whenever a tragedy occurs, a Hurricane Katrina or a stock market crash, we get the added pleasure of a Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell, high and dry and insulated by hedge funds, telling us that we ourselves are to blame for disappointing God in some way. Or that God is trying to teach you something through your cancer. Or that the richest 1% in America own 40% of the wealth because God has decided they are good stewards – and you are not.

Getting rid of the deity would remove so many roadblocks to becoming a more rational society in America. These problems that seem impossible to solve – global climate change, gun ownership, gay marriage, etc., would all become so much easier to solve when one side couldn’t claim to have the ‘mind of God’ on their side.

Secondly, Buddhism addresses directly the most negative aspect of capitalism – suffering. Market societies, efficient as they are, produce winner and losers. In past generations, almost everyone got to win a little bit, and the losers were few. Today, the winners win big, and everyone else gets the crumbs. A lot more people are left out in the cold. Buddhism doesn’t lay a guilt trip on you for being one of the losers – it makes you realize that even the so-called winners enjoy a temporary advantage at best. Since winning and losing is all about chance, there is always hope that the wheel will turn in your favor – but in the end, we will all suffer loss, all get sick, grow old, eventually die.

Finally, the life of the Buddha fits into that American motif of privileged Americans spending their lives helping move our society in a positive directions. Siddharta Gautama began life as a prince, but decided to live an ascetic life in hope of improving humanity. Everyone knows that the rags-to-riches stories are a relic from the American past, and, unless you become a basketball player or a reality TV star, such a thing will not happen to you. We’re not interested in what the little guy has to say – let me hear about how the world works from guys like Donald Trump and Warren Buffet.  The guy with nowhere to lay his head isn’t relevant to today’s America.  From Thomas Jefferson to Mitt Romney, American politics have always been a place for the privileged to give something back to those less fortunate.

And by the way, that last paragraph was meant to be sarcastic – in case the Mitt Romney reference didn’t tip you off.

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Who Is America’s Only Protestant Leader?

In American Society, Religion and Government, Religion and Society on September 22, 2012 at 3:05 am

I’m feeling a little mischievous today, so I thought I might beat a horse / bang a drum / stir up a race in which I have no dog entered – or whatever colloquialism you might have for one of my favorite pastimes – getting people all fired up about something that I don’t really care about one way or another.

There’s been a lot of talk about the 47% Americans this week – here are a few other percentages that might interest you.

I’m guessing that the vast majority of American readers who stumble upon this blog are Christians; maybe that’s why my subscriptions inch up at a rate of only a couple a month. Statistics would predict that this is the case. Out of all adult Americans (I don’t like to count children as religious adherents), a little more than 75% claim a belief in the Christian faith. This makes us a ‘Christian nation’ in the eyes of many, especially conservatives, Republicans, tea-partiers, and others on the right of the political spectrum.

I’m also guessing – from what I see on the news, and from what I am unfortunately subjected to from Facebook friends – that many Christians feel that their religious beliefs should play a key role in their political decisions. This is something that I am adamantly against, as the title of this blog should intimate; I think folks should believe whatever they want to believe in their personal lives, but concerning those areas that affect society as a whole, they should rely on empirical evidence and fact, not feeling.

However, in this conservative way of thinking, it would follow that 75% of our leaders should be Christian too, if they are to accurately reflect our beliefs. I mean, if I spend several hours a week at the local Methodist church, I’d really like the guys and gals who are making the rules of the country to be Methodists too, wouldn’t I?

Of the 75-80% of American adults who claim to be Christians, about a third are Catholic, and two-thirds are Protestant – with the remaining quarter being everything else, from Jewish (5%) to Mormon (2%) to Muslim (.5%). So, about half of our leaders should be Protestant, a quarter Catholic, and a quarter drawn from all other beliefs.

While just over half of Americans today claim beliefs born of the Reformation, our American heritage is undoubtedly Protestant – one might say extremely so. If you look at the religious affiliation of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence, you’ll find 55 Protestants and 1 Catholic – although perhaps 4 of these Protestants were not what you might call ‘traditional’ Protestants; 2 publicly espoused Unitarianism, and Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, despite being affiliated with the Episcopalian or American Anglican church were thought to be Deists. Nonetheless, according to adherents.com, 203 of the 204 men who could be considered Founding Fathers were Protestant. Half were Anglican, a third were Presbyterian or Congregationalist.

Do you believe that our country should be run according to the religious ideas of the Founding Fathers? Then I’m guessing you’d want most of our leaders to come from those three Protestant groups; unfortunately, followers of those faiths account for a very small percentage of the population today. So when you hear someone like Pat Robertson, Rick Warren, or Charles Stanley talk about the beliefs of creators of our American democracy, keep in mind that they would all have pretty serious theological differences with those men were they alive today.

What is the religious affiliation of the leaders of our country today? It might surprise you. Now, remember, I’m a secularist – I think religion should play less of a role in our politics, not more. I don’t really think of a candidate’s religious beliefs when I go to the polls, unless he believes in something so ridiculous, so fantastical that I think it warps his sense of reality. I’d like to think that a leader, even if he went to church on Sunday, would spend the other six days trying to improve the welfare of the country. But if you want the government to reflect your Protestant religious beliefs, you may be disappointed in the following facts.

The Supreme Court consists of nine justices: 6 Catholic, 3 Jewish. (The last Protestant, John Paul Stephens, retired in 2010).

Vice President of the US, Joe Biden – the person who breaks ties in the Senate: Catholic

Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid – the person who sets the Senate’s agenda: Mormon

Speaker of the House, John Boehner – responsible for deciding what the House votes on: Catholic

Now I’m thinking, if you’re an evangelical Christian, you can’t be too happy with those statistics – 8 Roman Catholics, 3 Jews, and a Mormon have a pretty good lock on the positions of real power in the US. Who’s representing your interests if you are a Protestant?

A lot of Americans would like to have a president who more closely reflects their own values, those of the evangelical Christian church. If you’d like to make that change right away – sorry, but the Republicans have given you a Mormon / Catholic ticket, Romney and Ryan. Personally, there’s no way I could vote for a guy who believes in Joseph Smith’s hogwash – not now, not back when I was a fundamentalist. See the above about a warped sense of reality.

Are you unhappy yet, Mr. Evangelical? You wouldn’t go to the same church with most of the people in charge of the country – perhaps someone in your pulpit has even openly criticized Judaism, Catholicism or Mormonism. But there they are, deciding what’s best for you, me and the rest of the country. And if you thought you might get to get someone in the next election that believes like you do – wrong again.

Oh, wait a minute. I just remembered. There is one Protestant choice. There is one man who belongs to the long, proud line of Protestant leaders our country has produced. One man who believes that Jesus Christ is the son of God, but doesn’t believe that the Virgin will help get you in to heaven. One man whose faith was nurtured by the King James Version of the Bible – not the Torah, the Book of Mormon, or the Catholic Bible.

Yes, Mr. Evangelical, if you want to vote according to your faith, the choice is clear:

Official photographic portrait of US President...

While he grew up in a home that was decidedly un-Christian, he decided, as an adult, to join the Trinity United Church of Christ. Want to vote for someone who’s beliefs are most similar to yours? Barack Obama’s church is similar to the Southern Baptist denomination when it comes to theology. Want someone who espouses the religious beliefs of the Founding Fathers? Both John Adams and John Quincy Adams were members of the United Church of Christ.

Maybe your pastor is telling you to vote for Romney / Ryan – but if you told him that, after much prayer and thought, that you were going to join the Roman Catholic Church, or the Church of Latter Day Saints – he’d have a cow.

Tell him instead that you’re voting for the only Protestant / Evangelical choice available this election year, Barack Obama. He doesn’t believe in magic underwear or that only 144,000 people are going to heaven. He isn’t part of a religion that’s spent hundreds of years stealing from the poor to give to the rich, and he isn’t interested in seeing that system become the basis for American fiscal policy.

He isn’t a Muslim, a Socialist, or the Anti-Christ. He’s more like the guy sitting in the pew next to you than any other candidate or current leader.

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God Is Not Speaking To You

In Religion and Government, Religion and Society on June 9, 2012 at 1:17 am
English: Book of Job in Illuminated Manuscript...

God Speaking to Job – Byzantine

If you’ve stuck with me through the last couple of posts, thank you. Talking about prophecy and how God speaks in general is some pretty obtuse stuff, and it’s bound to draw some discontent from different corners.

I’ve said all that I’ve said in the last couple of posts to say this – God is not speaking to you. Whether you want to call it prophecy, God revealing his Word to you, God speaking to your heart through ‘impressions’ – what have you – there’s simply no independently verifiable method to prove what you say is true. If you say that you can verify that God has spoken to you because you can compare it to the scriptures, I have to ask how you know the scriptures are valid, or at least that your interpretation of them is the correct one. If you can only answer that you know this because God has revealed it to you in some way – then your logic is completely circular.

I know you want to think God talks to us, because we talk to him all the time. But we have to face the fact that most if not all of the ‘impressions’ that drop into our minds are simply our own thoughts. We imperil our democracy if we refuse to do so.

Deciding that your opinions are ‘God-breathed’ in some way, and that mine are just the machinations of a fallen nature undermines the idea of democracy. Our laws are to be based on what’s best for the common good, what the majority of the populace decides – not on what one group’s God wants. Saying that God is the author of your convictions is just a way of elevating your opinions – and discrediting mine.

It also makes it impossible to compromise to get anything done. Anyone who grew up in a large family knows that no one can have what they want all of the time. Everyone has to compromise from time to time for the good of the family as a whole. Democracy works the same way. If Christians get what they want all of the time, America would be a very unhappy place for people of other faiths or no faith at all.

If you feel, for example, that God told you that tax cuts for wealthy people are good for the economy, then if would be impossible for you to compromise with someone who felt differently, or to vote for someone who proposed such an idea. No amount of data or academic proof would be able to dissuade you of your opinion. Any everyone knows that when God tells you something, you dare not compromise. Who would ask you to compromise what God told you? Well, only Satan of course. So the other party must be driven by the spirit of the Antichrist.

You can see why we’re not getting much done in America these days. I lived in China and other Asian countries for just over a decade. They’re eating our lunch when it comes to building roads, airports, and other infrastructure, and they’re investing in education at ten times our rate per capita. The reasons why China is pulling ahead of us are complex, to be sure. But one reason why is that everyone believes that the only solution to their problems is themselves. Also, no one ever accuses the other political parties of being motivated by demons.

If it comforts you to think that God speaks to you about the intimate details of your life – who am I to deny you that comfort? But if I think that the problems we are facing in this country can be solved if we just all figure out how to work together – who are you to deny me and my descendants a happy and prosperous future?

Talk to God if you like – but don’t pretend that every idea that falls into your head comes from him.

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1 Thessalonians 1

In Blogging the Bible, Blogging the New Testament, Religion and Government on May 16, 2012 at 12:12 am
Olympion Cinema. Thessaloniki, Greece. Site of...

Olympion Cinema. Thessaloniki, Greece.

Read 1 Thessalonians and follow along.

Most Bible scholars believe this to be the oldest of the New Testament books (although James has its supporters as well). It was written to the people of Thessaloniki, a city that exists to this day in northern Greece. In Paul’s day, it was a key trading city that lay on an important overland route from Rome to the gateway of Asia. Paul, Silas, and Timothy started a church here around 50 CE, but were forced leave in a hurry, as their lives were in danger. Later, Timothy returned to find the church doing well, and Paul writes his first letter to the Thessalonians upon hearing the good news. So, this letter would have been written 54-56 CE, making it the very first Christian writing that we know of today.

Now you might ask why the earliest known Christian writing occurs a full 25 years or so after the death of Christ. Well, this dating is not the work of some liberal scholar trying to convince us that the whole of Christianity is a myth created long after Jesus’ death. In fact, conservative scholars pretty much agree with this date as well. There are a couple of reasons why the early church leaders waited so long to write anything down.

We have to remember that Jesus and his disciples were pretty much a rough and tumble bunch of carpenters, fishermen, tax collectors, and the like, which means they may not have known how to write – we do have the story of Jesus writing something in the sand, but we don’t have any information other than that. Remember that Palestine at the time of Christ was the backwater of the Roman empire, not a bastion of learning and education – sort of the Alabama of the empire. Paul of Tarsus, on the other hand, was educated in both the Hebrew and Classical forms of education, according to tradition, which made him well-qualified to present the ideas of a religion steeped in Jewish history to the masses of the Roman state. But why wait so long?

The consensus seems to be that the original followers of Jesus were so sure that he was coming back any day, that they didn’t see any need to make any written records of their ideas. All of Jesus’ followers were fervently preaching the ‘good news’ as hard and fast as they could – before Jesus returned. If Jesus was coming back within their lifetimes, there wasn’t much time to worry about all the intricacies of doctrine – they simply wanted as many converts as possible. Only after time had passed – and the prospect that Jesus may not return as soon as they hoped began to loom large in their minds – only then did his followers began to feel the need to write down a few important ideas for the faithful who might outlive them. We’ll see the writers of the NT address some of these concerns as we move through the different letters and gospels.

Looking at 1 Thessalonians 1, there isn’t anything that will surprise you if you’ve ever attended a church service. Believers already refer to each other as brothers and sisters, even at this early date. Belief in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead by is also mentioned in this chapter; from a Christian point of view, I think it’s critical to see this belief as evident from the very first Christian writing in existence.

In verse 10, however, there is an idea that causes me some real concern – waiting for Jesus to return from heaven and save believers from some sort of ‘coming wrath’. I can try to understand why Paul and others living in the first century might expect Jesus to come back from heaven; nearly 2000 years later, I don’t understand why many folks are still waiting. Why can’t we admit, after all these years and hundreds of calamities from which Christians have not been spared, that perhaps Paul was mistaken? He never met Jesus face to face, having only encountered him in a powerful vision. Is it possible – just for the sake of argument – that the church is incorrect in this aspect?

I remember listening to sermons about the rapture when I was a teenager, and feeling a little bit guilty that I seemed to be the only one who didn’t want it to happen right away. I wanted to go to heaven, for sure, and missing out on any future calamity seemed pretty good too. I just wanted God to wait and let me enjoy life here for at least a little while first. I wanted to fall in love, get married, see some of the world, maybe enjoy a few earthly luxuries – then it would be alright for him to come back. The fear of the ‘coming calamity’ certainly kept me on my toes, but inside, I hoped it wasn’t true.

Whether or not you believe in the imminent return of Christ, the rapture of the church, or other related pre-determined futures, take a minute to at least see the dangers these ideas present to our current society. Many churches preach that the world is going to get worse and worse until Jesus comes back to fix everything himself. Don’t worry if you’re a Christian – you won’t be subjected to the worst of it. In fact, you’ll live a happy, healthy and wealthy life until just before all hell breaks loose (literally), at which time you’ll be snatched away to heaven.

I’d say this ideology does a lot of damage to our democracy. If Jesus is coming back any day now, what need do we have to try to make sure American society continues to progress 20-30 years into the future? No need to cooperate with anyone else to make the world a better place – Jesus is coming back to fix all that anyway. Peak oil? Not a problem – Jesus will come back before we run out of oil; in fact, maybe a global war for oil is just what is needed to hasten his appearance! The world’s political systems have to be broken so that Jesus can reign as king on Earth. Scary stuff, unless you think you’re going to be raptured – what’s to worry about?

Here’s where a strong dose of secularism is needed. I’m not going to ask you to surrender your faith, but as an American, it is your civic duty prepare for our future as if Jesus were not coming back, soon or otherwise. It is your duty to elect officials that will strive to improve our lives – not morally, that’s the work of the pastor, teacher, or philosopher – but in real, measurable and observable ways.

We Americans must stop pretending there will be no tomorrow, or that someone or something other than our own intellect can make a better tomorrow – or start preparing to be servants to those not hindered by such ideas.

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What Constitutes Charity?

In Religion and Government, Religion and Money on May 6, 2012 at 11:31 pm

Salt Lake Temple in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA....

Your Tax Dollars at Work?

If I give a thousand dollars to my local opera company, and you give the same amount to Meals on Wheels, assuming we’re in the same tax bracket of say, 20% – we both get the same charitable deduction on our taxes. Opera is my hobby; feeding the poor and infirm is yours. Both organizations are non-profit, so we both deprive Uncle Sam of a couple hundred bucks. (Sounds like one of those 21st Century Insurance commercials.) Is this really the way things should work?

This is the issue Bill Maher raises this week on Real Time with Bill Maher - the nonsensical idea that all charitable contributions are created equal. In his trademark irreverent style, Mr. Maher ridicules the current system that shelters millions of dollars of much-needed revenue from the nation’s coffers.  (Read the transcript of his New Rules segment here. It sometimes takes a few days after the show’s initial airing for transcripts to appear.)

What exactly should constitute a charitable deduction? Perhaps a dozen years ago, when the government was running a surplus, it wasn’t a pertinent question. Today, however, with huge deficits, a staggering national debt, and no agreement in Congress about how to fix these problems, it’s time to have a look at what sort of activities the rest of us are subsidizing.

Last year, Mitt Romney made around 20 million dollars. If he paid his tithes, that means that 2 million went to the Church of Latter Day Saints. We know Mr. Romney paid an actual tax rate of 14%. This means that he didn’t pay the IRS around $280,000 that he would have otherwise owed. Since the US Treasury Department is not currently running a surplus, but a deficit, this means that someone – or a lot of someones – is going to have to make up that loss. What do we as Americans get in return for that loss of a quarter of a million dollars? I suppose that LDS might spend some of that 2 million dollars on feeding the poor and infirm; but I know for sure that they spend a lot of it sending young men in short-sleeve dress shirts out to neighborhoods all over America and the world in an effort to win converts. And in essence, you and I are subsidizing that activity.

It’s time to end this nonsense. If I give thousands of dollars to my church so they can have a swimming pool in the their new gymnasium, and you give thousands of dollars to the local homeless shelter, our contribution to society is not equal, and the IRS should stop subsidizing both activities equally. We can argue over the many other subsidies in our tax system – and we should – but certainly all of us can agree that food and shelter for the homeless and new swimming pools for upper-middle class Christians are entities that should not enjoy the same margin of entitlement. I’m not saying that churches shouldn’t be allowed to build whatever they want – I’m simply saying that I don’t want to foot part of the bill.

In fact, in a secular society, the government has no business encouraging the building of churches, mosques and synagogues or any other activity that is purely religious in nature; therefore, contributions that go in large part to that activity should not qualify for a tax deduction. However, curing drug addicts, giving job skills to the unemployed, finding new cures for illnesses – these are activities that benefit society as a whole, and should continue to qualify.

Government should neither encourage religious activity nor dissuade its citizens from participating in any way they see fit. All American citizens should financially support causes they wish to see thrive; only those causes that have positive benefits to the general populace – in this life – should be tax exempt.

Do you think your tithes should be tax deductible? Leave a comment and contribute to the conversation.

 

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150 Million Non-Adherents Can’t Be Wrong

In Religion and Government on May 6, 2012 at 2:32 am

Well, the numbers are in. This week, the results of the 2010 Religious Census were released to the public – and there are a few interesting surprises. Catholics are still the number one group, followed by the Baptists – no surprises here. But, for the very first time, the census has included ‘non-denominational evangelical’  congregations in the count, and taken together, this is the third largest group in America.

Anyone who’s familiar with American life wouldn’t find this too surprising at all – pretty much every preacher on television belongs to this group, and almost all of those super huge castles you see from the main highways have signs that boast their non-denominational credentials. In fact, I would suggest that suburban life – outside of the former Confederate states – revolves around one of these kinds of churches. When you think of the soccer mom, NASCAR dad, Jerry Falwell, Tea Party, love Jesus, hate Obama crowd, I think you have to also think mega-church in the suburbs preaching the prosperity gospel, the Republican party, and American exceptionalism.

All of this holds true in the South as well, but the Southern Baptist convention holds sway there – think less speaking in tongues, a little more guilt – but with the benefit of eternal security. The Mormons are the fastest growing group in the US. This is intriguing to me, since most everything Mormons believe is based on the only decades-old teachings of Joseph Smith – clearly an Elmer Gantry before his time. At least the non-denominational evangelicals can boast roots going back to the Great Awakening.

The Census recognizes that some of the numbers could be skewed, as the information comes from the churches themselves, not from individuals. The thinking is that if you ask an individual if they belong to a church, they might say ‘yes’ even if they haven’t been in years. Churches were asked to estimate the number of ‘adherents’ they counted – and I’m not sure if any guidelines were placed on them, such as if said adherents were regular attendees or if they contributed financial support to the organization.

Growing up in the Assemblies of God, we paid a lot of attention to the average attendance – in fact, many AG churches have the attendance board posted prominently near the front of the church, with numbers updated weekly. If other evangelical churches are similarly fixated on attendance, then I’d say the numbers from non-denominational evangelical groups are a reasonably fair assessment of who ‘belongs’ to the church. This doesn’t even take into consideration the folks who agree with the ideas of Joel Osteen, Benny Hinn, Robert Schuller, and other evangelicals – but have chosen for one reason or another to stay with their denomination. (Schuller is Dutch Reformed, a Calvinist belief with roots going back to Revolutionary times – Martin Van Buren and Teddy Roosevelt were both members; but many evangelicals proscribe to Schuller’s positive-thinking doctrine).

From my limited knowledge of how Catholics and Baptists count their membership, I’d think those numbers might be overestimated; Catholics tend to put your name down when you’re christened as a little baby, and don’t take it off the record until you die and have your funeral in a Catholic church, even if you don’t show up much in between. Baptists tend to do the same thing – once you join, you’re counted in the membership until you ‘move your letter’ or die. I’m not sure about Mormons – but I know there’s a big controversy about them baptizing people posthumously – don’t know if this pads their numbers or not.

Bread of Life Central Church's Worship Gatheri...

I say all this to get to the number that I think is really important – the 150 million ‘non-adherents’ in American society. These are the people who either don’t believe in God, or don’t think he’s important enough to show up for any kind of Sunday (or Saturday) service or to offer any kind of financial support to a religious institution. How is it, then, that we are supposed to be a Christian nation?

Out of our 300 million citizens, fully one-half adhere to nothing. Out of the 150 million remaining, one has to subtract those of the Jewish faith, the Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Jain, Daoists, etc., etc., etc. Then, take into account that many denominations may be giving us over-blown numbers – someone may have been christened, but never darkened the door of a church since then. And speaking of christening – how many children are included in those numbers? Is it really fair to call toddlers and pre-schoolers ‘Catholic’ or ‘Evangelical’? If a church has a thousand people attending a Sunday morning service, how many of those would not be old enough to make decisions about eternity for themselves?

Could we only be looking at perhaps 75 million adult Christians in America? And perhaps only a third of them actively anti-secular? This would mean that a group comprising less than ten percent of the country are wielding enormous power when it comes to trying to inject religion into our schools and into our laws.

It’s time to stand up and be counted.  Are you non-Christian? Your senator, congressman, school superintendent, and others need to hear your views – the fundamentalists have had their ear for too long – and their political power is disproportionate to their true numbers. It’s exciting to think that – given the right information and the opportunity to use it – four or five out of six Americans could  be persuaded to a secularist approach to education and government.

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Render Unto Caesar

In Religion and Government, Religion and Money on April 29, 2012 at 11:31 pm

Augustus of Prima Porta, statue of the emperor...

Before we get too far down the secularist road together, I think I should take the time to clarify the BIG IDEA that I hope will drive this blog for some time. It comes from what is probably one of the better known stories of the New Testament gospels. It seems there were some folks in the religious establishment that didn’t like Jesus very much, and they were always trying to get him to say something that might cause him to lose followers – or maybe even his head. One day they decided it would be a pretty nifty ploy to ask him what he thought about the very unpopular Roman tax Judeans were required to pay.  If Jesus supported the tax, he’d have an angry mob to contend with, and would for sure lose most of his followers.  If, on the other hand, he replied that those of the Jewish faith shouldn’t be required to pay it – his enemies would certainly be able to bring a case against him with the Roman authorities.

Mark 12:13-17 American Standard Version of the Bible tells it this way:

And they send unto him certain of the Pharisees and of the Herodians, that they might catch him in talk. And when they were come, they say unto him, Teacher, we know that thou art true, and carest not for any one; for thou regardest not the person of men, but of a truth teachest the way of God: Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not? Shall we give, or shall we not give? But he, knowing their hypocrisy, said unto them, Why make ye trial of me? bring me a denarius, that I may see it. And they brought it. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? And they said unto him, Caesar’s. And Jesus said unto them, Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s. And they marvelled greatly at him

Now there have been a lot of attempts to make this say something it doesn’t, but I think it’s clear to even the casual reader that Jesus wasn’t interested in making any political statements. If your government requires you to do something, you should do it.  If your god requires you to do something, you should do that as well.  I suppose there might be times when these requirements might be at odds with one another – and I’ll be talking about those kind of situations at length – but it seems that Jesus doesn’t seem to have a problem with paying taxes. (Funny that American conservatives – many of whom are fundamentalist believers – do.)

However, I think there’s more at work here than just a simple discourse about taxation – and this is where my BIG IDEA comes in.  Jesus himself seems to be saying here that religion and civic duty are two different realms, and in a sense require different kinds of commitments. It is possible to be a good Christian and a good citizen at the same time - even if your government is not God-centered. We separate church and state so that everyone can enjoy the rights and liberties in common that are given us by our democratic from of government, while continuing to enjoy the benefits of whatever religion we choose.

It is my hope that Americans would begin to see this separation not as simply institutional, but at the personal level as well, to embrace the dichotomy, as it were.  Unlike many secularist organizations, I ask no one to abandon their faith for the sake of democracy. I simply ask that they use their faith to guide them in their quest for God – but use the powers of reason, observation, and intelligence when they make decisions about our government. I believe a person can be a Christian and still vote for candidates that do not share their religious beliefs – but they vote for those candidates because they are capable of making decisions that are good for all Americans.

Perhaps George Holyoake, the British lecturer who coined the term ‘secularism’, said it best:

“Secularism is not an argument against Christianity, it is one independent of it. It does not question the pretensions of Christianity; it advances others. Secularism does not say there is no light or guidance elsewhere, but maintains that there is light and guidance in secular truth, whose conditions and sanctions exist independently, and act forever. Secular knowledge is manifestly that kind of knowledge which is founded in this life, which relates to the conduct of this life, conduces to the welfare of this life, and is capable of being tested by the experience of this life.”

Global climate change. Terrorism. Inequality. Poverty. These are problems that can perhaps be better solved by scientists, economists, and diplomats than by searching two-thousand-year-old texts. If I may re-phrase the words of Jesus – Americans should begin to give to their country the very best of their intelligence, reason, and rational thought, and continue to love their God with all of their hearts.  If we can do this, the rest of the world will marvel greatly.

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The Inspirational Rick Santorum

In Religion and Government on April 29, 2012 at 11:14 pm

You might find it hard to believe, but Rick Santorum is responsible for the existence of this blog. I could say that, like Sarah Palin, he inspires me; both have caused me to make positive choices in my life. In Sarah Palin’s case, I was inspired to vote in a presidential election for the first time in years. I had always been a big fan of John McCain – his straight-from-the-hip style, his willingness to vote on principle instead of by party line – and this new guy Barack Obama seemed to have quite a bit of charisma too. I was pretty sure that America would be taking a big step up from the George W. Bush years, no matter who won. Going to all the trouble to cast an absentee ballot from Beijing, where I lived at the time, didn’t seem really all that important, since I’d be happy enough with either outcome.

Enter Sarah Palin. I only had to see a couple of interviews to be terrified of the idea that this person might be a heart attack away from the Oval Office. Just when I thought President Dumb was leaving the White House, here was the specter that President Even Dumber might take his place. I made the necessary phone calls, got my ballot, and cast my vote. In that time-honored American tradition, I didn’t so much vote for one guy as I voted against the other.  (This is closely related to another tradition known as vote the bastards out – for which a Google search turns up over 27 million hits.)

Rick Santorum’s surge in the polls this past winter meant that more of what he had to say was turning up in the news – and the more I heard, the less I liked. I never really thought he had a chance to win the nomination, but his campaign musings revealed a poisonous strain of political thinking in America, one that could only be called the desire for a theocracy. Don’t get me wrong – I am not opposed to a person of faith voting according to his conscience. Everyone has the right in this country to vote for whomever they choose. What I am opposed to is the idea that a democracy should be run according to – and is grounded in – the ideas of the Bible. Preachers and pundits are busily proclaiming such nonsense – but never offer one shred of proof from either history or their own sacred texts.

speaking at CPAC in Washington D.C. on Februar...

“Where do you think this concept of equality comes from?” said Santorum, according to ABC News. “It doesn’t come from Islam. It doesn’t come from the East and Eastern religions, where does it come from? It comes from the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that’s where it comes from. Don’t claim his rights, don’t claim equality as that gift from God and then go around and say, ‘Well, we don’t have to pay attention to what God wants us to do,’” Santorum continued to the enthusiastic crowd. “‘We don’t have to pay attention to God’s moral laws.’ If your rights come from God, then you have an obligation to live responsibly in conforming with God’s laws, and our founders said so, right?”

ABC News link . Quotes from Rick Santorum at a town hall in South Carolina, January 2012.

Wrong, Rick. Exactly what part of the Bible served as the inspiration for Thomas Jefferson to write “all men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independence? And where might I find examples of God’s moral laws or his establishment of our American rights? I see many examples in the Old Testament of Jehovah encouraging genocide for those who were not of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I can read Paul’s letters where he tells slaves to be obedient to their masters.  I can even read how Jesus called a Canaanite woman a dog, and informed her that all the wonderful things he promised were for Israel alone. In fact, there are hundreds of examples in the Bible that would seem to refute the idea that concept of equality is part of our Judeo-Christian heritage. How can Christians be so ill-informed about the very book upon which they claim to base their beliefs – indeed, the future of their eternal souls? If you’re going to run around telling everyone that they need to do what the Bible says if they know what’s good for them – shouldn’t you take the time to read it first?

Mr. Santorum and others like him have inspired me to do something positive – write this blog. Christians aren’t reading their Bibles – they are content to let patriarchs and pedagogues do their thinking for them.  In the process, what Jesus, Paul and others had to say is being grossly misrepresented.  Perhaps more importantly, too many Americans are completely ignorant of Enlightenment writings – which is where ideas of equality and democracy truly come from. I’m convinced that we desperately need a greater awareness of these ideas if our country is to continue to prosper.

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