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Showing posts from 2010

Reason and Civility in Politics

Come January we will have a national government that we have to live with, at least for the next two years. And now I wonder, what have we learned from the recent mid-term elections, and what do we have to look forward to? One thing I’ve learned is that politics haven’t changed much since 1787, the year the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia adopted the Constitution and sent it on to the thirteen states for ratification. Our political landscape now is at least as contentious and infused with partisan rancor and competing interests as it was at the time of this nation’s founding. One problem faced by our founders that will certainly sound familiar to us is the question of motives behind political positions. It was not always possible to discern whether another’s positions and advocacy were born of integrity and mutual regard. As Alexander Hamilton noted in The Federalist No.1 , “we are not always sure, that those who advocate the truth are influenced by purer principles

Should We Support Civil Unions?

As this is written, HB2234, a bill on civil unions for gay and lesbian couples in Illinois may be called up for a vote in the House in the fall veto session of the General Assembly. If it is, and if it passes, Gov. Patrick Quinn who supports it will presumably sign it. The Chicago Sun Times , the Chicago Tribune , and the Daily Herald have all editorialized in support of civil unions. The ACLU of Illinois supports it. Patriots United , the Illinois Family Institute , and Chicago Roman Catholic Archbishop Cardinal Francis George oppose it. Polling data both nationally and in Illinois make it evident that a clear majority support civil unions though less than half fully support same-sex marriage. The bill now before the General Assembly in Springfield is also supported by Protestants for the Common Good, an organization with which I am happily associated. At this moment, however, I am wondering if this is a bill we should support. If enacted, this bill would make

Hypocrites Among Us

One thing we can take from Jesus’ censure of the scribes and Pharisees as recorded in Mt 23:23 and Luke 11:42 is that they most certainly did not consider themselves hypocrites as Jesus said, or guilty of neglecting the “weightier matters” of justice and mercy, faith and love. Their problem with Jesus was that he simply would not accept that their totalizing institutions of religion and their leadership of them were virtuous, authentic, loyal, exemplary, sincere, authoritative, and most of all, lawful. What is interesting is that most Christians nowadays hold that, in this contestation, Jesus was correct in his assessment of his adversaries. But that means those who thought themselves right were in fact wrong, so these religious elite must have been functioning in some form of denial or false consciousness or just plain self-deception. Holding that Jesus was in the right is tantamount to acknowledging that those who regard themselves as the true custodians and protectors of a dom

Weightier Matters

Anyone familiar with the Christian tradition knows that the scribes and Pharisees didn’t care for Jesus. From their point of view, he was an impertinent and unruly interloper whose words and conduct were blasphemous and subversive. From his point of view, they were … well, they were phony. Roman-occupied Palestine, in the first century of the common era, did not have a First Amendment, so there was no freedom of speech or even freedom of religion, at least not in the form of disestablishment of religion as we know it today. If one was Jewish, one had to do certain things and do them in particular ways; there was no room to allow one the choice of altering how things were done according to the dictates of conscience or personal liberty. Likewise, speaking up and speaking out against the authorities—civil and religious—could get one in a lot of trouble, so much so that it was much better to muzzle your mouth, stew in your juices, and keep a low profile—or join up with the revolu

And the survey says…?

It seems that most everyone is aflutter with the news that atheists and agnostics know more about religion than religionists themselves, according to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Let’s put that another way: We now have evidence that disbelievers and unknowers have more information about other religions than do the followers of those religions. That’s the news coming out of Washington D.C. where the Pew Research Center has just released its findings from its study of religious knowledge in the U.S. For anyone who may be curious, the results suggest that the level of religious knowledge among adherents and non-adherents alike is not all that great. Sure, atheists/agnostics answer more survey questions correctly, but 20.9 correct out of 32 questions is still a ‘D’ on the grade sheet. And yes, on a scale where 60% is passing, only atheists/agnostics, Jews, and Mormons pass, while all types of Christians fail. Surveys have been trumpeting for years that American

Of Mosques and Migrants

Along with many others, I have become increasingly distressed over the summer by the public discourse and conduct of some of my fellow citizens. At the moment, I am not inclined to describe this simply as “politics,” even though campaigns for the mid-term Congressional elections are underway and many of the issues over which opinion is diverging are also matters that are, to some extent, the purview of government. Nor am I willing to reduce it to differences in political “ideology,” even though one of the contested issues is precisely the role of government, its size and reach, in its management of our common socioeconomic life. Rather, I have been wondering whether there is something else operating at a deeper level, catalyzing our abrasive politics and ideologies, some sort of vestigial sensibility that is evoked by a perfect storm of socioeconomic conditions, cultural group membership, and existential receptiveness to change. Social and political extremism is hardly un

On Turning Back to God

Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally at the National Mall in our nation’s capitol has come and gone. Presumably both the litter and the loiterers have been removed. Now the event lives on only in the memory of those who experienced it or saw it on television, and in the articles and columns and blogs finding their way onto the Internet. This blog isn’t one of them, but it does grow out of a prominent theme at Beck’s rally: God and America! More specifically, the theme is God’s role in American society. Beck is not the first, but he is the most recent, to call Americans to turn back to God and thereby emerge from a season of darkness. Any summons to return to God, especially as the antidote to misdirection and error, begs the question of God’s role in our social and political order. Moreover, a call for America to return to God, or the assertion that even now America is turning back to God, raises the question of whether this applies to the nation as such, as a corporate entit

Our Social/Political Pathology

The seasons of political elections come and go, each characterized not only by a set of particular issues but a peculiar tone to the public discussions and debates. Invariably the constellation of issues and challenges facing the country and its political leadership is anchored in but a handful of extra-ordinary issues, those that seem to evoke heightened interest and inspire civic participation, but may or may not actually point our way forward as a nation. Ballots are cast, swearings-in occur, and we get on with our lives, whether we are pleased or disgruntled at the outcome. It is what it is—and we hope to see another day. Wars and wages, rights and responsibilities, freedom and fairness, equality and ecology, safety and security: these are the provinces within which we have crystallized the issues of political elections in seasons past. With confrontation and pugnacity, we achieve a measurable degree of social and political resolution, and move on. Now, however, it all se