Blogging For Religious Liberty

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof
United States Constitution, Amendment I.

Def Con wants me to Blog Against Theocracy this weekend. Hmph. Generally I like Def Con, but I’m not loving the assignment.

For those who don’t know, Def Con is the Committee to Defend the Constitution. Generally they work for church/state separation, for science (pro-evolution, pro-stem cell research), and some right-to-privacy issues like abortion, birth control and end of life decisions. Mostly they are against the Religious Right.

For the most part they are fairly reasonable, but at times they are Tone-Def Con. This is one of those times.

Generally, movements against things do poorly compared to movements that are for something. The Right knows this. The anti-abortion movement is “pro-life.” The anti-gays movement is “pro-family.” The effort to ban gay marriage is “pro-marriage,” (because the best way to protect something is to make sure there is less of it.) For some reason, the left keeps tripping over this. Thus Blogging Against Theocracy.

I’m against theocracy and all, but more importantly I am for religious liberty. That’s something I can blog about, and at length. What’s more, blogging for religious liberty on Easter weekend seems more congruous than blogging against theocracy. Choosing this weekend to blog against theocracy seems to be picking a fight with the faithful generally, rather than just those who wish to erode church/state separation. Maybe Sam Harris wants to pick that fight, but most of us on the left do not.

Finally, the rubric of fighting against theocracy troubles me in that it implies that the Religious Right’s agenda is dangerous only insofar as its end goal is theocracy. That leads to all kinds of problems. We can get into arguments about what constitutes a theocracy, people on the right can claim they want this but not that and so not a theocracy, we have separate debates about how far down the road we get before we are in danger of theocracy, and in the end efforts to shore up separation between church and state become mush.

In contrast, when we talk about religious liberty, the discussion is about something that nearly everyone wants. And it’s something that the religion clauses in the Constitution – both of them – are designed to protect. The religion clauses do not work against each other, they work together. They explicitly state that the government does not have the authority to intrude into the sphere of personal faith, either by endorsing or restricting religion.

When conservatives work to dilute the protections of the establishment clause, they erode our religious liberty. It doesn’t matter whether they are ultimately working toward theocracy. What matters is that they are working against religious liberty.

In this Holy time my Christian friends celebrate the resurrection of their savior. My Jewish friends remember their freedom from bondage. My pagan friends are fresh of marking the Spring Equinox. And my non-religious friends are looking forward to this crappy weather breaking for good in a couple of days. This is a season for rebirth, renewal and boundless possibility.

And on this day, I celebrate religious liberty.

Happy Easter, everyone.

Sam Harris v. God, Round 2

Evangelical Atheist Sam Harris is again blog-debating the existence of God. This time he's taking on Andrew Sullivan in a debate hosted on BeliefNet. Sullivan thus far is a stronger opponent than Dennis Prager who Harris schooled. The Prager dialogue was supposedly about "Why Are Atheists so Angry?" and this one with Sullivan is titled "God Is Not a Moderate," but they seem to devolve quickly into the basic argument over the existence of God.

Since that debate is fairly impossible to resolve, these things take on a sporting quality, like the Monty Python sketch in which contestents wrestle over the question and we are later informed by a dulcet-toned faux-BBC announcer that "God exists, by a final tally of 3 falls to 2." I'm not a big fan of Harris's overall project, but it sure was good to watch him carve up the frankly bigotted Prager.

I've been watching the anti-religious crusade of Harris and fellow traveler Richard Dawkins for some time. I have thoughts, but tomorrow there's a loooong meeting in Columbus about that thing I haven't been blogging, so God will have to wait. Until then, Harris just threw his Old Testament left jab. Lets see if Sullivan handles it better than Prager who pretty much walked into it.

Am I The Beast or The Whore?

UPDATED: Fixed the link for the main story.

Honestly, you shouldn’t be reading my blog. You should be reading the Columbus Dispatch. Yesterday’s CD runs a multi-story spread on the Governor’s race. They have a nice story juxtaposing Ted and J. Ken on how their faith guides their respective candidacies, a side-by-side Q&A on a number of issues, a recap of the latest poll showing Ted in the lead.

But the story you must read is an extensively reported multimedia piece focusing on the fundamentalist Christian allies of J. Ken Blackwell. It starts with this vignette:

The Rev. Tommy Bates, a Pentecostal preacher from Kentucky, described the beast rising out of the sea: a horned, multi-headed creature with the body of a leopard, paws of a bear and mouth of a lion -- just like in the Book of Revelation.
This, Bates said, was the political system of Babylon, the evil kingdom in the Bible that was opposed to God and his people.

But there to stop the beast was the Rev. Rod Parsley -- the overseer of a worldwide ministry headquartered at World Harvest in southeastern Columbus, an outspoken critic of popular culture and a nationally known Republican ally.

"The Lord spoke to me and said, 'I chose Rod Parsley to push this beast back for a season,' " Bates said. "He said it was Pastor Rod Parsley who I chose to alter the election, the presidential election. Not a Democrat, not a Republican situation, but the spirit of the Antichrist ... that came walking in America."

Now, Bates said, that creature was returning, with "a great whore riding on the beast's back. ... She is identified with a city, a political city called Babylon which is going to usher in the Antichrist."

As you move through the story and meet the cast of characters, at times they appear to try to moderate their views for public consumption. But this opening reveals the true heart of those who would be in charge of Ohio’s Restoration, its Reformation and whatever else they seek to do to it. Parsley famously prayed that America would have the wisdom to make the right choice on Election Day 2004. Plug that into Bates’ story – apparently a vote for Kerry was a vote for the AntiChrist.

Elsewhere a Rabbi involved with one of the groups in the network opines that “irreconcilable differences between the right and the left [constitute] a conflict between two ‘religio-moral worldviews’ – essentially, those who believe in God and those who don't.”

"And here we have two parts of America," Lapin said, "that votes differently, that raises its children differently, that views family entirely differently, and has created two completely incompatible political visions for America.[sic]"

I hate – absolutely from the depths of my soul, hate – the way I sound like Chicken Little about this stuff, but it frankly unnerves me. History proves fairly definitively that when those in power convince the people that an Other is responsible for the trouble in the world, things rapidly go badly for the Other.

As a Liberal non-Christian I am apparently an Other.

If you are not a Fundamentalist Christian and you doubt what is at stake in this election, read the article, click through the media links. If you are still sanguine about a Blackwell victory, come back and tell me why I should be able to sleep at night. If it bothers you as well, decide what you are going to do about it and get to work.

And if you are a Fundamentalist Christian, you might start thinking about the point at which you would say “Hold, enough!” The Day of Reckoning may take a different form than you expect.

Warning! UU Ahead!

You can expect more posts like the one above. Not lots more, but basically what I can manage on my already ridiculous schedule. This will not become a Unitarian Universalist blog, but remain a policy/politics blog that dabbles in religion on occasion.

The first time I wrote about my faith, I received mixed reviews. Mostly I received roaring silence, but a couple folks from my church – including a former charge from my youth group advisor days – rolled in to say they liked the post.

Another reader emailed in to say NOOO! His/her concern was that the Pages not devolve into a personal blog. The email said something like, “First this, then you’ll be posting pictures of your cats.” Fair enough concern; no one needs to see this:


But I’ve decided to post more about being a Unitarian Universalist for a number of reasons. In no particular order:

1. Religious liberals tend to believe – as my emailer does – that religion is a private matter, so we don’t talk about it much. This is one reason that conservatives feel free to paint us with the Godless gloss. In point of fact, most of my friends are Christian, are more religious than I and more liberal than I. Barak Obama addressed this, but I’ll go one further: Conservatives have put us in a corner so we no longer have the luxury of keeping our faith to ourselves.


2. Blackwell may talk about believing in religious pluralism, but UUs live it. In my congregation we have Christians, Jews, pagans and animists as well as people who embrace Unitarian Universalism as a faith in itself. We live the constant challenge of keeping the congregation together. As such we can and should witness to the challenge and the joy of true religious pluralism.


3. I love my faith, but not many people know about it. In fact, “Universalist” isn’t in Word’s spell check dictionary – kind of like “blogger” except without the excuse of newness. I’ve admired Jill’s “What Jews Do” project. Dropping a little “What UUs Do” knowledge on my readers seems a worthy goal for this blog.


4. One of my "interests" is religion and politics. My take on role of religion in society is colored by my religion. Talking about religion without discussing my faith feels a little like talking about race without mentioning that I’m white.


5. We UUs have an admirable blog network. Not surprising – a old joke says that given the choice between “Heaven” and “Talking About Heaven,” UUs invariably pick door #2. I’m into communities and hope to become more a part of that one.


6. The two other members of my congregation with blogs have rolled me as a UU blogger. I need to live up to that.


7. I’ve been designated my congregation’s coordinator for our membership in We Believe. I tend to blog the stuff I’m doing, and so will inevitably have material from that. I could also blog about how I have far too many damn volunteer projects going, but that would be one of those personal things.

So, having considered the above, fair warning – you’ll get more church posts. The symbol at the top of the post – a flaming chalice inside linked circles – is the symbol of the Unitarian Universalist Association. This symbol will head any UU post. If you don’t like it, you can scroll past.

And I’ll give fair warning before the next cat picture.