Blog Archive » Religion

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Goodbye to August, the maddest month of the year.  Long days with hot air breezes.  Takes me back to the times when we kids would clamor to go to the amusement park, maybe the cheezy big one on the Wildwood boardwalk, or that decrepit old one back in the woods along a Pennsylvania country road.  We couldn't wait to go to the funhouse, that scary dark place where we'd get on a rickety car on rails and find ourselves transported into a long, twisty darkness full of distortions that were, at once, utterly frightening and completely fascinating, smelling of old sewers, stale peanuts, popcorn and kids' fear.

This August felt like a ride through the old funhouse.

Clicketyclakclicketyclakcliketclakclikclk… is your seat belt fastened?

Clakclakclakbumpgrindclackwhoooosshhh…..

AAAAaaaaarrrgggghhhhhh!  What's that, a bat? No!  A Beck!

Faces flashing on the screens, eyes wide open, mouths agape, headsets screaming…

Reclaim, restore, renew, revise…

Beckbeckbekbeepbeepbeepedybeepbec….

America has wandered in the darkness….til flashing laser eyes light up the tunnel…show us the way! where are we going?  how did we get here??

Clakclicketyclakclikclak..

Huge glasses shining in the echochamber, what's she saying? Caribou Barbie channeling Martin Luther King, Jr.?  Reclaiming civil rights?  Down the rabbit hole and through the looking glass where nothing is as it seems…

Clicketyclackcliketyclakclicclicclic

Reload, Sarah!

cliketyclaketycloketycluelessaiiieeeee…..

Yikes!  Something moved in that corner, over there!

A mosque!  A mosque!

To arms!  To arms!  To twitter!  To blogs!

clicketyclackthumpwumpaaarrgghhhhsssssshusshhhh…

Glenn screams, Accept God!

But not in a mosque!

Do not defile sacred space!

But proclaim MYSELF from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial!

Walt Whitman pops out of the darkness:  I celebrate myself and sing myself…

clikcetyclakakakakakakclackwhoa! WHOA!

In the corner!  Flames leap up, tri-cornered hats, red white and blue, reclaim the revolution! Burn the constitution! Or only the 14th Amendment?

Save the Second Amendment!  Keep my musket free!

Freedom of religion for the religions we decree!

screechingyellingshoutinghelphelphelphelp…..

Blago almost exonerated, Roger indicted,

Tiger divorced, Strasburg undone…

A city turns its lonely eyes to… Donovan McNabb!

Hail to the Redskins. Aaaaiiiieeeeeeeeeeee…….

cliketyclaketywhooshwhooshscrapescreechSTOP….

Whew, that was pretty scary, almost lost our brakes!

The August funhouse ride grinds to a halt.

Move on, kids, summer's over.

The funhouse is closed.

Time for the grownups to reclaim the stage.

(Seriously, I did consider writing something more erudite about all of this, but the mind boggles and words fail in the face of each day's increasingly bizarre news…)

To see more serious commentaries on these topics, consider reading:

Eugene Robinson, Beck Can't Mar King's Legacy

Dana Milbank, Religious Intolerance Then and Now

Frank Rich, The Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party

Paul Krugman, It's Witch Hunt Season

Kathleen Parker, My Name is Glenn Beck and I Need Help

Speaking of politics, how about the Fenty-Gray race?  See On Success

Follow me on Twitter @TrinityPrez

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Sunday, August 15, 2010

If we banned the building of churches for every religion that suffered some followers who became murderous fanatics in the name of God, we'd have few steeples in America.   The Gothic spires of many Christian and Catholic churches might never have dominated cityscapes, what with the history of blood-stained religious causes from the Crusades to the burning of witches to the terrorism perpetrated by the Irish Republican Army.  Temples and synagogues might never have opened had the terrorist acts perpetrated by some Jewish extremists been attributed to the entire body of believers.

Indeed, throughout the history of civilization, religion has fueled some of the most heinous acts known to humanity.   We can never forget that the Holocaust's leaders were supposedly good Christians and Catholics.   Sixty-five years after the end of World War II, we're still hard at work on the difficult task of developing a sustainable Christian-Catholic-Jewish dialogue.

Now comes the issue of the "mosque at Ground Zero." A little background:  well before September 11, 2001, plans for the Cordoba Center (the name of the project) were underway.  As some commentators have pointed out, the center is neither a mosque nor is it actually at Ground Zero. The project is an Islamic Center designed to welcome people of all faiths, intended to promote inter-faith dialogue and harmony; the location is an old Burlington Coat Factory.

But like all matters involving religion, politics and the overheated blog-o-sphere, the Ground Zero Mosque Debate has exploded into yet another loud shouting match over whose rights are more important.  Religious freedom, Muslims versus Christians, the feelings of the 9/11 families, America versus Infidels, Sarah Palin versus Michael Bloomberg, Newt Gingrich versus Barack Obama, etc etc etc……  It's ugly out there.

Whatever happened to the religious virtues of forgiveness, tolerance, charity and hope?

President Obama strongly endorsed the right of Muslims to practice their faith at a Ramadan dinner the other night (you can see the video of his remarks here).   But then he backpeddaled the next day, saying he was not commenting on the appropriateness of the so-called Ground Zero Mosque.

New York Mayor Bloomberg has been adamant in his support for the project, but the Anti-Defamation League opposed it on the grounds that the Cordoba Center would cause anguish for the 9/11 families whose feelings should take precedence over the exercise of religious freedom.  Sarah Palin added to her legend of mangled syntax when she tweeted, "Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn't it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate"

Opponents of the Islamic Center have been quick to point out that they are not seeking to trample the religious rights of Muslims, but rather, asking the planners to respect the feelings of New Yorkers, especially the 9/11 families who suffered so grievously as a result of the destruction of the World Trade Center.

Asking for sensitivity is one thing; spreading anti-Muslim hatred is quite another.   In the monumental clashes of rights that play out all the time in this nation, we run the risk of creating a permanent state of religious/racial/ethnic conflict if we don't find a way to lower the volume and temperature of our advocacy.

Al Qaeda, not the Islamic religion, attacked America on September 11.  9/11 was an awful horror, murder on a grand scale.  But Muslims gathered in a New York mosque are no more responsible for the 9/11 murders than Catholics gathered at St. Patrick's Cathedral are responsible for the murders perpetrated in Belfast for years by the I.R.A.   Sure, individuals in either group may have contributed money or other support to the terrorists, but the crimes of individuals cannot be a reason to hold entire groups of people hostage to our national anger.   (We tried that during World War II with the internment of Japanese Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, another moment of national bigotry that eventually led to reparations legislation in 1988 and a formal apology by President Ronald Reagan.)

Religious oppression was a major force that drove the earliest American settlers from England and other places in Europe to the shores of this new nation in the 17th and 18th centuries.   The desire to believe as one wishes, to worship without fear, to live in a free community that respects the diverse choices of its members fueled the American Revolution.   Most of us would be unable to live peacefully in this nation today if our ancestors had not fought for the enduring rights and freedoms we now enjoy.

Unfortunately, America in 2010 seems to be a place where many heirs of those rights and freedoms want to constrain, repress and even overturn the liberties accorded to those who do not look like the majority, who do not worship the same way, who speak with accents, whose skin color is not fair.   Those who advocate for less freedom for some claim that they are doing so in the name of security — whether raising the barrier higher in Arizona or stripping birthright citizenship from babies born here or blocking a mosque at Ground Zero.

In fact, far from making our nation more secure, this xenophobia is making this nation a place of significantly greater conflict with the spectre of real oppression not far off the screen.

Diminishing the rights of some people will not enhance the rights of all.  In fact, quite the contrary.  When we tolerate bigotry and oppression against some groups, we open the door to retrenchment of all of the hard-won rights of the last two centuries.

Catholics were once among the most reviled of all religious groups in this nation; our own history demands that we stand in solidarity with people of all faiths insisting on the free exercise of religion.   We might also remind our fellow citizens that forgiveness, not vengeance, is one of the supreme virtues of our faith.  The Ground Zero debate needs more virtue and less violence.

See Michael Gerson, "Obama's mosque duty"

See New York Times editorial

See Eugene Robinson column

What do you think?  Weigh in on the "Ground Zero Mosque" debate by offering your comment… click 'comments' below…

Follow me on Twitter @TrinityPrez

Stay in touch with my "On Success" blog on the washingtonpost.com

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Sunday, May 9, 2010

(Sr. Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association with Alexia Kelley, director of the Office of Faith Based Initiatives at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Yours Truly)

Sister Carol Keehan, Daughter of Charity, president of the Catholic Health Association, got a standing ovation in O'Connor Auditorium last Friday morning.   Later that same day, the standing O went to Sister Simone Campbell of NETWORK.   Meanwhile, USA Today hailed nuns as "rock stars" and notable speakers from Nancy Pelosi to E.J. Dionne sung the praises of religious women. Full Article

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Tuesday, April 6, 2010

How often do you read something in the newspaper or online and say to yourself, "Huh???"

Which, roughly translated, means, "What the heck were they thinking?" (WTHWTT)

I have that reaction to about 90% of what I'm reading these days.   Are you having the same reaction?  Let's share!  Here's a new contest:  periodically, probably on a highly irregular basis, I will announce the "HUH???" contest.  I will post three items from the news, and ask readers of this blog to weigh in on which news item wins top "HUH???"  honors.  I will post the best (printable) comments.   Perhaps I will even alert the subjects of the "HUH???" awards that they have taken the top prizes.

So, (drum roll, please)…. the nominees for the First Official "HUH???" award are:

A.  Virginia Governor Declares April 2010 Confederate History Month

HUH????  Hey, Governor McDonnell, the South LOST that war!  The Confederacy was over in 1865!  That's the 19th Century.  We're in the 21st Century.  What next?  Jim Crow History Month?  The good news is that Virginia's startling idea may well put an end to the "history month" concept entirely.

B.  Republican National Committee Entertains Donors at Strip Club

HUH???  Michael Steele, phone home, quickly!  You are lost, my friend!  Heads have rolled, of course, at the RNC — last made famous on this blog for their sophomoric "firenancypelosi" message on the GOP website.  Puhleeze, guys, now you're hanging out in strip joints?  Whatever happened to "family values?"

C.  Pope's Preacher Compares Criticism of Pope to Anti-Semitism

HUH???  Even those of us who might agree that some of the criticism of the Pope and the Catholic Church goes too far, Father Raniero Cantalamessa's comments on Good Friday were, well, just bizarre.   Now, to his credit, he has repented and said that he truly did not intend to offend Jews or the victims of child abuse at the hands of priests.   But, still, What the Heck Was He Thinking???

Ok, so those are my top three contenders this week.  I'm not even offering up the Redskins acquiring Donovan McNabb, anything related to Tiger Woods (the Washington Post has an entire photo gallery on "Tiger Woods Practices for the Masters," WTHWTT?), or 300,000 people buying iPads on the first day they went on sale even though the device is largely untested.

Click on "comments" below to record your favorite — or offer your own entry!  This is a very egalitarian contest.   We all just want to know, "What the heck were they thinking??"

See:  Colbert King's column today on the Confederate History Month

See:  Washington Post Editorial "Governor McDonnell's Airbrushing of Virginia History"

See:  Joel Achenbach, "Confederates in the Statehouse"

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Sunday, April 4, 2010

Easter is the most important day on the Christian calendar, the day that separates the Old Testament belief in a Messiah yet to come from the New Testament belief that the Messiah is already present in the person of the risen Jesus.   Belief in the Resurrection marks the divergence of Christianity from Judaism, but the roots of both faiths in the Old Testament are inseparable.    For Christians, perhaps the most important New Testament difference is Christ's "new commandment" to "love one another as I have loved you" distinguished from the Old Testament "eye for an eye" idea of retributive justice.

Many Christians cling to the Old Testament when it comes to vengeance, which takes the ancient philosophical and moral idea of retributive justice and turns it into a kind of wanton destruction that denies the healing power of forgiveness.

If Easter is to have real meaning in our lives, we need to reconsider this urge for vengeance in light of the true meaning of the season — we are called to be people of forgiveness, charity and hope.   That's the real meaning of this season.

What would happen if all of the Christians started living by the real meaning of Easter?   Just consider… Full Article

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