A Establishment Clause For All

April 18, 2010 by David Emig | Filed Under Barack Obama, Ethics, Faith, Holidays, Islam, Politics, Religion, Supreme Court, U.S. History, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment 

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” 

Amendment One, United States Constitution.  The quoted passage is the Establishment Clause.  The intent of the Framers is to provide the American people the right to practice their own religious beliefs – but also the right of citizens to be free from religion if they so choose.  This is the foundation of one of the cornerstone of our democracy.  It was explained in a letter to the Danbery Baptist Association in 1802.  President Thomas Jefferson writes: “I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.”  In 1812, John Adams wrote, “Nothing is more dreaded than the national government meddling with religion.”  Over a half a century later, Ulysses S. Grant stated, “Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church and the private school supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate.”

The recent federal district decision in Freedom from Religion, et al. vs. Obama, et al. is an important one.  It is the reminder that the government should represent all Americans regardless of religious belief or non-belief, and that the Constitution protects everyone’s rights.  Clearly, the National Day of Prayer promotes the Judeo-Christian practices and beliefs.  It is a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution, and runs counter to the concept of the separation of church and state supported by Thomas Jefferson.  Over the last half century, the American legal system has endeavored to be neutral regarding endorsement of religion.  Decisions such as Freedom from Religion, are in keeping with these legal precedents established by the Court.

The National Day of Prayer was established in 1952.  Billy Graham, the most respected and popular evangelicals of his era inspired the legislation.  During a six-week evangelical crusade in Washington DC, Rev. Graham spoke about how America had “dropped our pilot, the Lord Jesus Christ, and are sailing blindly on without divine chart or compass, hoping somehow to find our desired haven.  We have certain leaders who are rank materialists, they do not recognize God nor care for Him; they spend their time in one round of parties after another.  The Capital City of our Nation can have a great spiritual awakening, thousands coming to Jesus Christ, but certain leaders have not lifted on eyebrow, nor raised a finger, nor show the slightest bit of concern….  Ladies and gentlemen, I warn you, if this state of affairs continues, the end of course is national shipwreck and ruin.”

In response to this dire religious threat, both houses of Congress introduced legislation to proclaim a National Day of Prayer.  Representative Percy Priest in introducing the legislation said that the country “had been challenged yesterday by the suggestion made on the east steps of the Capitol by Billy Graham that the Congress call the President for the proclamation of a prayer.”  The Senator introducing the bill in the Senate, Absalom Robertson (who was the father to Rev. Pat Robertson) stated that the measure was “against the corrosive forces of communism which seek simultaneously to destroy our democratic way of life and the faith in an Almighty God on which it is based.”

In 1988, Congress revisited the National Day of Prayer proclamation to specify a specific day.  This is so the faithful could better organize events.  This also placed the National Day of Prayer on another plateau, along such days as Mother’s Day, or Thomas Jefferson’s Birthday.  Senator Strom Thurmond thought having a day set for the National Day of Prayer would help because, “a date that changes each year, it is difficult for religious groups to give advance notice to the many citizens who would like to make plans for their church and community. Maximum participation in the public knowledge of this event could be achieved, if, in addition to its being proclaimed annually, it were established as a specific, annual, calendar day.”  {See Freedom of Religion v. Obama, p. 9.}  Codification of a day in federal law would then assist the legislative intent by the government sponsored opportunity of better organization and a larger turn out.

The legislative intent of the National Day of Prayer was underscored by Sen. Jesse Helms who said, “America must return to the spiritual source of her greatness and reclaim her religious heritage. Our prayer should be that—like the Old Testament nation of Israel—Americans would once again ‘humble themselves, and pray, and seek God’s face, and turn from [our] wicked ways’ so that God in heaven will hear and forgive our sins and heal our land.” {See Freedom of Religion v. Obama, p. 9.}  Obviously, the legislative effect that the Congress was seeking was the promotion of the Judeo-Christian faith exclusively. 

There were no calls to include other faiths in the legislation, or the actual implementation.  Indeed the ruling in Freedom of Religion documents several incidents of those Christians to wish to claim the National Day of Prayer as their own.   Examples like a coordinator in Bakersfield stating that “”[t]he National Day of Prayer is actually all about the Lord.  So we’re representing the Christian community.” See “The Bakersfield Californian” May 1, 2008.  Or local groups complaining in Tennessee that the National Day of Prayer “mak[es] members of minority religions feel that unless they adhere to Christianity they are unpatriotic.” See “Memphis Commercial Appeal”, May 1, 2008.  Or in Illinois, organizers of a event being criticized after saying that the event is “only about Jesus and Jesus the Savior alone”; although they had “no problems having [members of other religions] participate, though not in speaking roles.” See “Springfield State-Journal Register,” April 30, 2006. Or finally an example in Utah, where a Mormon reader “didn’t think [she] was allowed to participate” because she “pray[s} to the wrong God.” See “Deseret Morning News,” October 20, 2009. {See Freedom of Religion v. Obama, pp. 57-59 for entire list.} 

Justice Blackmum (RN appointee) might have shed some additional light on this when he wrote in a concurring opinion: “The mixing of government and religion can be a threat to free government, even if no one is forced to participate. When the government puts its imprimatur on a particular religion, it conveys a message of exclusion to all those who do not adhere to the favored beliefs.”  Lee vs. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577, at 606, (1992).  Justice O’Connor in County of Allegheny v. ACLU Greater Pittsburgh Chapter (1989) writes, “government cannot endorse the religious practices and beliefs of some citizens without sending a clear message to nonadherents that they are outsiders or less than full members of the political community.”  492 U.S. 573, at 627.  {Quoted from Freedom of Religion, p. 20.}.

For those who believe that the National Day of Prayer is merely a proclaimation without force need to heed the words of Justice Kennedy.  “[T]he lesson that in the hands of government what might begin as a tolerant expression of religious views may end in a policy to indoctrinate and coerce.”  {Lee vs. Weisman at 591-592.}  This of course begs the question…what would a less tolerate government do with a National Day of Prayer?

This ruling by Judge Crabb is only the beginning of the process, that will ultimately take the case to the halls of the United States Supreme Court. The ruling in Freedom from Religion v. Obama he should not be seen as Judeo-Christian religion being relegated to “stepchild” status — (though atheists seem to be orphans in this society.)  It shouldn’t be misinterpreted as “the arrogant absurdity of a court.”  It isn’t code to ban religion.  The ruling is enforcement of the governmental ban against favoring one religion and faith over another.  It is against government sanction or encouragement that must be the responsibility of private churches and your private point of view.  This ruling is evidence that the United States Constitution protects all of our rights, believers and non-believers alike; from the potential theocratic tyranny of a government.  As the front of the Supreme Court building states…

“Equal Justice Under Law.”

A National Day Of Humiliation

April 18, 2010 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Faith, History, Presidents, Religion, U.S. History | 4 Comments 

Of course, it will be appealed and wind its way through a process of judicial, if not national debate before all is said and done, but the mind fairly boggles at the arrogant absurdity of a court in this land ruling the National Day of Prayer unconstitutional. Back when George W. Bush occupied the Oval Office, the radical anti-theist group (read: atheists on steroids), “Freedom From Religion,” filed a lawsuit and the toxic seed planted then has now borne poisonous fruit. Stay tuned.

I know it’s fashionable these days to bash-Bush, blaming the man and his administration for all the ills our current leaders find to be overwhelming and resistant to their heady scheme-dreams, but our 43rd President is a man of passionate faith. Sometimes he’s accused of wearing his faith on his sleeve, but personally I find that to be preferable to politicians who always seem to have something up their sleeves.

I had the privilege the other day of receiving a nice note from Mr. Bush. He had received a copy of my new book, a Texas story from the 1920s called, “Apparent Danger—The Pastor of America’s First Megachurch and the Texas Murder Trial of the Decade in the 1920s.” In the note, along with kind words about the book, he said something that I find quite timely in light of the news about the ruling by Judge Barbara Crabb in U.S. District Court (a Jimmy Carter appointee, by the way)—something about prayer: “During our time in the White House, Laura and I were inspired by the strength of the American people and sustained by your prayers and encouragement.”

Certainly, I understand that he was talking about personal prayers, not necessarily public ones, and that there is nothing in the current court ruling banning private prayer. Duh. I get that. But there is nuance, code, and an unmistakable trend. Our current president and his sometimes profane pals seem to be very uncomfortable with any form of pious-speak, and downright out of place in any role requiring lip-service to faith.

Religion—well, let’s be fair, anything related to Christian or Jewish religion—is increasingly being relegated to stepchild status. In the case of Islam, exceptions are made all the time, of course.

I would appeal to President Barack Hussein Obama today, to reach back beyond his Muslim, Marxist, and Liberation Theology (which is to real Christianity as anthrax is to sugar) roots and try to connect with his “inner-Lincoln.” It is clear to all of us that he very much loves to tap into Lincoln-like moments and trappings. From his announcement to run for president in Springfield, Illinois, to his train ride from Philadelphia en route to his inauguration following the route Lincoln took in 1861, to using Lincoln’s Bible while taking the oath of office, he has deliberately cultivated this clever image.

The year 1863 was a critical one for an America then immersed in nation-rending conflict. It was a year that began with his famous Emancipation Proclamation. Later that year, President Lincoln would travel to Pennsylvania and deliver immortal words at a place called Gettysburg. But almost forgotten among our 16th President’s writings, speeches, and proclamations, is something else he said that same year. As the Civil War raged, Mr. Lincoln proclaimed a National Day of Prayer—only he didn’t quite call it that. It was actually called, are you ready for this? “A Day of National Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer.” Now, that would make any liberal “living-constitution” judge’s head spin all the way around today, don’t you think?

Among the things the President said in his 1863 Proclamation were these words:

We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer. And I do hereby request all the People to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion. All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace.

These days it is fashionable and politically expedient for our President to travel the globe confessing our purported geo-political sins to would-be enemies in an effort to appease and impress. But wouldn’t it be far more effective for our future, and refreshing for the republic, if we had people in charge who were willing to humble themselves before Almighty God, instead of petty potentates, as a shining example to all of us?

Oh, and speaking of Presidents and prayer, maybe someone in the White House should pull out any good biography of another Obama hero, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and turn to the part about D-Day in June of 1944. There they’d find what I consider FDR’s finest moment and most effective and eloquent utterance and it was in the form of a prayer. That’s right—he led the nation, via radio, in prayer. And, in part, he said this:

My Fellow Americans:

Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our Allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.

And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:

Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity. Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.

That’s right. Mr. New Deal said that those heroes storming the beaches of Normandy that fateful day were doing so to “preserve…our religion.”

We’ve apparently come—or better, descended—a long way since then.

The Case For Catastrophic Agnosticism

January 15, 2010 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Ethics, Faith, Lifestyle, Media, Religion | 14 Comments 

Here we go again. While the world watches unspeakable horror unfolding in the wake of the beyond-words tragedy in Haiti, and as millions of people sift through the rumble searching for their loved ones and lives, the predictable idiocy of self-anointed neo-prophets is ever present to tell us exactly why God “did” this. As a minister of the gospel (now in my 33rd year) I am deeply offended each and every time some big giant talking theological T.V. head weighs in and speaks for God as some kind of insider heavenly hedge fund trader.

Of course, you know what I am talking about, right? The other night, Televangelist Pat Robertson waxed un-eloquent about the earthquake in Haiti.

Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it’s a deal—ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other.

So, there we have it. From the mountain. True story (Pat said so). Take it to the bank. Because the Haitians wanted to get out from under “You know, Napoleon III, or whatever,” God sent a great earthquake to kill tens of thousands.

I have a suggestion for Mr. Robertson and others who seem to just wait for opportunities to step up to insert feet in mouth during moments of inexplicable tragedy. Stop and pray—pray a sort-of Serenity Prayer, one that says:

God, grant me the humility to not try to explain what I don’t know; the courage to bear witness to what I do know; and the wisdom to know the difference.

Personally, in such moments as these, I find myself saying, “I don’t know—I simply don’t know,” when asked by a congregant or man on the street about why things like the earthquake in Haiti happen. Sometimes that answer is met by a look that seems to say, “But I thought you were an expert on God?”

No one is an expert on God. That’s what makes him God and me, not.

It is, of course, understandable to want to know why bad things happen to people, but to try to apply anything other than general observations to specific troubles is an exercise in the worst kind of subjectivity. And when a member of the clergy speaks, doing so with the air of authority, it is a grievous sin to give absurd information. While it is never a good idea for the trumpet to give an uncertain sound, it can be just as bad to blare forth with a certainty unwarranted by facts, wisdom, or revelation.

The word “agnostic” literally means, “I don’t know,” and sometimes that’s the best we can do.

But sadly, too many people—especially some who should know better—decide to play the part of Job’s wacky “friends,” explaining it all, the whys and wherefores of trial and triumph. Having suggested a prayer for Pat Robertson, et al, I now have a text. It comes from that very Book of Job, near the end, when reality is starting to make sense to the suffering man.

Job answered: “I’m speechless, in awe—words fail me. I should never have opened my mouth! I’ve talked too much, way too much. I’m ready to shut up and listen.”
 Job 40:3-5 (“The Message”)

Some might wonder about the fact that there were cases back in Bible times, where calamity would come to a city or region as a clear indicator of God’s displeasure. He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, Nineveh, and even determined captivity in Babylon for the children of Israel. But what must be noticed is that these things never happened without ample warning—complete with undeniable specificity—and merciful opportunity to repent (change their ways).

In fact, in the case of Nineveh, he sent Jonah, a Jewish prophet, with the judgment message, one that included a timeline—in 40 days the city would perish. Jonah was a complicated man, who initially ran from the job. And no one was more surprised than he was when the city bathed itself in warning-driven waters of remission prompting the Lord to stay the city’s execution.

Of course, Jonah wasn’t a happy camper. He wanted the city to burn. The scenario that unfolded before his eyes—one of a faith-driven cultural renewal—didn’t please him at all. And when I hear those who profess faith purporting to explain why God “did it” when bad things happen, I also pick up a hint of Jonah: “They deserve what they got.”

But, some might counter, didn’t Jeremiah preach a message of judgment? Yes. And he wept all the while. There is a vast difference between weeping and the saying of “Amen!” (Which means “so be it” or “I agree” or, in some cases it seems, “see, I told you so!”). There is not a dime’s worth of difference between what Pat Robertson recently said and the ravings of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Both preachers presumed to pronounce judgment; only the reasons and regions were different.

And both preachers crossed the line between fair and foul, wisdom and folly, truth and conjecture, and authentic witness and abusive demagoguery.

I have no direct line from God as to why bad things happen, nor does any other preacher today—liberal or conservative. When tragedy comes I don’t ask “why?” —I ask “what for?” And I try to help people through pain. And out of it. The Good Samaritan didn’t launch into a theological or philosophical journey to figure out how such a bad thing could happen to the man on the road, he simply poured in the oil and the wine.

That’s what all people of faith should be doing right now. We don’t know why it happened, but we know what we should do—find a way to help.

Oral Roberts   1918 – 2009

December 21, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Faith, In Memoriam, Presidents, Religion, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

Oral Robert died last week.  His death was widely noted, but most of the obituaries either overlooked or underestimated the importance of his life and career and his major impact on American religion and life.  Many reflected the ridicule that resulted from his claim in January 1987 that God would “call him home” unless his supporters ponied up $8 million by March, and the fact that other, younger, televangelists were now commanding the scene.   Notable exceptions were Keith Schneider’s piece in The New York Times and a few of the posts on the Washington Post’s “On Faith” blog.

The latter quoted Grant Wacker, professor of Christian history at Duke University, assessing Roberts’ influence on the religious history of America:

I’d say if we set aside Billy Graham and Martin Luther King and Falwell in the sense that their influence was religious but also political and social, outside them Roberts was the most important religious figure in the second half of the 20^th Century. Just as a religious figure. And in lots of ways.

The most obvious way was he brought Pentecostalism out of the backwoods and made it respectable. One cannot imagine the modern day Pentecostalism without him. He transformed its image, but also its practice.

And in the Times, Schneider noted that:

His influence derived from his intimate understanding of those who turned to him for worship. They were white and black and Hispanic, the poor and the ill, hard-working people who could not afford an abundance of material possessions but whose dreams of health and prosperity were tied to an abiding love of God.

The rise of his ministry coincided with the development of television. Mr. Roberts was among the first American religious leaders to recognize and deploy this new communications tool to touch people, and he seized on its extraordinary national and global reach. It helped that he was a natural showman, capable of booming, florid oratory. But he could also be intimate and tender, relying on a homespun speaking style, a gentle touch and a deep knowledge of Scripture to connect with his followers, many of whom viewed him as heroic.

He began his television career in 1954 by filming worship services conducted under a traveling tent, the largest of which held 10,000 people.

Mr. Roberts’s will to succeed, as well as his fame, helped to elevate Pentecostal theology and practice, including the belief in faith healing, divine miracles and speaking in tongues, to the religious mainstream. During the 1970s, Time magazine reported, his television program “Oral Roberts and You” was the leading religious telecast in the nation.

Oral Roberts University estimated that Mr. Roberts, its founder and first president, had personally laid his hands on more than 1.5 million people during his career, reached more than 500 million people on television and radio, and received millions of letters and appeals.

Mr. Roberts’s prominence and will to succeed were important factors in building the Pentecostal and charismatic movements and combining them into the fastest-growing Christian movements in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s.

By the 1960s, Roberts had a powerful base in Oklahoma. This was partly thanks to the formidable infrastructure he was building there.  (By the 1980s, Oral Robert Evangelistic Association and Oral Roberts University were $110 million operations employing more than 2,300 people.)

And it was partly thanks to the fact that Oklahoma congressman Carl Albert was the Majority Leader of the House of Representatives from 1962 until 1971 when he became Speaker of the House, and to the arrival (with RN in 1969) of Henry Bellmon, Oklahoma’s once and future Governor, for the first of his two terms in the United States Senate, followed, thanks to RN’s 1972 landslide,  by Dewey Bartlett, another former Governor, to fill the state’s other Senate seat.

Roberts met with President Kennedy in the White House in 1963; in 1972; he gave the invocation at the Democratic National Convention; in 1977 President Carter entertained him to dinner there. In 1972, through the agency of Oklahoma’s newly-elected Republican Senator Dewey Bartlett, Roberts visited with RN. Their meeting was described by David Edwin Harrell in Oral Roberts: An American Life:

Senator Dewey Bartlett of Oklahoma informed Nixon that Roberts would like to meet him, and the president issued Oral three invitations — the first two the evangelist could not accept because of schedule conflicts. When Oral entered the Oval Office, he thanked Nixon for the inspiration he had been to him, recalling that Nixon’s struggle to overcome political setbacks had been an encouragement to him in 1968 when it seemed his ministry was near collapse. The two compared television techniques; Oral gave the president a portfolio of materials about ORU, and Nixon gave him a Bible. “I’m going to pray for you, then I want you to pray for me.” Wallis [sic] Henley, a young White house aide and a former religion writer from Birmingham, Alabama, bolted to attention, wondering “how the president would react.” The small group clasped hands in the middle of the Oval Office, and Oral prayed first. Then Nixon prayed, Henley recalled, “A simple utterance in the straightforward Quaker style.” Oral later described his impression of the prayer: “He opened up in a strong voice, ‘Our Father,’ and I mean he prayed a prayer. He prayed for me. He prayed for my ministry; he prayed for Oral Roberts University; he prayed for the faculty; he prayed for the students. I’ve been considering adding him to our team ever since. In all seriousness, I was deeply moved by the prayer the may prayed.”

Qn article by Erika I. Ritchie in the Orange County Register quoted an interview with the Register last April in which Roberts recalled the presidents he had met.

Q. What presidents have you met with?

A. John Kennedy, (Richard) Nixon and Jimmy Carter.

Q. What were they like?

A. John Kennedy, he was the most powerful man. The first question he asked me was, “How are your crusades, Rev. Roberts?”

Nixon was interested in my television ministry. He asked me, “How can I be as relaxed as you are on TV?”

Jimmy Carter was a different breed. He was the first born-again man in the White House. He was not prepared for the job, but he was brilliant and intellectual and he loved the Lord.

And Samuel Rodriguez, founding pastor of Third Day Worship Centers and President of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, wrote that:

Roberts repudiated all vestiges of racism and emerged as one of the initial advocates of a multi-ethnic Kingdom culture movement. He refused to participate in evangelistic outreaches if African American churches were not represented, a commitment to diversity that preceded the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Roberts also helped to open and broaden the Pentecostal Charismatic movement beyond specific denominations to welcome independent Charismatics, including Catholics.

Critics of Roberts will remember him for an extemporaneous claim that God would take him home if millions would not be raised for his university. But many Christians will remember him as the leader of a movement committed to healing — not just the body, mind and soul, but communities, nations and a church divided by theological and ethnic differences.

The Little Church In The East Room

December 18, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Faith, First Ladies, History, Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures, Pat Nixon, Presidents, Religion, Richard Nixon, Supreme Court, U.S. History, Vietnam, White House | 6 Comments 

As the first streaks of dawn quietly announced the arrival of morning on Sunday, November 16, 1969, a 35-year old preacher from Ohio named Harold Rawlings had already been awake for a while after a fitful night of what-could-barely-be-called sleep in a room at Washington, D.C.’s storied Mayflower Hotel. He would in a few hours face a crowd punctuated by the most powerful men and women in America, assembled in the most unusual of venues for any clergyman – the East Room of the White House.

These days, most Americans have moved on from wondering about Barack Obama’s church attendance habits now nearly a year into his presidency. Some of this inattention is due, no doubt, to the swirl of events, but a measure of it is likely because Mr. Obama is demonstrating a kind of ambivalence to church attendance that has become par for the presidential course over the years (though with some exception, e.g., Jimmy Carter).

Most presidents have likely never read Theodore Roosevelt’s “Nine Reasons A Man Should Go To Church.” Among the things TR said was this gem: “Yes, I know all the excuses. I know that one can worship the Creator in a grove of trees, or by a running brook, or in a man’s own house as well as in church. But I also know, as a matter of cold fact, that the average man does not thus worship.”

Richard Nixon decided in the first days of his presidency to reconcile the ethic of church attendance with the realities of security and logistics during his time in the White House, by having regular Sunday services in the East Room. Of course, he was criticized for it. Some saw it as political grandstanding and others (many in the clergy) feared Nixon might be setting a trend for “stay at home” worship. Billy Graham noted, though, that in the early days of Christianity churches met almost exclusively in houses. So, on Nixon’s first Sunday in the White House, Graham shared a sermon, beginning a long run of non-sectarian religious services at 11 o’clock most Sunday mornings.

Rev. Rawlings had received an invitation, via the recommendation of his congressman, Donald “Buzz” Lukens, to bring the message during one of those services. But the preacher had to pay his own expenses to the nation’s capital, something gladly accomplished by his church, Landmark Baptist in Cincinnati, Ohio, where the lanky clergyman shared pastoral duties with his father, the senior minister of the church.

The preacher also had no idea when he accepted the White House invitation that he would be performing his prelatic duties against the backdrop of a city in turmoil.

Pastor Rawlings and his wife Sylvia made their way to Washington, D.C., on Saturday, November 15, while 250,000 protestors were in virtual control of the city’s streets and parks. The Washington Post headline the next day said, “Largest Rally in Washington History Demands End to Vietnam War.” There was a lingering hint of tear gas in the air and the remnants of torn and burned flags littering the ground. Other flags were prominent and not burned, but they bore only one star and just two stripes – the banner of the Viet Cong (National Liberation Front or “NLF”). The night before, 76 nearby buildings had been damaged, and nearly that many more would experience the same fate that day.

The swarm on Washington had been organized by an outfit called the New Mobilization Committee. This group was the successor to the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, which had been part of the infamous Chicago riots at the Democratic Convention in 1968. Basically, it was a leftist mosaic made up of people from Students For A Democratic Society (“SDS”), the Youth International Party (“Yippies”), and assorted fellow travelers.

And though the “festivities” had ended late Saturday night, thousands remained in the streets overnight continuing to shout things like, “Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, NLF is Going to Win!” This made sleep that much more difficult for Rev. and Mrs. Rawlings.

The couple enjoyed breakfast in the Mayflower’s restaurant, their waitress discreetly pointing out the famous “psychic”, Jeanne Dixon, who was sitting across the room near the booth where J. Edgar Hoover regularly ate lunch. This brush with celebrity would be nothing compared to the experience awaiting Harold and Sylvia when they arrived at the White House.

They climbed a stairway to the second floor and were immediately met by the First Lady, Mrs. Pat Nixon, who invited them into the beautiful Yellow Oval Room, where they sat in Louis XVI style chairs. Tricia Nixon soon joined them, followed a few minutes later by President Nixon, who took Pastor Rawlings on a personal tour of the adjacent rooms, sharing details about their history. Nixon was in a great mood, no doubt bolstered some by the latest Gallup Poll showing that around 70% of Americans gave him high marks, this in the wake of his already famous “Silent Majority” speech a few days earlier.

They then made their way to the East Room, with Sylvia taking her seat next to Mrs. Nixon and Tricia. President Nixon, as was the custom, opened the service, “After a very awesome display yesterday,” pausing briefly for effect, knowing that some would think he was referring to the demonstrations, he continued, “of football, we thought it would be proper to have someone here from Ohio.” Ever the football fan, he was referring to the Buckeyes’ 42-14 win over Purdue.

Pastor Rawlings had been asked to suggest two hymns for the service and did so several weeks in advance, only to be called back by the White House and told, “President Nixon doesn’t know those – could you choose two others?” He did, and the service that day included the majestic strains of “All Hail The Power Of Jesus’ Name,” a song Nixon knew well. A choir from New York Avenue Presbyterian Church sang.

The President then introduced Rawlings, who chose as his theme that day, “The World’s Most Amazing Book.” Many notables were in the crowd of about 350, including Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger, Secretary of State William P. Rogers, Treasury Secretary David M. Kennedy, Labor Secretary George P. Schultz, and United States Senators Claiborne Pell, Mark Hatfield, John Sherman Cooper, Gale McGee, John Williams, and Charles Percy. And the service was broadcast live across the country via the Mutual Broadcasting System.

“If men and women would spend more time in the serious study of the word of God,” said Rev. Rawlings, “earth’s questions would seem far less significant and heaven’s questions far more real.” He then quoted former President Eisenhower, among others. The great man had died eight months earlier and his life and career had intersected with Nixon’s so significantly.

Rawlings affirmed that, “The Bible is not only good for the soul, but also for the body.” He illustrated this point with a moving story about a soldier in Vietnam, Army Private Roger Boe, who after being ambushed found an enemy bullet “lodged in his Bible, just short of the ammunition clip.” The preacher, describing America as “a haven for freedom and peace,” urged prayer, “to make us morally worthy of protection against outward aggression.” He also issued a reminder about praying for the men of Apollo12, at that moment racing through space, “our three astronauts that they might be blessed with safety and good health on their voyage to the moon.”

During a recent conversation with Harold Rawlings, who is a long-time friend, he told me that following the service Chief Justice Burger told him that his sermon was “the kind of message America needed to hear.”

A reception followed, with President and Mrs. Nixon personally introducing Rev. and Mrs. Rawlings to those filing by. Nixon, though, was at least a little bit in a hurry. He was going out to Robert F. Kennedy stadium that afternoon to see the Redskins play the Cowboys. In fact, this would itself be historic – the first time a sitting President of the United States attended a National Football League game. He was pulling for the home team, but conceded to a reporter that the Cowboys would come out on top, “I think they’ll win because of their running attack.”

But it turned out that the Redskins lost because Sonny Jurgenson threw 4 interceptions – three of them in the fourth quarter. The one bright spot of the game for Nixon was the play of Ricky Harris, who returned a punt 83-yards for a touchdown – only to have it called back because of a penalty. Harris then intercepted a pass at a crucial moment – only to have Jurgensen then quickly proceed to throw his own interception (Harris these days sits every Sunday on the front row of the church I pastor.)

Possibly, the fate of the Redskins that day was a harbinger of things to come that week for Mr. Nixon. The very next day, American newspapers first mentioned something about a massacre in Vietnam at a place called My Lai. And later that week, the President’s nominee for the Supreme Court, Clement Furman Haynsworth, was rejected by the Senate, 55-45.

This just reinforces something else Teddy Roosevelt said about why people should go to church: “In this actual world, a churchless community, a community where men have abandoned and scoffed at or ignored their religious needs, is a community on the rapid down grade.”

Goldie, Gliders, And God

December 4, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Europe, Faith, History, In Memoriam, Military, Religion, U.S. History | 14 Comments 

Gliders were used as a vital component of American military operations for a relatively short period of time, most notably from 1943-1945 during epic and crucial battles in World War II. Those who flew and manned these fragile crafts were among the most courageous of all those who put themselves in harm’s way. Down through the years since the war, an ever-dwindling group of these unique silent warriors have met for reunions and remembrances. Usually in the course of these gatherings someone offers a very familiar toast, “To the Glider Pilots – conceived in error, suffering a long and painful period of gestation, and finally delivered at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Yet these men of honor made it work, scrambling to fulfill their vital missions in advance of an onslaught to come.

When it was over, and in an effort to extricate their crafts to soar another day – as well as to evacuate many wounded fighters, a maneuver known simply as “the snatch” was carried out and hazardously so. Instead of having a real runway and tow plane to get the glider airborne the usual way, the craft in the field would be flown over by a C-47 and using a hook and pole arrangement the fast passing craft would snag a towline on the grounded plane and jerk it into the air in a matter of seconds. There was no margin for error.

The other day, in the ICU of Houston’s Kindred Hospital, another snatch of sorts took place as a hero of a time long past, one who served our nation as a glider pilot during those brief and storied days, was snatched from his bed of affliction in a twinkling of an eye. He then soared at breakneck speed to the heavens, never to collide with this world again. His name was Curtis Goldman – those of us who knew him and counted him as a friend called him, affectionately, “Goldie.” He was 86 years old.

Goldie served as a glider pilot in the European Theater of Operations from 1944-1945 with the 99th Squadron, 441st Troup Carrier Group. He really wanted to pilot airplanes with actual motors, thinking that to be the prudent way to fly, but after he failed an eye exam someone suggested that he might try gliders – the first time he’d ever heard that word.

This was shortly after the infamous attack on Pearl Harbor and the death of the pilot-poet James Gillespie Magee a few days later. Goldie never knew Magee, but he certainly understood his famous poem, which began:

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds – and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence.

There were only about 6,000 American glider pilots in World War II – all of them volunteers. Their silver wings sported the letter “G” for glider, but the men insisted that it stood for “guts.” No one ever argued with them on this point.

These brave men were part of battles in Burma, the Philippines, Sicily, Normandy, and Holland. And in an often overlooked exercise as part of the Battle of the Bulge, they quietly and effectively airlifted supplies to the besieged soldiers holding on for dear life at a place called Bastogne in Belgium.

When Goldie talked about his days as a glider pilot, however, he would speak of Operation Varsity, part of a larger initiative designed to effectuate a massive Allied crossing of the Rhine into Germany. In March of 1945, hundreds of transport aircraft and other planes with gliders in tow left bases in England and France. They rendezvoused with others over Belgium then turned northeast toward the target areas. This airdrop armada (the largest of the war) included 1,350 gliders – one of them piloted by 22-year old Curtis Goldman.

He told the story in a book last year, and also talked about it in a YouTube video.

Following the war, and no doubt deeply influenced by his experiences, Goldie committed his life to the Christian ministry, serving for 50 years as the pastor of a church in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His work was characterized by passion, sacrifice, and a tireless effort to tell his favorite stories.

Goldie loved to take young ministers under his glider pilot wing, myself included. He was a great encouragement and help to me in my early pastoral days as I tried to find my voice leading my first congregation in West Texas. Sometimes he’d even help my young family financially.

I last saw him a few years ago in Lynchburg, Virginia, as we stood together in a very long line of those gathered to pay respects to Jerry Falwell, who had just died. Goldie was in rare form that day. “David,” he said, “Here’s what you need to be doing.” And he was off on this or that subject. Nonstop. The guy could talk. Soon, a few in the line around us began to appear a bit annoyed at the old guy sounding forth. But not me – I knew his heart, not to mention his history.

Interestingly, though – whereas he really liked to tell his war stories – the one he would always default to was the one about Jesus. He might open a conversation with his glider exploits, but he always found his way to the Christian gospel. In fact, he was doing that until his voice could speak no more and he lapsed into unconsciousness a few days ago in that Texas hospital room.

And though this glider pilot turned preacher was unable to communicate any longer with those at his bedside, he was keenly aware when the moment came for him to leave and experience the rest of Pilot Officer Magee’s famous poem:

Hov’ring there, I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Curtis “Goldie” Goldman (February 13, 1923 – December 3, 2009) – RIP.

This Thanksgiving, Please Pass The Brisket

November 25, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Culture, Faith, History, Religion, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

(This article was written for The New Nixon last Thanksgiving. Recently, the editor of The Jewish Press, “America’s Largest Independent Jewish Weekly,” asked permission to use it in the print and on line editions of that paper in the days before Thanksgiving this year. – DRS)

Ever hear of Gershom Mendes Seixas? Well, he might just be the forgotten hero of Thanksgiving.

Our national Thanksgiving narrative is rich with stories about proclamations, gatherings, meals, traditions, football, and of course, the obligatory pardoning of a turkey by the president of these United States. School children rehearse that day long ago when the Plymouth pilgrims broke bread. We note things Lincoln said. And doubtless you have heard about what our first president, George Washington, declared while proclaiming the first “official” national day of Thanksgiving in 1789:

I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

We hear much these days about our “Judeo-Christian” heritage and its early and enduring influence on our culture. A look back at the founding era of our nation reminds us, however, that only about 2,500 Jews actually lived in the colonies in 1776. Usually those of us who speak of that early dual influence are referring to the Christian Bible with its Jewish roots.

But pointing this out is not to say that Jews were not active and represented during the colonial and founding periods, quite the contrary – there are some fascinating and often overlooked stories.

Gershom Mendes Seixas is a case in point. He was “American Judaism’s first public figure.” In 1768, he was appointed hazzan of Congregation Shearith Israel in New York – the only synagogue serving the city’s approximately 300 Jewish residents. He was only 23 years old at the time and largely self-taught in the Talmud with much help from his devout father, though never actually an “official” rabbi. In fact, it would be several decades before a rabbi was ordained in America.

Seixas was the first Jewish preacher to use the English language in his homilies. He was a gifted teacher and tireless worker. And when it came to the American Revolution, he was a patriot – as demonstrated by his actions while the colonies were struggling to actually realize the independence that had been recently proclaimed.

His synagogue, like the much of the greater public, was somewhat divided on the issue of independence. But Seixas used all of his persuasive skills to convince his congregation that they should cease operations in advance of the approaching British occupation of the city, during the early days of the conflict.

He fled to his wife’s family home in Connecticut, carrying various books and scrolls precious to the synagogue for safekeeping. In 1780, he accepted the leadership role at a synagogue in Philadelphia, where he became an outspoken cultural voice regularly calling on God to watch over General Washington and the great cause.

When the war ended, he was invited back to resume his work with Congregation Shearith Israel in New York. He returned with the books and scrolls to serve from 1784 until his death 32 years later.

When George Washington was inaugurated as the first president of the United States on April 30, 1789, Seixas was asked to participate as one of the presiding clergyman. This was certainly an act of gratitude by Washington for the preacher’s stalwart support during the war. It was also, though, an expression of Washington’s thinking about the importance of religious freedom and diversity in the new nation.

Later that year, as the nation set aside Thursday, the 26th of November, the date so designated by the president for Thanksgiving, Seixas preached a sermon to his New York congregation.

His Thanksgiving Day message was based on a text from the Psalms where it talked about how King David had “made a joyful noise unto the Lord.” Seixas told his listeners that they had much to rejoice about – “the new nation, its president, and above all, the new constitution.”

Warming to his theme, he reminded them that they were “equal partakers of every benefit that results from this good government,” and therefore should be good citizens in full support of the government. Beyond that, they were encouraged to conduct themselves as “living evidences of his divine power and unity.” He further admonished them “to live as Jews ought to do in brotherhood and amity, to seek peace and pursue it.”

In my opinion, Gershom Mendes Seixas’ sermon is every bit as relevant to all of us 220 years later.

A Joke Too Far

November 20, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Faith, History, Obama family, Politics, Presidents, Religion | 3 Comments 

A tasteless joke – one that saw earlier popularity during the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush – has resurfaced across America. It is being told in whispers, emails, and even bumper stickers. During Mr. Clinton’s administration it even found its way into some Sunday church bulletins. And it is really beneath contempt in its lack of respect for the president, the presidency, not to mention the Bible itself.

It goes something like this: “Pray for President Obama. Psalm 109:8.”

At first glance it appears innocuous, even pious. But when time is taken to look up the reference, well, then it’s chortle, chortle time for buffoons:

“Let his days be few, and let another take his office.” – Psalm 109:8 (NKJV)

And the verse following continues the thought:

“Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.” – Psalm 109:9 (NJKV)

Of course, the point of the joke is to show disaffection with President Obama. But the real result is to use scripture in a twisted way and to find somehow funny the idea that our president should, well, come to an ignominious end leaving his family to grieve.

Funny stuff. Real Jackie Gleason belly laugh stuff: Har har hardy har har.

It should be clear to decent, reasonable, reflective, and compassionate people that some things simply aren’t funny. One just has to look back at what happened 46 years ago this weekend to see that. I have no clue if that same joke was around in the days of the Kennedy administration, but I know that the feelings of too-casual contempt it reveals were very much around.

I am a conservative when it comes to politics – a conservative with strong libertarian leanings. I am no fan of much of the political agenda of President Obama and his administration. Sometimes I get annoyed. Occasionally (okay, more than occasionally) I talk back to the T.V. when I hear or see something that, to me, does not pass the test of constitutionality or common sense.

I would probably only vote for Mr. Obama’s reelection if the choice was between him and, say, Harry Reid – or Boss Tweed. I very much believe that the president and his advisors have a socialist bent and that what they are trying to accomplish through Health-Care Reform and Cap-and-Trade machinations amounts to the kind of change Americans really didn’t envision when he was elected last year.

But it needs to be said that a president can be opposed and criticized – even in an animated way – without resorting to the kind of meanness that crosses the line of civility.

I have no problem with partisanship – even a little fiery rhetoric here and there. America is better when our politics are feisty. But, come on – using the Bible to make a joke about the man dying before his term is up?

Seriously?

Think back. Remember John “John-John” Kennedy Jr. saluting his daddy’s casket on that cold November Monday in 1963? Is there anything funny about that? Nope, it was all just very sad. And it bears noting that Mr. Kennedy evoked opinions and opposition from conservative Americans in much the same way Mr. Obama does now.

On the last morning of his life, JFK woke up in the Presidential Suite of the Hotel Texas in downtown Fort Worth, Texas. As he made his way down to the facility’s Crystal Ballroom to speak to a Chamber of Commerce breakfast gathering of about 2,000 people, he encountered a maid by the name of Jan White, who asked him to sign her newspaper. He did – probably the last autograph of his life – writing his name near his picture on the front page of that day’s Dallas Morning News. The headline on November 22, 1963 was: “Storm of Political Controversy Swirls Around Kennedy On Visit.”

The next morning that same paper bore the message: “Kennedy Slain On Dallas Street.”

People mourned. Americans who had not voted for Mr. Kennedy – and never would have – were deeply impacted by the violent tragedy. And, in fact, his days were made few, and another was allowed to take his office. His wife also became a widow and his children were suddenly fatherless.

I’m sorry, but there is nothing funny about that. Nor is there anything funny about using a passage of scripture as a punch line, one that finds sadistic humor in such depraved darkness as to be at all amused at the potential demise of a national leader.

Of course, I recognize that when George W. Bush was in office, the same things were circulated about him by a few on the other side of the political spectrum. But some things are simply not funny. It was wrong when liberals did it – and it is wrong for conservatives to do it.

Shortly before November 22, 1963 – when I was about seven years old – I came home from school one day armed with a joke about President Kennedy. I cannot for the life of me remember the punch line – or the straight line for that matter. But I do remember the moment I decided to let ‘er rip at the dinner table that night. I was sure that I was on safe ground, after all, my parents were Nixon people in 1960 (later Goldwater people in 1964, then back to RN again in ’68) and not big fans of Mr. Kennedy. I know I had heard my dad criticize the president for this or that, though never in a mean way. So I thought he would just love my hilarious joke.

I told it with all the skills of a 2nd grade class clown. Then I waited for the howls of laughter from my parents. And I waited. Then after a moment or two – and I can still see and hear this in my mind – came a powerful rebuke from the head of the table, ending with the unambiguous: “Son, don’t ever talk about the President of the United States like that!”

Tough room.

I learned something about respect that day. It’s something I think about now and again when things heat up politically and I find myself invariably frustrated with politics du jour. And though I sometimes fly admittedly close to the flame of the kind of disrespect that crosses the line between honest disagreement and just plain malice, I am never comfortable with that kind of indignation – righteous or otherwise.

Anger is toxic, often subtly so. Certainly there are times when animosity can give way to constructive change. But while such antipathy can occasionally be the catalyst for ultimate good, it must never be the default fuel. It is ferociously destructive.

By the way, the use of Psalm 109:8 as a joke applied to President Obama is not only a beneath-contempt expression of ugliness, it is also a profoundly ignorant use of the Bible. For when you read further in the good book, all the way through the gospels and into The Acts of the Apostles, you find Simon Peter, the recently redeemed Jesus-denier, quoting that very passage in reference to another Apostle who did something abhorrent – Judas Iscariot.

Peter applied it as an epitaph for Christ’s infamous betrayer, though he must have done so with the humility to think, “there but for the grace of God go I.”

All praying people should fervently pray for President Obama and all those in authority – and not tongue-in-cheek petitions. As yet another Apostle, this one named Paul wrote:

“I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone, for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.” – I Timothy 2:1-2 (NIV)

The Fertile Crescent

November 13, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Cold War, Culture, Domestic issues, Economic issues, Ethics, Faith, History, Islam, Islam and the West, Military, National Security, Religion, Terrorism, War on Terror | 2 Comments 

Every time I read, view, or hear the latest attempt to portray Nidal Malik Hasan as a “loner” or “victim of racism” or “psychotic” – or (this may be my favorite) someone suffering from something called “PRE-traumatic stress disorder,” I am torn between the desire to scream or laugh. My internal conflict increases when I hear Chicago Mayor Daley suggest the problem is that Americans love guns too much.

And then there’s the granddaddy of all recent rhetorical absurdities when Army Chief of Staff, Gen. George Casey uttered the incredibly clueless thought: “What happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here.”

Can someone explain to me how the death of 14 (one of the victims was pregnant) can be trumped by the importance of a particular political agenda? The General should include a very real apology in his resignation letter.

It would be funny if not for the fact that it is all so dangerously sad. As I take it all in, it’s like the ghost of Groucho Marx is sitting on one of my shoulders making me smile at the outrageousness of such comments with his famous, “Who are you going to believe? Me? Or your own eyes?” This is all balanced by the difficult to ignore presence of the ghost of Gen. George S. Patton, who sits on the other shoulder and regularly fills that ear (this would be the right ear, by the way – in every sense of that word) with words I am not completely able to translate in this column.

Psychologists use the term “denial” to describe a way some people interpret reality. This manifests itself in denying something ever actually happened, or that it happened but it wasn’t to big of a deal (the “isolated event” approach), or even in something called “projection” which admits that something has indeed happened, but deflects blame and responsibility. We are a nation in official and pervasive denial.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis (c. 1962), if an American soldier would have opened fire on his comrades while wearing a Che Guevera T-shirt and yelling, “Long Live Lenin, Khruschev, and Castro,” it is doubtful that the guy’s communist sympathies would have been dismissed as irrelevant and peripheral. The commies were the enemy. And, if an investigation into his background would have yielded clues to his political feelings and fanaticism, there is no doubt that the case would have been a slam-dunk. And those who should have picked up on his radicalism before the awful fact would have been held accountable.

In fact, if some white-hooded fool were to open fire on a group today in the name of a fiery cross and a virulent racist perversion of certain passages in the Christian Bible, it is unlikely that such a terrorist would have any apologists reluctant to tie what he did to what he believed. Religious violence, be it of the cross or crescent, is always worthy of condemnation and contempt.

But when it comes to Islamism, the various contortions some use to distance what a Jihadist did from the ideology that so-obviously informed his actions are very difficult to watch.

Of course, I very much understand the complexities of this issue. We are a free society and among the most precious of those freedoms is that of religion. But as with another vital right – the freedom of speech – there are clear limits. You can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater. And religious liberty notwithstanding, you cannot advocate the violent overturning of our constitutional way of life in this country in the name of any God.

Anyone, therefore, who embraces Sharia law and believes that it should become the code of a new America, should be disqualified from serving in the military. At any rate – how can they really take the required oath? Clearly one day long ago, the Fort Hood terrorist said:

I, Nidal Malik Hasan, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

We are told “officially” that there are 3,572 Muslims in our military ranks. Although it’s interesting to note that The American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council has that number much higher, in fact, four times higher – at more than 15,000. What do they know that those in the barracks don’t?

Some might want to counter that bad things have been done – violently so – in this country and the world throughout history, in the name of my religion – Christianity. And, sadly, I must confess that this has been the case, on occasion. But it has never been the norm. And those who do such stuff certainly don’t get their instructions from Christian doctrine.

To get from the teachings of Jesus to murderous evil requires a tortured, twisted, ignorant, and monumentally long journey. Yes, people have done bad things in Christ’s name – but in doing so they have, in effect, denied him.

Some ideologies, however, are much more friendly to the evil that lurks in the hearts of men. For example, when it comes to economic theory, you are hard pressed to find any possible pathway from Milton Friedman’s monetary ideas to killing a bunch of people. On the other hand, when you take a look at the writings of Karl Marx (no relation to Groucho), history has shown that the distance from theory to bloodshed is not all that far. In fact, Marxism and violence are close cousins because you really have to force people to turn from self-interest – all for their own good, of course.

The thing that too many in our nation are simply ignoring is that when it comes to Islam, as opposed to any other religious idea extant, the journey from ideology to what happened at Fort Hood is also not a very long one. For any Christian to become so radicalized as to open fire people in the name of his or her religion would require a virtual repudiation of the faith. Could it happen? Sure – anything can happen. And if it did, the mainstream media in this country would have no qualms about wrapping the deed around the doctrine.

But the quantifiable fact is that such things really don’t happen with Christians the way they do with Muslims. And even when certain violent acts by professed Christians, such as the killing of a doctor who has performed abortions, make the news, usually among the first and loudest expressions of condemnation and outrage are from Christians.

Does anyone hear all that many Muslim voices condemning Hasan?

Much has been made of the fact that the Fort Hood Jihadist/Terrorist was harassed for his beliefs. First, let me be clear – I think it is wrong, un-American, and certainly un-Christian to at all persecute someone for what is believed and practiced in the context of our Constitutional freedoms. And when it comes to Christians – who have known the pain of persecution throughout the centuries – there is no Biblical mandate for a follower of Jesus to ever persecute another human being. If fact, in our way of thinking, and from the wonderful Jewish scriptures that inform our faith, we are ever admonished to love neighbor as self.

The Christian response to persecution is never to be that of reactive violence. The Apostle Peter gave instruction near the end of his life on this matter:

Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. ‘Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened.’ But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. – I Peter 3:13-16 (NIV)

Gentleness, respect, hope, and love – these are the watchwords of the follower of Jesus. But there is no “turn the other cheek” stuff in Islam. And at some point people in this country need to stop ignoring the obvious.

So I respect my Muslim neighbors and want them to be treated justly. This means, when there is peace, community, love of law, love of country, all will be well. And when these values are violently violated there must be justice of another kind – to punish evil, especially the egregious wickedness of terrorist murder.

But I also, taking another cue from Jesus, must be “wise as a serpent,” and this means I need to be aware that certain ideologies are more fertile when it comes to hate and violence. And, like it or not, they – and those who espouse such teachings – need to be watched very carefully.

Too many people have been looking the other way in America. It’s time to focus.

Fahrenheit 1611

October 23, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Faith, History, Presidents, Religion, Richard Nixon | 3 Comments 

Define irony. Well, how about this: Staging an event to burn Bibles on what many Protestant Christians observe as Reformation Day, remembering October 31, 1517, the moment in history when Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on that church door in Wittenberg, Germany. Word of his bold act of religious courage, and the actual words themselves were, within a few months, in the hands of people throughout his country – thanks to the relatively new printing press.

It was not only a religious moment – it was a cultural moment. For the first time a revolution would be effectuated via the published word.

Yet, this next week one so-called “pastor” named Marc Grizzard plans a public Bible – yes, Bible – burning, with the other dozen-or-so members of his fledgling Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, North Carolina. It is, as are all other activities of his church, a DBYOKIGYC event (“Don’t Bring Your Own Koolaid, I Got Ya Covered”).

A Baptist pastor burning Bibles? You bet. He is part of a small, but aggressive, subculture who believe that the only real translation of the Bible is the King James Version, usually referred to by them as “the A.V. 1611” (“Authorized Version” translated in, well, 1611). They like to call themselves as “King James Only” or “KJVO” and they are dogmatic about the idea that somehow, someway, God selected a brief and shining moment 400 years ago to stop language in its tracks; but only one language. And therefore, any effort to translate the Bible any further in English, or into other languages for that matter, is devil-driven.

Lurking behind this is a thinly veiled belief in Anglo-superiority. Those who use the English language are also the Lord’s preferred children. If you look closely at these “ministers” and their churches you will likely also find a measure of ignorance (measure, as in off the charts), racism, white supremacy, and sundry esoteric doctrines bathed in the language of conspiracy. Sundry is a word, by the way, from Hebrews chapter one in the KJV.

Of course, Grizzard’s group is tiny, but I think some would be surprised at how many people actually buy into at least some of what he says. There are KJVO missionaries laboring in non-English speaking countries, who either teach English as a prerequisite to understanding the Bible, or at the least translate from the English into the particular (and, to them inferior) language, instead of the correct and scholarly approach of going back to the Greek (New Testament) and Hebrew (Old Testament). And as the saying goes, it always loses something in that translation.

Mr. Grizzard also, in fairness, plans to burn the selected works of Rick Warren, Billy Graham, Mother Theresa, and others who are “usual suspects” in his eyes. There is danger in “them-there” books.

The sad thing is that Grizzard and his flock are actually doing a disservice to the very book they profess to admire – the classic King James Version of the Bible. It is doubtful that any one book has had more impact on Western culture – even the world, by extension, than this wonderful document. Its words and phrases are part and parcel of our daily conversation and its idioms can be found throughout our literature.

And it is, in fact, a very good translation of the Bible, one that was used effectively by generations – one that many of us grew up on, cutting our spiritual, not to mention linguistic, teeth. George Washington read it at Valley Forge – Lincoln, by the flickering light of a fireplace. When Presidents have been sworn in they have often even kissed the old book. Richard Nixon wrote about his respect and preference for it in his memoirs.

In many houses of worship it remains the translation of choice, but not because all the other ones are evil. It is a comfort zone, understandably so. There are many times when I read a text from a newer translation, but later while speaking default to the King James rendering as a force of habit.

It is hidden in my heart – and for that I am glad!

The King James Version of the Bible has a special place in our history and our hearts. But to worship it as a translation is to miss the point. Then constructive belief becomes cultic bibliolatry. King James becomes more important than King Jesus.

I hold a high view of scripture. In fact, my belief is that it is the inspired Word of God (a view called “verbal-plenary” inspiration). But this does not just apply to one translation in time. It applies to any effort to take ancient words and render them in language people actually use and understand. This is why the writers of the New Testament used “koine” Greek, that of everyday conversation, instead of the “classical” style of the philosophers. There’s code there and it means that the message must be understood in every generation and every tongue.

It has been said that, “the blood of martyrs is the seed of the church.” And the fact is that many times blood was shed centuries ago – and is being shed today in the planet’s pockets of persecution – because some wanted to share the scriptures, in full or fragment.

These heroes of the faith are now being freshly insulted by the actions and attitudes of Mr. Grizzard and his band of Bible burners.

To their minds, “ye ole English” must be a prerequisite to the Kingdom of God. Such a view is not only ignorant; it is arrogant. It is also worthy of repudiation.

I have many times opined about the need for our Muslim neighbors – those who are not radicalized – to take a stand against the fanaticism, hate, bigotry, and savagery of those who, in the name of their religion, wreak havoc. But it is also important that Christians speak out against those who would drag the name of Jesus through the mud of their ignorant idiocy.

I saw a T-Shirt a few years ago and I think it was meant as a dig at religious people in general, evangelicals in particular, but it resonates with me at least a little. It said: “Dear Lord, please protect me from some of your followers.”

Rules For Witnesses

August 7, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under American Politics, Book Review, Cold War, Congress, Domestic issues, Economic issues, Faith, Healthcare, History, Movies, Obama administration, Political Philosophy, Public Opinion, Religion, U.S. History | 15 Comments 

There is a scene early on in the movie Patton, where the feisty general watches the forces under his command do battle with those led by the legendary German Panzer leader, Erwin Rommel. To prepare for this particular skirmish, “Old Blood and Guts” studied the writings of his adversary, prompting the memorable line uttered in a gravely voice by actor George C. Scott: “Rommel, you magnificent bastard, I read your book!”

Later, the general found out that Rommel himself had not actually been present for the confrontation, but he is comforted by an aid: “If you defeat Rommel’s plan, then you defeat Rommel.”

It is a fascinating thing when an adversary ironically uses a methodology that was previously owned by an opponent – especially when he does so with surprising effectiveness. When a football team known for its excellent running game throws the bomb on the first play from scrimmage, when a home run hitter bunts, and when a political adversary takes a page from the book of the other guy, well – you gotta love it.

Under any credible definition of the phrase “dazed and confused” there now appears the look on Nancy Pelosi’s face. Yes, that one. That, “we are the good guys, why are people giving us a hard time, they must be Nazis, or just nuts” look. Surely you’ve seen it. I have had a persistent “where-have-I-seen-that-look-before?” feeling when seeing the speaker’s visage on the screen, but it took me a while to make the connection.

The date is December 21, 1989 – the place Bucharest, Romania. Nicolae Ceauşescu, the man who had ruled his country with an iron first for a couple of decades, was on his balcony trying to address an increasingly unruly crowd. It was a moment of truth for the dictator. The look on his face – one of complete incomprehension – was one of the Kodak moments capturing the scene at the end of the Cold War.

That look might be described by my grandkids as: “clueless.” Others might simply say that it is a facial expression that begs the question, “what the?” But it is a look that is botoxed in place for Ms. Pelosi. And that same expression has recently been found on the faces of many members of the House and Senate as they have gone home to meet with constituents.

Sadly, the time has come in America where recess is no longer any fun.

What Nancy Pelosi is seeing is her side being on the receiving end of some of the kind of methodological medicine the left has been forcing down the country’s throat for quite a long time. I recently got around to reading Saul Alinsky’s book, Rules for Radicals. Yes, I know I should have done so long ago, but I thought I had a good enough grasp on what the man said back in 1971 via the thorough treatment his musings have received from the conservative punditry.

I was wrong. My bad. Every American should read it. It’s chilling.

I believe what we are now witnessing is a case of people being, as the saying goes (and as is actually used in Alinsky’s book) “hoisted with their own petard.” Fire is being fought with fire. The reflexive dismissal of angry citizens showing up at town hall meetings these days to give Washington insiders a piece of their mind as somehow orchestrated, notwithstanding.

This is not a top-down campaign with a few sinister puppeteers pulling the strings. The opposition to liberal health care machinations and other stuff is very real. What they see as orchestration is actually mobilization. And it is only the beginning. We are, I think, on the verge of seeing one of the great collapses of political popularity and good will in American history. The nation is on the verge of a Network moment, where “Yes, we can” is being drowned out with cries of “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”

George Washington died because of misguided notions about how getting the bad blood out via leeches would cure his ailment. It was a case of a cure that killed. Sure, his cold was gone, but so was he. In a sense, the draconian measures some would use to remake our nation’s fabric, from health care, to national security, to the economy itself, are somewhat akin to bleeding the nation en route to restoration. All this will do is make us weaker. Or dead.

I shared a sermon last Sunday at my church based on a haunting passage from the writings of the prophet Jeremiah called, A Dying Nation At A Crossroads. The prophet was a patriot, but he knew that sometimes patriotism involves even more than waving a flag – a stand must be taken. His message was:

“Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.” Jeremiah 6:16 (New International Version)

Jeremiah was speaking to a nation at a pivotal moment – a time that called for clear thinking and action. They had been on a slippery slope for a long time and the clock was running out. Nothing short of a return to what made them strong – even great – in the first place would correct the problem.

The week Winston Churchill traveled to diminutive Fulton, Missouri to deliver his most famous speech – the one that talked about a sinister iron curtain born of Soviet expansionism – Time Magazine published a review of two recently publish books. One was a work by Frederick L. Schuman, the Woodrow Wilson professor of government at Williams College, called Soviet Politics. It was basically a defense of the Soviet system. The other was by Saul Alinsky, who had written Reveille For Radicals, the spiritual ancestor of his 1971 work. The title of the review was: Problem Of The Century.

The reviewer suggested that, “the dominant problem of the 20th century is the reconciliation of economic liberty with political liberty.” He saw this issue resolved in Schuman’s book by simply “liquidating political liberty.” He saw Alinsky’s ideas in a little more favorable light, suggesting that it was written with a “burning honesty” and that the author had “glimpsed a vision which is greater than his ability to put it in practical terms.”

In other words, the review for Time saw something constructive in what Alinsky was saying in those days immediately following World War II and as the Cold War was just barely being noised about. But he indicated that only time would really tell.

In fact, that reviewer did not live long enough to see the fruit of Saul Alinsky’s attempt to put his vision into those “practical terms” in Rules For Radicals. He died 10 years before that. His name was Whitaker Chambers.

He never got to write a review of that book, but he did write one of his own and it became a classic called simply, Witness. It was his treatise as a man who had once been a communist, even an agent. Then he had seen the light and spent the rest of his days fighting, at a great personal price, his former faith. Along the way, he exposed a traitor or two, gaining him the wrath of the liberal elite in America, though he has long since been vindicated as a truth-teller by many infallible proofs.

He began his book with a letter to his children, letting them know the nature of the struggle and the craftiness of the enemy:

Communists are bound together by no secret oath. The tie that binds them across the frontiers of nations, across barriers of language and differences of class and education, in defiance of religion, morality, truth, law, honor, the weaknesses of the body and the irresolutions of the mind, even unto death, is a simple conviction: It is necessary to change the world.

It is not new. It is, in fact, man’s second oldest faith. Its promise was whispered in the first days of the Creation under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: ‘Ye shall be as gods.’ It is the great alternative faith of mankind. Like all great faiths, its force derives from a simple vision. Other ages have had great visions. They have always been different versions of the same vision: the vision of God and man’s relationship to God. The Communist vision is the vision of Man without God.

It is the vision of man’s mind displacing God as the creative intelligence of the world. It is the vision of man’s liberated mind, by the sole force of its rational intelligence, redirecting man’s destiny and reorganizing man’s life and the world.

The Communist vision has a mighty agitator and a mighty propagandist. They are the crisis. The agitator needs no soapbox. It speaks insistently to the human mind at the point where desperation lurks. The propagandist writes no Communist gibberish. It speaks insistently to the human mind at the point where man’s hope and man’s energy fuse to fierceness. The vision inspires. The crisis impels.

Too bad Mr. Chambers didn’t live to see the demise of such thinking. But then again…

Opportunism And The Pope’s Positions

July 13, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Economic issues, Faith | Leave a Comment 

Ross Douthat, who took Bill Kristol’s slot at The New York Times earlier this year, has an excellent piece on how political parties (from both sides) will distort the Pontiff’s message to bolster their positions among those who consider themselves faithful. Some like Kathleen Kennedy Townsend will say that President Obama better reflects the positions of American Catholics (forget 2000 years of philosophy and tradition), some interpret Benedict XVI’s latest Caritas In Veritate encyclical in the spectrum of laissez-faire economics, and others carelessly apply the euphemism of social justice to denote the support and growth of labor unions. Douthat argues to not listen to any of them:

These arguments never seem to go anywhere. When a pope criticizes legalized abortion, liberal Catholics nod and say that yes, they agree, it’s a terrible tragedy … but of course they can’t impose their religious values on a secular society. When a pope endorses the redistribution of wealth, conservative Catholics stroke their chins and say that yes, they agree, society needs a safety net … but of course they’re duty-bound to oppose the tyranny of big government. And when the debate isn’t going their way, left and right both fall back on flaccid rhetoric about how the papal message “transcends politics,” and shouldn’t be turned to any partisan purpose.

“Caritas in Veritate” has been no exception. It’s a “social” encyclical, in the church’s parlance, covering issues ranging from globalization and the environment to unions and the welfare state. Inevitably, liberal Catholics spent the past week touting its relevance to the Democratic Party’s policy positions. (A representative blast e-mail: “Pope’s Encyclical on Global Economy Supports the Principles of the Employee Free Choice Act.”) Just as inevitably, conservative Catholics hastened to explain that the encyclical “is not a political document” — to quote a statement co-authored by the House minority leader, John Boehner — and shouldn’t be read as “an endorsement of any political or economic agenda.”

Boehner is half right. The pope is not a Democrat or a Republican, and his vision doesn’t fit the normal categories of American politics.

But Benedict’s encyclical is nothing if not political. “Caritas in Veritate” promotes a vision of economic solidarity rooted in moral conservatism. It links the dignity of labor to the sanctity of marriage. It praises the redistribution of wealth while emphasizing the importance of decentralized governance. It connects the despoiling of the environment to the mass destruction of human embryos.

The Pontiff And The President

July 10, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Barack Obama, Faith | 1 Comment 

Today at the Vatican:

Forget Taxes – What About Death?

June 26, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Culture, Faith, History, News media, Religion | 3 Comments 

Daniel Defoe, early eighteenth century novelist (Robinson Crusoe), pamphleteer, and part-time spy, is usually credited with the first use of some form of the phrase about the certainty of both death and taxes. Benjamin Franklin borrowed from Defoe and refined it: “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” And, in Gone With The Wind, Margaret Mitchell included a play on the now famous maxim: “Death, taxes and childbirth! There’s never any convenient time for any of them.”

Columns such as mine talk a lot these days about taxes – maybe too much. But we certainly don’t talk enough about death, except when someone famous or beloved, sometimes both, passes on.

How many times have you heard the idea that bad things come in “threes?” Well, recently it seems we have transcended that. Ed McMahon passed the other day; so did Farrah Fawcett, now comes the death of pop icon Michael Jackson. The first two events seemed to be sadly imminent for sometime, one because of chronic health issues due to age, the other because of a battle – valiantly fought – with cancer. Mr. McMahon was 86, the former Charlie’s Angel was 62; Michael was 50.

There was Stephen Johns, the kind and generous security guard who opened a door at the Holocaust Museum recently, only to be gunned down by a hateful excuse of a man. And just the other day, a memorial service was held here in the Washington, D.C. area for Jeanice McMillan, the Metro train operator who perished after gallantly trying to stop her train from crashing into another. By all accounts, the lady was a hero. Then, of course, there are the eight others who died in that rail tragedy. Among them, Retired Major General, David Wherley, former commander of the D.C. Army and Air National Guard, and his wife, Ann, along with LaVonda King, a 23-year old mom on her way to pick up her two boys from daycare.

Of course, any morning newspaper is filled with death notices, names that mean something to relatively few as compared to what happens when someone famous dies. So, why is it that we find ourselves moved – even a little emotional – when we hear of the passing of someone we only knew from afar? Is it just because of the whole overdone 24/7 news coverage, looping stuff over and over and talking ad infinitum about a person?

I actually think something else is at play. Something deeper. Something instinctive. Something that is directly tied to how we are all wired.

Centuries ago, a king whose name is synonymous with wisdom, but who actually did a lot of dumb things – that being another story – reflected:

Better to spend your time at funerals than at parties. After all, everyone dies – so the living should take this to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for sadness has a refining influence on us. A wise person thinks a lot about death, while a fool thinks only about having a good time. – Ecclesiastes 7:2-4 (New Living Translation)

Solomon wasn’t talking here about some kind of morbid fascination with the details of death. He was referring to the quite healthy idea of stopping to think through the meaning of death. It is the ultimate area for personal reflection. We all identify with dying, death, and grief – whether we like, or want, to admit it.

So, as I watched the around the clock coverage of the passing of Michael Jackson, I found myself moved, not because I was a big fan – far from it. I liked the old Jackson Five stuff and when he sang to that rodent named Ben, but as he grew up and out there, I lost interest. This is not meant to demean or disparage the deceased, not at all. I feel for his family and his fans.

And I also hope that moments like this help all of us to think about what life means and what death is. We have birth certificates (those of us who can find them), but I have never seen one with an expiration date. Death comes in all shapes and sizes.

As a young minister starting out 31 years ago, the first funeral I conducted was for a stillborn baby, whose mother had gone into labor at the church baby shower. Three days later, I was called upon to officiate the service for a 93-year old man. Since then, my work has thrust me into moments somewhere between those age parameters.

I have given eulogies before thousands. And I have comforted an audience of one – a grieving mother – at a service for her son, a Vietnam vet who took his own life. I cried when she was given the flag.

Being a trumpet player, I have played taps in the distance. Being a preacher, I have shared words of comfort as best I could, always with the nagging sense that they fell short, because, well, they did. Being a human being, I have wept, even if my tears were tempered by my Christian faith and hope. Jesus himself wept, though knowing that his deceased friend, Lazarus, would momentarily rejoin the living.

Do I think celebrity-driven grief is overdone? Yeah probably, but I know it is easy for us to become myopic these days, obsessed with something out of proportion to how it actually impacts our individual lives. I also find myself somewhat put off when people can’t seem to find emotion in them when something sad – writ large – happens.

You see, when I think of Ed McMahon’s passing, I think of my elders, some who have long since left this earth, and others who are moving toward that inevitable moment. When I think of Farrah Fawcett, I can’t help but think of my mother, who passed several years ago in her 60s, after a lengthy and valiant battle with cancer and its complications.

Identification.

What do I think of when I focus on Michael Jackson’s passing? I think of a little boy with such talent, and then the man he grew into. He was obviously someone who struggled on several levels, and seemed to have so many unhappy moments, in spite of a global fan-base and the fleeting nature of material success.

As a student of history – and as an amateur historian, as well – I know that there is a time and place for the analysis of a life: the good, bad, and ugly. But it’s not during the wake. There should be a time and space to mourn, especially for those who really knew him. It is unseemly to sift cynically through a man’s life – and I imagine there is a lot there that would not match my values – in the immediate shadow of his passing. History can be written later, revealing things and teaching lessons.

Was Michael Jackson a bad or good person? I have my thoughts (rooted in scripture), others may think differently. But that he was a broken and hurting person, most would agree. When Jesus announced his ministry in Capernaum, quoting from Isaiah chapter 61, he did not indicate that he was on the scene to root out the bad people, but he did talk a lot about the broken and needy. And in the verse after the great John 3:16, Jesus talked about how he wasn’t sent to condemn the world, but to redeem it.

This is not an exercise in semantics, nor is it an attempt to water anything down. Jesus didn’t need to condemn, because the righteous law of God had been doing that all along. God is a judge and will judge according to righteousness. His righteousness. Defined by Him. It will be very real. In fact: “And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.” (Hebrews 9:27 New King James Version)

For now, the most compelling lesson for us as we note the passing of some famous people is to approach it all like Solomon: “A wise person thinks a lot about death, while a fool thinks only about having a good time.”

Obama Didn’t Simply Arrive At Notre Dame

May 19, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Faith | Leave a Comment 

Christoper Badeaux of The New Ledger, has this intriguing history of the progressive and ever-evolving nature of American Catholocism:

Any history of modern American Catholicism must begin with the suburbs. Ethnic Catholic factory workers and their children raced to the suburbs for more land, better schools (the dream of universal Catholic education was always a dream), less congestion, and, over time, white flight. It was the first, real break in the old, established parish system, wherein generations would go from Baptism to a funeral Mass in the same diocese, and usually the same parish. This had two direct effects: It upended the relationship between parish priests and bishops on the one hand, and the flock on the other; and severed the day-to-day traditions that were bound up with the practice of the Faith – everything from the mere act of walking to Mass to Knights of Columbus meetings to bingo at the parish hall – robbing Catholics of the muscle memory of a life that revolved around the parish.

Read the rest of the story here.

Annals Of The Obama Administration

March 30, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Annals of the Obama Administration, Culture, Faith, History, International Affairs, Latin America, Obama administration, Religion, Secretary Clinton | Leave a Comment 

SOS Clinton’s reset button gaffe was explained as having been the result of moving her political apparat to Foggy Bottom. 

But news arrives from her Mexican trip that fits into the “you couldn’t make something like this up” category of world class diplomatic blunders.  

On Friday she visited the most sacred of Mexican sites: the Basilica of the nation’s patron saint, the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Mrs. Clinton can be excused for not being personally aware of the history of the shrine and the miraculous painting.  That’s why there are legions of staff at State to prepare briefing books and pithy remarks.  (And I know there’s no reason why she, or anyone at State, should be as intrigued as I am by the story of the Virgin’s eyes, which is something like the western hemisphere’s Shroud of Turin.)

But nothing can prepare you for the sheer tin ear incompetence of what actually went down.  Here’s the Catholic News Agency’s account.   Read it and cringe.  

During her recent visit to Mexico, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made an unexpected stop at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe and left a bouquet of white flowers “on behalf of the American people,” after asking who painted the famous image.

The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was miraculously imprinted by Mary on the tilma, or cloak, of St. Juan Diego in 1531. The image has numerous unexplainable phenomena, such as the appearance on Mary’s eyes of those present in the room when the tilma was opened and the image’s lack of decay.

Mrs. Clinton was received on Thursday at 8:15 a.m. by the rector of the Basilica, Msgr. Diego Monroy.

Msgr. Monroy took Mrs. Clinton to the famous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which had been previously lowered from its usual altar for the occasion.

After observing it for a while, Mrs. Clinton asked “who painted it?” to which Msgr. Monroy responded “God!”

It’s bad enough already — but it gets worse.  It turns out that she had been there before and still didn’t know what she was seeing.

Clinton then told Msgr. Monroy that she had previously visited the old Basilica in 1979, when the new one was still under construction.

Banality is the mother’s milk of diplomatic diplospeak, but, surely, a worldly Wellesley grad supported by scores of assistant under secretaries and stables of speech writers should be able to come up with something better than this:

After placing a bouquet of white flowers by the image, Mrs. Clinton went to the quemador –the open air area at the Basilica where the faithful light candles- and lit a green candle.

Leaving the basilica half an hour later, Mrs. Clinton told some of the Mexicans gathered outside to greet her, “you have a marvelous virgin!”

Secretary Clinton wrapped up her good will visit to Our Lady of Guadalupe by flying to Houston to receive an award from Planned Parenthood.

This evening [Friday 27 March] Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is set to receive the highest award given by Planned Parenthood Federation of America — the Margaret Sanger Award, named for the organization’s founder, a noted eugenicist. The award will be presented at a gala event in Houston, Texas.

Roads To Rome

March 27, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, Faith, History, UK Politics | Leave a Comment 

Over the weekend, Newt Gingrich will be received as a convert into the Roman Catholic Church. The event is noted today on the Daily Beast by Christopher Buckley, in a column that is, alas, as smug as the photo that accompanies it (what was he thinking when he approved that snap to adorn his usually worthy, and always readable, contributions?).

Mr. Gingrich’s brain is a 24/7 phenomenon: Half the time, you sit there just dazzled, the other half you want to stuff a baguette-end in his mouth to make him shut up. In the old days, the church would have assigned their best man to the case—a Fulton Sheen. When Clare Boothe Luce, one of the notable Catholic converts of her day, was asked whom she wanted to hear her first confession, she replied, “Bring me someone who has seen the rise and fall of empires!” They don’t make converts like that anymore. Or maybe they do.

Newt Gingrich has certainly seen his own empire rise, and fall. Whether it will rise again is probably doubtful, but it will be interesting to watch. As to the substance of the thing: To paraphrase St. Thomas More, who lost his head over the non-granting of an annulment, I have no window to look into another man’s soul. (Unlike, say, George W. Bush’s ability to plumb the numinous depths of Vladimir Putin’s by looking into his icy blues.) It would be churlish in this Lenten season to suppose that Mr. Gingrich’s conversion is anything but deeply felt and sincere.

The stated reason for it is that he wishes to worship alongside his wife, who is described on her husband’s Web site as “a devoted Catholic.” To the extent her devotedness is assessed alongside her early relationship with the then-married Mr. Gingrich, it should be borne in mind that to be “devoted” is not the same as being “perfect”: She is “a member of the choir of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.” She has sung for a pope. And, to judge from her photos of a Barry Manilow concert in Las Vegas—you can view the slideshow for yourself—is a capable amateur photographer.

Across The Pond, PM Gordon Brown is not only seeing the fall of an empire, but is actually participating in it  (although in his case it’s technically the fall of the remnants of the once great empire whose liquidation Winston Churchill didn’t become the King’s first minister to oversee).  Mr. Brown has announced that HMG will pursue the repeal of the 1701 Act of Settlement, which discriminates (to put it mildly) against Roman Catholics by (among other things) excluding them from occupying the throne and forbidding them marriage to a monarch.

Back in the day there was at least a method to this madness, and  Philip Johnston supplies a concise a history of the Act of Settlement:

The Act of Settlement of 1701, was one of the final measures of the reign of William III and embedded the outcome of the “Glorious Revolution” of 1689. It laid down that Anne, the daughter of the Duke of York, later James II, could succeed to the throne.

However, because she had no surviving children, it decreed that she must pass on the succession to her cousin Princess Sophia, the Electress of Hanover, granddaughter to James I. It states that no sovereign “shall profess the Popish religion or shall marry a Papist”. It also requires that any sovereign shall be in communion with the Church of England.

Queen Anne outlived Sophia of Hanover, so the crown passed to the Elector of Hanover, who became George I, bypassing the Stuarts, who had a better hereditary claim to the throne.

While it is seen as a gratuitous insult to Catholics, the main purpose of the Act was to entrench the concept of constitutional monarchy after the instability of the previous century. Dismantling the Act of Settlement would hasten the disestablishment of the Church of England, since it would open the way for a Catholic monarch.

Got it?  Repeal seems like a no-brainer in 2009 — but not so fast folks.  There are some constitutional road bumps (each of the Commonwealth countries would have to approve the change — and good luck herding those cats in a timely manner).  And there is, apparently, some question about the PM’s real commitment to the cause versus the garden variety grandstanding of which he is capable.  (Despite the PM’s campaign rhetoric, he apparently took no action until a LibDem MP (the controversial Dr. Evan Harris) launched a private members Bill in the House of Commons aimed at repealing the AOS.)

To say you are against the bar on Roman Catholics ascending to the Throne or opposed to male primogeniture in the succession is the easy bit. Doing something about it is hard.

Mr Brown is good at the easy bit. Before he became prime minister in July 2007 his aides let it be known that he wanted to do away with the Act of Settlement and that a major announcement would be forthcoming soon after he arrived in Number 10. There was, indeed, a statement about constitutional reform; but that big promised change did not materialise.

Then, in March last year, there was another flurry of briefings that Mr Brown was against this sort of discrimination and would do something about it.

He has duly got his headlines yet again today showing what a modern and progressive chap he is; but when is he actually going to do something? We are now told there might be discussions with Commonwealth heads of government later this year at their summit.

The Queen is head of state of 16 countries each of which must be consulted. But why has that not already happened? If the Government wanted these reforms the Queen would not stand in its way and neither would the Prince of Wales. Since the next three in line to the Throne are males, the succession issue is not going to arise in any case unless Prince William’s first child is a girl.

There would be a problem, however, if Prince William announced he wished to marry a Roman Catholic girl, thought his not in prospect either. So this is an issue that can be taken slowly; and Mr Brown knows that it must be because there are so many other interlocking bits of legislation (the Act of Union for one) that would have to be revisited. Parliament could be tied up for years trying to unpick the constitutional tapestry so painstakingly woven together over the centuries.

All of these consequences are problematic but can be overcome if that is what parliament and the people want. It would require political will, not continued posturing.

So, we have got the message Gordon. We know you think, as many people do, that it is bizarre in this day and age to state in law that the heir to the throne cannot marry a Catholic or that the first born of the monarch, if a girl, will not be Queen if there are sons as well.

But when this issue is next raised, let’s have some proper proposals for reform and not just another statement of intent designed to grab a headline.

The Press Doesn’t Understand Religion

March 25, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Faith, News media | Leave a Comment 

TNN’s very own Joshua Trevino provides an eye-opening, copious, and contrarian opinion to the media uproar over an archbishop’s decision to excommunicate a nine-year old Brazilian girl – along with her mother and two doctors – for having an abortion after being brutally raped.

Peace Breaks Out

March 17, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, Culture, Economic issues, Faith, News media, Obama administration | Leave a Comment 

Looks like I wasn’t the only one puzzled, bemused, and frustrated by Frank Rich’s column —”The Culture Warriors Get Laid Off“— in Sunday’s New York Times.  

But then what’s new about that?  Why was this Sunday different from any other Sunday?  

Truth to tell, it was only different in degree rather than in kind.  But then, Mr. Rich’s job description is to attract attention and provoke controversy — and he does his job very well.

Sunday’s thesis was that the current economic collapse has allowed President Obama to accomplish in a couple of months what it took FDR several years to achieve following the Great Depression: The eradication of religion from, and the erasure of its baleful influence on, American public life.

On today’s Daily Beast, Lee Siegel calls out Mr. Rich on his phony historiography and his convenient ideology.

Imagine that you’ve been bravely pounding your breast for the past eight years over the religious right’s brutal domination of American public life, and suddenly, 50 days into a new administration, you realize that the religious right has disappeared.

Just five years ago, in a typical outburst of alarm, Frank Rich saw Mel Gibson’s The Passion, came back home, and hysterically worried in a column that “America is 82 percent Christian, and 60 percent of the population believes the Bible is historical fact. (The Jewish population is 2 percent.)” These terrifying statistics, combined with the fatal catalyst of Gibson’s blockbuster, actually made Rich “feel less secure as a Jew in America than ever before.”

But now Rich has some great news: Everything has changed! It’s safe to be a Jew in Manhattan once again.

Mr. Siegel isn’t having any of it.  Neither the idea that religion was driven from American life between the 1920s and the 1950s; nor that we’re in for at least another forty years’ renaissance after the intervening Dark Ages when the Catholics and the Christers were in charge.

Rich exemplifies the smug liberal belief that behind every conservative belief is a nihilistic opportunism. In this view, all it takes to dispel the gloom of religious sentiment in public life is a burst of happy rationalist sunlight. The enemy is deluded; we are authentic and real. Rich and his ilk refuse to entertain the idea that along with the usual political gamesmanship, there is such a thing as decent and principled opposition to issues like abortion and stem-cell research. They refuse to accept the fact that the “culture wars” are anchored in competing outlooks on life.

For Rich, trends are an all-or-nothing proposition. He cannot accept the idea that at a time of economic crisis, economics will be uppermost in people’s minds, but that this does not mean that the same people will abandon values and beliefs embedded their hearts and minds. No, for Rich, economic issues are in, cultural issues are out. Everything changes in an instant. Limbaugh is a buffoon, and the GOP is a mess.

Cultural “trends” come and go, the news cycle spins and dries and spins again—but cultural attitudes are, if not forever, stubborn and persistent. So is the power of belief, even–imagine!—among people we don’t agree with, or even like.

Controlling The Broader Environment

March 16, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Faith, International Affairs | Leave a Comment 

I won’t try to erratically apply the work of David Kilcullen — a warfare expert and adviser to General David Petreaus — but his assertion that kinetics is defensive and secondary, to what he calls the “offensive” strategy of securing populations towards reconciliation is playing out in the continent of Africa. As Pope Benedict XVI embarks on his trip to the continent, Christianity is surging and balancing itself with traditional African roots, attempting to balance the universality of its doctrine to what Kilcullen describes as the backlash that comes with spreading foreign and society changing ideology. The New York Times reports:

With one of the world’s largest Catholic populations, estimated at 158 million, Africa is the continent where the church is at once strong — in terms of sheer numbers and devotional vitality — and weak, inevitably touched by the poverty, corruption, conflict and disease afflicting the larger society.

Benedict is expected to touch on both those realities in his visit, which kicks off a period of attention to Africa, culminating in October, when the world’s bishops meet for their annual monthlong synod in Rome. This year it is devoted to “The Church in Africa at the Service of Reconciliation, Justice and Peace.”

On the first stop in his six-day trip, in French- and English-speaking Cameroon, Benedict is expected to present the working paper for the synod, which was called by Pope John Paul II before he died in 2005.

The synod is expected to touch on the church’s role in promoting democracy and social justice; “inculturation,” or finding a balance between Rome-mandated Catholic dogma and the varieties of local practice; health; and the tensions in Africa between Catholics, Muslims and the continent’s fast-growing Pentecostal population.

There is a lot at stake. By 2025, one-sixth of the world’s Catholics, or about 230 million, are expected to be African. The world’s largest seminary is in Nigeria, which borders on Cameroon in western Africa, and over all, Africa produces a large percentage of the world’s priests.

Africa is the continent “where the church appears most vital, appears in a phase of expansion,” said Sandro Magister, a veteran Italian Vatican journalist. “But this expansion is also very fragile.” He added that it “shows the typical characteristics of youth and adolescence: great waves of feeling and emotion with rather weak roots.”

Although the Vatican hierarchy is a deeply European institution, it too has changed over the years. Pope John XXIII appointed the first African cardinal in 1960. There are now 16 cardinals from Africa, out of 192.

“You sometimes hear the remark that the main problem with the Vatican is it’s 2,000 miles too far north,” said Philip Jenkins, a professor at Pennsylvania State University and the author of “The Lost History of Christianity,” about the early history of Christianity in Africa and Asia.

In his more than 25 years as pope, John Paul II made 16 trips to Africa, visiting 42 countries. In many ways, Africa would seem a lower priority for Benedict, who in his four years as pope has been deeply preoccupied with strengthening the church in Europe, where its status is increasingly diminished.

But Africa is important for Benedict’s vision. Compared with Europe and the United States, African churches tend to take a more traditional line on issues like homosexuality.

“Not just is Christianity booming in that part of the world, it seems to be a pretty conservative kind of Catholicism,” said Professor Jenkins, of Penn State. “I think he has high hopes of the global south churches,” and sees them “as a very serious counterbalance to liberal trends in the north.”

But the situation on the ground is rich and complex.

Many local African prelates must set their own guidelines for how to balance Catholicism with the faith healing and animal sacrifice practiced by many parishioners.

The Catholic Church is also concerned that tribalism could undermine its more universal authority, especially if clerics are seen as too closely tied to a particular ethnic or tribal group.

Similarly, preaching the gospel in the local language could tie it to one ethnic group, yet reading it only in a formerly colonial language poses other complications.

Benedict has tried to crack down on the tendency of many African priests to take wives. Addressing a meeting of African bishops in Rome in 2005, Benedict implored them “to select conscientiously candidates for the priesthood,” and to encourage them “to open themselves fully to serving others as Christ did by embracing the gift of celibacy.”

Next Page »