I’ve predicted in past posts that our children will resolve conflicts that we created and failed to resolve.

It is now becoming clear how they are going to do that.

They are abandoning traditional church-based religion.

They retain their belief in God, but they reject how organized religion has taken that belief and attempted to turn it into political power.

They reject the conflicts of their parents and view churches as associated with those conflicts.

They don’t want to be told by others what God says and don’t trust those who claim to speak for God.

The good news is that they are going to figure this out for themselves.

The bad news is that those of us who would like a say in the outcome are going to become increasingly frustrated and marginalized. We won’t be invited to participate because we have already demonstrated that we are unable to compromise.

This new generation is searching for a new vision of the country that they all can share. They are going to be willing to compromise on all of the BIG issues that have fractured the country under the Baby Boomer generation of leaders. The sorts of passionate debates that have fueled the culture wars are rejected by this new generation of leaders. They not only will reject it, but the whole concept of single issue politics will be viewed as inappropriate, counter productive, and unpatriotic.

The most recent example of this was the Facebook poll asking for a vote on assassinating Obama. Most of those who didn’t read too deeply thought it yet another example of conservative backlash to a popular liberal President. Turns out that it was a prank by a teenager intended to parody the extreme positions revealed in the current healthcare debate. The younger generation is trying to hold a mirror up to their elders in hopes that we will see how ugly we’ve become in their eyes.

So the culture wars will end in the way that most modern wars end these days. No one wins. Forces disengage in some messy ungraceful way. Both sides declare victory. Life goes on. At some point in the future, we celebrate the veterans who personally sacrificed. Our kids also quietly rewrite the history of this sacrifice to fit their new view of themselves.

There were a couple of interesting things coming together in the last few weeks that seem to have a common thread. The thread is that some people find an idea so compelling that they become blind to any facts which undermine their position.

One is the ongoing Pro-Life opposition to the Obama election. The second is a report regarding the death penalty. The third is the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear a suit challenging President-Elect Obama’s citizenship.

One of the dominant themes of Senator McCain’s campaign was that you can’t trust President-Elect Obama. That point of view appealed to Pro-Lifers, Racists, Libertarians, Liberal-haters, Gay-haters, Free-Marketers, Isolationists, and many who legitimately questioned Senator Obama’s experience. McCain may have succeeded in sowing seeds of doubt regarding Obama, but he failed to convince a majority of voters that he was a better choice.

Of the whole spectrum of Obama opponents, the Pro-Lifers seemed most shocked by outcome. Many refuse to accept the election.  Some predict the God will swiftly and decisively punish our country and all those who voted for Obama.

What is fascinating about this position is that, in practical terms, the past eight years of Pro-Life governance did not substantially restrict abortion rights in this country. It is also highly likely given the financial crisis that we are facing, that the next four to eight years won’t see substantial relaxation of abortion restrictions either. So the operative question is what motivates this reaction?

A group advocating changes in our death penalty laws released a report indicating that it now costs more to execute a prisoner than it does to incarcerate them for life. The rest of the report documents that far fewer capital cases are being brought in the courts because states recognize that it is both expensive to prosecute these cases and many convictions end up getting overturned as new evidence becomes available. So the operative question is why do we still have a death penalty?

The Supreme Court recently refused to take up a case claiming that Obama didn’t meet the constitutional citizenship requirements to be President. There is a second case of a similar nature also making its way to the Supreme Court. It will also likely also be rejected. The mainstream media including nonpartisan fact finding organizations have repudiated all of the claims surrounding this controversy. So the operative question is why does this controversy continue to flourish on the Internet even though it has no substance in fact?

The answer to all of the questions appears to be a conspiracy culture described in a Salon article on the citizenship controversy.

“There’s no amount of evidence or data that will change somebody’s mind,” says Michael Shermer, who is the publisher of Skeptic magazine and a columnist for Scientific American, and who holds an undergraduate and a master’s degree in psychology. “The more data you present a person, the more they doubt it … Once you’re committed, especially behaviorally committed or financially committed, the more impossible it becomes to change your mind.”

Any inconvenient facts are irrelevant. People who believe in a conspiracy theory “develop a selective perception, their mind refuses to accept contrary evidence,” Chip Berlet, a senior analyst with Political Research Associates who studies such theories, says. “As soon as you criticize a conspiracy theory, you become part of the conspiracy.” 

Let’s examine each of these in the light of this evaluation.

The citizen conspirators are a classic example that requires little additional explanation. When confronted with Obama’s birth announcement in a HI newspaper, the citizen conspirators respond that the announcement doesn’t say where Obama was born, and even if it did, Obama’s parents could have lied, or Obama’s grandparents could have lied, to cover up the fact that he was born somewhere else. I’ve also read some who have suggested that Obama’s real purpose of returning to HI late in his campaign was to tie up the loose ends around this birth certificate cover-up rather than visit his dying grandmother. The reality is that a mountain of simple evidence supports the same simple conclusion that the Supreme Court action reflected. Obama was born in Hawaii and as a result, is a US citizen qualified to be elected President.

Those who support the death penalty have a similar myopia. They are fixated on punishment rather than practicality. As a result, they are willing to spend more money to kill someone rather than imprison them for life. And they are willing to run the fairly high risk that they may be killing an innocent man in order to make sure that they kill the guilty. At the end of the day it makes no difference that the death penalty may no longer be pursued by states attorneys. All that is important is that it is on the books and available for use when the public outrage demands it.

Finally, there is an aspect of this that is even reflected in the Pro-Life movement. That aspect is revealed when you talk with Pro-Lifers about the issue of reducing abortions. You would think on the surface, that this is something Pro-Lifers would welcome regardless of where it comes from. Even if I don’t agree with the premise that life begins at conception, if I’m willing to agree that abortion is bad social policy, shouldn’t that represent common ground?

What I’ve discovered is that, at least for some, the Pro-Life position has nothing to do with the number of abortions that are performed in this country and everything to do with eliminating abortion as choice. It is all about imposing a particular morality rather than addressing a social need. In the case of Barak Obama, this is manifested in the view that it doesn’t matter what Barak Obama does or doesn’t do to reduce the number of abortions in this country. As long as he persists in his view that a woman should have a right to choose an abortion, he is supporting a sinful act, is unqualified for the office, and those who support him are unqualified to call themselves Christians.

So just like the citizenship conspirators and the death penalty advocates, there is an aspect of irrationality in some Pro-lifers. It doesn’t matter that the number abortions in this country is going down at a fairly constant rate regardless of administration. It doesn’t matter that the best years of abortion reduction have occurred during the years when income for the poor rose. It doesn’t matter that good education and easy access to contraception have a direct affect on the birthrate among teenagers.  All that matters is morality.

This is very similar to the conversations with the citizenship conspirators.  They claim that they don’t oppose Obama politically.  All that matters is the constitution.  Or the death penalty advocates.  For them all that matters is justice.

For all three groups, the world easily divides into believers and non believers and what’s worse, they don’t listen to anything a non-believer has to say. That’s because they prefer the peep and mutter of familiar spirits to any truth that may upset their world view.

I don’t know how a democracy effectively handles sections of the electorate who refuse to engage in a rational discussion. The last election proved that these groups are in the minority. Hopefully this minority will recognize that the issues which affect our suvival affect them too, and are far more serious and in need of their attention than those issues which seem to have them mesmerized. 

We are entering a very interesting time in American politics and culture.

We are clearly in one of the most serious crises in the last fifty years. We are fighting two wars. Our economy is teetering on the brink of collapse. Our environment is close to the point of no return as global temperatures rise. We remain in the cross hairs of a loose coalition of international terrorists. China, India, and Russia are all challenging us economically, militarily, and scientifically for world leadership.

So what do we choose to do?

We elect a young inexperienced liberal African American politician.

How can this make sense in this time of greatest need?

How can we trust someone who is solidly Pro-Choice?

How can we trust someone who is clearly liberal (or maybe even socialist) to the point of being willing to “associate” with folks like Bill Ayers, Rev. Wright, and Saul Alinsky?

Or isn’t even an American citizen?

How can we trust someone who learned his politics Chicago-style at the feet of Emil Jones?

How can we trust someone who represents all we fear – uppity disrespectful black folks?

How could God do this to us?

There are people all across this country right now asking all of these questions and worse.

Here are some of the explanations that I’ve heard and read.

It must have been the media.

It must have been the unions.

It must have been those young voters who are so easily misled.

It must have been those black folks who couldn’t see beyond race.

It must have been all that money from questionable sources that Obama spent on his campaign.

It must have been McCain.

It must have been Palin.

It must have been Bush.

It must have been the economy.

It is remarkable that people who claimed that President Bush had a mandate and a mission from God, now reject President-Elect Obama who received more votes than President Bush ever did.

The bottom line is that the voting public has rejected the politics of division. They have rejected the politics of bigotry. They have rejected the politics of character assassination.

The problem, though, is that the scorched earth campaign run by the Republicans has left a lot of people with very distorted views.

It will be interesting to see how President-Elect Obama deals with the skepticism and outright hostility towards his presidency that currently exists in this country.

Hopefully it is an opportunity, like the silted stream, to stir up all of the buried issues and bring them to the surface.  It looks muddy now, but that is only so that the mud can be washed away leaving a clean stream where a polluted one had been.

We have to find a way to reason together as a one country and one people again.  That isn’t to say that we give up our ideals, but rather agree that the survival of our country should be a goal we can all rally around.

This does not prove that sexual orientation is genetic, but this combined with a number of other physiological differences is starting to build a strong case.

So let’s assume, just for the purposes of discussion, that research does eventually prove that homosexuality is genetic rather than a lifestyle choice. The current research suggests that it may have something to do with the level of male hormones in the mother during gestation.

Where does that put those who feel that it is a sin?

Perhaps it finally relegates it to the same status as touching a menstruating women.

Doesn’t this start to feel similar to the situation two hundred years ago when the Bible was used to justify slavery?

Just to refresh your memory.

“When a slave owner strikes a male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies immediately the owner shall be punished. But if the slave survives a day or two there is no punishment; for the slave is the owner’s property” (Exodus 21:20-21).

The Southern Baptist Convention was founded for the purpose of preserving the Christian basis for slavery. To their credit Southern Baptists apologized in 1995.

It will be interesting to see how many apologies are given when homosexuality is proven genetic.

The Bible is a wonderful book that God gave us as a sufficient guide to working out our own salvation. It is most effective in that role when understood as a metaphor for modern life because it was written in a different time. It was this understanding of historical context which allowed clergy to see past the explicit Bible passages supporting slavery to the larger message of God’s love for all His children and our obligation to love our neighbor as ourselves. They used this understanding of the Bible’s real message to oppose and eventually abolish slavery. I predict that this same historical context and understanding of the Bible’s real message will be applied to homosexuality too, and the clergy will again lead the charge to reverse the legal and social discrimination currently imposed on gay men and women.

Mr. Curry took off on a revisionist history trip in an effort to connect science and Christianity.  He wrote that Bible-based Christianity is responsible for modern science because many of the scientists during the Scientific Revolution (16^th century) were Christians. Credible historians do see a connection, but not the one that Mr Curry asserts. The connection is that the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Counter-Revolution, the discovery of the new world, the fall of Constantinople, and the rediscovery of Aristotle undermined the status quo. It was finally politically acceptable (no more inquisitions) to challenge established thought and a new age of scientific discovery began.

Stranger yet, he claimed that the scientific method was inspired by a Bible quote. This is curious on two counts. First, historians attribute the scientific method to al-Haytham, a first millenium Muslim Arab widely regarded as the first scientist. Second, this same method is the foundation for the theory of evolution and the reason why the vast majority of the scientific world rejects creationism.

I do agree with Mr. Curry that science is revealing many wonderful insights every day that strongly suggest God’s presence, but scientific discovery is something we all share as humans.  It is part of our wiring.  Though it may be the result of individual inspiration, it is generally not attribued to prayer or spiritual belief.  It dates back to the discovery of fire – well before the invention of writing.  As a result, it is shared by all cultures and religions.

Finally in an effort to establish his position that good science is based on a belief in God, Mr. Curry took a swipe at Buddhism saying that the reason there aren’t any well known Buddhist scientists is because Buddhism is an atheist religion.  This is just wrong on so many points that I don’t know where to start.  It may be better to just leave you with a quote from one of our greatest modern scientists,

“The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend a personal God and avoid dogmas and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description.” Albert Einstien

One of the more interesting aspects of the lecture was the Dali Lama’s suggestion that Tibetan Buddhism was not for everyone. He said that our beliefs are the product of our traditions. So, in his opinion, if you aren’t Tibetan it’s going to be difficult to completely understand everything about Tibetan Buddhism. Most non-Tibetans simply don’t have the cultural context.

In the same vein, he went on to say that he doesn’t mean to imply that Tibetans or Tibetan Buddhism is beyond the grasp of non-Tibetans. He suggested that it would likely be just as difficult for most Tibetans to understand and fully grasp everything about western Christianity.

Why I found this interesting is because right outside the Crisler Arena, there were about 100 Chinese quietly protesting the Dali Lama’s speech. They felt that he is responsible for the political unrest in Tibet. I found out later that at least some of the protesters, including one of their spokespeople, are naturalized US citizens. So the passion they felt for this particular subject was, as far as I could tell, genuine and not the result of overt coercion.

Given the Dali Lama’s insight, I started to think more deeply about what might move these Chinese to take the position that they did.

On the surface, there are just a lot of contradictions.

Here they are in a fairly free and open society where they are able to demonstrate and express their opinion. They are using that freedom to protest the fact that Tibetans are trying to do the same thing in an area of the world controlled by the Chinese.

They are supporting a government that prevents open access to the internet and press, but they are protesting what they see as a media bias against the Chinese government.

The Chinese government has spent decades attempting to discredit the Dali Lama as an untrustworthy political troublemaker and these protestors are supporting that line. The Dali Lama, as far as anyone in the west can tell, is doing his best to follow the teachings of Buddha and harm no living thing.

It has to come down to what the Dali Lama said. We simply don’t understand the nationalism that motivates the Chinese people these days. Their cultural context is beyond the grasp of most of us, and so we struggle when we see such bias and pride. The Olympics are a big deal for them and any attempt to move the spotlight away from what they see as their coming out party, is viewed as a overt attempt to discredit their nation AND them. They aren’t ready to look at themselves honestly because they have been changing so quickly and want credit for where they are going rather than where they current are.

If you put this in the context of history, I’m sure that Europeans have had the same reaction to Americans for at least the last 100 years.

Keep that in mind the next time a politician suggests that the rest of world really wants to be like us. Just as we don’t really understand them, it is very difficult for them to really understand us. Yet, we wage wars, overthrow sovereign governments, and pick sides in conflicts based on our view of the world. Just like the Dali Lama, we must seek understanding first before we can make statements like, “They hate our freedom”. If we really seek to love our neighbor as ourselves, isn’t that the least we can do?

Those of us who are Christians have the Bible as a sufficient guide to our salvation, but even here there are many paths. Jesus, the most perfect man to ever walk the earth, encountered devout people in his own town that he couldn’t heal of their bigotry and hardheartedness.

There are those in our community today who seem to have succumbed to the same temptation to turn Jesus message of love, humility, and tolerance into narrow-minded self-righteousness. The paper that sponsors this blog published a letter from one on April 26^th.

The author, Mr. Abraham, felt that Reverend Timothy McDonald, founder of the First Iconium Baptist Church in east Atlanta, was in error when he claimed that Jesus was crucified for political reasons. Mr. Abraham went on to quote scripture extensively to prove his point that Jesus death had a much more profound spiritual purpose. On that point, it is likely that he and Rev McDonald would agree. But in Rev. McDonald’s defense, those who killed Jesus did so because they viewed him as a political threat, not a spiritual one. In fact, it took Jesus resurrection and the Holy Spirit to open his own disciples eyes to him as more than a political Messiah.

This minor theological spat, however, was just the thin veneer that Mr. Abraham chose to dress up an ugly screed directed at African Americans, Catholics, Mormons, Muslims, Jehovah’s Witness, and any minister in Monroe who disagreed with him.

The author appears to have forgotten the example of another Abraham who became the father of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, “And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be brethren.” Gen 13:8

Jesus’ sacrifice and resurrection was for all mankind through all time. It was for African Americans, Catholics, Mormons, Muslims, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christians, Mr. Abraham and me. We are all brothers.

“But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.” Matt 5:21-24

The story starts with a Boston area bankruptcy judge taking a walk on the wild side in New Hampshire while his wife was away for the weekend. In this case that involved cross dressing and visiting a popular gay bar. His only crime was that he had too much to drink and then got behind the wheel. The next thing he knew, there was a parked pickup truck on the hood of his Mercedes. The police said that they knew he was drunk because he passed out a couple of times and, “had a difficult time locating his license in his purse.”

He pleaded ‘no contest’ to a misdemeanor DUI charge and agreed to pay roughly $600 in penalties. He also agreed to a 12-month suspension of his judicial license and resigned the post President Bush appointed him to in 2004.

Here’s what’s sad to me about the whole thing.

From all accounts, he was a good judge in an area of law where we need good judges.

So, other than embarrassment, why did he have to resign?

My sense is if it had been a simple DUI, he probably wouldn’t have had to resign. Heck there are plenty of congressmen and senators over the past several years convicted of driving while under the influence who have continued to hold office. Recently defeated Senator Tommy Robertson just had his second DUI conviction. The judge had to resign because of the revelation that he was a transvestite. As a Republican, I submit that this is a far greater transgression than driving after having too much to drink.

If this person had chosen to show up for the job in fishnet stockings and an evening dress, you could make a strong case for him being unfit. The fact that this occurred on his own time at a place where he would not be recognized suggests that he is capable of discretion and shouldn’t be punished for anything more than just having too much to drink.

If J. Edgar Hoover could run the FBI for 48 years and occasionally wear women’s clothes, why not this guy?

The post talked about what Mr. Haynes saw as the two biggest threats to religious freedom in this country in the coming year.

The first was the conflation of religion and politics. The second was Islamophobia.

For Christians, they both come down to a simple discussion.

Is it ever appropriate for Christians to impose our particular moral or theological views on others?

In my mind this brings up the whole discussion of free will.

We Christians have a particular view of the how a life should be lived. Though we may differ in degree, what we all agree on is the Jesus embodied the Christ spirit which made him the most perfect man ever to walk the earth. Jesus Christ brought a message from God to man that everyone has an unending spiritual life and if you would like to experience that life it’s fullest, you have to accept the same Christ spirit. The embrace of that message and spirit, however, has to be voluntary to be meaningful.

So we have these things as basic common understandings, yet we also seem to have a very difficult time when people practice free will and reject those things that we feel are sacred. Some of us start to insist that what had been a set of beliefs must now become a set of laws. In the minds of some, sinful behavior (not to be confused with criminal behavior) should be illegal, even though it is the practice of free will. Some Christians feel it is their duty to protect people from themselves as if free will is dangerous if actually practiced.

In a similar vein, some Christians view the current cultural conflict between fundamentalist Muslims and western societies as a religious conflict. Just one example of that are the e-mail attacks directed at Barak Obama. Rather portray him as somehow inferior because of his racial background, the Internet whisper campaign suggests something much frightening. They accuse him of being a closet Muslim.

If he is the right person for the office, it shouldn’t matter what his religion is (he happens to be a Christian). Even the constitution says that. And if we Christians really believe in free will, why would we care if someone chooses to worship in a non-Christian way?

So at the end of the day, it turns out that the greatest threat to religious freedom in this country is us Christians. That’s because we are unwilling to give others the same key to salvation that our Creator gave us – the ability to choose our own path.

As of 2004, the state with the lowest divorce rate was, that’s right, Massachusetts!  Massachusetts also is the only state where gay marriage is legal. 

The Southern Bible belt states with the largest populations of fundamentalist Christians also have the highest divorce rates – 50% higher than the national average of 4.2 per thousand people.    

The northeast has the lowest divorce rate.  That region includes Massachusetts and five other states that have domestic partnership laws (New Jersey, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine).   

In the years since Michigan and Ohio adopted constitutional amendments to “protect” marriage the divorce rate in the country has gone down by about 3%.  The divorce rate in Ohio is 1.3 times the national average and is trending up.  In Michigan, it has held steady at 1.6 times the national average. 

So contrary to the writer’s claim, the facts suggest marriage doesn’t benefit from prejudicial statutes or judgementalism.  Marriage (and by implication families) seems to do best in states embracing diversity and practicing tolerance and inclusion.  That shouldn’t be all that surprising since this was Jesus’ advice too, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”