Spiritual wickedness in high places

“And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand: And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand?  And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? therefore they shall be your judges.”
Matt 12:25-27

Jesus ability to heal others really bothered the religious establishment because it went against their understanding of how the world worked and what the Bible meant.  The Pharisees were obsessed with condemning sinners.  They felt that those who were disabled were being made public examples by God for their sins.  They also felt that only God could forgive sins. So when Jesus healed a blind and dumb man, the only explanation they could come up with is that Jesus must be in league with Beelzebub, because only God can heal sin, and obviously this man was a sinner. 

As he always did, Jesus had something for the Pharisees and something for us.  He challenged the Pharisees logic by pointing out that Satan would have no reason to want to forgive sin or heal anyone. 

What he had for us was the promise that he wouldn’t be the only one who would heal.  Our children will be healers too and as such they will also be our judges because they will heal the problems we create. 

Our children today are telling us that they have problems with Christian Churches in the United States.

In a recent survey published by the Bama Group, only 60 percent of 16-29 year olds consider themselves Christian.  That is a dramatic shift from the 77% of 60+ year olds who answered the same question.

Those who don’t consider themselves Christian feel organized religion is hypocritical, judgmental, and too political.  They generally are very favorable to the basic teachings of Christianity (77%), but feel that organized religions no longer represent those teachings and values.  As a result only 16% say that they have a good impression of Christianity.

What is even more eye-opening is that 50% of those in this age group who do go to church share those same views.

One of the key issues separating young people from organized Christianity is the hostile position many churches hold to homosexuality.  80% of those who call themselves Christian and 91% of those who don’t describe organized Christianity as “anti-homosexual”.

Numerous surveys have shown a growing majority of young Americans have a relaxed, tolerant attitude toward homosexuality. A 2001 Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 60 percent of Americans ages 17 to 29 support same-sex marriage, yet same-sex marriage is illegal in 49 of the 50 states.    

One pastor familiar with the study said, “How did homosexuality become such a huge issue for us?  As I see it, it’s no different than any other sexual sin.”

I can’t answer him, because I ask myself the same question.

What I can see is that our children have a better grasp on the basic values and teachings of Jesus than many of us do.  Their love of their brother isn’t blinded by hate or fear.  They will be our judges.  Fortunately, they will also be our healers.

Politics and religion don’t generally mix well.  You can pick just about any time in history right up to the present and find examples where people were getting killed in the name of one god or another.  Our founding fathers had seen a lot of that in their time too and were determined to try something new – a government where politics and religion were separate.  After more than 200 years, that appears to be breaking down, and just when we need an agnostic humanist government the most, we have a fundamentalist Christian one.   

This isn’t a new idea.  You can read about it in the Bible.  That Pharisees under the Romans exerted both religious and political control in Israel.  They killed the messiah they claimed to be waiting for because his religious philosophy threatened their political position.   

One of the clear messages of Jesus theology is the rebuke of the whole Old Testament concept of judging.  The Pharisees had spent centuries arguing about what was allowed and not allowed under Jewish law.  They tied that to an understanding that God rewarded the pious and punished the sinner in this life.  It was easy for them to point to their own material success as proof of their piety while at the same time condemning those who were poor, sick, or disabled as sinners.  They gained political power by becoming the de-facto moral arbiters of all human activity. 

Jesus turned that whole concept on its head.  He proved through healing that the Pharisees definition of “sinner” didn’t work.  He healed by seeing all as God saw them, in His image and likeness.  He also told all the would listen that even though he was the Son of God, the Christ, the most perfect man to every walk the earth, that even he was not qualified to judge others.  God did the judging.  He did the saving.  Then he told all of us that if we wanted to be saved, we needed to do the same thing – leave the judging to God and focus our attention on our own salvation. 

The problem is that it is just a whole lot easier for us all to spend our time pointing the finger at others than it is for us to focus on our own shortcomings.  In the last ten years that’s become a whole lot more dangerous as religious fundamentalism and political conservatism joined forces to take over the Republican Party.   

This coalition is breeding a new generation of Pharisees intent on imposing a particular view of reality on everyone else.  For this group, just like the Pharisees, there is no difference between sinful and criminal behavior.  The most frightening aspect of this myopia is that they honestly believe that this mission to “save” humanity from itself by legislating morality is doing God’s will. 

So we have legislation based on the concept that homosexuals are sinners that restricts the rights of homosexual couples to enjoy the civil benefits (tax breaks, inheritance rights, shared insurance, pooled credit, adoption preferences, legal protection, etc.) that our society offers married couples. 

We have public policy that associates federal funding with the encouraging the teaching of abstinence as an effective birth control technique and discouraging teaching about contraception and disease prevention because pre-marital sexual activity is sinful. 

We have international policy which ties AIDS prevention funding to promoting abstinence and removes funding from clinics that distribute condoms and perform abortions.  This policy sacrifices foreign populations to the scourge of AIDS and the poverty of overpopulation in the name of promoting “Christian” values. 

We have a broken political system where public citizens with sexual identity problems suffer far more public abuse and ridicule than those who betray the publics trust for their own gain. 

We have educational systems that teach the Bible as a science, but we have public outcry when other religious traditions seek much less dangerous accommodations (installing Muslim wash basins). 

We seek to put up fences to control immigration because we fear being overwhelmed by those who don’t share our “Christian” values when the vast majority of these immigrants ARE Christian. 

I don’t seek to judge those that aspire to speak for God.  They will discover soon enough whether or not they got it right.  What I do hope is that I can encourage all of you to read the Bible yourselves.  Don’t let others (including me) tell you what it means.  All you need is there, and that combined with humble prayer will lead you to decide whether that mote in my eye is really irresistible. 

“Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.” Matt 7:22-25

Two thousand years ago Jesus predicted that there would be people who would claim to be acting in His name, but in fact had no idea what He was talking about.

The litmus test of fidelity and understanding is the works. If you hear AND do, then you have built your house on a rock.

What brings this thought to mind is the curious reaction around the world to Prime Minister Ahmadinejad’s visit to the United States. Here in the US we viewed him as a blustering clown. He was nearly hooted off the stage when he claimed that there are no homosexuals in Iran. He questioned the holocaust. He defended his country’s right to develop nuclear weapons.

In the Muslim world, however, he was viewed as hero. He stood up to the West in general and the United States in particular. The harsh treatment he received at the hands of Columbia President Lee Bollinger upset Muslim sensibilities regarding the treatment of guests and only confirmed that we are a boorish and uncultured people.

I suspect that there is a similar dichotomy regarding our own President. There are many in this country who feel that he has done an excellent job in protecting us and promoting our interests abroad. The Muslim world views him, though, in much the same way that we view Ahmadinejad – a dangerous fool.

So which house is built on the rock?

At the moment, I would say neither.

Ahmadinejad’s claims regarding the holocaust have root in the Arab rejection of Israel as a state. Israel was created after WWII by the Allies in reaction to the holocaust. The problem was that this state was created at the expense of the Palestinians. Questioning the holocaust is code for supporting the Palestinians and questioning the legitimacy of the Israeli state. Arabs understand this. American’s don’t.

Ahmadinejad’s claim that there are no homosexuals in Iran is based on his view that Iran is a devout Muslim nation and that Islam prohibits homosexuality. How different is that from Mr. Bush’s view that the US is a Christian nation and that the Bible prohibits homosexuality? Mr. Bush doesn’t claim that there aren’t homosexuals in this country, he just wants to label them as sinners so he can justify restricting their rights to marry, adopt, or serve in the military.

We think that Ahmadinejad is fanatical because he claims Iran has the right to develop a nuclear bomb. What we don’t say is that we have already helped Israel develop a nuclear weapon. Clearly we felt threatened enough when Russia put missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons in Cuba to go the brink of nuclear war with Russia. Why is Iran’s reaction to Israel so hard to understand? Also Iran is looking at the US, who claimed that Iran was part of an axis of evil, building what appear to be permanent military bases on its borders.

We don’t trust that Iran will use it’s nuclear power responsibly, and there is no indication that they will. However, the US is the only country who has actually used nuclear weapons. That’s what the Arab world sees.

Bush holds up violated UN resolutions as legal foundation for invading Iraq. Arabs look at all of the UN resolutions condemning Israel which the US has unilaterally blocked and questions our integrity.

Bush talks about democracy, freedom, and the rule of law. Arabs look at Abu Ghraib and see only the eleven who appeared in the photos being convicted with sentences ranging from community service to 10 years in jail.

Arabs also look at the massacre at Haditha where 24 Iraqi civilians were killed including children shot in the head. They hear of our outrage and shock, but they see charges being dropped against all but one of the marines involved. In this case also charges are starting to be dropped against the officers supposed to be responsible for these men.

I submit that both our country and Iraq have leaders who have lost their way. The difference is that we have an opportunity to change that direction by selecting a new leader and rejecting the policies of the old. We have an opportunity to demonstrate that we expect our leaders to be accountable for their actions. We have also an opportunity to insist that our leaders are doers of the word, not just speakers.

I would also go further and assert that as long as we are in Iraq we will not be able to claim any high moral ground in discussions with any other country whether they are in the Middle East, Indonesia, or Africa.

The consequences of inaction for us and Iraq are clear.

“And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.” Matt 7: 26-27

“But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”  Matt 5:44-45 

This is Jesus at His most radical and challenging.  It isn’t enough to love our neighbors as ourselves. We also have to love our enemies, those that actually seek to do us harm.  It is clearly only God’s job to figure out who is evil and who is good.  It is our job to be grateful to those we fear or hate because they are the ones who help us discover our bias and weakness.  If we strive to be perfect, this is how we’re going to get there. 

As far as our attitude to Muslims is concerned, we have a long way to go. 

I read a disturbing letter to the editor in the Toledo Blade.  It was in response to an column by a Toledo Muslim regarding the Christian myopia which seems to affect our foreign policy and re-enforce the notion that our Christian nation is really out to defeat Islam rather than just responding to attacks from bin Laden. 

There is a frightening ignorance in this country of Islam.  It is this ignorance which some politicians and fundamentalists have used to demonize all Muslims.  It is also this ignorance which causes fear in those who distrust what they don’t know.  This is just as wrong as when we try to blame illegal immigrants, African Americans, Japanese, Germans, Jews, or the Irish for all our problems. 

Islam is a beautiful religion of devotion and commitment.  If more Christians could get past their pride and self-righteousness, they would find this out on their own.  Islam means surrender.  Devout Muslims surrender their life to God in ways that Christians only imagine.  The daily prayer and prostration to Jerusalem is part of this process of demonstrating obedience as well as piety.  The only analogy I can come up with in Christianity is kneeling, but it is so much more than that.  I can tell you with no need to check the statistics, that there are way more Muslims on their knees in prayer every day than Christians, yet there is still the sense in this country that Muslims are primitive and violent. 

Much has been made of the position of women in some Muslim societies.  The reality is that both the Koran and the Bible have been used to subjugate women.  There are many Christian religions where women have an institutionalized subservient role.  There are also modern Muslim countries where women participate in all aspects of the economy in much the same ways as they do in this country.  I would submit that this is a cultural issue and not a religious one.   

Detroit has a large Muslim population.  Some cities and schools responding to that demand have added features to public facilities to wash hands and feet in preparation for prayer.  In my mind this is no different than adding changing tables or handicapped facilities to rest rooms.  It is the sort of loving response to individual needs that one would expect from a open free society.  It’s also a practical solution to the challenges posed by Muslims trying to use public sinks for this purpose.  Instead conservatives have latched onto this as just another example of soft-headed liberalism.  The thought goes, “How can we be accommodating Muslims in this country when we are waging a war against them in the Middle East?” or “Why are we spending money to make it easier for Muslims to pray when we can’t spend money to support Christian prayer in public schools?”

The Koran, on the other hand, teaches tolerance and respect for all of the world’s religions.  That respect includes prohibiting evangelizing those who already have committed to another religion.  Those that come to Islam, have to come of their own free will.  The Koran has a wonderful term for Jews and Christians.  We are “People of the Book”.  They have much more respect for the Bible than we do the Koran.  They view us brothers and sisters because we have the same father.  

Only argue with the People of the Book in the kindest way — except in the case of those of them who do wrong — saying, “We have faith in what has been sent down to us and what was sent down to you. Our God and your God are one and we submit to Him” (29:46).

The Koran also counsels against aggression of any sort.  Muslims are instructed to strike only after they have been struck.  Only when they are so threatened that their life may be at risk do they have the choice of being aggressive.  Then they are encouraged to fight whole heartedly.  When the opponent surrenders, however, Muslims are obliged to accept whatever terms are offered without negotiation, embrace their enemy, and seek as quickly as possible a return to peaceful existence. 

These basic Muslim teachings have obviously been perverted by fundamentalism.  So has Christianity.  All of the worlds great religions grew in response to violence and found their voice in offering people an alternative to the endless cycle of revenge and retaliation.  It was their intent to remove violence from society.  Fundamentalism, however, seeks to distort these teachings and divides the world between believers and non-believers.  This view justifies violence in the misguided cause of defending the faith.   

Just as no one person speaks for all Christians, no one person speaks for all Muslims.  One of the common myths is that Muslims have not condemned the excesses of extremism in their religion.  Just as Christian leaders have condemned violence at abortion clinics and gay bars, muslim leaders around the world have condemned the violence directed at the United Stated by bin Laden inspired forces.  

The sooner that we condemn this notion that we are engaged in a conflict between good and evil or Christianity and Islam, the sooner that we will be able to embrace the notion that the Koran and the Bible provide all of the guidance we need to solve this conflict.  All we are lacking is leaders with the humility and obedience to actually follow the teachings in the books they claim to defend.   

It may well be that God will restore the love between you and those of them who are now your enemies. God is All-Powerful. God is Ever-Forgiving, Most Merciful (60:7).

“And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! how shall we do? And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.” II King 6:15-17

This is a great bible story. The king of Syria was trying to destroy Israel. But every time he felt he had the Jewish army cornered, they escaped. In his frustration, he asked his advisors to find out who the spy was in his midst because that was the only explanation he could come up with for the uncanny ability of Jews to anticipate his every move. What his advisors discovered is that the Jewish generals were depending on the advice of Elisha, who prayed to God for guidance. The Syrian king figured he could fix this problem in a hurry and sent an elite group of warriors to surround this Elisha guy and kill him. When Elisha’s servant woke to find them surrounded, he was concerned for his life. Elisha, however, knew that there was no material power that could oppose the spiritual power that protected him and demonstrated that to his fearful servant. Ultimately the powerful Syrian army was defeated.

Six years after the attacks of September 11 in New York and Washington, we’re in a similar situation. Unfortunately we seem to be in the role of the King of Syria with bin Laden in the role of Elisha.

I don’t want this to turn into a rant on God visiting punishment on sinners. That’s not the way that I look at the world.

What I do see, however, is that our leaders have used the fear of another attack to manipulate the American people into viewing ourselves as vulnerable. What that fear specifically suggests is that our values and our freedoms are what make us vulnerable. The convoluted argument suggests that in order to maintain our way of life, we have to give up our way of life.

For example, the fact that individuals have basic rights to privacy and the presumption of innocence in this country does in fact make it more difficult for government to identify those that may want to do us harm. As a result, we’ve agreed to allow our government to spy on our own citizens, ignore the basic principles of legal due process, and even use torture to coerce information from prisoners.

We are so fearful of our enemies that we have willingly abandoned many of the ideals of freedom and law that we claim our enemies are trying to take away from us. The result is wonderfully paradoxical because in the process of protecting ourselves from this chimera, we are in fact making our enemy stronger in the eyes of the world.

I’m not suggesting that there isn’t a threat in the world or that there aren’t people who wish to do us harm. What I am saying is that this threat is an ideological one and not a military one. We are losing the war against bin Ladenist Islam because we view it as a physical battlefield where those with the best bullets and soldiers will win. As many experts have already said, this is a conflict where we will not be able to kill our way to victory.

Just as Elisha knew that all power comes from God, we have to realize that this is still true today. This conflict is not about bullets, it is about culture and ideas and ultimately the ability to demonstrate that you can live up to your ideals.

The first step to victory is to recognize that we aren’t going win minds and hearts through force (this one is particularly hard for conservatives to grasp). The second is to realize that the Muslim world views this as a conflict between Christianity and Islam. It is actually a conflict between fundamentalism and modernism. Until we are able to alter that mindset, even our military presence in the Middle East that we feel sends a message of strength, actually re-enforces a deep seated fear in Muslims that is at least as powerful as our fear of terrorists. Before we can begin to correct this misconception in the Muslim world, we have to overcome the fundamentalist view in this country that this is a struggle between good and evil.
Christian and Islamic fundamentalists actually have a lot in common. Just like fundamentalists in this country yearn for a revisionist golden age of American piety, bin Ladenist Muslims aspire to a new golden age of Islamic empire. Both are dangerous fiction when allowed to drive public policy. We’ve already seen that fundamentalist Islamic states quickly erode into dictatorial prison camps, but we haven’t given the Islamic world a very attractive alternative. Our self righteous adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan have done nothing to reassure Muslims that we can be trusted. Much to the contrary, we’ve demonstrated that we are the brutish, arrogant, morally corrupt thugs that bin Laden says we are.

Finally, the Muslim world is not going to take us or any other western nation seriously until we engage completely in solving the conflict over Israel.

Democratic pluralistic progressive open societies are the way forward. Countries where mutual respect, accommodation, and equal opportunity are the norms will ultimately starve terrorist movements of new recruits. Those countries attract investment and create hope in their populations. You don’t have to look any further than Northern Ireland to see the progression from stability, to investment, to economic prosperity, to reconciliation.

That’s where we have an opportunity to lead and that’s how we are going to win. In order to regain the world’s respect, however, we have to start walking the talk, just like Elisha did. We can win as long as we are true to our ideas and values and show the world that we will not waver even when we appear to be threatened. That’s because those ideas and values that we hold dear reflect those of our Creator who is the source of all power.

This evening’s edition of the Monroe Evening News (the paper that sponsors this blog) had a beautifully written letter to the editor. The author, Doug Stein painted an eloquent word picture of a country that used to be great but was undermined by those who took God out of the schools.

It is an interesting concept that has a lot of appeal, but just like George Washington chopping down the cherry tree, it is fantasy.

The problem is that this fantasy is being preached from many pulpits. It is where conservatives and fundamentalist Christians intersect. They agree that “liberal-activist” judges and the ACLU have ruined what was once a great country.

If you were a white protestant landholding man, this has been a great country from its founding.

The American Indian, on the other hand, is living the results of four hundred years of ethnic cleansing.

Quakers and Wiccans were tortured and killed by the Puritan Christians.

Catholics had no reliable rights until the revolutionary war. It took another 200 years for the first and only Catholic to be elected president.

It took two hundred years and a Civil War to abolish slavery. It took another hundred years for African Americans to gain equal legal status.

Women couldn’t vote until 1920.

Democracy is messy, contentious, and wildly emotional. Don’t let these revisionists whitewash our history of struggle in an effort to make some self serving argument that our current problems are the result of turning away from God. Nothing could be further from the truth. The United States stands alone among industrialized and educated countries in our overwhelming belief in God.

We also possess a vote, a constitution, respect for the rule of law, and a belief that we have the ability to make a better life for our children. It’s that belief that drove the colonists and the pioneers that built this country. It is that same belief that drives immigrants (legal and not) to come today. It may not be as romantic or tidy as the story told by Mr. Stein, but I’m proud to be part of a country where every generation has their story of how they made things better.

“But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed, saying, That it was needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses.  And the apostles and elders came together for to consider of this matter.  And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe.  And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us;  And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.”
Acts 15:5-9
 
One of the big controversies as the apostles went out to preach the good news of Jesus victory over death was whether or not these truths should be shared with the gentiles.  The Jews were used to thinking of the gentiles like some in this country think about immigrants, homosexuals, Muslims, or atheists.  Peter, transformed by the resurrection and filled with the spirit, understood that Christian love had to wash away this old bigotry.  Physical rites like circumcision had become empty rituals.  It was the practice of Jesus teaching through faith and good works that made the new man. 
 
Last Sunday our local paper, who sponsors this blog, printed a letter complaining that immigrants and their supporters (ACLU) aren’t “American”.  He felt that rather than adopting our ways, immigrants are, with the help of the ACLU, were imposing their customs on us.  He took particular offense at the fact that some immigrants pray to Allah or study the teachings of Buddha.  Among his recommendations was to amend the constitution to require at least one parent of any native born child to be a citizen in order for that child to also become a citizen.  The author is an example of those “love it or leave it” citizens that blame whatever is wrong on groups they fear or misunderstand. 
 
Government facts describe an immigrant population that wants to adopt our ways. Their demand for English language classes outstrips our supply.  75% of all Spanish speaking immigrants are functional English speakers within 15 years.  Their kids all speak English.  They are more likely to marry less likely to divorce.  Their higher birth rate keeps our population growing which creates more consumers.  Their kids go to college.  Within a generation 50% marry outside their group. 
 
Immigrants also fuel our economy by starting a higher percentage of new small businesses than the rest of us.  That’s where 80% of the jobs are today. 
 
The ACLU is a popular target for these folks because its mission is to protect the rights of unpopular minorities like immigrants.  The ACLU does that by challenging our judiciary to really define what laws mean.  They’re often criticized as promoting a liberal political view.  What you don’t hear is the ACLU activity for conservative causes like the KKK, gun ownership groups, Oliver North, and the Westboro Baptist Church pickets.
 
Finally, the founding fathers did believe in God, but they also created the first country in the world to prohibit state sponsored religion.  They guaranteed that every law-abiding person born here could be President regardless of race, gender, or creed.  They didn’t mandate prayer, the name of God, or the manner in which people could worship.  None of that was by accident.  Like it or not, they created a nation designed to welcome all.  Those of us descended from immigrants are living the results of their wisdom.
 
Those of us who are Christians have even a higher calling.  We are called to treat every person as our brother.  We are called see them as they really are, made in God’s image and likeness because in God’s eyes there is no difference between us and them.

A couple of interesting things happened today.

In the national news President Bush vetoed a stem cell research bill again on religious grounds. I don’t want to rehash the whole embryo as human discussion, but if you are interested check out one of my earlier posts on the subject.

First, researches almost unanimously agree that stem cells offer great promise in treating diseases which today have no effective medical treatment.

Second, regardless of how you feel about an embryo, the embryos in question were NEVER going to end up becoming babies. They were going to be discarded for any number of reasons. The couple already got the baby that they wanted or decided to stop treatment. The embryo was flawed and either stopped developing or began developing abnormally. The ONLY purpose for these embryos is research. If they were not provided for research, they would be discarded.

Third, the only people who can decide to provide the embryos for research are the couples who, with the help of the fertility clinics, created them. Whether or not you agree with the law, these same couples can decide to legally terminate a pregnancy, but the researchers who would use these donated embryos for valid medical research can’t get federal funding and may in some states be prosecuted.

Finally, the American people overwhelmingly support embryonic stem cell research.

The second item was in our local newspaper. A very popular and successful choir director resigned from the local community college because a person objected to what was sung at a recent graduation ceremony. It didn’t make any difference that the music was selected by the graduating class and not the director. It also doesn’t matter that the pieces are common at many graduations. What did matter is that the President of the College felt that there was potential liability.

Both of these outrageous events suggest that world is officially upside down.

How can President Bush impose his minority personal religious views on a country while a choir director is getting sacked because a college administrator fears that the school will get sued for the choir singing “Soon and Very Soon” and “To everything there is a Season”?

Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Shouldn’t we be sacking the President and supporting the choir director? Shouldn’t we have a President that seeks to build bridges between differing religious views and chooses what best serves the most people? Shouldn’t we also have a climate of reason and tolerance where choir directors can teach kids to sing beautiful old spirituals without fear of reprisal? That’s the way that it should work. Our leaders demonstrating in their actions that what we have in common is far more powerful than any difference.

I know that someday we’ll get all of this right. It just didn’t happen to be this day. But it will be happen someday soon.

I’m almost through a book by Karen Armstrong called The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions. It covers a remarkable period in world history that she calls the Axial Age. It was that period of time in the ninth century BCE when people in four different parts of the civilized world created four of the great religious traditions that are still shaping our world today: Confucianism and Taoism in China; Hinduism and Buddhism in India; monotheism in Israel; and philosophical rationalism in Greece.

I was particular struck by the Confucian concept of ren. In simplest terms, it is a form of the golden rule. In practice, however, it is much more profound.

What we know as the Golden Rule shows up in the Bible in a number of places including the second great commandment given by Jesus.

“Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Matt 22:35-40

Confucius took this much further. In his thought, it wasn’t sufficient to simply wish good things for your neighbor, or refrain from inflicting on your neighbor whatever you wouldn’t want inflicted on you. Confucius articulated what “love” in “love they neighbor” really meant.

In order to achieve ren, you had to seek to achieve your life goals through your neighbor. You had to love your neighbor so much that you seek to bestow on your neighbor all of your life’s hopes and dreams.

Your path to financial success, for example, starts with doing all you can do to make others financially successful. Your path to security is by making others secure. You path to respect is by respecting all others. Ren is an idealistic state that even Confucius agreed was likely beyond the grasp of most students. The path to ren, however, is one that Confucius felt all should follow. As one description put the Confucian idea, a good life is an endless aspiration for ethical perfection.

As I was thinking about ren within the context of our proud Christian nation, I thought it might be interesting to analyze how our current policies would change. Instead of trying to return to some mythical fundamentalist golden age, as some Christians are teaching, what if we as a nation strove for ethical perfection.

We would see our economic success from a global perspective and focus our attention on helping the poorest countries get their economies going. How do you think that would affect global stability? We would invest in clean water for developing African countries before we tried to sell them weapons. We would use our military might to protect the most vulnerable (e.g. Darfur) rather than those who had oil to sell. Our policies would conserve earth’s resources for our neighbor’s use rather than exploit them. Wouldn’t that be a breathe of fresh air (pun intended)? We wouldn’t torture, we would help free those who were at risk of torture. We wouldn’t start wars, we would help end them.

You might say this is fantasy and could never work. Many would say that unless every nation shared our values, these policies are too risky and idealistic .

I agree that Confucius was an idealist and saw more in men than maybe they saw in themselves, but then so did Jesus.

“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” Proverbs 3:5

This particular Bible verse is a favorite of mine.

I leaned on it heavily during one of the more difficult times in my life.

As a country, we’re going through a difficult patch right now too and could benefit from remembering our need for humility.

As we honor those who have served our country in the past, we also have to cherish those who are serving today. We’ve put almost 200.000 brave men and women in harms way in a foreign country. We’ve asked them to fight a war which we started under what we now know to be false pretenses. They have engaged what they thought were the enemy, but in the process we have radicalized a country, weakened ourselves, and strengthened the real enemy (bin ladist Islam).

Those who support this path of action claim that victory is just a matter of will. With more patience and commitment, they claim, we will achieve our goals in Iraq. I don’t think that it is a question of will. I think it is a question of understanding.

I just heard an interesting comment on NPR by a Chaplain Major John Morris who has served in Iraq.

“In this fight, which we call the global war on terrorism, we say that we understand that the people we’re fighting are motivated by an ideology that’s rooted in an aberrant view of a religion. It’s a great line. But I’ve often had to really be forceful with commanders that, ‘You don’t understand. These people are tapping into something in a spiritual realm. And if you fail to take it seriously, it doesn’t matter how long we fight, we will not defeat them.’”

“We’re in a war. But this is a war where you can’t kill enough people to win because this has a spiritual motivation to it. You’ve got to have more tools than kinetic energy. And that’s how I talk to commanders because they understand kinetic energy as firing of a weapon system.

That means we have to take seriously religious leaders. We have to take seriously the religious worldview of people. We have to think that when we fire that weapon and we miss, that round goes somewhere. And when it hits somebody else that’s innocent, it has a ripple effect on a culture that takes seriously life and death, clan and family. That when we search mosques, it has an impact, whether the mosque was used as an armory, which I often saw that it was, or not. There is an impact.”

I don’t think that the American people have as clear a view as Major Morris, but what they do grasp is that the current strategy is fatally flawed. I’m not sure that the American people understand what we should do next, but they do understand that we have to change what we are doing now.

As Major Morris said, this is not a war that we are going to win with bullets and soldiers and the sooner we realize this, the sooner we will be able to starting doing what we as a country do best. We are the best at giving those with good ideas an opportunity to be successful. We are the best at providing families an opportunity to build a better life for their children. We are the best at assimilating immigrant cultures into our own.

We will win the war against fundamentalist Islam by figuring out how to solve the fundamentalist strife in our own country. That is going to come from prayer and the realization that what we have in common is far more important that what we have in difference. Then we have to take those lessons of loving our neighbor as ourselves and apply them globally. When we accomplish that, we will wake one morning to find that our enemies have disappeared because they have become us and we them.

“Thou shalt seek them, and shalt not find them, even them that contended with thee: they that war against thee shall be as nothing, and as a thing of nought.” Isa. 41:11-12

Happy Memorial Day