"Racism" and the paucity of spiritual language to describe mean-ness

There's a lot of buzz these days about racism and the off-the-wall protests against President Obama. At these rallies we see signs that are outright mean, to the point of calling for the President's assassination. In this culture, there's also a disconnectedness from reality-- from "death panels" to the false controversy about whether he is a citizen. This crowd has been called "birthers" because they doubt Obama had a U.S. birth.

Now the talking heads, religious and secular, are talking about the issue of racism in these rallies. Are the birthers inherently racist, or is race merely a factor among some of them, the talking heads ask. I think that this is ultimately a flawed approach, because I am sure that all the birthers can point to a black politician they admire, or a personal friend who is black and shares much of their culture and political aspirations. We have this litmus test that if you don't hate EVERY black man, then we call off the karma police and leave you alone. That is the problem.

Take South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson. Before he shouted "You lie!" at the president, he was involved in the following:

• Fomenting resentment at illegal aliens,
• Defending the flying of the Confederate Flag over the state capitol,
• Not only supporting the invasion of Iraq, but also getting really upset, to the point of questioning a man's patriotism, when someone pointed out we'd sold weapons to Saddam Hussein.

Now ladies and gentlemen, there's nothing wrong with being a Republican in order to advance a libertarian point of view, but what Joe Wilson does are simply things that good people do not DO.

Everyone knows what liberals do when they are evil-- they do drugs, spread venereal disease through promiscuity, then have an abortion as birth control. (Republicans might do these things, too, but these things are understood by the public to be the immoral "extremes", the fruit, of liberalism.) At the rallies against President Obama, and in the work of Joe Wilson, we are seeing the evil extremes of conservatism. We need better language to describe this than the word which means hatred of every person with a different skin color. We need to go back to the old social statements of the church.

A political "sanity check" from Spiro Agnew's assessment of the anti-Vietnam-War left

These words are from a speech by then Vice President Spiro Agnew about the anti-Vietnam War protesters. It was used as a backdrop for a song by electronica musician Professor Kliq.

This speech could be an anthem of the political right at the time. I find it a bit comforting to listen to it (at least in the form of the song) even though I've taken liberal positions on wars from Nicaragua to Iraq. I think Agnew was ultimately on the wrong side of history; I am on the side of church movements that opposed his wars. What is comforting is that it is so well-thought out. This speech might be the result of taking one of your nuttier political adversaries after the their mother, pastor, and university professors forced them to boil down their position to one based on reason and reality. There's comfort in remembering that there could be sane reasons driving the political disagreements around us. There's also comfort in looking at yourself in an uncloudy mirror, to see where you need to shape up.

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Conservative woman on the street on health care.

Christians and worldwide cooperation.

In another forum, someone asked why Christians were so afraid of movements for international cooperation. This was my reply:

Three theological movements: Dispensationalism, Theology of Glory, and Antinomianism. Plus idolatry of the state and confusing the United States with the New Israel.


Some might not be threatened by worldwide humanitarian cooperation if your Theology were one of the Cross, where the devotion of living an examined life (including examining one's contribution to social woes) reminds one of one's need for the saving grace of Jesus. Here, sin and death and suffering are the primary problem, and the cross is the primary solution.


On the other hand, if you're practicing a Theology of Glory, damnation is the primary problem, and choosing to accept Jesus is the primary solution. Sin is reduced to a few nominal and childish vices (gay relations, drunkenness, impatience with spouse). Evangelization becomes more about mocking those who've picked the wrong spiritual "football team", quite different from the witness-and-social-reform movements of 19th century evangelists. If your focus were on getting the best seat on the bus/ fighter-jet in the End Times, as is the focus in many popular forms of Dispensationalism, you'll skip over the old testament lessons that show God's concern for the poor, and look instead in these passages for ways to come out ahead-- how you can find the be the first to find "the signs". The entire focus eventually becomes Antinomian, where any mention of the law, especially social sins, is somewhere between ignored and decried. In these theologies are also a confusion of the Church, the New Israel, with the United States. It's mere idolatry.

Reao Island

In the age of the internet, you can read books online and benefit from Google Maps at the same time. Some books assume so much understanding of geography, an understanding that would have been very difficult for readers of but a half generation ago. Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is one such book where a detailed knowledge of geography can help understand the story. I was particularly fascinated by this passage about some circular shaped islands. Below is an extended excerpt and a Google Map of the region.

Sailors' luck led the Nautilus straight to Reao Island, one of the most unusual in this group, which was discovered in 1822 by Captain Bell aboard the Minerva. So I was able to study the madreporic process that has created the islands in this ocean.

Madrepores, which one must guard against confusing with precious coral, clothe their tissue in a limestone crust, and their variations in structure have led my famous mentor Professor Milne–Edwards to classify them into five divisions. The tiny microscopic animals that secrete this polypary live by the billions in the depths of their cells. Their limestone deposits build up into rocks, reefs, islets, islands. In some places, they form atolls, a circular ring surrounding a lagoon or small inner lake that gaps place in contact with the sea. Elsewhere, they take the shape of barrier reefs, such as those that exist along the coasts of New Caledonia and several of the Tuamotu Islands. In still other localities, such as Réunion Island and the island of Mauritius, they build fringing reefs, high, straight walls next to which the ocean's depth is considerable.

While cruising along only a few cable lengths from the underpinning of Reao Island, I marveled at the gigantic piece of work accomplished by these microscopic laborers. These walls were the express achievements of madrepores known by the names fire coral, finger coral, star coral, and stony coral. These polyps grow exclusively in the agitated strata at the surface of the sea, and so it's in the upper reaches that they begin these substructures, which sink little by little together with the secreted rubble binding them. This, at least, is the theory of Mr. Charles Darwin, who thus explains the formation of atolls—a theory superior, in my view, to the one that says these madreporic edifices sit on the summits of mountains or volcanoes submerged a few feet below sea level.

I could observe these strange walls quite closely: our sounding lines indicated that they dropped perpendicularly for more than 300 meters, and our electric beams made the bright limestone positively sparkle.

In reply to a question Conseil asked me about the growth rate of these colossal barriers, I thoroughly amazed him by saying that scientists put it at an eighth of an inch per biennium.

"Therefore," he said to me, "to build these walls, it took . . . ?"

"192,000 years, my gallant Conseil, which significantly extends the biblical Days of Creation. What's more, the formation of coal—in other words, the petrification of forests swallowed by floods—and the cooling of basaltic rocks likewise call for a much longer period of time. I might add that those 'days' in the Bible must represent whole epochs and not literally the lapse of time between two sunrises, because according to the Bible itself, the sun doesn't date from the first day of Creation."

When the Nautilus returned to the surface of the ocean, I could take in Reao Island over its whole flat, wooded expanse. Obviously its madreporic rocks had been made fertile by tornadoes and thunderstorms. One day, carried off by a hurricane from neighboring shores, some seed fell onto these limestone beds, mixing with decomposed particles of fish and marine plants to form vegetable humus. Propelled by the waves, a coconut arrived on this new coast. Its germ took root. Its tree grew tall, catching steam off the water. A brook was born. Little by little, vegetation spread. Tiny animals—worms, insects—rode ashore on tree trunks snatched from islands to windward. Turtles came to lay their eggs. Birds nested in the young trees. In this way animal life developed, and drawn by the greenery and fertile soil, man appeared. And that's how these islands were formed, the immense achievement of microscopic animals.

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Christian comedy only the Devil could laugh at.

Through Itunes, I found a podcast in the category of "Christian comedy." I listened to the first episode I downloaded. The speaker had attended the funeral of an atheist. He pointed to the irony that some Christian songs were played at the non-believing man's funeral. He also pointed out how the selection of songs played at one's funeral has no bearing on one's salvation. Fair enough.

The problem was that it wasn't just ironic, but a source of great offense by the comedian. He even said, "Now don't go do that." I on the other hand can think of three reasons to praise God that songs with evangelistic content would be played at a funeral:

• The living persons in the room will hear the gospel
• The deceased may have arranged for it secretly because he was, all along, a believer.
• The deceased may have arranged for it secretly because he had a late-in-life conversion experience unknown to the comedian.

I might add that I've been to too many funerals in my life, and I don't think I've ever heard pop evangelical songs being played.

But the comedian didn't let it stop there. As part of the "comedy", he rewrote the song that was playing, "I Can Only Imagine". Instead of having some religious meaning the song was now about how boring it was to be a corpse pushing up daisies.

Martin Luther spoke of how there was a conflict in the church between two theologies, a Theology of Glory and a Theology of the Cross. I think that too much of what the TV preachers like Jerry Falwell were about was Theology of Glory. A Theology of the Cross might involve a focus on your sins and Christ's work. Too much of the preaching in a Theology of Glory is about either mocking folks who've chosen the wrong spiritual "football" team, or positing criticisms of the actions of your team as the cross you have to bear. Other folks could call these criticisms "calls to repentance."

Let's imagine the open-minded non-believer, and use male pronouns out of laziness. Last week, he heard the same group of Christians mock the idea that there was anything to repent of in how society treats the poor and planet-- there was only government regulation to fear. This week, he hears this song mocking atheists. What can be had but hardened hearts? The philosophical base starts out with the idea that the elect are to be protected from criticism. Hopefully, non-believers (and believers) reject this.

What would actual evangelistic Christian comedy sound like? Here's my take, and it starts out with C. S. Lewis' Mere Christianity

For the trouble is that part of you is on his side and agrees with his disapproval of human greed and trickery and exploitation. You may want him to make an exception in your own case, but you know at bottom that unless the power behind the world really and unalterably detests that sort of behavior he cannot be good.

Is there a way that Jerry Seinfeld could read this chapter, maybe throw in some modern observations from NY City life, and have us all chuckling and tingling with fear and joy at the same time?

You see, the problem is that too many modern evangelicals have taken "greed and trickery and exploitation" off the radar screen of sin. That is what an unbelieving world finds unbelievable.

Health care debate

Here's a debate between Jim Wallis of Sojourners and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council.

Jim is kneejerk liberal. Even though I probably agree with him 80% of the time, I often find him unconvincing. But even more disappointing is the response from the one allegedly picking up the mantle of evangelicalism and biblical conservatism. The only thing that Perkins brings to the table is a fear of government takeover. I think it's an unfortunate use of language, and could just as easily be applied to all the baby-step approaches to providing health care that Perkins was in favor of.

Is this the mantle of the 19th century, bible-believing evangelicals, the ones who were as much social reformers as evangelists?

Animated textures and spaceship construction.

Just goofing around.

The spaceships are made in povray. I got some interesting effects without calling any threshold in the blob.

The Truth Project

I had set up a "Truth 'versus' Love Project" about five years ago to decry the fact that so many Christians tell us we have to choose between theological orthodoxy and compassion, that a theology of the cross and a bleeding heart are incompatible.

Some conservative evangelicals have now set up The Truth Project to decry the fact that only nine percent of Christians have a biblical worldview. Interestingly, this statistic comes from a Barna Group Study, A Biblical Worldview has a Radical Effect on a Person's Life". It says that a half percent of Catholics hold to this view while still only 13% of evangelicals do. The article makes a fascinating read. The Barna Group study defines a biblical worldview:

For the purposes of the research, a biblical worldview was defined as believing that absolute moral truths exist; that such truth is defined by the Bible; and firm belief in six specific religious views. Those views were that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life; God is the all-powerful and all-knowing Creator of the universe and He stills rules it today; salvation is a gift from God and cannot be earned; Satan is real; a Christian has a responsibility to share their faith in Christ with other people; and the Bible is accurate in all of its teachings.

Hey, I got no problem with that! Interestingly the article goes on to mention a very strong correlation between the biblical worldview and positions on some touchstone conservative issues like abortion and gambling. (And as they are stated in the poll, I have no problem with either).

I've been very bothered by reports that evangelicals are more likely than the average American to oppose the moral positions of the human rights and humanitarian groups. Things like torture-- evangelicals are more in favor of it. They supported the war. Ronald Sider even wrote a whole book about this-- entitled Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience. Sider pointed out how evangelicals did everything from getting divorced more often to being less likely to give to effective AIDS relief programs. This blog is full of "let me off the bus" stories about how the evangelical movement as a whole is not nice (but at the same time that you should be an evangelical).

Here's where it gets really interesting. I would LOVE to see the Barna group ask some more questions, like on torture. Who are these evangelicals that are more likely to support torture-- are they also the 8% of Baptists who have a biblical worldview? My earnest prayer, and sociological hunch, is that they are not. I bet that the small fraction who believe in the bible to Barna's degree are not the Sean Hannity and Glen Beck fans. That's because I think those pundits tap in to a nationalistic spirit that is very carnal and antinomian. I always wondered with The New York Post, with staunchly conservative political coverage, always had to have a bikini shot somewhere within the first three pages.

Barna, please do another poll. I'd love to meet and organize with Christians with a biblical worldview who are also nice people.