Follow the Money

Church membership numbers per the National Council of Churches (rounded for convenience):

United Methodist Church: 8.2 million

Episcopal Church: 2.3 million

Evangelical Lutheran Church: 4.9 million

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.): 3.2 million

United Church of Christ: 1.3 million

Total membership in the National Council of Churches: 45.1 million

I'm not even trying to include the membership of the Roman Catholic church (a truly international church), or the Anglican Communion (an international body, of which the Episcopal Church is a part). Let's stick solely with American numbers.

The average daily audience for Pat Robertson's 700 Club, per digby, (and thanks to noisy gong for the link), was 922,000 households in November, 2004. That's a lot, but it isn't as large as the smallest of the "mainline" denominations, the UCC. And while church membership statistic never indicate church attendance or participation, these numbers don't cover the Southern Baptist Convention , which claims 16 million members. So, 61 million Christians, apart from the Roman Catholics and other denominations not a part of the National Council of Churches, and yet Pat Robertson gets all the attention.

"Why," is obvious. He owns a TV station, and he speaks only for Pat Robertson, not for a church, a denomination, a judicatory, or any congregation. Why he is listened to is also obvious:

Money talks.

Why don't the mainline churches rise up and oppose Mr. Robertson (he's no longer "Rev."; he gave up his ordination to run for President years ago)? Well, look at the NCC list, and the phrase "herding cats" comes to mind, if not "loading frogs into a wheelbarrow." Which ones will oppose them, and why? And this is one issue, among many: Pat Robertson speaks for Pat Robertson. James Dobson speaks for James Dobson. Jerry Falwell spoke for his congregation.

None of them speak for a church, as does, say, the Pope, or the Archbishop of Canterbury (who doesn't speak as the Pope does, but who is always aware of whom he represents). They are free to shoot their mouths off, speak their minds, and generally draw attention to themselves and encourage like-minded souls.

A Christian church is not about ego; it is about humility. A pastor who proclaims his greatness, his sure knowledge and understanding of God's word and will, usually wears out his welcome, sooner if not later. A congregation is a great check on ego; sometimes even a brutal and savage one, as they tend to have their own identities to protect.

Pat Robertson and James Dobson don't have congregations. They have "audiences."

Comparing Dobson and Robertson to mainline and established Christian denominations is really like comparing chalk and cheese. In a culture with no history of a state church, and so a history of disparate, divisive, and dividing denominations (or no denomination at all, and so a church centered on the charisma of one pastor), these are the conditions that prevail. Every man (or woman) is free to stand on a soap box and gather adherents who like his (or her) particular and peculiar rantings. As Digby says, Robertson is a major force in GOP politics.

Precisely. He's not a church, or a representative of a church: he's a businessman. A diamond mine owner. A TV station operator.

So when are the TV station operators and businesspeople of America going to rise up and oppose his nonsense?

The Unjust Steward

"I tell you, make use of your ill-gotten gains to make friends for yourselves,so that when the bottom falls out they are there to welcome you into eternal dwelling places." Luke 16:9, SV.

For some reason, this verse came to mind when I heard the "Tom who?" moment had come:

A White House spokeswoman, Erin Healy, reading from an official statement, said, "We respect Congressman DeLay's decision to put the interests of the American people, the House of Representatives and the Republican Party first. We look forward to continuing to work with Speaker Hastert and all House Republicans to build upon the important accomplishments we have achieved on behalf of the American people to make America safer and more prosperous."

How long ago was it that Bush declared Tom innocent?

I mean, since Mr. DeLay claimed a "mandate from heaven," and all.

And after all, as the Stakeholder says:

It was crystal clear [in 1999], if not well before, what kind of operation DeLay was running.
....
So what was it that finally got Republicans to revolt, and to ask for new Leadership? Was it the revelation of some action or behavior that took his corruption to new levels? Was it a spontaneous, collective crisis of the conscience?

No. It was a plea bargain by Jack Abramoff. No new information came out about DeLay himself.

DeLay was not kicked out for what he had done. He was kicked out for getting caught.

Yup.

Now, about those eternal dwelling places, Tom....

Which way do we go now?

Joe Conason is calling us to respond, and Street Prophets is debating what to do, and even television shows are asking who we are, and everywhere people are giving glory to God for the light of reason and for the joy of life, and would we be dumb?

I think not.

Joe Conason calls (once more) for a concerted voice from those for whom Pat Robertson and Tom DeLay do NOT speak: i.e., the vast majority of Christians in America. Street Prophets has opened a valuable debate on how we should respond both to the issues of religion raised by Jack Abramoff, and of religion in general. But the refutation of the critique of anti-Christian (or merely religion) diatribes is perhaps best stated by Madeline Bunting at the end of her critique of Richard Dawkin's "The Root of All Evil?" (a sort of British version of "The God Who Wasn't There," apparently):

Dawkins seems to want to magic religion away. It's a silly delusion comparable to one of another great atheist humanist thinker, JS Mill. He wanted to magic away another inescapable part of human experience - sex; using not dissimilar arguments to Dawkins's, he pointed out the violence and suffering caused by sexual desire, and dreamt of a day when all human beings would no longer be infantilised by the need for sexual gratification, and an alternative way would be found to reproduce the human species. As true of Mill as it is of Dawkins: dream on.

But that's starting at the end; let's start at the beginning. The problem here is engaging the power struggle of the world. The world seems bent on a solitary truth: he who has the power makes the rules. And the greatest power always wins, so find and side with the greatest power, and then wield it in support of you.

Er, your position, of course.

Conason simply wants a "cleansing of the Temple," a refutation as ferocious and loud as the attacks on civil society and separation of church and state that has been fostered by the politicians he identifies. Be careful what you wish for. One reason mainline denominations and such orgnizations as the National Council of Churches lost so much authority among congregations is precisely because they became associated with the pursuit of power, and not the pursuit of spirituality.

One effective weapon of most "Evangelists" is that "salvation" is primarily a spiritual issue. Wrapped in that velvet and gold, the brick within it that seeks to smash all opposition and recreate the world in their preferred image, is a bit harder to see. But simply replacing the brick, or lobbing one from the "other side," is hardly the right answer.

Ms. Bunting is much closer to the right course:

By all means, let's have a serious debate about religious belief, one of the most complex and fascinating phenomena on the planet, but the suspicion is that it's not what this chorus wants. Behind unsubstantiated assertions, sweeping generalisations and random anecdotal evidence, there's the unmistakable whiff of panic; they fear religion is on the march again.

There's an aggrieved frustration that they've been short-changed by history; we were supposed to be all atheist rationalists by now. Secularisation was supposed to be an inextricable part of progress. Even more grating, what secularisation there has been is accompanied by the growth of weird irrationalities from crystals to ley lines. As GK Chesterton pointed out, the problem when people don't believe in God is not that they believe nothing, it is that they believe anything.

Which brings us back to the "evangelists," the fundamentalists and others (is Robertson really an evangelist, or just a businessman, looking to keep his empire funded?), who seem to fear much the same thing (two conditions that often appear alike, as the poet said). But who at least offer something to believe in, as opposed to , well, maybe, this:

We must identify, examine, and discuss the parts of our community we try to hide that may not be so welcoming.
• We must exercise those weaker muscles through prayer, study, dialogue, and community so that our inclusion is real, spiritual, and Holy.
A part of this will be fleshed out through the Open and Affirming process. Through our personal prayers, through our communal study, through our intimate connections with our small groups. But the process itself is the easy part. It is ethereal and theological. It is discussion and prayer and listening.

It isn't the goal that bother me; and really this doesn't bother me very much. But how different is this from a statement from the Human Resources Department of any organization? Only two words, "theological" and "Holy," indicate this language comes from a church, not from just any institution in modern America. "We," according to this, are going to do everything. At least the "Gospel of Wealth" give God credit for making its adherents rich!

So which way do we go with this? So long as we pursue power, either in politics or just in a local congregation, we pursue our own interests and are limited to our own abilities. If we set out to define "religion," (a worthy pursuit, of course; definitions are very important), why are we doing so, and what is the good we seek? If we rise up to challenge and refute the "religious spokesmen" of the media (and they are almost always men? Whyis that?), we run the risk Nietzsche warned against: “The man who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself”. So long as we consider only what we can do, or (in a limited Christian context, admittedly), what God wants us to be doing, we are left considering only our own needs, and pursuing our own ends.

We have to reorient to the other, away from same. We have to meditate on the paradox of the power of powerlessness. Madeleine Bunting is right to critique Ronald Dworkin, but notice she doesn't seek to silence him, only to engagein dialogue with him. Perhaps we simply need to learnt to be less absolute; and that would be a true living our of our religion (or merely our ethics, if we are so inclined.

The words I began with were a corruption for my own uses of the words of a woman who taught Alexander Carmichael the Gaelic prayer that follows. She said her mother told them that all of nature was singing the glofy of God, all the living creatures on earth and land and sea, and would her daughters be dumb? Consider one aspect of the prayer: it places God first, and gives glory to God for all that is, and will be, in the day to come. Nowhere does it focus on what "we" will do, but gives thanks to God for what will be done.

There is a lesson in that.

Bless to me, O God,
My soul and my body;
Bless to me, O God,
My belief and my condition;

Bless to me, O God,
My heart and my speech,
And bless to me, O God,
The handling of my hand;

Strength and busyness of morning,
Habit and temper of modesty,
Force and wisdom of thought,
And Thine own path, O God of virtues,
Till I go to sleep this night;

Thine own path, O God of virtues,
Till I go to sleep this night.

(with thanks to Prior Aelred for the Bunting column)

The Hidden Wound--Remains Hidden

Just remember: the real racism is to point out that the majority of the national news reporters are white, and the majority of the people left trapped in New Orleans after Katrina, were African-American.

Because that had nothing to do with the reporting about the rampant violence that overtook the city. Somewhere. Just off camera. And away from the sight and sound of any of the reporters. But it happened. We're quite sure it did. "We" being the almost all-white reporting staff.

But we're not racists. In fact, you're a racist for even thinking that.

John Hill, who covers the state capital in Baton Rouge for Gannett newspapers, was acidic in his assessment of the national media's performance. "They didn't know what they were talking about." He contrasted his first-hand reporting at the Superdome, where he saw groups of families taking turns sleeping so as to care for each others' kids,to the view on his TV at home to Baton Rouge-- Anderson Cooper talking about rapings and killings that turned out not to be true (the "families" angle was seconded yesterday by an African-American acquaintance who was here during the ordeal).

When is a crisis really a crisis?

If the courts ever adopt the position of the Congressional Resarch Service on this issue, will Bush maintain his position on this issue?

President Bush's rationale for authorizing eavesdropping on American citizens without warrants rests on questionable legal ground and "may represent an exercise of presidential power at its lowest ebb," according to a formal Congressional analysis released today.

The analysis, conducted by the Congressional Research Service, an independent research arm of Congress, is the first formal assessment of a question that has gripped Washington for the last three weeks: Did President Bush act within the law when he ordered the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans?

While the Congressional report reached no bottom-line conclusions on whether the program is legal or not, it concluded that the legal rationale appears somewhat dubious. The legal rationale "does not seem to be as well-grounded" as the Bush administration's lawyers have suggested, and Congress did not appear to have intended to authorize warrantless wiretaps when it gave President Bush the authority to wage war against Al Qaeda in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks, the report concluded.

Bush administration lawyers quickly took issue with the report's conclusions, arguing that President Bush acted within his constitutional and statutory powers in approving the N.S.A. program.

"The president has made clear that he will use his constitutional and statutory authorities to protect the American people from further terrorist attacks," said Brian Roehrkasse, a spokesman for the Justice Department.

Because that is essentially an extra-legal argument that national security (always a vaguey defined concept) trumps even the legal system.

Which is how the Roman Empire justified the power of the dictator. And why Brutus felt it necessary to kill Julius.

Inquiring minds are worried.

Cognitive Dissonance

As I understand it, from the ads for the movie, the "explosive secret" of The Da Vinci Code is that Jesus was actually married to Mary Magdalene, and they had children. On this hangs all the subterfuge, suspense, and plot twists, of the novel.

It's hardly a new idea, to begin with. The idea that Jesus married and had children was the basis of Kazantzaki's The Last Temptation of Christ (a great book, by the way). It has been kicked around before, more than once in books that promised to reveal this "explosive" secret and "change the world." And I suspect it is a story that goes back to the 1st century.

Considering such much more interesting historical documents like Secret Mark (known only from a letter of Clement) or the Infancy Gospel of James (which made its way into a Christmas carol on a Kingston Trio album!) actually exist, whence comes this idea that some "secret" will end Western civilization as we know it? And especially that this secret would do it?

In truth, of course, the "secret" is about as explosive as the "secret" that Christmas was once a pagan holiday. If for no other reason, now that the "secret" is out (even among those of us who will never read the novel) and the world has continued turning and the Church continues to exist:

How is it we imagine that in a fictional world, this would be such restricted knowledge that suspense and intrigue and murder and mayhem would naturally follow? I mean, at least in James Bond world, we would be upset in the real world, too, if bad guys got hold of a nuclear bomb.

Are we really that stupid about matters religious? In the real world they mean less than nothing to us (we shrug and say "Eh!"), but in the fictional world, they drive deadly conspiracies for centuries?

And, of course, I no sooner post that, than I open a box at the bookstore, and find this:

Apparently Jesus of Nazareth had both a sacred bloodline, and a secret society to protect that secret.

Doin' a great job, huh?

Is the judge an existentialist?

I'm only surprised I hadn't made the connection before:

AN ITALIAN judge has ordered a priest to appear in court this month to prove that Jesus Christ existed.

The case against Father Enrico Righi has been brought in the town of Viterbo, north of Rome, by Luigi Cascioli, a retired agronomist who once studied for the priesthood but later became a militant atheist.

Signor Cascioli, author of a book called The Fable of Christ, began legal proceedings against Father Righi three years ago after the priest denounced Signor Cascioli in the parish newsletter for questioning Christ’s historical existence.

Yesterday Gaetano Mautone, a judge in Viterbo, set a preliminary hearing for the end of this month and ordered Father Righi to appear. The judge had earlier refused to take up the case, but was overruled last month by the Court of Appeal, which agreed that Signor Cascioli had a reasonable case for his accusation that Father Righi was “abusing popular credulity”.

Johannes Climacus, Philosophical Fragments:

It is generally a difficult matter to want to demonstrate that something exists-worse still, for the brave souls who venture to do it, the difficulty is of such a kind that fame by no means awaits those who are preoccupied with it. The whole process of demonstration continually becomes something entirely different, becomes an expanded concluding development of what I conclude from having presupposed that the object of investigation exists. Therefore, whether I am moving in the world of sensate palpability or in the world of thought, I never reason in conclusion to ex-istence, but I reason in conclusion from existence. For example, I do not demonstrate that a stone exists but that something which exists is a stone. The court of law does not demonstrate that a criminal exists but that the accused, who does indeed exist, is a criminal. Whether one wants to call existence an accessorium [addition] or the eternal prius [pre-supposition], it can never be demonstrated. We shall take our time; after all, there is no reason for us to rush as there is for those who, out of concern for themselves, or for the god, or for something else, must rush to get proof that something exists. In that case, there is good reason to make haste, especially if the one involved has in all honesty made an accounting of the danger that he himself or the object being investigated does not exist until he proves it and does not dishonestly harbor the secret thought that essentially it exists whether he demonstrates it or not.

If one wanted to demonstrate Napoleon's existence from Napoleon's works, would it not be most curious, since his existence certainly explains the works but the works do not demonstrate his existence unless I have already in advanace interpreted the word "his" in such a way as to have assumed that he exists. But Napoleon is only an individual, and to that extent there is no absolute relation between him and his works-thus someone else could have done the same works. Perhaps that is why I cannot reason from the works to existence. If I call the works Napoleon's works, then the demonstration is superfluous, since I have already" mentioned his name. If I ignore this, I can never demonstrate from the works that they are Napoleon's but demonstrate (purely ideally) that such works are the works of a great general etc. However between the god and his works there is an absolute relation. God is not a name but a concept, and perhaps because of that his essentia involvit existentiam [essence involves existence].

You can see how modern philosophy moved rapidly from abstractions to language (the ultimate abstraction, and if not the source of abstraction itself, certainly the bearer of the burden). And as for establishing the existence of God, well....

(0f course, Signor Cascioli would argue he is merely trying to prove the existence of a man. But the problem remains: absent works, how do we prove anyone existed? And how do we show that the works are peculiar to the individual, and not just the possibilities of any person with sufficient talent and opportunity? Can I demonstrate Napoleon's existence from his works, or do I merely demonstrate the existence of a skilled general? Perhaps I should offer an amicus brief to the judge....)

King's X

Does Bush think he is king?

Why, yes, yes he does:

When President Bush last week signed the bill outlawing the torture of detainees, he quietly reserved the right to bypass the law under his powers as commander in chief.

After approving the bill last Friday, Bush issued a ''signing statement" -- an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law -- declaring that he will view the interrogation limits in the context of his broader powers to protect national security. This means Bush believes he can waive the restrictions, the White House and legal specialists said.

''The executive branch shall construe [the law] in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President . . . as Commander in Chief," Bush wrote, adding that this approach ''will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President . . . of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks."

Some legal specialists said yesterday that the president's signing statement, which was posted on the White House website but had gone unnoticed over the New Year's weekend, raises serious questions about whether he intends to follow the law.

A senior administration official, who spoke to a Globe reporter about the statement on condition of anonymity because he is not an official spokesman, said the president intended to reserve the right to use harsher methods in special situations involving national security.

''We are not going to ignore this law," the official said, noting that Bush, when signing laws, routinely issues signing statements saying he will construe them consistent with his own constitutional authority. ''We consider it a valid statute. We consider ourselves bound by the prohibition on cruel, unusual, and degrading treatment."

But, the official said, a situation could arise in which Bush may have to waive the law's restrictions to carry out his responsibilities to protect national security. He cited as an example a ''ticking time bomb" scenario, in which a detainee is believed to have information that could prevent a planned terrorist attack.

''Of course the president has the obligation to follow this law, [but] he also has the obligation to defend and protect the country as the commander in chief, and he will have to square those two responsibilities in each case," the official added. ''We are not expecting that those two responsibilities will come into conflict, but it's possible that they will."

And this is precisely the way he thinks he can wield power. Because his advisors tell him so:

Legal academics and human rights organizations said Bush's signing statement and his stance on the wiretapping law are part of a larger agenda that claims exclusive control of war-related matters for the executive branch and holds that any involvement by Congress or the courts should be minimal.

Vice President Dick Cheney recently told reporters, ''I believe in a strong, robust executive authority, and I think that the world we live in demands it. . . . I would argue that the actions that we've taken are totally appropriate and consistent with the constitutional authority of the president."

Since the 2001 attacks, the administration has also asserted the power to bypass domestic and international laws in deciding how to detain prisoners captured in the Afghanistan war. It also has claimed the power to hold any US citizen Bush designates an ''enemy combatant" without charges or access to an attorney.

And in 2002, the administration drafted a secret legal memo holding that Bush could authorize interrogators to violate antitorture laws when necessary to protect national security. After the memo was leaked to the press, the administration eliminated the language from a subsequent version, but it never repudiated the idea that Bush could authorize officials to ignore a law.

The issue heated up again in January 2005. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales disclosed during his confirmation hearing that the administration believed that antitorture laws and treaties did not restrict interrogators at overseas prisons because the Constitution does not apply abroad.

Can we call this a Constitutional Crisis yet?

Or do we have to wait for Anderson Cooper to get back from West Virginia?

The Power of Government

And the danger of power. From the Church Committee Report. (Note that numbers in the text are footnotes in the original):

The FBI's formal program to discredit Dr. King with Government officials began with the distribution of a "monograph" which the FBI realized could "be regarded as a personal attack on Martin Luther King," 4 and which was subsequently described by a Justice Department official as "a personal diatribe ... a personal attack without evidentiary support." 5

Congressional leaders were warned "off the record" about alleged dangers posed by Reverend King. The FBI responded to Dr. King's receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize by attempting to undermine his reception by foreign heads of state and American ambassadors in the countries that be planned to visit. When Dr. King returned to the United States, steps were taken to reduce support for a huge banquet and a special "day" that were being planned in his honor.

The FBI's program to destroy Dr. King as the leader of the civil rights movement entailed attempts to discredit him with churches, universities, and the press. Steps were taken to attempt to convince the National Council of Churches, the Baptist World Alliance, and leading Protestant ministers to halt financial support of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and to persuade them that "Negro leaders should completely isolate King and remove him from the role he is now occupying in civil rights activities." 6 When the FBI learned that Dr. King intended to visit the Pope, an agent was dispatched to persuade Francis Cardinal Spellman to warn the Pope about "the likely embarrassment that may result to the Pope should he grant King an audience." 7 The FBI sought to influence universities to withhold honorary degrees from Dr. King. Attempts were made to prevent the publication of articles favorable to Dr. King and to find "friendly" news sources that would print unfavorable articles. The FBI offered to play for reporters tape recordings allegedly made from microphone surveillance of Dr. King's hotel rooms.

The FBI mailed Dr. King a tape recording made from its microphone coverage. Accoring to the Chief of the FBI's Domestic Intelligence Division, the tape was intended to precipitate a separation between Dr. King and his wife in the belief that the separation would reduce Dr. King's stature. 7a The tape recording was accompanied by a note which Dr. King and his advisers interpreted as a threat to release the tape recording unless Dr. King committed suicide. The FBI also made preparations to promote someone "to assume the role of leadership of the Negro people when King has been completely discredited." 8

The campaign against Dr. King included attempts to destroy the Southern Christian Leadership Conference by cutting off its sources of funds. The FBI considered, and on some occasions executed, plans to cut off the support of some of the SCLC's major contributors, including religious organizations, a labor union, and donors of grants such as the Ford Foundation. One FBI field office recommended that the FBI send letters to the SCLC's donors over Dr. King's forged signature warning them that the SCLC was under investigation by the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS files on Dr. King and the SCLC were carefully scrutinized for financial irregularities. For over a year, the FBI unsuccessfully attempted to establish that Dr. King had a secret foreign bank account in which he was sequestering funds.

The FBI campaign to discredit and destroy Dr. King was marked by extreme personal vindictiveness. As early as 1962, Director Hoover penned on an FBI memorandum, "King is no good." 9 At the August 1963 March on Washington, Dr.King told the country of his dream that "all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last, free at last. Thank God almighty, I'm free at last."' 10 The FBI's Domestic Intelligence Division described this "demagogic speech" as yet more evidence that Dr. King was "the most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country." 11 Shortly afterward, Time magazine chose Dr. King as the "Man of the Year," an honor which elicited Director Hoover's comment that "they had to dig deep in the garbage to come up with this one." 12 Hoover wrote "astounding" across the memorandum informing him that Dr. King had been granted an audience with the Pope despite the FBI's efforts to prevent such a meeting. The depth of Director Hoover's bitterness toward Dr. King, a bitterness which he had effectively communicated to his subordinates in the FBI, was apparent from the FBI's attempts to sully Dr. King's reputation long after his death. Plans were made to "brief" congressional leaders in 1969 to prevent the passage of a "Martin Luther King Day." In 1970, Director Hoover told reporters that Dr. King was the "last one in the world who should ever have received" the Nobel Peace Prize. 13

This was carried out by a large number of people, not all of them as ideological blinded nor as vicious as J. Edgar Hoover. How did this happen?

Officials in the Justice Department relied on the FBI's representations that both of these advisers were communists, that they were in a position to influence Dr. King, and that Adviser A in fact exercised some influence in preparing Dr. King's speeches and publications. Burke Marshall, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights from 1961-1965, testified that he "never had any reason to doubt [the FBI's] allegations concerning [Adviser A]." He recalled that the charges about Adviser A were "grave and serious," and said that he believed Attorney General Kennedy had permitted the investigation to proceed because:

"Stopping the investigation in light of those circumstances would have run the risk that there would have been a lot of complaints that the Bureau had been blocked for political reasons from investigating serious charges about communist infiltration in the civil rights movement. "

Change "communist" to "terrorist," and nothing else changes at all. Anyone doubt Bush has similar activities underway? Anyone doubt there are people as vindictive as Hoover in this Administration? Anyone else wonder if there will be an investigation thorough enough to uncover what Bush has done, and bold enough to report it?

Mining Disaster

The reports late last night were of 12 miners rescued from a situation that seemed to have been hopeless.

Then NPR's "Morning Edition" informed me that 12 miners were dead, not alive, and a 13th in critical condition. The confusion was attributed to "miscommunication."

Which still sounds like a credible story. It was, and still is, blamed on "overheard cell phone calls." However, that doesn't explain this:

The Washington Post story by Ann Scott Tyson, which appeared on the front page, opened: "A dozen miners trapped 12,000 feet into a mountainside since early Monday were found alive Tuesday night just hours after rescuers found the body of a 13th man, who had died in an explosion in an adjacent coal mine that was sealed off in early December."

Later in the story, she even added this explanation: "The miners had apparently done what they had been taught to do: barricaded themselves in a pocket with breathable air and awaited rescue."

The New York Times story on the Web by James Dao was also headlined with no doubt raised: "12 Miners Found Alive 41 Hours After Explosion." The story, which also ran in print on Page One, pulled back a bit from reporting the news as proven fact: "Forty-one hours after an explosion trapped 13 men in a West Virginia coal mine here, family members and a state official said 12 of the miners had been found alive Tuesday night.

"Joe Thornton, deputy secretary for the West Virginia Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety, said the rescued miners were being examined at the mine shortly before midnight and would soon be taken to nearby hospitals. Mr. Thornton said he did not know details of their medical condition." It then reported family members calling it a miracle.

Just where did this detailed information that was being reported, come from?

Or this:

An Associated Press dispatch first carried the news at 11:52 pm: "Twelve miners caught in an explosion in a coal mine were found alive Tuesday night, more than 41 hours after the blast, family members said. Bells at a church where relatives had been gathering rang out as family members ran out screaming in jubilation." But many newspapers, and all of cable TV news, reported the rescue as fact, not merely based on family claims.

A later AP account by Allen Breed grew more, not less, certain: "Twelve miners caught in an explosion in a coal mine were found alive Tuesday night, sending family members streaming from the church where they had gathered during the nearly two-day ordeal. Joyous shouts rose of 'Praise the Lord!'"
...

It took three hours for the coal company to correct the reports. It is unclear why the media carried the news without proper sourcing. Some reports claim the early reports spread via cell phones and when loved ones started celebrating most in the media simply joined in.

And here were the AP headlines:

Families Say 12 W.Va. Miners Found Alive (11:59 PM)

12 Trapped W.Va. Miners Found Alive (12:34 AM)

Singing Erupts After Miners Found Alive (2:49 AM)

Families Say 11 of 12 W.Va. Miners Dead (3:06 AM)

Miners Reported Alive After Blast Are Dead (4:08 AM)

12 Confirmed Dead in W.Va. Mine Blast (5:26 AM)

Feds Vow Full Probe of W.Va. Mine Blast (6:58 AM)

Jubiliation [sic] Turns to Anger, Outrage (7:20 AM)

Why was any competent news service going with reports from the families? Why were they not acting as the professional skeptics they are expected to be, and confirming this information with credible officials before rushing to report good news that was so horribly false?

What responsibility do news services have to be accurate, not just immediate?

Clearly, the families have good reason to be outraged. Public officials did not cover themselves with glory, mining officials didn't do their job. "A coal company spokesman later explained, 'Let's put this in perspective. Who do I tell not to celebrate? I didn't know if there were 12 or 1 [who were alive].' " I think the proper perspective is: who do you tell to turn their celebration into mourning?

The responsible call was to dampen all expectations of a "miracle" until that "miracle" was confirmed. Everyone responsible for telling this story to the public, and the families, failed miserably.

Everyone.

"How do you build a society in which everyone is a victim?"

Comment heard in an NPR report on "Morning Edition."

No, gossip and rumour and specious importance and apathetic envy become a surrogate for both this and that. Individuals do not turn in inwardness towards themselves and away from each other, nor outwards in unanimity over an idea, but towards each other in crippling and disheartened, tactless, levelling reciprocity. The idea passage is blocked. The individuals are at cross-purposes with themselves and each other, the selfish and the mutually reflected opposition is like a quagmire -and now one is sitting in it. In joy's stead steps a kind of whimpering discontent, in sorrow's stead a kind of stubborn, surly staying-power, in enthusiasm's stead a loquacious worldly wisdom.

This is the description of our age. If I am offended by someone, anyone, I have a right to redress. The "system" may work, intentional and serious people may take hold of the levers of power, but my complaint is all that is needed to set the wheels in motion.

The system assumes that the complaint has gravitas, and responds accordingly, because the outcome of the process is so serious it was long ago agreed it would not be engaged unless the issue was equally serious. But if that check is removed, if that stay on reaction is recalled, the system is out of balance, and the mills of God begin to grind exceeding small in exceeding small matters.

If everyone is a victim deserving of redress for their injuries, how does the system assess responsibility?

THE RESULTS OF OBSERVING THE TWO AGES

Kierkegaard speaks to the present age:

Purely dialectically - and let us work them out dialectically without regard to any specific age - the relations are as follows. When the individuals (severally) relate essentially and passionately to an idea and, on top of that, in union essentially relate to the same idea, that relation is perfect and normal. The relation singles out individually (each has himself for himself) and unites ideally. In the essential inward directedness there is that modest reticence between man and man that prevents crude presumption. In the relation of unanimity to the idea is the elevation that again forgets the accident of the particulars in consideration of the whole. Thus individuals never come too close to each other in a brute sense, just because they are united at an ideal distance. The unanimity of the singled-out is the band playing well orchestrated music. If, on the other hand, individuals relate to an idea merely en masse (that is, without the individual, inward-directed singling out), we get violence, unruliness, unbridledness; but if there is no idea for the individuals en masse, nor any individually singling-out inward-directedness, then we have rawness. The harmony of the spheres is the unity of each planet relating to itself and to the whole. Remove one of the relations and there will be chaos. But in the world of individuals the relation is not the only constituting factor, and so there are two forms. Remove the relation to oneself, and we have the mass's tumultuous relating to an idea; but remove this too, and we have rawness. People then push and shove, and rub up against each other in futile outwardness. There is none of that modesty of inwardness that decently distances the one from the other. There is then a stir and a commotion that end in nothing. No one has anything for himself and united they possess nothing either, so they become vexed and squabble with one another. Then, it is not even those songs of joyful conviviality that unite mends; then, it is not those dithyrambic songs of revolt that collect the crowds; then, it is not the sublime rhythm of religious fervour that under divine surveillance musters the coundess generations to review before the heavenly hosts.

No, gossip and rumour and specious importance and apathetic envy become a surrogate for both this and that. Individuals do not turn in inwardness towards themselves and away from each other, nor outwards in unanimity over an idea, but towards each other in crippling and disheartened, tactless, levelling reciprocity. The idea passage is blocked. The individuals are at cross-purposes with themselves and each other, the selfish and the mutually reflected opposition is like a quagmire -and now one is sitting in it. In joy's stead steps a kind of whimpering discontent, in sorrow's stead a kind of stubborn, surly staying-power, in enthusiasm's stead a loquacious worldly wisdom. But it is one thing to save one's life by casting the spell of a story, as in A Thousand and One Nights, another to debar oneself from the spell of enthusiasm over an idea and the rebirth of passion, by being loquacious. Suppose such an age invented the swiftest means of transport and communication, unlimited ways of managing combined financial resources; how ironic that the rapidity of the transport system and the speed of the communi-cation stand in inverse relation to the dilatoriness of indecision. The superiority of a prudence that boasts of not letting itselfbe carried away (which can be quite all right if one is sitting in a quagmire) is a somewhat plebeian invention.

A Literary Review, Søren Kierkegaard, tr. Alistair Hanney, (New York: Penguin 2001), pp. 55-56.

N.B. I know Kierkegaard is as dense as fruitcake; but then, I like fruitcake.

This, too, will be sliced into serving pieces, later.

Politics and that Ol' Time Religion

I guess those of us who favor mixing religion and politics will have to start responding to this kind of thing now.

Ari Melber does a fair job from the simply political side. But let's take Mr. Loconte at his word, and see where it gets us.

NANCY PELOSI, the Democratic leader in the House, sounded like an Old Testament prophet recently when she denounced the Republican budget for its "injustice and immorality" and urged her colleagues to cast their no votes "as an act of worship" during this religious season.

Well, I find nothing wrong with that denunciation. And neither did the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, as well as the UCC , the UMC, the Episcopal Church, USA, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and the Evangelical Lutheran Church. I expect Mr. Loconte to say they've all gone from preachin' to meddlin', any day now.

This, apparently, is what the Democrats had in mind when they vowed after President Bush's re-election to reclaim religious voters for their party. In the House, they set up a Democratic Faith Working Group. Senator Harry Reid, the minority leader, created a Web site called Word to the Faithful. And Democratic officials began holding conferences with religious progressives. All of this was with the intention of learning how to link faith with public policy. An event for liberal politicians and advocates at the University of California at Berkeley in July even offered a seminar titled "I Don't Believe in God, but I Know America Needs a Spiritual Left." A look at the tactics and theology of the religious left, however, suggests that this is exactly what American politics does not need. If Democrats give religious progressives a stronger voice, they'll only replicate the misdeeds of the religious right.

This is, let us admit, a legitimate risk. Any time churches go from speaking truth to power to seeking to wield power, trouble immediately follows. But that is not Mr. Loconte's analysis. Because apparently, the history and tradition of Christian theology notwithstanding, religion is only about emotion, not about "reason." (Despite the fact that "Pietism" and its emphasis on a emotional religious state is a late-comer of Protestant theology, originating only in the late 17th century).

For starters, we'll see more attempts to draw a direct line from the Bible to a political agenda. The Rev. Jim Wallis, a popular adviser to leading Democrats and an organizer of the Berkeley meeting, routinely engages in this kind of Bible-thumping. In his book "God's Politics," Mr. Wallis insists that his faith-based platform transcends partisan categories.

"We affirm God's vision of a good society offered to us by the prophet Isaiah," he writes. Yet Isaiah, an agent of divine judgment living in a theocratic state, conveniently affirms every spending scheme of the Democratic Party. This is no different than the fundamentalist impulse to cite the book of Leviticus to justify laws against homosexuality.

I'm still trying to figure out: (a) how Isaiah "affirms every spending schem of the Democratic Party" ("Come, buy food without money, buy wine without price?" That's as close as I can get), and (b) Why, if this is true, it's a bad thing? And since Isaiah opens by advocating that we beat our swords into plougshares, and study war no more (Isaiah 2:4), I guess Mr. Loconte doesn't include Democratic support for defense spending in his opprobrium.

When Christians - liberal or conservative - invoke a biblical theocracy as a handy guide to contemporary politics, they threaten our democratic discourse. Numerous "policy papers" from liberal churches and activist groups employ the same approach: they're awash in scriptural references to justice, poverty and peace, stacked alongside claims about global warming, debt relief and the United Nations Security Council.

Again, I'm simply missing the problem here. Martin Luther King, Jr. did the same thing. His "Letter from Birmingham Jail" and "I have a Dream" speech are clarion calls for justice grounded firmly in scriptures and Christian teachings? Was his cause illegitimate because of that?

Christians are right to argue that the Bible is a priceless source of moral and spiritual insight. But they're wrong to treat it as a substitute for a coherent political philosophy.

Well, I agree, but again, I look to the example of Dr. King and ask: what do you mean, Mr. Loconte?

There is another worrisome trait shared by religious liberals and many conservatives: the tendency to moralize in the most extreme terms. William Sloane Coffin of the Clergy Leadership Network was typical in his denunciation of the Bush tax cuts: "I think he should remember that it was the devil who tempted Jesus with unparalleled wealth and power."

Because we all know, morality must keep to its place. And wealth and power have their place. Jesus never should have told that man to leave the dead to bury the dead, and go proclaim the Kingdom of God, or told that rich young man to sell all he had. Francis of Assissi never should have given up his wealth and privilege to become a saint of the church. As the man told my wife in disgust when she handed the beggar the few coins she had in her purse, "There has to be a limit."

But what does Mr. Loconte propose is the proper absolute, if not morality? Power, apparently.

This trend is at its worst in the misplaced outrage in the war against Islamic terrorism. It's true that in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks, some Christian conservatives shamed themselves by blaming the horror on feminists and gays, who allegedly incited God's wrath. But such nonsense is echoed by liberals like the theologian Stanley Hauerwas of Duke University.

"The price that Americans are going to have to pay for the kind of arrogance that we are operating out of right now is going to be terrible indeed," he said of the United States' response to the Qaeda attacks. "People will exact some very strong judgments against America - and I think we will well deserve it." Professor Hauerwas joins a chorus of left-wing clerics and religious scholars who compare the United States to Imperial Rome and Nazi Germany.

Of course, I happen to think Professor Hauerwas is right. But this is, after all, a political analysis; and politics is all about power. And what better way to maintain power, than to insist your opponents ape you, the better to claim they offer no difference, and are in fact pale imitations of the original:

Democrats who want religious values to play a greater role in their party might take a cue from the human-rights agenda of religious conservatives. Evangelicals begin with the Bible's account of the God-given dignity of every person. And they've joined hands with liberal and secular groups to defend the rights of the vulnerable and oppressed, be it through prison programs for offenders and their families, laws against the trafficking of women and children, or an American-brokered peace plan for Sudan. In each case believers have applied their religious ideals with a strong dose of realism and generosity.

Notice that all of these programs are of the "trickle-down" model. The rising tide lifts all boats (and yes, the same critique could be levied against many a "leftist" political solution.) But isn't this about religion? No mention here of Tom Fox, or the Christian Peacekeeping Teams. Which is all so terribly awkward, so let's move on.

A completely secular public square is neither possible nor desirable; democracy needs the moral ballast of religion. But a partisan campaign to enlist the sacred is equally wrongheaded. When people of faith join political debates, they must welcome those democratic virtues that promote the common good: prudence, reason, compromise - and a realization that politics can't usher in the kingdom of heaven.

Again, I agree: politics cannot usher in the kingdom of heaven.

But then which is more important? Politics? Or the kingdom of heaven? And which should be guided by the other? In the latter, the first are last, the last first, and I am commanded to proclaim that reality. Can politics do anything to further that principle of justice? Or is "justice" simply another word for "status quo?"

Let's ask the shade of Dr. King, shall we?

All flesh is grass....

Speaking of acquiring personal identity and meaning from a group, I was just reading this post by Jane Hamsher on blogs (and normally I despise these navel-gazing '"essays" on "blogging", but it's early in the morning and my internal editor is still in bed), when I realized how Gene Lyons and Bill Clinton and Harper's Magazine all tie into this subject.

Digby, quoted by Hamsher, is right: blogs serve a function that is a desperately needed check on the manipulation of the mainstream media by forces in the GOP. I remember reading Gene Lyons' original article in Harper's, and then later finding Fools for Scandal and devouring it, and still later reading the discussion Harper's sponsored and published with Lyons and other journalists, and one thing about the story never varied:

Lyons was always alone, was always the lone voice in the wilderness. He was telling the truth, but since the truth was not accepted by any other MSM journalist, Lyons was a pariah. He was ignored, as he was told he would be, and then he was vilified (he recounts the tale of this warning in Fools for Scandal, and also recounts how it came true), and at one point he was even investigated. In a later Harper's article, Lyons recounts a discussion with Sen. Arlen Specter, who tells Lyons the details, down to the phone calls, of a visit from a friend from England. Absotlutely no one seemed to care that the U.S. Government was spying on an American citizen, and keeping track not just of the border crossings of one particular, but innocuous, foreign national, but of all his movements in and around Arkansas. Lyons, of course, was chilled. But the news made absolutely no splash at all.

And to this day, Jeff Gerth still works for the New York Times, and Gene Lyons still toils in relative obscurity. Thom Friedman is on the NYT op-ed page, and Molly Ivins writes for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

The lesson? Until the group says it is so, it isn't so.

This is a good thing, of course. The prophet Ezekiel was probably thought a madman, declaring his out of body experiences by the river Chebar, seeing the "spirit of God" leave the Temple in Jerusalem, and the chariot-throne of God, and the valley of the dry bones, and all the other odd things Ezekiel reported. To this day we don't like to dwell much on Ezekiel's more apocalyptic visions (the vision of the Temple is chilling in its deadliness and "otherness"). Eventually the community accepted what Ezekiel said as true and trustworthy; but Ezekiel proves the group always needs a radically alternative voice.

Assess the major prophets: they run the gamut from the court-attending First Isaiah to the hallucinatory Ezekiel, who not only has visions but performs symbolic physical acts as well. Jeremiah falls somewhere between the two, cursing Jerusalem when he isn't weeping for it, berating God for choosing him a prophet when he isn't pronouncing God's denunciations on an apostate nation. Then there are the minor prophets, like Hosea who marries a prostitute and gives his children names that would shame a Hollywood celebrity, and Amos, who declares himself nothing more than a dresser of sycamore trees. Who would listen to Amos today?

We have a Romantic notion of truth, that it comes from "enlightened" individuals (thus do we join heart and mind, and the union is a fragile one at best) who defiantly declare "truth" against the powers that be. But it isn't that simple, and it never has been; nor will it ever be. The radically alternative voice will always be available, and the community will always find a way to assess it and even accept it. But it will seldom be accepted as the voice that changes everything, and with one clear pronouncement does all that Jonah managed to do.

And I suspect, if left blogistan had the power and effectiveness of Jonah, it would react in much the same way as he did.

That, however, is not likely to happen. As Jane Hamsher says, these things are habits that have been built over the ages, and they will not crumble without great reluctance. Which is a topic for another post.

Ecclesiology and Sociology

[moving on up]

This is a long excerpt from a paper I wrote for my Association, a few years ago. The original paper was about the local UCC churches in Houston. I have removed that material, and left the "core" ecclesiological part. Ecclesiology through a sociological lens may seem odd to laypersons, but that is precisely how it is taught in seminary. In fact, I'm probably more pneumatological in my ecclesiology than my professors would be comfortable with.

Take this as groundwork and a beginning point for discussion. The "headlines" were part of the original paper. I had to scan this (lost the original computer file) so there may still be some "weird" symbols where letters should be. As I find any more, I'll fix them. And I have deleted the footnotes, so I'm not including all the page numbers from the book that is referenced here. The link is to my post with the relevant bibliographical information.

MEANING AND BELONGING
Emerson and Smith conducted a study of congregations and their members,of churches both black and white. They focussed on the continued segregation of congregations along racial lines, limiting their study to "whites" and "African Americans." The point of interest for us is when they layout the sociological principles that apply to groups, and how those principles identify what groups do, and why they do it. The first principle identifies why people gather in groups. We start then, with this basic sociological principle: "that the human drives for meaning and belonging are necessarily realized through interaction with others, primarily in social groups. It is within the context of groups, especially religious groups, that one answers questions such as 'Who am I?', 'Why do I exist?,' 'How should I relate to others?,' and 'How do I understand tragedy...." We saw this after 9/11, when people returned to church looking for answers to what had happened to the nation, or to them personally. It's an old and well-known function of the church: to provide a meaning to life. But the principle is, we have to get this answer from a group. "No one," as Emerson and Smith note, "can opt out of commitment to some fundamental moral orientation or take a normative view 'from nowhere."

Moreover, people need "a normative and moral orientation toward life and others," which is only available from a group. As Christians we say we are called into community by the Holy Spirit, that we are called to be witnesses to God's redemptive activity in history, or we are "commissioned" by Matthew 28:18 to carry the gospel to all the world, and make disciples of all nations. But these reasons do not, as Emerson and Smith show, override basic human drives or fundamental sociological principles. So we can equally say, as Christians, that people are drawn to religious groups because they want a normative and moral orientation. To put it confessionally, it is because they want to know God, and where two or three are together, Christ is there with us.

GROUP BOUNDARIES
But even if Christ is there, we are still fallen and fallible human beings, and we gather in groups not just because of the promise of the gospel, but because it is in our nature. It is in our nature because groups provide meaning, and they provide meaning by establishing boundaries. "A group is a group, in part, by virtue of its difference from other groups; put another way, by virtue of its internal similarity." "Boundaries" are closely related to "internal similarity." We need to keep both terms in mind, but we'll handle them separately. First, 'boundaries:' "Groups must symbolize and utilize symbolic boundaries to both create and give substance to shared values and identities. So in Catholic Europe at the time of the Reformation, Protestant churches limited communion to certain Sundays in the year, simply because the Catholic Mass celebrated
the Eucharist at every worship service. "In many respects," Emerson and Smith note, "we know who we are by knowing who we are not. Thus, an ingroup always has at least one outgroup by which it creates identity. Blacks are not whites, Lutherans are not Presbyterians, evangelicals are not mainline Christians. This can also work within the congregation. A church mayor may not identify with its denomination; instead, it may identify with its history, with its traditions, an attitude often expressed by: "But, we've always done it this way!" That, too, is a source of identity, and a source of internal similarity.

The distinction is important, because denominational ties are greatly diminished these days. This is not a situation peculiar to the Houston Association or the United Church of Christ... Whether the complaint is over ordination of gays and lesbians or "liberal" theology or new forms of worship, that is fundamentally the complaint being made. It is a function of internal similarity: the larger church doesn't seem 'similar' enough to the congregation, and so the congregation objects to the identity being offered to it by the larger denomination.

SOCIAL SOLIDARITY
When, of course, what the larger denomination is stressing is tolerance, not requirement. No church can be forced to call a gay or lesbian pastor, nor can any Association be forced to ordain or give standing to such a pastor. But simply asking for the tolerance of such an idea is objectionable to some, and that is an issue of internal similarity. As Emerson and Smith note:

Groups that stress tolerance, openness to diversity, and inclusiveness, typically lack the ability to have strong comparison groups by which to define their boundaries (with the exception that they may compare themselves to groups that do draw distinct boundaries). Their boundaries are fuzzy, and they thus find it more difficult to provide meaning and belonging.

How many of us have responded with a lot of head scratching to the question: The UCC? What's that?" It's hard to say what we aren't, so it's hard to say what we are. This is not an attack on the positions of General Synod or the ministries in Cleveland. It is simply a sociological principle that deserves to be underlined here. As groups try to survive, they will try to establish boundaries and an identity against something. Some of our local churches are choosing to do that against the UCC itself (that's at least a partial explanation for the energy they devote to challenging the positions of the Conference or Cleveland). Others, however, simply stress their traditions or their history. In sociological terms, you could say they are expressing their "social solidarity:" "A group typically is said to have solidarity if its members are cohesive, working for a common purpose, and closely knit." So this works negatively as well as positively. Identity and social solidarity are essential for the group to continue to exist: "We are one in the Spirit, We are one in the Lord." But how are we one? When the larger church stresses tolerance and openness, local church identity can react negatively, insisting it's identity is in not being tolerant or open. As a man said to me once, retelling the tale of seeing my wife give money to a homeless person on the street, a tale he retold with some disgust: "There has to be a limit!" Why? Because without some limit, without some boundary, the group has no reason to exist, and soon dissolves.

Now this is one point where the advocates of "contemporary worship" and "social justice" run up against the "traditionalists." I don't mean to enter the fray of the "worship wars" here, or the controversy over pronouncements ftom General Synod. I simply want to point out a friction point that gets lost in the fray. A congregation bases it's identity in part on social solidarity. There is a great deal behind the statement ''we have always done it this way," and part of that is the cohesion, common purpose, and close-knit ties, of the group. Worship, for example, provides cohesion, continuity, identity. Change worship, and you change who the congregation is. Change worship, and you threaten the common purpose of the congregation. Change worship and drive someone away, and you threaten the ties of the congregation; you unravel the "close knit" identity of the people. Change, of course, can come in many forms: contemporary hymns, ''praise choruses," or simply a change in preaching style. Pastors in seminary now are not taught the homiletics (art and practice of preaching) that our retiring Houston Association pastors were taught, and that change alone can be disconcerting to a congregation. So this isn't simply an issue of "contemporary worship," it can be as simple an issue as what the pastor chooses to preach about. If the pastor does not contribute to the cohesion of the congregation, if the pastor leads the congregation toward working for a different "common purpose," if the pastor threatens the close-knit ties of the congregation, the pastor threatens the social identity of the congregation.

Which doesn't mean every pastor is a threat to every congregation. But the changes can be as subtle as the sermons, or as vast as introducing a "contemporary worship" service. What we have to understand is that these changes occur whenever there is a change in pastoral leadership, and the question of how congregations react to these changes is one we have to consider carefully.

Another aspect of social solidarity is directly related to my theme here, and that is age. More specifically, generations and aging. Congregations that age together can also solidify their identity around their age, their traditions, their local history. Change comes, inevitably. Social solidarity is a way of dealing with change, but sometimes it is a negative rather than a positive. Cohesion can form around a common theme, or it can form around shared experiences. The former can leave the group open to new members who share the same enthusiasm; the latter obviously builds on exclusion, because only those who have shared the experiences can share the identity. So it is not uncommon in a church for one group of people to "own" the Christmas decorations, or the Easter brunch, or be responsible for an annual church event which must be done in a certain manner. When the group begins to identify around such events or possessions, it automatically limits membership in the group and, as the group ages, the tendency to circle around the common experience becomes more and more important. So as congregations age, the groups get smaller and smaller, as well as tighter and tighter. As well as ever more exclusive.

Sociologists explain that "social solidarity increases as members' private resources contributed to group ends increase. In other words, as you contribute to your marriage, the marriage is strengthened. But just like a marriage, social solidarity can exclude others from contributing, and the group ends can change over time. What may have started as a group end promoting the worship of God, becomes a group end of promoting the life of the institution. The group end becomes not worship and service to God, but the survival of the institution, the group itself There is a sociological reason for this too, (naturally): "If a group is to achieve solidarity necessary for the survival of a volunteer group, it's primary purpose cannot be to do something outside the group, but rather to create something within the group, as in the case of married couples.". Every group, in other words, functions like a married couple, where the first importance is the group itself. So we see that social solidarity is a two-edged sword: it gives, but it can also take away and not always in the name of the Lord.

INTERNAL HOMOGENEITY
Now that leads to another principle that has to do with group function. Groups that are internally similar are less "costly" than groups that are internally dissimilar. In other words, birds ofa feather flock together. It's simply easier to be in a group of like-minded people than to be in a diverse group; and the more diverse the group, the harder it is for the group to stay together. Emerson and Smith describe this as "internal homogeneity."

The key generalization is this: the cost of producing meaning, belonging, and security in internally diverse congregations is usually much greaterbecause of the increased complexity of demands, needs, and backgrounds, and the increased effort necessary to create social solidarity and group identity, and the greater potential for internal conflict. Thus, internally homogenous congregations more often provide what draws people to religious groups/or lower costs than do internally diverse congregations. This is another reason why congregations tend toward
internal homogeneity. (emphasis in original)

There is an important point there, and one we need to stop and consider. That [bold] text seems to be aimed at evangelism efforts: that is, a happy congregation draws more people to it than an unhappy one. But turn it around, too: internally diverse congregations, that is, congregations with different people looking for different benefits from being part of the group, tend to lose people until only those of similar outlook are left. This explains the fracturing of Protestantism into so many denominations and non-denominational churches: but it also explains the loss of so many "young people" from churches in the 1960's and 1970's. Try today, for example, to minister to a church where some people remember ridmg in a horse and buggy, and others remember nothing earlier than MTV or perhaps the Internet. It isn't that it can't be done, but that dissimilarity alone exacts a high "cost," and other factors have to be equal to lower that cost to the point where the young will continue to worship with the old. But, as we saw in the '60's (my generation) and the '70's, it became easier for young people to leave than to stay.

While broad changes in society made that happen, one key reason for the departure was that the congregations were less and less internally homogenous. Young people simply saw the world differently from their parents; were, in fact, raised in an entirely different world. All but a few of our Houston Association churches are in urban settings now.

Only a generation ago, almost all of them were in rural settings. That change reflects the change in Texas in general in a generation, but those who grew up in rural areas are not going to have social solidarity with those who grew up in urban areas. The backgrounds, the needs, the expectations, of each group, are going to create greater potential for internal conflict, and make the effort to create social solidarity and group identity that much harder. In fact, it largely failed, which is why so many of our Houston Association churches have more people over 50 than under 50 in the pews on Sunday morning.

STATUS QUO BIAS
Birds of a feather flock together. As soon as the young people of the '60's found they could flock in another place ftom their parents and grand-parents, they did. Not surprisingly, the fact that people "generally prefer to be with people like themselves" is also a basic sociological principle. I mention that only to assure you we have not wandered off into the realm of personal opinion or anecdotal experience. "Studies find that status similarity among ffiends is high, especially for characteristics like race, sex, and age. That last characteristic is key. People tend to join groups, and stay in groups, with similar characteristics to themselves. We tend to divide, in other words, along generational lines. "Given the choice," Emerson and Smith note, ''people tend to choose what they already have. Which means they tend toward inertia, not toward change. "Cognitive psychologists call this the status-quo bias. The status-quo bias is the tendency of people to stick with what they have, even if gains could be made by selecting an alternative. That is, the choices people make vary depending on where they make them. Researchers attribute this tendency to 'loss aversion.' Loss aversion means that, given a person's reference point, the prospect of losses weighs more heavily than that offoregone gains.,,18 Young people, with less to lose, will more easily choose another group, another congregation, while the older people, with more invested in the status-quo, are averse to the possibility of loss. While they may lose the young people ftom their congregation, they don't lose the status quo they are most comfortable with. That is taken away ftom them by mortality, but not by their choosing. Congregations, in other words, will tend not to choose those things that might keep young people attending and supporting the church, even if they can be convinced it is for the best.

ETHICAL PARADOX OF GROUP LOYALTY
Ironically, the next point comes ftom the work of a UCC theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr. The insight is Emerson and Smith's, not mine. They note a paradox, one they call ''the ethical paradox of group loyalty:" "the paradox is that even if made up of loving, unselfish individuals, the group transmutes individual unselfishness into group selfishness. They develop this insight ftom Niebuhr's Moral Man and Immoral Society. While individuals should be unselfish, Niebuhr argued, societies (or groups) cannot afford to be. Part of the reason is the principles we've outlined above: the need for group identity, for boundaries, for social solidarity and internal homogeneity, is inherently selfish at some level. If the group is to survive, it has to act in its own best interests eventually, or simply go out of existence. The group cannot act unselfishly because it cannot presume to act on behalf of its' members against their interests. It cannot presume their agreement or acquiescence where group action might endanger the
survival of the group.

At the individual level [Emerson and Smith note], selfishness is usually
considered negative, but at the group level, it is considered moral and just. Indeed, at the group level, it is not called selfishness, but morality, service, sacrifice, or loyalty. Although we are selfish if we always look out for our own individual needs first it is considered wrong and immoral if we do not consider the needs of our family first, ahead of other families. We house our families first, and only if we can spare extra do we help house other families. To do otherwise is considered immoral or, at a minimum, a sad case of misplaced priorities.

The story of Elijah and the widow notwithstanding.

The paradox means that "members of a group cannot understand and feel the needs of another group as completely and deeply as those of their own group," so "reliance on love, compassion, and moral and rational suasion to overcome group divisions and inequalities is, in Niebuhr's words, 'practically an impossibility.'

For this reason, relations between groups are always mainly political rather than ethical or moral. As Niebuhr says, "They will always be determined by the proportion of power which each group possesses atleast as much as by any rational and moral appraisal of the comparative needs and claims of each group.

Anyone who has ever been caught in a struggle in a congregation knows this is true. "Groups" here can mean within the congregation, not just the group of the congregation itself. The struggle is always one of power, not ethics or morals. The group with the power and/or authority to enforce its vision is the group that prevails; and it prevails purely in terms of power, not of ethics. There is no ethical basis for who gets to decide how the Christmas decorations are handled, or what time worship will start, or how an annual church event is conducted. The discussion is never even along those lines. It is a matter of who is in charge, not what is right or wrong. The pastor may be expected to appeal to "love, compassion, and moral and rational suasion" to settle the issue; but the pastor seldom prevails on those points; at best, she wins a postponement of the conflict,not a serious resolution. So the paradox explains the inability of groups even within a congregation to function together, an inability that tends to sharpen as the "generation gap" widens. And that gap widens not as determined by the disparity in ages between people, but the disparity in numbers of people in the group ofa similar age.

THE PROXIMITY PRINCIPLE
As congregations age, another problem sets in that insures they will continue to
age, and to shrink: the problem of social networks, or what Emerson and Smith call the "proximity principle:"

We have to meet people to form relationships with them. Therefore, our relationships form within groups. We rarely become connected with a person from another part of our community unless we meet in organized group activity. As research demonstrates, much of the reason people's networks consist of people so similar to themselves is due to the homogenous nature of their social groups As a group becomes more central for its members, its members more often find friendship within the group.

And as the group becomes more and more the source of friendships, the groups becomes more and more tightly knit. Good for the group; bad for church growth. Newcomers need not apply. But note this is not necessarily because they are not welcome. The congregation can have the most sincere interest in ''new members." But it will not act sincerely on that interest. Instead, it will follow the path of least cost; and that path will mean reinforcing and sustaining the friendships that already exist, rather than trying to forge new friendships. As the group becomes more central for its members, the members find friendship within the group. The only time they wi11look outside the group, is when the newcomers closely resemble the friends already within the group.

...

THE CHURCH OF MEANING AND BELONGING V. THE CHURCH OF SACRIFICE FOR MEANING AND BELONGING
By this point you are beginning to consider a response something like, "yes,
but. . .." These are, after all, generalizations. And we are, after all, dealing with the church, an institution that is supposed to change hearts and minds, to release us to a new life, to make us better than we are or help us to follow our better, rather than our selfish, nature. And I have to answer "yes, but"

[T]he organization of American religion encourages religious groups to cater to people's existing preferences, rather than their ideal callings. In trying to create meaning and belonging, even to teach religious truths.. .religious leaders must act within a limited range shaped by the social location of their congregation. The congregation often looks to religion not as an external force that places radical demands on their lives, but rather as a way to fulfIll their needs Ifwe accept the oftentimes reasonable proposition that most people seek the greatest benefit for the least cost, they will seek meaning and belonging within the least change possible. Thus, if they can go to either the Church of Meaning and Belonging, or the Church of Sacrifice for Meaning and Belonging, most people choose the former. It provides benefit for the least cost [A]a seminary professor Charles Thomas, Jr. has summarized, "In practice congregation members expect the minister to do nothing (such as taking a prophetic voice) which would interfere with the harmony and growth of the membership.

It seems a relatively benign thing, telling a church what it must do if it wants to grow; especially if that church has evidenced interest in the prospect. After all, the Conference Minister and the church at large and articles and books pour forth urging mainline Protestant denominations to reclaim their place at the center of the community, to "reach out" and "invite" new members. "Church growth" seems to be the reason churches exist. Pastors are encouraged to lead "mega-churches" and evangelism has become a synonym for adding to the church rolls. It is no surprise, then, that almost all of our churches in the Houston Association, including those who have released their pastors recently, agree that one of their most important missions is church growth. But it is not so benign as it seems. Church growth first means change. A pastor who urges a church to act to invite and include new members is a pastor demanding that the congregation do things it has never done before. She is soon heard speaking in a "prophetic voice" that says, quite simply, everything you know is wrong. Our churches, especially our oldest churches and the ones in the most trouble, all grew through family connections. Members were born into the churches, or married into them. Those that experienced growth in other ways benefited :trom the "suburb" phenomenon: newcomers flocked to the church of their peers. But then those newcomers left again, moved on, as people in suburbs are wont do to, and those left behind simply got older, and the congregation as a whole became less attractive to the neighborhood around them, less visible in the community, until they vanished altogether. Why didn't those churches attract new members? They didn't know how. The era of church growth coincided with the return of soldiers :trom World War II. People flocked to churches in a tidal wave of church attendance. And just as the tide went in, it went out again. The churches (across the country) did nothing to bring those people in, and did nothing when they left again. They didn't know how to. It wasn't in their culture.

And now we face a 'post-denominational" America. People used to attend the church they were raised in. But now we have a whole generation which was not raised in church, because their parents left church as teenagers, and never looked back. Now churches have to "advertise," to "reach out," to tell people they exist, are open, are welcoming. Relying on location and a building with a steeple is not enough anymore. I know of one church in Houston, on a busy street, with a large, prominent sanctuary, which many would consider highly visible. But two different residents of the neighborhood around that church told me, on separate occasions, that they drove past the building for years on a daily basis and never noticed it. Church buildings are now as much of the visual clutter of our streets as telephone poles and billboards. We just don't look at them. Where once it took an effort not to go to church, now the effort is to get people to cross the threshold. Faced with this change in society, most churches haven't themselves changed to be more inviting, to find ways to ask those people in.

Follow up

on the point raised below, this is precisely the wrong formulation of the issue, in that it fails to consider either a legal argument (violation of the FISA statutes) or the Constitutional issue (Does the President have this power?):

For all its histrionics, the debate was narrow and somewhat vacuous. It is still hard to know if America has not been attacked for the past four years because (1) the Bush administration has waged an effective war on terror or (2) the threat is not as severe as originally thought. The answer may be a bit of both. Likewise, it is unclear whether the eavesdropping has done much to thwart terrorist plots or, on the other hand, whether it has truly robbed Americans of their privacy. Much of the eavesdropping is by a computer searching for key words, not a human being listening to a private conversation.

The subject of debate is not histrionics or range of concern. The concerns, in fact, have been almost wholly misplaced, largely because lay people do not understand the legal issues. Fortunately, judges like Mike Luttig ("Judge Luttig also warned that the administration's behavior in the case could jeopardize its credibility before the courts in other terrorism cases.") and James Robertson do understand the issues.

It is little appreciated that Constitutional provisions are so absolute they can never be waived, can never expire, and apply across time, without regard to when the interpretation of them is made. Constitutional law is the provision of governmental power, and if government lacks the power to carry out a task, that task is void ab initio, and without regard to circumstances or the acceptance of the majority. This is the ultimate power behind Roe v. Wade, Brown v. Board of Education, Miranda, Gideon, the school prayer cases. No one can waive a constitutional provision, because that provision is not about any one individual: it is about the law itself.

The question raised by the mushrooming NSA wiretap stories is not: was it effective? The question is: was it permitted? Does the President have this authority? Does the Constitution give him this power?

It isn't a question of expediency. It's a question of law. And, fortunately, we still have some lawyers who understand that.

Here is the problem with the wiretaps

Set aside all the "legal" arguments (which, frankly, laypeople are unqualified to conduct, and which discussions in the press have almost no effect on the courts), and pay attention to what the courts will do. Keep in mind the Supreme Court in the Hamdi decision Alberto Gonzalez cited as support for the authority for an imperial Presidency ruled the Administration had to grant due process to detainees in Gitmo; and Michael Luttig insisted Jose Padilla's case be allowed to go to the Supreme Court on the "enemy combatant" issue. And now there is this:

"We have the remarkable spectacle of a wartime President who, by a series of doubtful legal strategies, has squandered his credibility in the federal courts," says Eugene Fidell, a Washington lawyer who heads the National Institute of Military Justice. "The judges are in as grumpy a mood as I can remember." There will be more trouble to come. Government officials have been telling reporters that the disputed NSA wiretaps played a part in building the case that led to guilty pleas by two plotters: Iyman Faris, an Ohio truck driver who admitted checking out means of destroying the Brooklyn Bridge, and Mohammed Junaid Babar, a New York City man who acknowledged smuggling money and supplies to an al-Qaeda leader in Pakistan, among other things. Now Faris' attorney and dozens of other lawyers involved in some major terrorism cases are planning to file court challenges to see where the information on their clients came from. Miami attorney Kenneth Swartz represents Adham Amin Hassoun, a Lebanese-born Palestinian who lived in Broward County, Fla., and has been charged, along with Padilla, in an alleged conspiracy to commit terrorist acts abroad. Swartz says if any of the wiretaps used to build a case against his client were done "without legal authority, it would be a real constitutional issue."

Dick Cheney may think the Presidency lost too much power under Gerald Ford, but neither he nor the entire Administration are in the position to make that final decision.

Rather like a church, any institution involves a system which requires the compliance of other people. The insistence by Gonzales and others in the Administration that the President has the legal authority to do what they have let him do, stops precisely within the limits of the Administration. Everyone directly under Bush may agree with what he has done (and there are clear indications they do not), but that is not the end of the discussion.

The "real constitutional issue" has yet to hit the courts, but it will, and then all of Bush's attempts to "protect us from terrorists" will come apart like a cheap suit in a rainstorm. Our government does not act on the authority of any one figure, and is not established merely to defend "us" against the threats of "them." The real danger here is that reductio ad absurdum political philosophy, which has clearly become the governing principle of the President of the United States. But that is also a philosophy which is finding little support; and any institution requires the compliance of other people, in order to function.

Brief Notes

It is too easy to overlook good news in the constant rush of the latest bad news; especially if that bad news either confirms our latest corporate fear (the community of whatever realm of blogistan one frequents), or if it is more bad news for our political enemies.

And this is not a good thing because of the award (I have less and less use for awards) but because it reminds us of something that was truly good:

For resilience, resourcefulness and good old Texas neighborliness on a
scale that did the whole state proud, Houston is the 2005 Dallas
Morning News Texan of the Year.

The editorial has its own reasons for this award, but the editorial board cannot report on the goodwill, the sheer desire to help, that pervaded the City's effort. The day I went for training in order to serve meals at the Astrodome, the huge campus of Second Baptist Church was filled with crowds of patiently milling people from literally around the world, many identifiable by non-Western dress, and everyone was patient, kind, and seeking only to help strangers. We were trained and concerned only with meeting those people who had fled Katrina or been finally removed from Katrina's wake, with humanity and decency. And we were preparing to do it for months, and thousands of people in the city prepared to do it on almost a moment's notice.

And the city and county governments (Houston's city limits are the boundaries of Harris County, or might as well be) were also interested only with providing aid. It was not, in all ways, a perfect effort. But it was one of the most impressive efforts I have ever seen, and it underscored the motto the State of Texas chose for itself, and tries to live up to: "Friendly."

On another note, I realized I had heard nothing about Tom Fox and the other members of the Christian Peacekeeping Team, kidnapped in November. That was not neglect on my part; there has been no further news. Considering that the deaths were publicly announced and clearly intended to influence governmental actions, no news in this context may well be good news. But we cannot make such an assumption, and those of us who pray should keep the CPT members in our prayers.

Proceeding according to form

Apparently, it is all a matter of form:

A top Justice Department official objected in 2004 to aspects of the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program and refused to sign on to its continued use amid concerns about its legality and oversight, according to officials with knowledge of the tense internal debate. The concerns appear to have played a part in the temporary suspension of the secret program.

The concerns prompted two of President Bush's most senior aides - Andrew H. Card Jr., his chief of staff, and Alberto R. Gonzales, then White House counsel and now attorney general - to make an emergency visit to a Washington hospital in March 2004 to discuss the program's future and try to win the needed approval from Attorney General John Ashcroft, who was hospitalized for gallbladder surgery, the officials said.

The unusual meeting was prompted because Mr. Ashcroft's top deputy, James B. Comey, who was acting as attorney general in his absence, had indicated he was unwilling to give his approval to certifying central aspects of the program, as required under the White House procedures set up to oversee it.

With Mr. Comey unwilling to sign off on the program, the White House went to Mr. Ashcroft - who had been in the intensive care unit at George Washington University Hospital with pancreatitis and was housed under unusually tight security - because "they needed him for certification," according to an official briefed on the episode. The official, like others who discussed the issue, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the program.

And any threat of prosecution is not stopping the information from getting out. But (pace TBogg), this is where it gets interesting:

Accounts differed as to exactly what was said at the hospital meeting between Mr. Ashcroft and the White House advisers. But some officials said that Mr. Ashcroft, like his deputy, appeared reluctant to give Mr. Card and Mr. Gonzales his authorization to continue with aspects of the program in light of concerns among some senior government officials about whether the proper oversight was in place at the security agency and whether the president had the legal and constitutional authority to conduct such an operation.

It is unclear whether the White House ultimately persuaded Mr. Ashcroft to give his approval to the program after the meeting or moved ahead without it.

One is left only with speculation: did John Ashcroft's sense of right and wrong come into play? Was he, unlike Alberto Gonzales, unwilling to sell out all of his principles for the greater glory of power? Or did he simply understand, and respect, the force of law?

Several senior government officials have said that when the special operation first began, there were few controls on it. Some agency officials wanted nothing to do with it, apparently fearful of participating in an illegal operation, officials have said.

Or just with doing things decently and in good order?

That led to uncertainties about the chain of command in overseeing law enforcement activities connected to the program, officials said, and it appears to have spurred concerns within the Justice Department over its use. Mr. Thompson's successor, Mr. Comey, was eventually authorized to take part in the program and to review intelligence material that grew out of it, and officials said he played a part in overseeing the reforms that were put in place in 2004.

But even after the imposition of the new restrictions last year, the agency maintained the authority to choose its eavesdropping targets and did not have to get specific approval from the Justice Department or other Bush officials before it began surveillance on phone calls or e-mail messages. The decision on whether someone is believed to be linked to Al Qaeda and should be monitored is left to a shift supervisor at the agency, the White House has said.

Don't you feel safer now? A shift supervisor at the NSA is deciding who's a terrorist threat, and who isn't.

The paradox of Christianity (one of many, actually) is that it requires a group, a movement away from self and toward others. "Wherever two or more are gathered in my name," Jesus tells his disciples in Matthew, "I am there with them." When it comes to discipline of a member of the group, that is carried out privately at first (between friends), but publicly if a private reconciliation is impossible. Whatever the members of the group do to the least of others, they are told, they do to their Lord.

There are all kinds of problems with invoking religion in matters of governance; but there are some good reasons to do it, too. There are also excellent reasons, in government as well as in private life, for it not to be simply a matter of form.

(Here, for those interested, is a good analysis of the wiretapping situation and the "investigation" into the leak. The short answer is: what is being investigated is not the leak of classified information, but the disclosure of illegal activity. Which, since the President says it is legal, is not then, illegal. Accroding to the President. But disclosing legal activity, is illegal; even if all that is disclosed is that illegal (excuse me, "legal") activity is being conducted, although the classified (and therefore protected) details are not disclosed.

It should make for an intersting investigation. Can't imagine how they argue this one to a grand jury.)

The Blessing of the New Year

God, bless to me the new day,
Never vouchsafed to me before;
It is to bless Thine own presence
Thou hast given me this time, O God.

Bless Thou to me mine eye,
May mine eye bless all it sees;
I will bless my neighbour,
May my neighbour bless me.

God, give me a clean heart,
Let me not from sight of Thine eye;
Bless to me my children and my wife,
And bless to me my means and my cattle.

This poem was repeated the first thing on the first day of the year. It was common throughout the Highlands and Islands. The writer has heard versions of it in many places.--Alexander Carmichael