The Rev. John C. Danforth

I'm not sure how I missed this, but: "Amen."

People of faith have the right, and perhaps the obligation, to bring their values to bear in politics. Many conservative Christians approach politics with a certainty that they know God's truth, and that they can advance the kingdom of God through governmental action. So they have developed a political agenda that they believe advances God's kingdom, one that includes efforts to "put God back" into the public square and to pass a constitutional amendment intended to protect marriage from the perceived threat of homosexuality.

Moderate Christians are less certain about when and how our beliefs can be translated into statutory form, not because of a lack of faith in God but because of a healthy acknowledgement of the limitations of human beings. Like conservative Christians, we attend church, read the Bible and say our prayers.

But for us, the only absolute standard of behavior is the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves. Repeatedly in the Gospels, we find that the Love Commandment takes precedence when it conflicts with laws. We struggle to follow that commandment as we face the realities of everyday living, and we do not agree that our responsibility to live as Christians can be codified by legislators.

When, on television, we see a person in a persistent vegetative state, one who will never recover, we believe that allowing the natural and merciful end to her ordeal is more loving than imposing government power to keep her hooked up to a feeding tube.

When we see an opportunity to save our neighbors' lives through stem cell research, we believe that it is our duty to pursue that research, and to oppose legislation that would impede us from doing so.

We think that efforts to haul references of God into the public square, into schools and courthouses, are far more apt to divide Americans than to advance faith.

Following a Lord who reached out in compassion to all human beings, we oppose amending the Constitution in a way that would humiliate homosexuals.

For us, living the Love Commandment may be at odds with efforts to encapsulate Christianity in a political agenda. We strongly support the separation of church and state, both because that principle is essential to holding together a diverse country, and because the policies of the state always fall short of the demands of faith. Aware that even our most passionate ventures into politics are efforts to carry the treasure of religion in the earthen vessel of government, we proceed in a spirit of humility lacking in our conservative colleagues.

In the decade since I left the Senate, American politics has been characterized by two phenomena: the increased activism of the Christian right, especially in the Republican Party, and the collapse of bipartisan collegiality. I do not think it is a stretch to suggest a relationship between the two. To assert that I am on God's side and you are not, that I know God's will and you do not, and that I will use the power of government to advance my understanding of God's kingdom is certain to produce hostility.

By contrast, moderate Christians see ourselves, literally, as moderators. Far from claiming to possess God's truth, we claim only to be imperfect seekers of the truth. We reject the notion that religion should present a series of wedge issues useful at election time for energizing a political base. We believe it is God's work to practice humility, to wear tolerance on our sleeves, to reach out to those with whom we disagree, and to overcome the meanness we see in today's politics.

For us, religion should be inclusive, and it should seek to bridge the differences that separate people. We do not exclude from worship those whose opinions differ from ours. Following a Lord who sat at the table with tax collectors and sinners, we welcome to the Lord's table all who would come. Following a Lord who cited love of God and love of neighbor as encompassing all the commandments, we reject a political agenda that displaces that love. Christians who hold these convictions ought to add their clear voice of moderation to the debate on religion in politics.

Still not sure what that support for Clarence Thomas was about, frankly, but it's what he says, not what he did, that matters this time.

The Fat Lady is in the wings, bound and gagged....

Sadly, there are indications the Schindlers are behind Jeb Bush's push to investigate Michael Schiavo's actions 15 years ago in another state (does Florida even have jurisdiction in this matter?):

Governor Bush, who vehemently fought the court-ordered removal of Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube, said he decided to seek an investigation after speaking with Dr. Jon R. Thogmartin, the medical examiner who conducted the autopsy, on Tuesday, a day before his report was released.
....
The question of whether Ms. Schiavo's husband purposely delayed seeking help was never a significant issue in the case. A lawyer for Ms. Schiavo's parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, mentioned it after the autopsy report came out on Wednesday and said he had pointed it out in a letter to Dr. Thogmartin shortly after Ms. Schiavo's death, at age 41, on March 31.
.....
The Schindlers' lawyer, David Gibbs, said on Friday that for years they had focused on fighting to prolong their daughter's life, but that the autopsy report rekindled their curiosity about the time inconsistencies.

Inconsistencies which cannot, of course, ever be resolved.

As I said, life is not like Perry Mason. You never find out exactly what happened.

ADDENDUM: Somebody find the Lady, and cut her loose. Doxagora points this out:

From the summary coroner report (June 13, 2005):

On February 5th 1990 ... a 911 call was made at approximately 0540hrs. Both Mr. Schiavo and Bobby Schindler were present prior to arrival of emergency responders.

Yes, someone's got some 'splaining to do.

Fearlessly upholding the standard of "Better Late Than Never"...

The New York Times editorial board:

The Bush administration says 9/11 changed the rules and required the invention of new kinds of jails and legal procedures. Even if we accept that flawed premise, it is up to Congress to make new rules in a way that upholds American standards. The current setup - in which politically appointed ideologues make the rules behind closed doors - has done immense harm to the nation's image and increased the risk to every American in uniform.

A trial "says as much about the society that holds the trial as it does about the individual before it," Commander Swift reminded the Senate. "Our trials in the United States reflect who we are."

The detention camps should meet no less of a standard.

This whole business is making me rethink Reinhold Niebuhr's Moral Man and Immoral Society.

KAR 120C

In some ways, I agree with Jon Stewart. I'm tired of hearing about comparisons between those with whom you disagree politically and Adolf Hitler. As Stewart points out, it demeans Hitler.

George W. Bush is not Hitler, and this is not Nazi Germany. But otherwise, Andrew Greeley is right.

When I was 13, "The Prisoner" hit television as a "summer replacement" series. Years later I would find out that British television studios often made TV series that lasted for a designated run, not until the viewing audience lost interest and the advertisers stopped buying time. It was so good the second summer, when it was run again, I held a microphone to the TV speaker and taped episodes (the days before VCR's, if such a thing is imaginable to some of you). It has been 5 years since I've had a vacation. Today, my substitute vacation arrived: "The Prisoner" DVD Mega-set. Much to my delight, the shows have been "re-mastered" so they don't look or sound almost 40 years old. They look and sound like I remember them.

What does this have to do with Andrew Greeley? Only this much: "The Prisoner" was about a man of conscience, caught in an absurd world, where he could trust no one. His sole determination was to be defiant, and to maintain his integrity. But he was not a dangerous fool. He withheld information for his own reasons, reasons which were never explained (they couldn't have been, by the end, or his reason for existing would have gone with the explanation). He exemplified, in the strangest and most intriguing way possible, moral character.

So now I can spend the summer revisiting a teacher from my childhood. Remembering that lessons can be taught, without cant or banal analogies, or violence or foolishness. Well, some foolishness, but the British kind, the kind that mocks itself as much as the object of its mockery.

Oh, fiddle-faddle. It's summer, and I just intend to enjoy myself. The spectacle of what is actually happening is beginning to penetrate, to become a part of the public discourse. "The Prisoner" was an attempt to get some things into the public discourse, too; things that needed to be said, but couldn't be said. Leo McKern, in one of the episodes I still remember, outlines a vision of the future in which both "sides" in what is obviously the "Cold War" come to realize there is only one side: the side represented by the Village. It's a terrifically sardonic line. Try to imagine it being said today. Try to imagine it even getting on TV today.

That's what "The Prisoner" was, in 1968: something I couldn't imagine would get on TV. It didn't change the world; by itself, what does? Andrew Greeley's column won't change it, either. But candles in the darkness, nonetheless, are better than darkness. And No. 6 finally teaches us that we don't have to go along with the powers that be, whoever they be. A dangerous lesson, if followed without a moral compass. Fortunately, No. 6 always had his.

Be seeing you.

Where's the Fat Lady When You Need Her?

It seems Watertiger and Thersites were right. It's not over.

But it's not the parents of Terri Schiavo this time.

Gov. Jeb Bush asked a prosecutor Friday to investigate why Terri Schiavo collapsed 15 years ago, calling into question a gap in time from when her husband found the woman and called 911.

In a letter he faxed to Pinellas-Pasco County State Attorney Bernie McCabe, Bush said Michael Schiavo testified in a 1992 medical malpractice trial that he found his wife collapsed at 5 a.m. and he said in a 2003 television interview that he found her at about 4:30 a.m. He called 911 at about 5:40 a.m.

"Between 40 and 70 minutes elapsed before the call was made, and I am aware of no explanation for the delay," Bush said. "In light of this new information, I urge you to take a fresh look at this case without any preconceptions as to the outcome.

I'll retire to Bedlam.....

Addendum: already, via Eschaton, more here. Bedlam still looks inviting.

The War Prayer

The real essence of Twain's famous "War Prayer" is not that war is horrible, or that we should be careful what we ask for, we might get it. It is that we don't want to know what war is like. Remember the outrage over "Fahrenheit 911"? Much of it focussed on Moore's use of film of people in Baghdad before and after the bombs starting falling.

Via Holden, I learned this morning that the U.S. is using "something like" napalm in Iraq, MK77. This comes out because the U.S. lied to the British about using MK77. Interestingly, this information has been available on the U.S. State Department's website. Interestingly, the story comes out in a British newspaper. And while I share Holden's outrage about the use of this incendiary device (it is properly "internationally reviled"), to me, this is the "money quote:"

Mr Ingram did not explain why the US officials had misled him, but the US and British governments were accused of a cover-up. The Iraq Analysis Group, which campaigned against the war, said the US authorities only admitted the use of the weapons after the evidence from reporters had become irrefutable.

I can find only one news reference to MK77, by Indymedia. I can't get that link to work, but I've heard some of Indymedia's servers are down, perhaps permanently. It may be the link went with them. That, however, is all Google has to show. Which leaves me wondering which "reporters" are being referred to in that article.

What is MK77? According to the article, "...an evolution of the napalm used in Vietnam and Korea, [the bombs] carry kerosene-based jet fuel and polystyrene so that, like napalm, the gel sticks to structures and to its victims. The bombs lack stabilising fins, making them far from precise."

The mixture inside is, in fact, napalm. It has no stablizing fins so it can spread the gellied substance over a wider area. Each MK77 canister carries about 75 gallons of napalm. It is understandable why it is "internationally reviled" as a weapon of war. Dropping the name for the military bomb designation is a cheap bit of rhetorical sleight-of-hand. But then again, the U.S. seems to operate under the rubric of "don't ask, don't tell."

And has, at least since the time of Mark Twain.

Texas Kitsch Blogging Goes International! Part 2!

Godzilla wishes to introduce you to German Texas Kitsch.

It doesn't show up clearly here (unfortunately), but the decoration atop the stein is a cowboy boot, and there is a revolver, barrel down, on the lever which lefts the lid. This is a souvenir of the Texas Sesquicentennial from New Braunfels, Texas. It features a German Cowboy riding a very "German" horse. Ever seen "What's Opera, Doc?" At the end Elmer and Bugs ride away on a "Germanic" horse that is all torso on disproportionately short legs. That's the horse on this stein.


The Gang of Three

True internationalism in Kitsch Blogging. The stein on the far left is from the Texas Renaissance Festival, a celebration of English culture on the Gulf plains of Texas where the climate most closely resembles that of Calcutta. The Hofbrau stein is from Germany. All three are proudly used, from time to time. Just as the Pez dispensers are.

What? We haven't gotten to the Pez dispensers? Sorry, already getting ahead of myself.

We Report, You Decide

"As someone who knows Iraq, speaks Arabic, and spent seven years in the Middle East, if the Iraqis believe rightly or wrongly that we come only for oil and occupation, they will begin a long, bloody war of attrition. It is how they drove the British out. And remember that, when the Israelites invaded southern Lebanon in 1982, they were greeted by the dispossesed Shiites as liberators, but within a few months, when the Shiites saw that the Israels had come not as liberators but as occupiers, they began to kill them. It was Israel who created Hezbollah, and it was Hezbollah that pushed Israel out of southern Lebanon."

Chris Hedges, May, 2003, in a speech to the graduating class of Rockford College, Rockford, Illinois, from Losing Moses on the Freeway (New York: Free Press 2005), p. 95.

Press Secretary Scott McClellan, today:

Q Scott, is the insurgency in Iraq in its last throes?

MR. McCLELLAN: Terry, you have a desperate group of terrorists in Iraq that are doing everything they can to try to derail the transition to democracy. The Iraqi people have made it clear that they want a free and democratic and peaceful future. And that's why we're doing everything we can, along with other countries, to support the Iraqi people as they move forward. The fact that they are making great progress on the political front is significant because that helps defeat the terrorists, because the terrorists don't want to see democracy take hold. They don't want lasting democratic institutions to be put in place. And that's why we are standing with the Iraqi people as they move forward on the political front.

[snip]

Q But the insurgency is in its last throes?

MR. McCLELLAN: The Vice President talked about that the other day -- you have a desperate group of terrorists who recognize how high the stakes are in Iraq. A free Iraq will be a significant blow to their ambitions.

Q But they're killing more Americans, they're killing more Iraqis. That's the last throes?

MR. McCLELLAN: Innocent -- I say innocent civilians. And it doesn't take a lot of people to cause mass damage when you're willing to strap a bomb onto yourself, get in a car and go and attack innocent civilians. That's the kind of people that we're dealing with. That's what I say when we're talking about a determined enemy.

Q Right. What is the evidence that the insurgency is in its last throes?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think I just explained to you the desperation of terrorists and their tactics.

Q What's the evidence on the ground that it's being extinguished?

MR. McCLELLAN: Terry, we're making great progress to defeat the terrorist and regime elements. You're seeing Iraqis now playing more of a role in addressing the security threats that they face. They're working side by side with our coalition forces. They're working on their own. There are a lot of special forces in Iraq that are taking the battle to the enemy in Iraq. And so this is a period when they are in a desperate mode.

Q Well, I'm just wondering what the metric is for measuring the defeat of the insurgency.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, you can go back and look at the Vice President's remarks. I think he talked about it.

Q Yes. Is there any idea how long a last throe lasts for?

MR. McCLELLAN: Go ahead, Steve.

Also today:

A resolution calling on President Bush to announce an exit strategy from Iraq was introduced in the House today by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, including one who was once so upset about French opposition to the war that he wanted the House cafeterias to change the name "French fries" to "freedom fries."

Two Republicans and two Democrats held a news conference in which they prodded President Bush to announce a withdrawal timetable by the end of the year. Their resolution calls on him to start bringing American troops home by Oct. 1, 2006.

Bloomsday

for Thersites

"Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him on the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:
--Introibo ad altare Dei."

It's also the birthday of Joyce Carol Oates, named for James Joyce.

I'm looking for my copy of Joyce's Chamber Music. So titled, he said, not for the musical association, but in honor of the sound of his wife in the morning, filling the chamber pot. Some things do become anachronisms, and require interpretation.

Later:

Found it.

Gentle lady, do not sing
Sad songs about the end of love;
Lay aside sweetness and sing
How love that passes through is enough.

Sing about the long deep sleep
Of lovers that are dead and how
In the grave of all love shall sleep.
Love is aweary now.

Jame Joyce, Chamber Music (London: Grossman, 1971)

What is Prayer For?

It depends entirely upon who's asking, and sometimes, even when.

Just a moment ago, I was reading my prayer book, and the words struck me as entirely new.

Sometimes it is just about ritual:

God, open my lips,/ and my mouth shall declare your praise. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Sometimes it is just about bathing your mind in words like these, words the world simply does not provide:

ANTIPHON
(Ordinary): God is kind and full of compassion,
slow to anger, abounding in love.

An invitation the world would do well to emulate, and Christians would do well to listen to:'

PSALM 65 (64)

Praise is yours, God in Zion.
Now is the moment
to keep our vow,
for you, God, are listening.
All people come to you bringing their shameful deeds.
You free us from guilt,
from overwhelming sin.

Happy are those you invite
and then welcome to your courts.

Prayer is for oneself; and for others.

PSALM 84 (83)

Your temple is my joy, Lord of heaven's might.
I am eager for it,
eager for the courts of God. My flesh, my flesh sings its joy to the living God.
As a sparrow homing,
a swallow seeking a nest to hatch its young,
I am eager for your altars, Lord of heaven's might, My king, my God.

To live with you is joy,
to praise you and never stop. Those you bless with courage
will bless you from their hearts.
When they cross the Valley of Thirst the ground is spaced with springs, with the welcome rain of autumn. They travel the towns to reach
the God of gods in Zion.

Hear me, Lord of might;
hear me, God of Jacob.
God our shield, look,
see the face of your anointed.
One day within your courts
is worth a thousand without.
I would rather stand at God's gate than move among the wicked.

And prayer reminds us God is active in history, just as ritual reminds us that we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, throughout space and throughout time.

BENEDICTUS ANTIPHON
(Ordinary): A pure heart create for me, O God; put a steadfast spirit within me.

BENEDICTUS

Praise the Lord, the God of Israel,
who shepherds the people and sets them free.
God raises from David's house
a child with power to save.
Through the holy prophets
God promised in ages past
to save us from enemy hands,
from the grip of all who hate us.
The Lord favored our ancestors
recalling the sacred covenant,
the pledge to our ancestor Abraham,
to free us from our enemies,
so we might worship without fear
and be holy and just all our days.
And you, child, will be called
Prophet of the Most High,
for you will come to prepare
a pathway for the Lord
by teaching the people salvation
through forgiveness of their sin.

Out of God's deepest mercy
a dawn will come from on hight,
light for those shadowed by death,
a guide for our feet on the way to peace.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

A pure heart create for me, O God; put a steadfast spirit within me.

Our Father....

Eternal light, you want all creation to live in harmony. Grace us with the instruments of good works, and the desire to use them to build your kingdom among us. We pray this through Christ, and in the Spirit. Amen.

May God bless us and keep us. May God smile upon us and be gracious to us. May God look upon us kindly, and give us peace. Amen.

Let us bless God/and give thanks.

In search of a living faith

It's been a while since I posted anything of substance, and, I figure, why start now? There are some great discussions already going on that I'd like to follow for a while, so I'm making an appeal here instead.

Its related to a topic we've discussed many times before here-spirituality. As part of my ordination journey, I need to be active in a congregation. Some lucky candidates get paid positions on church staffs, but as I'm not particularly good at marketing myself, I haven't been favored with that opportunity since getting out of seminary. Therefore, I went to my senior pastor and lobbied hard for an increasing level of participation on a volunteer basis, preferably in a clear leadership capacity. I was angling for the youth ministry, but as we began discussing how I understood my calling and my previous experiences with youth ministry, it soon emerged that there was a better use for me. Both of us separately had come to the conclusion that our church, which is richly blessed with academics and theologians of all stripes, have a rather outstanding adult education program in areas of Biblical studies and theology (heck, we even offer classes in Biblical Hebrew and Greek). Where we are sadly deficient is in the area of spiritual formation-exploring our personal faith and deepening our relationship with God. There has been an expressed need in the church for some time, but no one was willing to step up and get some programs going.

Well, I expressed my willingness, actually my eagerness, to take on this responsibility, so I am now the Minister of Spiritual Formation (we thought it sounded a little less naughty than Minister of Spiritual Discipline). I am excited and blessed to have this opportunity and the wholehearted support of the staff.

While I have some ideas of where this can go, I'd like to extend to this community a request: if you know of or have had experience of a particularly helpful method of encouraging and nurturing spiritual discipline, tell me about it. If a study has been helpful, let me know the title. If you've often wanted to engage in such an activity before, but haven't, please tell me why and how you think you could be encouraged to walk this path. I'm interested in all aspects of this, and responses needn't be limited to specifically Christian forms of spiritual discipline.

So...please allow me to learn from you and share it with others. Thank you.

Not with a bang....

Per NPR earlier this afternoon, Ms. Sciavo had the least amount of brain left that any medical expert interviewed had ever seen in an adult. Alzheimer's patients, it was reported, sometimes get down to 800 grams. Ms. Sciavo, at the time of her death, was below 700, almost to 600. She was blind. She could not feed herself In fact, trying to feed her by mouth would kill her directly, or lead to pneumonia.

No therapy, of course, could have restored neurons.

And in response, through lawyers, Mr. Sciavo points out that this proves he was right all along. The parents insist Ms. Sciavo could have recovered with therapy.

And there the matter ends, like all court cases end. Not with a Perry Mason flourish in which even the defeated admit defeat, and the guilty confess their guilt. No, no such neat bows in real life. The matter ends, not with a bang, but a whimper.

God's peace be upon Michael Sciavo, and upon the parents and siblings of Terri Sciavo.

Signs of the Times

Just noticed this on a (non-denominational) church sign as I was passing:

Give up your small ambitions. Come and save the world.

Is it just me, or is this a peculiarly American form of hubris?

Worth Noting

John Conyers, in this interview with Amy Goodman, notes that President Bush is denying that he ever wanted to go to war or use military power against Saddam Hussein, except as a last resort, while the apologists for the "Downing Street Memo" excuse it as: "everybody knew we were going to go to war."

"I started a joke/which started the whole world crying...."

Somehow, over at Eschaton, comments about Dr. Howard Dean turned into a brief discussion of Augustine of Hippo (one never know, do one?). And this got mentioned:

Is this the Augustine who went on to become St. Augustine? Interesting that he had a libertine youth before his sudden repentance, especially on the subject of sex. Reminds me of dubya's sudden "born again" moment. - int argc, Smiling Conqueror

Which led me to respond with this:

Where the whole concept of such a 'conversion' began. It later became a staple of frontier American Christianity largely because Luther was an Augustinian monk. Indeed, Krister Stendahl (a Lutheran pastor and scriptural scholar) argues convincingly that Augustine's Confessions is the beginning of the interiorization of self-consciousness in Western thought, which reach its fullest flower in European Romanticism.

Which was, not coincidentally, the age of Soren Kierkegaard, one of the forerunners of Existentialism. Augustine and Romanticism both greatly effected Rousseau, who in turn had a profound influence on German and French Existentialism, and on modern phenomenology.

There is an 'eternal golden braid' that reaches from Paul through Augustine to modern philosophy. (Did I mention the connection to Paul? No? Drat!)

Which led to the good Prior to respond with this:

Augustine's conversion would have been the first

If not for St. Paul...
Prior Aelred

and then this:

I find one of the fascinating things in the West is that Augustine's invention of the individual goes underground until the 12th Century Renaissance (Bernard of Clairvaux, Aelred of Rievaulx) -- Augustine was influential in between, but not the Confessions -- rather his Commentaries, esp on John & the Psalms

Whence self consciousness, does it wax & wane with community centeredness? Does it relate somehow to introversion & extroversion (do extroverts have souls? ) -- the Enneagram?
Prior Aelred

And since the topic was so intrinsically fascinating, and I didn't want the light of it to go out, I brought it over here (besides, these are my public notebooks. I'm laying out a variety of ideas, trying to see which ones I can develop into something fruitful, or at least worth the attention).

But already I realize how long this is going to go. So I'll try to make essential connections first, then connect the dots a bit later.

First, the self-consciousness we are all so sure is a part of human nature, is actually just a social construct. It's a way of viewing the world we are taught, as part of our human identity. (The whole concept of identity is a fascinating one. We are all appalled at the thought of men like Socrates engaging in sexual activities with young men or even young boys. While Paul condemned the practice, the Hellenistic Greeks apparently considered it perfectly civilized behavior. Partly because we now identify ourselves as sexual beings, we condemn the alleged actions of Michael Jackson. Sexual scars, we understand, do lasting damage. But is that because of human biology, something immutable? Or because of human society? Is our identity, in other words, a social construct? Or a biological necessity?)

So, per Krister Stendahl, the interiorization of self-consciousness in Western culture begins with Augustine, who taught us to read Paul as the originator of Christian self-consciousness. "Wrteched creature that I am, who is there to rescue me from this state of death?" (Romans 7:24, REB). In Stendhal's reading, that famous statement does not say what we've all been taught it says. That's one point to return to.

Another is the idea of individuality. Prior Aelred is right (as usual) that it does not follow a clear line from Augustine to the present. In many ways, Augustine was ahead of his time. It took the Augustinian monk Martin Luther to put Augustine again at the center of Western consciousness and conscience. We can trace that line, too, with a little help from our friends. And it is no coincidence that a Lutheran seminary student, Søren Kierkegaard, reasserted the primacy of the individual in mid-19th century Denmark. Nor that he did it at the very apogee of Romanticism in Europe. And what is the connection between individualism and community? What are the boundaries there, between Same and other?

Lastly, we can even enter into the conversation about "call" v. "conversion." Stendahl argues that Paul's experience on the road to Damascus is not exactly a conversion at all, as it is not a change from one religion to another (!). And again Augustine is our model: not only was Paul "blameless before the law" as a good Pharisee (something Augustine makes abundantly clear in the Confessions that he was not; blameless, that is), but Augustine went from pagan to Christian (and finally non-Pelagian), while Paul went from Jew (or perhaps Hebrew is less anachronistic) to: the first Jew for Jesus?

We have several places to go with these issues.

"So far away from home...."

Apparently it is now official: we are no longer a government of laws, but a government of men. Of old, white men, who want to make sure we are afraid, very afraid:

"The United States government, let alone the U.S. military, does not want to be in the position of holding suspected terrorists any longer than is absolutely necessary," Rumsfeld said. "But as long as there remains a need to keep terrorists from striking again, a facility will continue to be needed."

But wait, as the TV commercials say, there's more.

Sen. John McCain has said: "I think the key to this is to move the judicial process forward so that these individuals will be brought to trial for any crime that they are accused of rather than residing in Guantanamo facility in perpetuity." Secretary Rumsfeld's answer?

"The real problem is not Guantanamo Bay," Rumsfeld said. "The problem is that, to a large extent, we are in unexplored territory with this unconventional and complex struggle against extremism. Traditional doctrines covering criminals and military prisoners do not apply well enough."

"They're not common car thieves," Rumsfeld said of the Guantanamo prisoners. "They're believed to be determined killers."

So, of course, are serial killers. Who tend to be white males. No word on when we start rounding them up for the safety of American society. Or when we start locking up anyone who might be a pedophile. We have yet, of course, to declare a war on pedophilia, but that's just a technicality.

Attorney General Gonzalez apparently can't be bothered to comment on these legal matters.

Strange Fruit

The Senate vote on the resolution to apologize for blocking anti-lynching legislation has me wondering: what is "mere philosophy"?

The pictures from "Without Sanctuary" are, unfortunately, no longer available on the Web. But what was most disturbing about those pictures was not the subject matter: it was the casual way they were passed around, across America, as postcards. People even posed for pictures, and companies would gladly turn these personal photos into cards suitable for mailing home to family and friends, who apparently gratefully received them. And we look at this now and ask: "How could this happen?" And that's when I ask: what is "mere philosophy"?

Something changed, finally, in American culture. Something said "This should not be." And perhaps in revulsion at what we were, we shunned what we had done, covered it up, buried it so we could ignore it. How many people growing up in Oklahoma, for example, learn about the Tulsa race riot of 1921? But how did such things happen, why were they tolerated, and why aren't they tolerated now?

Because of Lyndon Johnson? Because of Civil Rights Laws? Because of the Voting Rights Act? all of those laws and LBJ's mastery of the legislative process were crucial, no doubt; as was Brown v. Board of Education. But from what impulse did those changes spring? Revulsion with lynching, with race riots, with racism? Probably. And where did that revulsion come from? Mere philosophy? LBJ was moved by the experiences of his childhood, but those experiences gave rise to ideas; it was ideas he acted on, not mere experience.

Philosophy and theology are not reducible to originating causes; and they are not reducible to marginalia, either, to the mere explanations after the fact of what people do. If the universe operates on principles of cause and effect, then there is a cause that effects a change of heart, that effects even revulsion at cruelty and no longer accepts it as a necessary concomitant of "civil order." Lynching was celebrated in this country; and then it was reviled. Because of impersonal historical forces, the inexorable workings of Hegel's thesis against antithesis? That is mere philosophy, intellectual rationalization after the fact about events philosophy doesn't wish to grasp. But what caused the change? Why did people decide lynching was not to be celebrated? What resonated to turn people against inhuman treatment and begin to regard the victims as humans?

Not just religious conviction; not just tradition or church teachings or compassion. Something more fundamental than that. Something like "mere philosophy." Something like "mere theology."

The universe is not moving rapidly towards justice. But it does not move at all unless our ideas move us.

"Humankind cannot bear very much reality"--T.S. Eliot

Or, News of the Day:

From Juan Cole (via Holden at First Draft):

Reuters reports, "Iraqi doctors say they are concerned over an increase in Tuberculosis (TB) cases in the southeastern city of Amarah, fueled by a shortage of medicine and poor living conditions." Iraqi governments during the past 50 years had gotten the problem under control in that region.

My count of dead and wounded for Monday is many times higher than that in the mainstream media, whether the Washington Post or even the wire services. The numbers are arrived at by collating incidents reported in AFP and by Knight Ridder, and adding in incidents and casualties reported in the Baghdad daily, al-Zaman. Bad as things are in Iraq, I still don't think the full tragedy is getting out to the American public.

And from the NYT Letters:

To the Editor:

You urge Congress to "undo the damage and restore the separation of church and state as a showcase principle" at the Air Force Academy.

Sadly, when I offered an amendment in the House Armed Services Committee to do just that, it was criticized by some of my colleagues as "political correctness." One suggested that the wall separating religion and state is "mythical." Later, when I offered a similar amendment to the Rules Committee, it was defeated by a party-line vote.

These actions suggest that the fault lies not in the Air Force Academy itself; the fault lies in the halls of Congress. That is why I have proposed a bipartisan presidential commission to explore fully how an appropriate balance may be reached between the personal expression of faith and the constitutional separation of religion and state throughout our military.

(Rep.) Steve Israel
Huntington, N.Y., June 11, 2005

And proof, if you needed it, that denial is a powerful force:

Start with American Exceptionalism (it's worked for 200 years):

Vice President Dick Cheney strongly defended the American prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on Monday, saying that it was essential to the administration's efforts to combat terrorism and that detainees there had been treated better by the United States than they could expect to be treated "by virtually any other government on the face of the earth."

Add fear-mongering and the opportunity to mention many have been released due to a Supreme Court ruling (but not in accordance with it, so don't mention the ruling itself):

To bolster his remarks, made in a speech at the National Press Club, Mr. Cheney added to the administration's previous warnings about the dangers of moving too quickly to free the more than 500 prisoners held at Guantánamo. He provided new details about what he said had been at least 10 released detainees who later turned up on battlefields to try to kill American troops.

Mr. Cheney mentioned the name of Maulvi Abdul Ghaffar, a released Guantánamo prisoner who returned to Afghanistan and became a Taliban commander and was killed last year by Afghan forces. He also cited Mullah Shehzada, who he said returned from the prison to organize a jail break in Afghanistan, and who was killed last year by American forces.

Conveniently ignore the elephant in the room, and blame complaints on "partisan politics":

Most of the detainees at Guantánamo were captured during the war in Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002, and many of them have been held there for three years without being charged with any crime. The Senate Judiciary Committee is planning a hearing on Wednesday on the issue.

Mr. Cheney dismissed those who say the prison should be shut down. "My own personal view of it is that those who are most urgently advocating that we shut down Guantánamo probably don't agree with our policies anyway," Mr. Cheney said. He said that detainees at the prison were "properly housed and properly fed," and that their medical and religious needs were being met.

Mr. Cheney did not address a Pentagon inquiry this month that found that some American guards and interrogators had mistreated the Koran, in some cases intentionally.

And remember that humankind cannot bear very much reality:

The vice president's words were echoed in a news conference on Capitol Hill later in the day by Representative Duncan Hunter, a California Republican who is one of the Pentagon's most committed allies.

Mohamed al-Kahtani, believed to have been the planned 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11 terror plot, is held at Guantánamo, and Mr. Hunter said that Mr. Kahtani was eating well and had been given the materials he needed to practice Islam.

"The guy who wanted to drive that plane into the building at the World Trade Center is going to dine tomorrow on lemon fish with two types of vegetables, two types of fruit, and then he will be afforded his taxpayer-funded Koran, taxpayer-funded prayer beads and oil so he can pray, presumably to kill more Americans," Mr. Hunter said.

He added that it was a "myth" that detainees were tortured at Guantánamo.

A growing body of evidence has shown that a significant number of prisoners were subject to interrogations in which they were shackled to the floor for many hours, stripped or forced to urinate and defecate on themselves.

Which may explain why 6 in 10 Americans want some or all American troops to come home soon.

Above all, in defense of the Administration, don't mention freedom. Because clearly, freedom for "them" means chaos for us. Only we are permitted to know the joys of freedom, because only we can be trusted to be responsible with it.

Whatever "freedom" is.

Freedom and Dostoevsky and God

V (from Sabbaths 2003)

The politics of illusion, of death's money,
possesses us. This is the Hell, this
the nightmare into which Christ descended
from the cross, from which also he woke
and rose, striding godly forth, so free
that He appeared to Mary Magdalene
to be only the gardener walking about
in the new day, among the flowers.

--Wendell Berry, Given (Shoemaker Heard, Washington, D.C., 2005), p. 126

Or is this how we explain it?

"Stuff happens...And it's untidy, and freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things."

--Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense