30/08: From the NBA to Iraq
Category: American Lives
Posted by: an okie gardener
Tim James, first-round pick of the Miami Heat in 1999, now on duty with the U.S. Army in Iraq.
"I think of myself as a patriot," James said. "I wanted to give back to a country that gave so much to me."
Story here.
"I think of myself as a patriot," James said. "I wanted to give back to a country that gave so much to me."
Story here.
Category: American History and Politics
Posted by: an okie gardener
The deal has fallen apart that would have ended a lawsuit by two condo owners on land SMU wants to use to build the George Bush Presidential Library. Story.
G.W. should have gone with Baylor.
G.W. should have gone with Baylor.
26/08: Fritz Lang
Category: Films & Ideas
Posted by: an okie gardener
Christianity Today has a very interesting article on the Austrian film director Fritz Lang as a part of their series on filmakers and faith. Lang made films first in pre-Nazi Germany (e.g. Metropolis, M, Die Niebelungen, the Dr. Mabuse films) and then in the U.S. (e.g. The Big Heat, Scarlet Street)
The recent decision by the Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELCA) to allow gays and lesbians in a committed same-sex relationship to serve in the ministry, rests on the theological reasoning found in "Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust," a document approved last week at the national meeting. For full text go here, then click on the link to the document. Adobe Reader required.
In the document, Christian duty is defined as loving God and neighbor. Ideal human relationships in all forms are defined by trust. In many ways this document is an excellant example of faithful theological reflection done at a high level. The problem with the document is not so much what it says explicitly, as what it implies, and its tone against "conscience-bound" thinking.
I see three major problems that led to the present ELCA position.
First, in Lutheran understanding, the Law of God (broader than the 10 Commandments and including all of God's commands) has two uses: the Theological in which Law convicts us of sin by making us aware of our shortcomings, and the Civil in which Law guides civil society by helping provide godly structure (e.g. don't murder). In Reformed understanding the Law (again understood as all God's commandments) has three functions: to convict of sin, to guide the Christian in living a life of gratitude to God for salvation, and as a guide for civil society. In the Reformed understanding we Christians are naturally clueless about how to love and trust unless guided by God's Law. It seems to me that the Lutheran document "Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust" does not allow sufficient Scriptural guidance on the specifics of loving and trusting. Years ago my seminary professor of historical theology noted that if Luther were pushed off-balance, he would fall an antinomian. And that while Luther kept his balance, his disciples have not always done so.
Second, I think the document does not follow traditional Lutheran concepts of authority in understanding the Christian life. Both the Reformed and the Lutheran understandings elevate the Word of God above all other sources of authority, including experience. We are to evaluate our experience on the basis of Scripture. Yes, we bring our experience with us to our reading, but, human experience always must stand under the Word of God, never be equal to it, or superior. "Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust" seems to me to elevate human experience, including the social sciences, to a determanitive position over clearly worded Scriptures.
Third, I think the document takes a too disembodied view of human life, opening the possibility of a proto-gnostic ethic in which bodily existence is meaningless. "Love" and "Trust" in sexual relationships become divorced from the physical reality of ovaries and testes. While human sexuality is more than the physical spect of our being, it is not less.
In the document, Christian duty is defined as loving God and neighbor. Ideal human relationships in all forms are defined by trust. In many ways this document is an excellant example of faithful theological reflection done at a high level. The problem with the document is not so much what it says explicitly, as what it implies, and its tone against "conscience-bound" thinking.
I see three major problems that led to the present ELCA position.
First, in Lutheran understanding, the Law of God (broader than the 10 Commandments and including all of God's commands) has two uses: the Theological in which Law convicts us of sin by making us aware of our shortcomings, and the Civil in which Law guides civil society by helping provide godly structure (e.g. don't murder). In Reformed understanding the Law (again understood as all God's commandments) has three functions: to convict of sin, to guide the Christian in living a life of gratitude to God for salvation, and as a guide for civil society. In the Reformed understanding we Christians are naturally clueless about how to love and trust unless guided by God's Law. It seems to me that the Lutheran document "Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust" does not allow sufficient Scriptural guidance on the specifics of loving and trusting. Years ago my seminary professor of historical theology noted that if Luther were pushed off-balance, he would fall an antinomian. And that while Luther kept his balance, his disciples have not always done so.
Second, I think the document does not follow traditional Lutheran concepts of authority in understanding the Christian life. Both the Reformed and the Lutheran understandings elevate the Word of God above all other sources of authority, including experience. We are to evaluate our experience on the basis of Scripture. Yes, we bring our experience with us to our reading, but, human experience always must stand under the Word of God, never be equal to it, or superior. "Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust" seems to me to elevate human experience, including the social sciences, to a determanitive position over clearly worded Scriptures.
Third, I think the document takes a too disembodied view of human life, opening the possibility of a proto-gnostic ethic in which bodily existence is meaningless. "Love" and "Trust" in sexual relationships become divorced from the physical reality of ovaries and testes. While human sexuality is more than the physical spect of our being, it is not less.
Category: Mainline Christianity
Posted by: an okie gardener
Last week the ELCA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the nation's largest Lutheran body, voted to permit practicing gay and lesbian clergy to hold office so long as they were in a committed relationship.
From the ELCA website:
MINNEAPOLIS (ELCA) - The 2009 Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) voted today to open the ministry of the church to gay and lesbian pastors and other professional workers living in committed relationships.
The action came by a vote of 559-451 at the highest legislative body of the 4.6 million member denomination. Earlier the assembly also approved a resolution committing the church to find ways for congregations that choose to do so to "recognize, support and hold publicly accountable life-long, monogamous, same gender relationships," though the resolution did not use the word "marriage."
The actions here change the church's policy, which previously allowed people who are gay and lesbian into the ordained ministry only if they remained celibate.
The AP has a report including quotes from supporters and opponents of the change. Link via The Layman Online.
The ELCA now joins the Episcopal Church and the United Church of Christ in officially permitting practicing gay and lesbian clergy. A similar move passed the most recent Presbyterian (PCUSA) national gathering, but was defeated by the local presbyteries. The local structures of the United Methodist Church this summer defeated a policy passed at the national level that would have had the effect of prohibiting congregations from practicing discipline on members practicing same-sex sex.
The Reformed Church in America (RCA) this summer at our national meeting voted to refrain from any actions regarding same-sex practice while a dialuge continues on the issue. (We are a house divided and trying to avoid a split.)
From the ELCA website:
MINNEAPOLIS (ELCA) - The 2009 Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) voted today to open the ministry of the church to gay and lesbian pastors and other professional workers living in committed relationships.
The action came by a vote of 559-451 at the highest legislative body of the 4.6 million member denomination. Earlier the assembly also approved a resolution committing the church to find ways for congregations that choose to do so to "recognize, support and hold publicly accountable life-long, monogamous, same gender relationships," though the resolution did not use the word "marriage."
The actions here change the church's policy, which previously allowed people who are gay and lesbian into the ordained ministry only if they remained celibate.
The AP has a report including quotes from supporters and opponents of the change. Link via The Layman Online.
The ELCA now joins the Episcopal Church and the United Church of Christ in officially permitting practicing gay and lesbian clergy. A similar move passed the most recent Presbyterian (PCUSA) national gathering, but was defeated by the local presbyteries. The local structures of the United Methodist Church this summer defeated a policy passed at the national level that would have had the effect of prohibiting congregations from practicing discipline on members practicing same-sex sex.
The Reformed Church in America (RCA) this summer at our national meeting voted to refrain from any actions regarding same-sex practice while a dialuge continues on the issue. (We are a house divided and trying to avoid a split.)
A week or so before Election Day 2008, it occurred to me that a John McCain victory could well spell disaster for the American Experiment. Why? Half the nation would NOT accept him as president. Half the nation, so thoroughly appalled by the past eight years, had completely distorted the life and essence of a good man.
Ironically, most of these same tormenters had profusely professed to admire McCain as a man of singular integrity just a few short months before. But the frenzied stakes of a national campaign for ultimate power transformed their erstwhile hero into the personification of Republican evil. This powerful contingent in the American body politic had traveled down the road with Republicans as far as they were prepared to go. Another Republican president—no matter how virtuous—risked civil war.
On the other hand, Barack Obama, an appealing newcomer and something of a blank slate, symbolized a fresh start as well as a dividend on the American promise. Once the votes were counted, many John McCain voters (like me) embraced the sunnier side of what we did not know about this new president. We stood optimistic about the unparalleled American tendency to produce transformational presidents from unlikely soil. We mostly watched the historic elevation of President Obama with moist eyes and high hopes.
Of course, it is worth noting that not all of the vanquished were ready to concede defeat. The Republican Party split to some extent—some of us eager to believe in miracles and another segment hunkered down with Rush and Sean Hannity rooting for abject failure.
Why did we hope? What was our unlikely aspiration? Perhaps our half of the GOP could find common cause with a less militant wing of the Democratic Party led by the President and a new generation of leaders not formed by the cultural turmoil of the 1960s. We understood that we were going to have to leave many of our friends behind--but maybe the "vital center" really was something more than a rhetorical flourish.
Most important in the calculation, we accepted the reality that our party handed off a crisis that posed an existential threat to our survival as a nation. Desperate times call for serious introspection and bold action. Perhaps the acute exigencies in our path might form a new political sensibility. Perhaps this President might actually transcend the partisan trench warfare that had visited such destruction on the political landscape over the past few decades and rally a new coalition in pursuit of our lethal common foes.
What did the President have to gain?
Actually, a radically sweeping political realignment offered distinct advantages. Looking down the road, it was clear to most objective observers that the center-right American citizenry would never fully accept the pungently “liberal” policies of the Nancy Pelosi-wing of the Democratic Party. If President Obama were to be a truly transformative president, he would need to act boldly—and his boldness would need to be forward-looking rather than rooted in the traditional liberal past.
He would need to jettison the rigidly partisan leadership on his side of the aisle and reach out to patriotic and pragmatic realists who would place American survival over party ideologies. While painful to initiate, a genuinely innovative coalition of interests might have guaranteed permanent political success for the President as well as an authentic prescription for national well being.
But, alas, the President decided to eschew the bold move and chose the path of least resistance. Republicans skeptics proved absolutely right. Even as he followed the established course of the Bush administration on Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Banking Crisis, the President cast his lot with the liberal ideologues in terms of his domestic agenda.
He used his power and popularity to “cram down” an extravagant and unprecedented $787 billion stimulus package. Even worse, the White House chose to be conspicuously absent in the legislative process, dashing hopes that the President would insure bipartisan participation and cooperation on Capitol Hill. Instead, he forced his opponents to swallow a bill created under the firm hand of Speaker Pelosi and her uncompromising leadership team.
His budget and “cap and trade” bill were further examples of a high-handed and strong-arm leadership style—and, even more disconcerting, further evidence that Speaker Pelosi was fast becoming the most powerful political player in Washington.
Enter the health care debate in which the President, once again, abdicated his role in crafting the legislation, once again, leaving the details to the House. The President chose to use (or misuse) his gift for rhetoric to oversimplify the discussion, too often employing “false choice” and “straw men” arguments. Too often, the President casts his opponents as shameless advocates for the unsustainable status quo working against the public good for nefarious reasons.
After unsuccessfully trying to blitz the American people into a half-baked bill, the President still seems inclined to berate us into submission on health care, disdainfully importuning us to overcome our ignorance and fear. The President needs to take a deep breath, slow down, and build a consensus to do the right thing. A consensus bill is out there. In truth, there is wide agreement on many of the most important elements of reform.
For the President, this truly is a time for choosing. To succeed, he must take the lead in a meaningful way. He must fulfill his promise to be a unifying president and reach across the aisle to come up with a pragmatic health care plan that addresses our real problems rather than pay off ideological expectations. This will anger his base—but he must place the good of his country above partisan politics.
While I am no longer Pollyannaish about a new era of selfless American political cooperation, there is still reason to hope that this President can work with elements of the loyal opposition to find bipartisan solutions to our most frightening challenges.
Godspeed to those elected officials of good will who are willing to work together for the common good.
Ironically, most of these same tormenters had profusely professed to admire McCain as a man of singular integrity just a few short months before. But the frenzied stakes of a national campaign for ultimate power transformed their erstwhile hero into the personification of Republican evil. This powerful contingent in the American body politic had traveled down the road with Republicans as far as they were prepared to go. Another Republican president—no matter how virtuous—risked civil war.
On the other hand, Barack Obama, an appealing newcomer and something of a blank slate, symbolized a fresh start as well as a dividend on the American promise. Once the votes were counted, many John McCain voters (like me) embraced the sunnier side of what we did not know about this new president. We stood optimistic about the unparalleled American tendency to produce transformational presidents from unlikely soil. We mostly watched the historic elevation of President Obama with moist eyes and high hopes.
Of course, it is worth noting that not all of the vanquished were ready to concede defeat. The Republican Party split to some extent—some of us eager to believe in miracles and another segment hunkered down with Rush and Sean Hannity rooting for abject failure.
Why did we hope? What was our unlikely aspiration? Perhaps our half of the GOP could find common cause with a less militant wing of the Democratic Party led by the President and a new generation of leaders not formed by the cultural turmoil of the 1960s. We understood that we were going to have to leave many of our friends behind--but maybe the "vital center" really was something more than a rhetorical flourish.
Most important in the calculation, we accepted the reality that our party handed off a crisis that posed an existential threat to our survival as a nation. Desperate times call for serious introspection and bold action. Perhaps the acute exigencies in our path might form a new political sensibility. Perhaps this President might actually transcend the partisan trench warfare that had visited such destruction on the political landscape over the past few decades and rally a new coalition in pursuit of our lethal common foes.
What did the President have to gain?
Actually, a radically sweeping political realignment offered distinct advantages. Looking down the road, it was clear to most objective observers that the center-right American citizenry would never fully accept the pungently “liberal” policies of the Nancy Pelosi-wing of the Democratic Party. If President Obama were to be a truly transformative president, he would need to act boldly—and his boldness would need to be forward-looking rather than rooted in the traditional liberal past.
He would need to jettison the rigidly partisan leadership on his side of the aisle and reach out to patriotic and pragmatic realists who would place American survival over party ideologies. While painful to initiate, a genuinely innovative coalition of interests might have guaranteed permanent political success for the President as well as an authentic prescription for national well being.
But, alas, the President decided to eschew the bold move and chose the path of least resistance. Republicans skeptics proved absolutely right. Even as he followed the established course of the Bush administration on Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Banking Crisis, the President cast his lot with the liberal ideologues in terms of his domestic agenda.
He used his power and popularity to “cram down” an extravagant and unprecedented $787 billion stimulus package. Even worse, the White House chose to be conspicuously absent in the legislative process, dashing hopes that the President would insure bipartisan participation and cooperation on Capitol Hill. Instead, he forced his opponents to swallow a bill created under the firm hand of Speaker Pelosi and her uncompromising leadership team.
His budget and “cap and trade” bill were further examples of a high-handed and strong-arm leadership style—and, even more disconcerting, further evidence that Speaker Pelosi was fast becoming the most powerful political player in Washington.
Enter the health care debate in which the President, once again, abdicated his role in crafting the legislation, once again, leaving the details to the House. The President chose to use (or misuse) his gift for rhetoric to oversimplify the discussion, too often employing “false choice” and “straw men” arguments. Too often, the President casts his opponents as shameless advocates for the unsustainable status quo working against the public good for nefarious reasons.
After unsuccessfully trying to blitz the American people into a half-baked bill, the President still seems inclined to berate us into submission on health care, disdainfully importuning us to overcome our ignorance and fear. The President needs to take a deep breath, slow down, and build a consensus to do the right thing. A consensus bill is out there. In truth, there is wide agreement on many of the most important elements of reform.
For the President, this truly is a time for choosing. To succeed, he must take the lead in a meaningful way. He must fulfill his promise to be a unifying president and reach across the aisle to come up with a pragmatic health care plan that addresses our real problems rather than pay off ideological expectations. This will anger his base—but he must place the good of his country above partisan politics.
While I am no longer Pollyannaish about a new era of selfless American political cooperation, there is still reason to hope that this President can work with elements of the loyal opposition to find bipartisan solutions to our most frightening challenges.
Godspeed to those elected officials of good will who are willing to work together for the common good.
16/08: Books for All Ages
Category: General
Posted by: an okie gardener
Brits at Their Best links to, and comments on, the book choices of two writers for readers of various ages. Interesting. I may need to reread The Wind in the Willows and Winnie the Pooh.
15/08: Truth in Memory
Category: American Culture
Posted by: an okie gardener
The summer of 1969. Forty years ago. Moon landing and Charles Manson and Woodstock.
Tonight I watched a "documentary" on the Woodstock festival. The overall tone was one of nostalgia: oh what a great time, a wonderful cosmic moment when we did things our way and all was peace and joy and love and wonder.
Some things were indeed amazingly wonderful about Woodstock: such a large crowd under adverse conditions and no violence. Amazing.
But I wish our collective memory were more honest. If it were, the mood would not be totally wistful and mellow.
Janis Joplin. Jimmy Hendrix. et al.
One interviewee termed Woodstock a spiritual experience. Maybe so. But remember, Dionysus brings both pleasure and death. His symbols include not only the vine, but also the leopard.
Tonight I watched a "documentary" on the Woodstock festival. The overall tone was one of nostalgia: oh what a great time, a wonderful cosmic moment when we did things our way and all was peace and joy and love and wonder.
Some things were indeed amazingly wonderful about Woodstock: such a large crowd under adverse conditions and no violence. Amazing.
But I wish our collective memory were more honest. If it were, the mood would not be totally wistful and mellow.
Janis Joplin. Jimmy Hendrix. et al.
One interviewee termed Woodstock a spiritual experience. Maybe so. But remember, Dionysus brings both pleasure and death. His symbols include not only the vine, but also the leopard.
Category: American History and Politics
Posted by: an okie gardener
American Exceptionalism and European Exceptionalism and White Exceptionalism are all alive and kicking.
"American Exceptionalism" refers to the belief that America is unique, chosen above all other nations by God for a special purpose in God's plan, a nation different from other nations. Historically, it is an attitude we inherited from Britain, which believed the same of itself. Allied with American Exceptionalism has been European Exceptionalism and White Exceptionalism.
We are tempted to believe that belief in the uniqueness of America and its special role in history is dead.
Not so.
Many people emphasize American Exceptionalism, European Exceptionalism, and White Exceptionalism. Just not in a postitive sense. Instead, whites seems exceptionally evil, Europeans exceptionally ruthless and imperial, and America exceptionally nasty.
From a Christian, and historical, perspective, both exceptionalisms seem the product of adolescent either/or thinking. Either a nation is wonderfully virtuous, or terrifyingly evil.
Whites do have a history of racism and cruelty: but so do other races. Europeans have been ruthless and imperial: but so were the Aztec, the Han of China, and Genghas Khan to name but a few. And American history has its nasty side, look at slavery, treaty-breaking, and treatment of Chinese, to name a few. But, every nation has its nasty side.
The strength, and historically demonstrable exceptionalism, is that in our system we can and have changed some things over time. And we have offered more people more liberty overall than any other empire I know.
St. Augustine said it best: all nations arise out of violence, but by God's providence can become restrainers of violence and protectors of peace.
"American Exceptionalism" refers to the belief that America is unique, chosen above all other nations by God for a special purpose in God's plan, a nation different from other nations. Historically, it is an attitude we inherited from Britain, which believed the same of itself. Allied with American Exceptionalism has been European Exceptionalism and White Exceptionalism.
We are tempted to believe that belief in the uniqueness of America and its special role in history is dead.
Not so.
Many people emphasize American Exceptionalism, European Exceptionalism, and White Exceptionalism. Just not in a postitive sense. Instead, whites seems exceptionally evil, Europeans exceptionally ruthless and imperial, and America exceptionally nasty.
From a Christian, and historical, perspective, both exceptionalisms seem the product of adolescent either/or thinking. Either a nation is wonderfully virtuous, or terrifyingly evil.
Whites do have a history of racism and cruelty: but so do other races. Europeans have been ruthless and imperial: but so were the Aztec, the Han of China, and Genghas Khan to name but a few. And American history has its nasty side, look at slavery, treaty-breaking, and treatment of Chinese, to name a few. But, every nation has its nasty side.
The strength, and historically demonstrable exceptionalism, is that in our system we can and have changed some things over time. And we have offered more people more liberty overall than any other empire I know.
St. Augustine said it best: all nations arise out of violence, but by God's providence can become restrainers of violence and protectors of peace.
14/08: My Beef with the President
He took me for a chump.
1. Too often the king of the "straw man" and the "false choice," the President misuses his gift for rhetoric to insinuate that the alternatives in re health care reform are "his way" or "no way." If you do NOT accept his plan, you shamelessly advocate maintaining the unsustainable status quo--and for nefarious reasons.
What should he have done? He should have worked as a "uniter" and reached across the aisle to come up with a pragmatic health reform that actually solved a few of our problems--instead of wasting his immense talent on selling a moldy partisan-ideological Utopian non-solution that creates many more problems that it alleviates.
2. In that vein, he does not have the stomach to face up to the real problems: how can you ever get to sustainability without rationing? How can we add coverage for forty-seven million people and pay less money into the system? And aren't all the so-called cost cutting schemes that whack insurance companies only a drop in the bucket? Where is the money coming from?
3. He tried to blitz us into a half-baked bill. Of course, it is easy to see now why the President and his brain trust did not want to be in the unenviable (maybe even untenable) position of trying to explain and defend this monstrosity in the public square. We needed some straight talk--but, instead, we got the White House bulldozer. Slow down and build a consensus to do the right thing.
4. The President will not own up to his own past. We know that he and his partisans are fundamentally committed to a universal one-payer system. He has said this. Many of the leaders of the Democratic Party have admitted this. I have never known a thoughtful liberal who did not sincerely believe that socialized medicine was the smartest and most humane option. Nevertheless, President Obama pretends that none of this well-documented history exists. In fact, he belittles any critics who bring up this inconvenient fact. He needs to acknowledge what we all know to be true--and be forthright about his predispositions. He should have begun this conversation in a more honest place.
1. Too often the king of the "straw man" and the "false choice," the President misuses his gift for rhetoric to insinuate that the alternatives in re health care reform are "his way" or "no way." If you do NOT accept his plan, you shamelessly advocate maintaining the unsustainable status quo--and for nefarious reasons.
What should he have done? He should have worked as a "uniter" and reached across the aisle to come up with a pragmatic health reform that actually solved a few of our problems--instead of wasting his immense talent on selling a moldy partisan-ideological Utopian non-solution that creates many more problems that it alleviates.
2. In that vein, he does not have the stomach to face up to the real problems: how can you ever get to sustainability without rationing? How can we add coverage for forty-seven million people and pay less money into the system? And aren't all the so-called cost cutting schemes that whack insurance companies only a drop in the bucket? Where is the money coming from?
3. He tried to blitz us into a half-baked bill. Of course, it is easy to see now why the President and his brain trust did not want to be in the unenviable (maybe even untenable) position of trying to explain and defend this monstrosity in the public square. We needed some straight talk--but, instead, we got the White House bulldozer. Slow down and build a consensus to do the right thing.
4. The President will not own up to his own past. We know that he and his partisans are fundamentally committed to a universal one-payer system. He has said this. Many of the leaders of the Democratic Party have admitted this. I have never known a thoughtful liberal who did not sincerely believe that socialized medicine was the smartest and most humane option. Nevertheless, President Obama pretends that none of this well-documented history exists. In fact, he belittles any critics who bring up this inconvenient fact. He needs to acknowledge what we all know to be true--and be forthright about his predispositions. He should have begun this conversation in a more honest place.
