Author Archives: Barbara

Winks

You might have heard about the juvenile frat boys who were disciplined by Old Dominion University for this:

Freshman women at Old Dominion University were given a very special welcome last week when they arrived on campus: Large banners that read “Rowdy and fun/Hope your baby girl is ready for a good time,” “Freshman daughter drop off,” and “Go ahead and drop off mom too.” Photos of the helpful offers to fornicate with women across multiple generations in the university community have since gone viral.

The banners were widely condemned by the university and other students, and the fraternity has been suspended pending further investigation. Note that it’s possible the fraternity itself wasn’t behind this and that the perps were just some stupid little boys who thought they were being clever.

My first reaction was to feel vindicated in my long-standing view that most young men ought to spend a couple of years keeping silence in a monastery somewhere before they’re allowed out into the world — I’m not picky about what sort of monastery, mind you. But apparently some on the Right think we’re making a big deal about nothing.

Hit and Run — It was protected speech and not really that offensive.

Comment at Daily Caller — “Good Lord, will people please get the sticks out of their behinds and find their sense of humor again! Yes, it’s not right, yes, it’s borderline sick, but still darkly funny, and the more people who thumb their noses at the PC police, the better.”

Comment at Fox News — “When you see the way FEMALE students behave on Spring break, especially in florida, Arizona or Mexico, to claim that one female student “even considered going back home” is the joke of the day. “

PJ Tattler — Reaction is just over-the-top hysteria. “You have to be out of your mind to believe that the banner-hangers had sexual assault or dating violence in mind when they put them up. “

Comment at PJ Tattler — “I am so glad our sons are out of college. Young males can’t do anything today without the ridiculous females crying they are “hurt”. “

I assume that last commenter doesn’t have daughters. Also there was a lot of nostalgia for “Animal House.”

Granted, stuff like this happened when I was in college (1969-1973) and was shrugged off. Boys will be boys, you know. But here are a couple of paragraphs from Rethinking Religion —

Also, as Hannah Arendt observed of Adolf Eichmann, sometimes “evil” people are those who mirror the values of their peers and culture, without self-reflection or thought of consequence. When we read about teenage boys brutalizing a girl and bragging about it on Twitter, for example, that’s what we’re seeing. And when other people try to cover up or trivialize the brutality, or blame the victim, that’s what we’re seeing. Because such acts are an expression of social and cultural values, and approved by peers, they don’t feel evil to those committing them.

And later, when the brutality has been exposed to the light of day, we want so very much to believe that the perpetrators are somehow abnormal, or monsters, or possessed of some aberrant quality that caused them to be brutal. But most of the time, in truth, there is nothing measurably abnormal about them at all. That’s why cultural values — not just the ones we pay lip service to, but the ones we wink at — have real-world consequences, also.

The fact is, whether we admit to it or not, popular culture still thinks it’s cool to objectify and sexually exploit women, and as long as that’s true there will always be soft-headed young men who will act out that behavior. And a few of those young men will end up with rape convictions, and then people will wring their hands and either wonder how he could have been such a monster, or isn’t it a shame his life is being ruined. And I’m proposing that the university is absolutely right for not winking at this stuff any more. And this is not just for the sake of the young women on campus, but also for the sake of young men — and also young women — who don’t have the sense God gave eggplant.

Whether there is or is not a rape crisis on campus, any more than there was when I was on campus, is a matter to argue over. However, it’s not outrageous or new for universities to have codes for how students should behave. Letting it be known that this behavior is not acceptable is a step in the right direction. And then maybe, eventually, as a culture we’ll stop winking.

Cross-posted at The Mahablog.

When Righteousness Kills – The Massacre in Paris

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Gunmen killed 12 people in the offices of a Paris satire magazine today. It’s widely assumed — and probably true — that the attacks were in retaliation for the magazine’s lampooning of militant Islam, although so far the “perps” have not been identified officially. In response, rightie blogs are having an insufferable self-righteousness orgy, and Richard Dawkins blames Islam. All of it.

Here is a page of cartoonists’ tributes to the magazine, Charlie Hebdo. I thought this one got closest to the truth of it.

Assuming the gunmen are fanatical Islamists seeking to “punish” the magazine — Yes, they assumed their righteousness trumped other peoples’ lives. Right now a lot of not-Islamic people are going to the same place. It ain’t the religion, folks, or at least not the religion by itself — see “Religious Violence Isn’t Just Religious.”

Update: See also “It Wasn’t About the Cartoons.”

The Boxes We Live In

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One of my favorite sayings, which was from my first Zen teacher, is “We all live in a box, and the walls of the box consist of who we think we are and what we think life should be.”

There are some heavy-duty spiritual implications in the quote that I’m mostly going to skip here. The important point is that the box is, in a way, a contrivance; a fantasy; a delusion. Ultimately, there is no box. Yet we live in it anyway, and stepping outside of it is unthinkable for most of us.

Civilization itself is a kind of meta-box, or net connecting all the boxes, created by our collective projections and conditionings. Civilization can be understood as an intricate net of assumptions and agreements that allow us to live together and deal with each other in complex ways. This net has been crafted from ancient times, and each generation has added a little more to it. We are conditioned from birth to accept civilization as it exists in our time, and it’s so “normal” to us we often are oblivious to what a complex and astonishing thing it has become. It’s like air to us; we take it for granted.

Remember also that we humans are social creatures, wired to form associations with other humans to survive. And I mean “wired” in a physiological sense. Infants and small children deprived of social contact have been found to have abnormal brain development. Adults isolated from other humans will develop all kinds of psychological problems. We literally need each other to be who we are.

But let’s get back to civilization. Modern civilization is elaborately integrated. The web grows tighter and tighter. Our “normal” life, maintaining the box we live in, depends increasingly on very complex interconnections with the other boxes even for basic things like food and shelter, never mind Internet connection.

As recently as 150 years ago it wasn’t uncommon for someone to build a cabin in the woods on unclaimed property and live off the land. It may have been a nasty, brutish, and short life by our standards, but it was within culturally accepted norms of the time. There may be a handful of people today who could still do that, but for the enormous majority it’s not an option. Even if they had the survival skills, which most don’t, there’s not enough wilderness left to accommodate all the disaffected people of the world. And, frankly, the box most of us live in wouldn’t allow for it, anyway.

These days, in developed nations anyway, life in the box requires connection to the power grid and clean running water brought to us from distant reservoirs. We depend on commerce to make food and clothing available. We depend on an intricate, and often capricious, legal and financial system to create shelters we can live in. We are required to find some means of adding value to the commercial and financial systems to that we can receive credits (money) to exchange for what we need and want. And we are drawn like ants to honey to new communication technologies, so that we can interconnect with each other to our heart’s content.

This is the box we live in. This is who we think we are and what we think life should be. Our dependencies on each other are not negated by money — I paid for this! Nobody gave it to me! Indeed, the paper we carry in our wallet or the numbers in our bank accounts have value only because they are integral parts of our system of inter- dependencies. Otherwise, they would be valueless. And if we were challenged to cobble our own shoes, build our own shelters, or grow our own food, most of us would make a botch of it.

This also is why Ayn Randism and the “John Galt” pledge are so ridiculous. We cannot live for ourselves alone; it is not possible, whether we like it or not. We either live for each other, or we are cut off from civilization, and we die. People who think they really are living for themselves alone are oblivious to reality. (They also tend to be assholes, but that’s another rant.)

(And, seriously, if living for yourself alone is so all-fired important to you, why bother to reach out to other people and ask them to sign a John Galt Pledge on the Web? What this tells us is that Randism is a kind of romantic fantasy, and if that’s the box you live in you want other people to buy into the fantasy and reinforce it. That’s very human, and also utterly absurd.)

So let’s look at what’s been going on with civilization in our lifetimes. Even as the net grows tighter, ancient ethnic, racial and cultural boundaries are growing blurry. We’re literally finding new ways to form tribal associations, and the old ways rapidly are losing their function and significance.

Nations still play important functions in civilization, and I don’t see the phenomenon of the nation-state dissolving anytime soon. But it may be indicative of something that nations don’t seem to declare war on each other any more. Armed conflicts are waged by extra-national movements these days. I think this indicates a significant shift in the role of the nation in human civilization, although exactly where this is taking us is hard to say.

The changes occurring to civilization, many of which are being driven by rapid technological advances, are challenging the integrity of many boxes. If the box you live in depends on clearly drawn racial divisions, for example, the blurring of racial boundaries is very distressing. And people experience challenges to the integrity of the boxes they live in as existential threats. So, while some of us embrace modernity, others of us are recoiling in horror.

And this takes us to fundamentalism. The scholar Karen Armstrong defines fundamentalism as a “militant religiosity” that is a “reaction against and a rejection of modern Western society.” I would turn that around a bit and say that religious fundamentalism is a kind of social pathology that expresses itself as religion. Although the pathology comes in a religious package, the pathology, not the religion, is the driving force. I say that because, time and time again, we see that any teachings of the religion being used as the container are ignored if they conflict with the pathology.

By the same token, I say that current “movement conservatism” is a social pathology expressing itself as political ideology. Conservatism has taken on many of the attributes scholars associate with fundamentalism, such as the view that they are engaged in a cosmic struggle between absolute good and absolute evil. They also “affirm their identity by selecting doctrines and practices from the past,” one of the markers of fundamentalism in this review of one of Armstrong’s books. They’re adopting rigid doctrines about taxes and monetary policy, often without even a glimmer of understanding how taxes and the monetary system work. They accept the doctrines of the tribe because those are the doctrines of the tribe. Oh, and freedom.

It’s getting uglier and uglier because many people are living in boxes that are utterly out of sync with the way civilization really works these days. Eventually this will fade, but not in our lifetimes. Until then, we’re going to have to put up with lots of people who are raving and fearful and irrationally thrashing about in all directions because the box they live in is threatened by modernity. So be it.

One of the things that strikes me, over and over again, about the reactionaries calling themselves conservatives these days is the degree to which they are utterly oblivious to the interconnections. You’ve got a Republican presidential ticket made up of two guys born into wealth and privilege who see themselves as self-made men, and don’t understand why everyone can’t be as successful as they are. You’ve got the baggers in Medicare-paid power scooters rallying against socialized medicine.

And then there’s the “you didn’t build that” flap. You can’t explain to the baggers that the President was talking about essential infrastructure. They deny that business needs infrastructure. Build a nail salon and they will come, I suppose. I actually ran into someone on a Web forum who refused to believe that business needs stuff like roads and utilities. They built Las Vegas in the desert, didn’t they?

This morning’s rant was touched off by a comment on this page. JETHRO212 wrote,

The ironic thing is, if you listen to the entire Obama “You didn’t build dat” thing, it gets way worse, if you listen to the whole thing he goes way off into it wouldn’t even be possible to have a business without Government.

But … it really isn’t possible to have a business, as we understand business, without government. Currency? Government. Without government, we’d resort to a barter system; we really would be taking chickens to the doctor. Contracts? Without a legal system, contracts are worthless. Legal system? Government. Someone robs your store, you call the police. Police? Government. Without government, the only people in business are mobs and pirates. Civilization itself was built on the premise that somebody is in charge and makes the rules. In recorded history there has never been a human society that didn’t have some kind of government, even if just a tribal chief who got the honor by beating up all the other chief candidates.

I have a fantasy that all the Ayn Rand enthusiasts who want to “go Galt” be given a big tract of land somewhere and allowed to take whatever power generators, tools, and means to produce food they can carry, and then they can be on their own. And as long as they stay on the “res,” and didn’t interact with the rest of society, they wouldn’t have to pay taxes. They also forfeit all government benefits, of course. But they could build whatever they wanted and be self-made men (and, trust me, most of ‘em would be men) all day long.

I’d give it two years, tops.

[Originally published on The Mahablog, September 19, 2012. To read more about the boxes we live in, see Rethinking Religion: Finding a Place for Religion in a Modern, Tolerant, Progressive, Peaceful and Science-affirming World.]

Rituals? Really?

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Shortly after I began writing the Buddhism section of About.com, a reader named “Ernie” contacted me to complain about rituals, among other things. He was interested in Buddhism, he said, but he was turned off by the rituals. When I explained that the rituals have a purpose and suggested he give them a try, he angrily replied, “Buddhism, like all other religions, has its rigid robots who know everything about their religion’s ritual and nothing about its heart.”

A person who insists that a centuries-old tradition change itself to accommodate him perhaps is not one to accuse others of rigidity. He also didn’t explain why “ritual” and “heart” are mutually exclusive. Ritual can touch the heart, in fact. if you put your heart into it.

I wrote in Rethinking Religion:

Across religious traditions, ceremonies and rituals function to create a sanctified space, and those who enter that space are dedicating themselves to fulfillment of the ultimate concern of their religion, whatever that is. The space is sanctified by the participants’ own reverence and devotion, and ritual objects such as chalices, crosses, incense and candles give physical presence to that reverence and devotion. …

…I’m not saying that rituals and ritual objects have magic power. I’m saying that rituals and ceremonies, when carried out with care and attention, can have a palpable psychological impact on the participants that really can expand awareness and change perspectives.

Modernity has become very anti-ritual, for some reason. Like my correspondent “Ernie,” the very idea of participating in ritual is unacceptable to many. This may spring from a fear of loss of autonomy or individuality; to participate in group ritual is to relinquish doing one’s own thing, even for just a little while. Or, we may shrink from ritual because we think they are superstitious; we chant some words and perfume the air with incense and perhaps unseen spirits will listen to us. But there are a lot of ways to think about ritual.

Part of the reason I wrote Rethinking Religion was to open up the definition of “religion” so that it applies to traditions other than the Big Three of monotheism — Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In thinking about what all traditions considered “religions” have in common, it seemed to me that the One Constant Thing is that they are all about connecting to or realizing something beyond the individual, finite self. The something might be God, although not necessarily. The practice might involve prayer and worship, although not necessarily. And, yes, the discipline or practice probably is framed by doctrine that cannot be verified objectively but which might be personally verified in one way or another. But merely believing in the doctrine is not the point. Religion is also something that we do, and how we live and experience ourselves and our lives.

Rituals are also about making something visible or tangible that is invisible or intangible. A wedding ceremony is a tangible expression of a couple’s love and commitment, for example. Rituals can help us express and share joy and sorrow, grief and hope, in a nonverbal way. Mindfully practiced, a ritual can bring the teachings of a religious tradition “into the body,” as we say in Zen, making the religion something more than some ideas or beliefs we carry around in our heads. The physical activity of ritual brings the religious tradition into your body and life in subtle, subconscious ways.

Rituals are not necessarily religious. I was thinking about ritual after attending the recent funeral of my brother, a retired U.S. Army officer, complete with an honor guard and three-volley salute. To me, this part of the ritual spoke of continuity — that my brother was part of a tradition that extended into the past and will continue into the future. There are rituals expressing patriotism and loyalty to sports teams. Again, rituals are a way to make tangible one’s connection to something larger than oneself.

In modern times much of Christianity de-ritualized worship services. In some Protestant denominations little is expected of the congregants other than to sing the hymns, hear the sermon, and occasionally bow their heads. I saw a video of communion inside one of the big Christian megachurches and found the entire spectacle annoying, from the congregants who received the bread and grape juice on trays and consumed them as if they were party hors d’œuvres to the schmaltzy organ music that oozed over the proceedings like pancake syrup. The minister’s wife talked nonstop through a microphone, reassuring the congregants that by receiving communion they would also receive God’s blessings and various other benefits.

But the congregants just sat there. There was no expression of devotion or commitment to their religion’s ultimate concerns. There was no mindful expression of the mystery of life and death or (important to Christians) the sacrifice of Christ. It was a transaction; drink the magic potion and become one of God’s Chosen People.

At Patheos, a student of religion at Boston University named Connor Wood wrote of the importance of ritual to religion. His use of the word index is puzzling to me, but I think he’s using index in the sense of measure or indicator. He argues that while words are purely symbolic, indexes are inseparable from the thing indicated. And rituals are indexes. Modern internet culture, however, is purely symbolic and disembodied, and people of that culture are more than ever baffled by the idea of ritual.

Remember that indexes are efficient; simply showing up for temple each week conveys much more information than words realistically could. But words are also rational. Logical arguments require language, not actions. And so our culture, which highly values logic, elevates reasoning and language over bodily habits, a preference rooted in historical Protestant emphasis on Scripture over rituals. Rationalism trumps efficiency.

This Protestant anti-ritual attitude is staggeringly amplified in Internet culture, the most de-ritualized social space in history. We can’t see each other; others can’t see us. There’s no way for social conventions that involve the whole body to take root. And so the way we communicate online is almost purely abstract and discursive, and thus extremely symbolic.

Religion divorced from the body becomes something entirely abstract and symbolic, and the symbolism itself is increasingly detached from anything but ideas. Like “Ernie,” who felt attracted to Buddhism but was outraged at the idea of practicing it, we forget the simple truth that religion is about experience, in particular our experience of living and dying. It is about trust in things we may not understand intellectually. It is about dropping away the hard shell of self and becoming vulnerable — to God, or enlightenment, or whatever your tradition calls its ultimate concern.

When religion becomes just about ideas or beliefs, is it still religion? How may intellectual theory cause us to transcend the self? Where is the commitment, the sacrifice, in mere loyalty to belief? Indeed, what seems to happen more often than not is that religion becomes fused with ego and becomes just an attribute of the self. Through ritual, religion becomes fully embodied, and we learn how to experience it, not just how to think about it.

What’s With the War on Christmas?

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The Christmas television commercials preceded Halloween this year, and I see some of my neighbors have their Christmas decorations up already.

Yes, folks, the annual War on Christmas season has begun.

At Patheos, Zen teacher and Unitarian Universalist minister James Ford writes “Why I’m Afraid of Christians: Or the Briefest Meditation on Wishing Happy Holidays to All.”

There is something hanging in the back of my mind when living in a country dominated by a group of people who have an ideology that puts me at the moment of my death firmly into the fires of hell for, well, forever. And it’s hard not to be vaguely aware of how easy a step it is from seeing someone as firewood in the future to seeing one as killable in the present tense.

Of course, it isn’t the only example of this latent threat of violence. Politicians decrying that atheists can vote comes to mind, too. Pandering to the religious majority, with just a hint of violence in the air. Just a hint. And personally I don’t see much different in the historical rhetoric of jihad and crusade.

But the constant declarations today of people in the religious majority lamenting how they’ve been put upon by having to share space with people of other religions or none is the really scary thing. Violence against religious minorities is a once, and I see no reason to think not, a future thing.

How likely is it that reactionary Christians in the U.S. might become violent? Violence linked to religion is on the rise around the world, according to the Pew Research Religion and Public Life Project. Is it possible religious violence might increase in the U.S. as well?

This may seem unlikely, but do see “Rumblings of Theocratic Violence” by Frederick Clarkson. Clarkson documents that there is indeed a large and well-connected subculture of extreme Christians in the U.S. who are calling for armed insurrection against the government. Some of these extremists are forging ties with the neo-confederate movement and forming paramilitary units.

As I wrote in Rethinking Religion, “religious” violence often is about something else and is just packaged as religion. What we’re seeing around the world is a lot of right-wing reactionism pushing back against cultural change and modernity generally, and for some reason right-wing reactionism these days likes to dress itself up as religion. Hence, a rise in what appears to be “religious” violence.

But there are two qualities found in most violent mass movements that need to be understood —

Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Thus people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both. — Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (1951)

I propose in Rethinking Religion that fervent belief in a holy cause — which doesn’t necessarily have to be religious — by itself doesn’t usually drive people into violence. A holy cause combined with a fanatical grievance, however, will do nicely. If you look at violent groups around the world today, I believe you will see they all harbor fanatical grievances. In their minds, they have been wronged and abused and are entitled to payback.

The last couple of posts, “’Religious Violence’ Isn’t Just Religious” and “The Christian Right’s Pitiful Rearguard Action” both discuss the way the U.S. religious Right cherishes a belief in its own martyrdom, and that holding them to the same anti-discrimination laws as everyone else amounts to discrimination against them. And this is what makes them dangerous. The stronger their sense of fanatical grievance, the more dangerous they are likely to become.

I’m not saying the U.S. religious Right is going to become as extremely dangerous as ISIS. The provocations are not quite so strong — we haven’t experienced war here since 1865, and have not suffered occupying foreign powers. But I think the threat they pose is real, and it’s a big reason their increasingly hysterical screams of martyrdom have me concerned.

“Religious Violence” Isn’t Just Religious

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I recommend Sean McElwee’s article at Salon, “What we really talk about when we talk about religion.” Citing the recent Harris-Maher-Affleck “debate” on the culpability of Islam in violence, McElwee writes,

At the core of this debate is the extent to which the religion of Islam is responsible for the violence of ISIS, and other atrocities often committed in the name of god. But the problem with such debates, as I’ve argued previously, is that they mistake cause and effect. Religious belief is ultimately historically contingent: Religious beliefs, like cultural beliefs, are shaped by the material circumstances that give rise to them.

Those, such as Maher and Harris, who wish to defend “liberalism” against the tyranny of “religious fanaticism” are attempting to shift the blame from actual historical circumstances to ephemeral ideologies. Should we blame the rise of ISIS on “religious fanaticism,” or on the failed 2003 invasion of Iraq, the de-Baathification policy, the disbanding of the Iraqi army and the disastrous regime of Nouri al-Maliki? Furthermore, there is a long history of colonial oppression, military aggression and economic hegemony. These complaints, as well as historical grievances relating back to the Crusades, inform the views of radicals like Osama bin Laden. …

… This leads to the core delusion pushed by the Maher/Harris/Dawkins “New Atheist” team: that religion exists independently of social, political and economic systems, and that religion influences these structures. In fact, the opposite is true: Religion is largely the handmaiden of economic and political power. It is fluid, able to mold to whatever needs are suited to those wielding it.

I made the same argument in Rethinking Religion. If you look closely and objectively at incidents of religious violence throughout history, you see it’s never just about religion. More often it’s really about politics, or greed, or colonialism, or some other thing, and religion is just the packaging.

Even when the violence appears primarily motivated by religious beliefs, there’s something else going on beneath the surface that is pushing people to become, shall we say, aggressively pro-active about those beliefs. Psychologically healthy people who are reasonably content with their lives and not feeling particularly aggrieved about anything cannot be incited into violence by scriptures and sermons alone. And I believe this is true even if such persons are very devout. However, people who are angry, afraid, or nursing some sort of fanatical grievance are another story.

McElwee also makes a good point at our tendency to misinterpret the causes of violence.

The criticism of “radical Islam” in fact bears resemblance to another dodge today. In the wake of usurpation, violence and plunder, white Americans look at blacks and worry about “cultural pathologies,” where only economic deprivation exists. At the core, the fallacy is the same — ascribing a negative culture to an oppressed and maligned group.

Gay rights protest in front of San Fernando Cathedral, San Antonio, Texas, 2008. By Charles 210, Flickr.com, Creative Commons License

That said, there is probably no group of people more likely to become dangerous than religious fanatics — and any religion will do — nursing a grievance. I wrote in the last post about the fanatical grievance growing among some Christian conservatives in the U.S., who interpret interference with their discrimination against others as discrimination against them. Christian conservatives assume rights of tribal dominance and demand that government carve out for them exclusive discrimination privileges not extended to other groups. And if they don’t get what they want, they think they are the victims.

In Rethinking Religion I propose that most group violence comes about when a mass movement bears both a holy cause and a fanatical grievance. The “holy cause” doesn’t have to be religion. It could be nationalism — especially belief in a glorious national identity — or a belief in racial superiority, or a lot of other things. But a holy cause by itself usually doesn’t cause people to become violent, especially if there’s a way they can work within the system to get what they want. It’s the fanatical grievance that pushes people over the edge.

That’s why the Christian Right’s obsessive, fanatical belief in its own victimization — the myth of Christian oppression in the U.S. — is seriously dangerous. If fanatical right-wing Christians in the U.S. become more and more frustrated with the system, and feel it is no longer responding to them, some of them could very easily become violent. The elements are there. I doubt such violence would be as extreme or widespread as has happened in Islamic countries, but not because Islam per se is more violent than Christianity per se. The difference would not be religion, but that the U.S. hasn’t been invaded by foreign armies or subjected to colonial oppression, at least not for more than a couple of centuries. Being forced to sell a wedding cake to a gay couple is not quite in the same league as foreign occupation. But fanaticism is still fanaticism.

The Christian Right’s Pitiful Rearguard Action

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The cause du jour among some conservative Christians is maintaining their sacred entitlement to discriminate against people of unauthorized sexual orientation — LGBT — in public matters. And if they aren’t allowed to discriminate as they please, they honestly believe this amounts to discrimination against them.

Let us be clear, much hysterical rhetoric to the contrary, that no one is proposing churches must perform same-sex marriages or accept homosexual congregants. But in the public realm, in business and housing and employment, no one gets to discriminate against other citizens. Period.

As Eliel Cruz wrote,

You can’t victimize yourself in a situation you started in the first place. Christians, in general, have a hard time remembering that as we choose to oppress, due to our sincerely held religious beliefs, yet cry “discrimination” when we feel a push back. This is especially true when those people are queer. Within the Christian community, there are those who believe we are being discriminated against. However, no one is pushing legislation that excludes Christians from basic legal rights in the U.S. (such as job protection and marriage). Nor is anyone physically assaulting Christians due to their religious beliefs or advocacy. Christians are not facing actual tribulations, rather, the “discrimination” they cry comes from not being allowed to discriminate [against] others. It’s a double standard and they keep crying wolf. Or we, I should say, since, like many other LGBT people, I am also a Christian.

In this and many other “culture war” matters, the Christian Right wants to frame the issue as Christians versus non-Christians, but that isn’t accurate. It’s really cultural reactionaries, some of whom are Christian but some not, versus everybody else, including other Christians.

The most recent example of attempted religious overreach involves a fight over anti-LGBT discrimination laws in Houston. A new city ordinance bans anti-gay discrimination among businesses that serve the public, in private and public employment, in city contracting and in housing. The ordinance also exempted religious institutions from having to comply.

In spite of the exemption, several churches gathered signatures to get the ordinance recalled. They thought they had enough signatures to put the repeal on the November ballot, but the city attorney disqualified many of the signatures, so the petition drive fell short. Some of the Christians sued the city. The city attorney subpoenaed documents related to the signature gathering effort from five pastors not involved in the lawsuit but who were thought to be involved in the ballot petitions. Apparently the point of this was to find out what instructions the pastors had given people regarding how they would collect signatures.

According to several news stories the original subpoena mentioned sermons, although this has since been revised. Nevertheless the usual howlers on Fox News and elsewhere began to howl about the subpoenaing of sermons — leaving out the details, of course — and holding this up as an example of the abuse of innocent Christians at the hands of godless unbelievers. For example, Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, got on Fox News and flat-out lied about the fact of the situation, falsely claiming that the city was trying to “dictate what pastors preach.” The commandment about “bearing false witness” seems often overlooked.

A theology professor from Georgia named Dr. Joel McDurmon, writing for a Christian “Biblical worldview ministry” website, pointed out that Christians cannot file lawsuits and expect to be treated differently from anyone else filing lawsuits.

The headlines read as if the city has made some move to start monitoring all pastors’ sermons, and this simply is not the case. It also gives the impression that this is some out-of-the-blue, general attack tactic by the activists upon the pulpit. It is not. It is not out-of-the-blue, it is not broad and general as far as the implicated pastors goes, and it should not be a surprise at all.

The City is not making a move to monitor sermons. The city is merely responding to a lawsuit against it and using standard powers of discovery in regard to a handful of pastors who are implicated as relevant to the lawsuit. The issue is here: once you file a lawsuit, you open up yourself and potentially your friends and acquaintances to discovery. This is the aspect that has not been reported, but it is an important part of the context.

A commenter to Dr. McDurmon wrote,

Thanks Dr for the very needed trusting-in-Christ reasonableness.

What I’m always mystified by, is one: how we evangelicals/christians think we can have (or demand) a laundry list of special privileges/exemptions etc, yet we are a minority who claim to follow a faith/religion that is so at odds (or should be) with the society we live in – yet we expect to carry on as before, unmolested in anyway whatsoever? That’s illogical. That’s never happened before in the history of humankind – yet we act as if it’s our right to be otherwise! If we have any understanding of church history or Scriptures we should know better…and be a lot more grateful about what we do have and less complaining about the few annoyances that come our way…

Second: How we think we can keep getting away with over-hyping and misrepresenting/mischaracterizing (and nearly lying sometimes – a la “death panels”) situations like this and not pay a price? When you cry wolf or in this case “persecution” over and over again; when in relative terms compared to real persecution; it is anything but persecution… Then how do we expect to be taken seriously, EVER!

I point this out to make it clear that some Christian conservatives get it, and understand that they actually have to recognize they live in a pluralistic society.

However, the other conservative Christians are thumping their chests and declaring they are doing God’s work by trying to stop civil rights protections for LGBT folks. But, y’know, they said exactly the same thing when the issue was race, not that many years ago. And they said the same thing when the issue was equal rights for women. What we’re looking at here isn’t so much a slippery slope as it is, in Freud’s words, a “pitiful rearguard action.”

In the past conservative Christian groups in the U.S. not only defended slavery, they also opposed such things as Catholicism, women’s suffrage and allowing women to have anesthesia during childbirth. This list is far from complete. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries American Christians were active on both sides of many social issues, including such matters as prohibiting child labor, and both sides claimed a mandate from the Bible for their position. The progressives won many of the battles, but one could argue they lost the war. These days conservative Christians have managed to persuade much of the public — and much of news media — that they alone speak for Christianity.

But they don’t.

And there is no doubt in my mind that if people were allowed a dispensation to discriminate against whomever because of religious convictions, large parts of the country would revert to Jim Crow laws and male-only professions before the next “war on Christmas” season.

This isn’t just the Golden Rule; it’s acknowledging that we live in an enormously diverse country, and if everyone were given carte blanche to discriminate as he liked there would be chaos. And I have no doubt if conservative Christians ever get the discrimination permission slip they are demanding, new religions would suddenly appear whose core belief is that Christians are evil and must be discriminated against.

Is this a slippery slope argument? Consider that recently some groups identifying themselves as Satanists have demanding that if Christian symbols are displayed in public buildings, Satanic symbols must be displayed also. One suspects this effort is less about devotion to Satan than it is about pushing back against right-wing Christian tribal dominance in America.

Must Satanists be recognized as a religion? The government is loathe to get into the business of determining what is a religion and what isn’t, mostly because most religions look ridiculous to outsiders who aren’t used to them, and such determination would no doubt freeze out many legitimate minority religions. So, recently a few people have insisted on wearing pasta strainers on their heads for their official driver’s license photos, saying they are “Pastafarians” and followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and the government can’t say they aren’t.

Can of worms, folks? Do we really want to have the government regulate and license what religion is supposed to be? I certainly don’t.

We have a reasonably clear, bright line that says government can’t go into churches and temples and determine who can be married and receive communion. But in the public sphere citizens don’t get to discriminate against other citizens. This is workable. It is the least government-intrusive solution to our problem of respecting both religious freedom and civil rights. No one is saying you can’t believe as you choose, but if your religious beliefs say you cannot do business with LGBT customers, don’t go into the wedding catering business.

Weirdly, the conservative Christians barred from exercising exclusive discrimination privileges complain that they are victims of government overreach. They are too myopic to see that the same policies actually protect them from government overreach.

Ultimately, if you can’t handle life in a socially, religiously and culturally diverse nation, buy an island and live as you like. There is also an old and time-honored American tradition of allowing religious groups such as the Amish or Hasidic Jews to build exclusive communities and more or less operate as laws unto themselves. But you can’t live among people who don’t believe as you do and carve out privileges for yourself that don’t apply to everyone else.

Why is this so difficult to understand?

Buddhas and Buddhas

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In the last few posts I’ve been looking at Master Dogen’s Vow. Please note that a dharma master could probably write about this text for weeks. I’m just beginning to look at it myself. But I’m happy that several of you have found this text inspiring. So here’s a little more of it:

The Chan Master Lung-ya said:

“Those unenlightened in past lives will now be enlightened.
In this life, take care of the body, the fruit of many lives.
Before Buddhas were enlightened, they were the same as we.
Enlightened people of today are exactly the same as the ancients.”

(Note: “Chan Master Lung-ya” is Lung-ya Chii-tun, an important patriarch of Soto Zen who lived from about 835 to about 920 CE. Among Zennies he is associated with the famous question “What is the meaning of Bodhidharma’s coming from the West?”)

The Chan Master is trying to encourage us. “Take care of the body, the fruit of many lives” reminds us that while past actions have caused a lot of obstacles, past actions also have given us this body with which to practice.

And here’s the end:

This is the exact transmission of a verified Buddha, so quietly explore the far-reaching effects of these causes and conditions.
Repenting in this way, one never fails to receive help, deep and unending, from all Buddhas and Ancestors.
Revealing before Buddha one’s lack of faith and failure to practice dissolves the root of these unwholesome actions.
This is the pure and simple manifestation of true practice, of the true mind and body of faith.

This part may be a little jarring to those who are quite certain Buddhism — especially Zen — is not a religion. Because this part of the text sounds awfully religious.

When I first began to practice Zen, a lot of people were making a big deal about “self power” versus “other power” in Buddhism. Zen, they declared (with some chest-thumping) is about self-power. Other schools of Buddhism, such as Pure Land, are more devotional and rely on other power. But here we have the great Dogen himself talking about receiving help from Buddhas and Ancestors.

First, after all these years, I no longer think the self-power/other-power dichotomy really means anything. Although practice takes personal commitment and effort, you’re never really practicing by yourself. (How is that even possible? Where is the autonomous self that practices?)

We may begin through devotion to Amitabha, or faith in the Lotus Sutra, or trust in our own practice. But after awhile the self-and-other power thing all blurs together.

Those of you who are familiar with the Lotus Sutra may recognize some of that sutra’s influence here. Somewhere in the Lotus it says that only a Buddha together with a Buddha can fathom the great reality of all existence. Dogen — and 0ther Mahayana teachers — said that ordinary people do not turn into Buddhas. Rather, enlightenment is possible because Buddha-nature is already present. This is the exact transmission of a verified Buddha.

One of Dogen’s fascicles from Shobogenzo is called Jinshin Inga, or deep faith in cause and effect. This one’s as yet out of my depth, I fear, but the line “far-reaching effects of these causes and conditions” make me think of it. If you are feeling adventurous, there are translations of Jinshin Inga online.

[A version of this post was published on About.com Buddhism September 19, 2013.]

Atonement

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Still looking at Master Dogen’s Vow — the last post was on the third paragraph, and now I want to go back to the second —

Past negative actions accumulate and cause the arising of many obstacles to the practice of the Way.
May all Buddhas and Ancestors who have realized the Way extend their compassion and free us from these karmic effects, allowing us to practice without hindrance. May they share with us their boundless compassion, and fill the universe with the virtue of their enlightened teaching.

The last post reflected on Dogen‘s understanding of past, present and future, and of Buddhas and Ancestors. The important point is that these things are not really separate from us and from our present moment. So when we call upon the Buddhas and Ancestors for help, we are not trying to dredge some Holy Other Beings out of a deep abyss of time. They are already here.

I want to say something about “past negative actions.” This is a big sticking spot for a lot of us, I’m sure. We may bounce from blaming others, or blaming “bad luck,” to beating ourselves up over boneheaded things we’ve done. Neither extreme is helpful.

While fully acknowledging past negative actions, we can do so with compassion and forgiveness toward ourselves. We are imperfect; we have limitations. In this way, the old, negative stuff can drop away.

Just a quick note about atonement — which seems fitting, since we’ve just passed Yom Kippur — the word atonement in general usage means “reparation,” but at etymology dictionary tells me it originally meant “the condition of being at one with others.” Literally, at-one-ment. So, as we reflect, take time to consider how both denial and guilt separate us from others. Seek at-one-ment.

[A version of this post was published on About.com Buddhism September 18, 2013.]

Buddhas and Ancestors

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I want to say a little more about Master Dogen’s Vow. And I’m going to skip over the second paragraph for right now and go to the third one, because the third paragraph helps me understand the second one. The third paragraph goes —

Buddhas and Ancestors of old were as we.
In the future, we shall be Buddhas and Ancestors.
Revering Buddhas and Ancestors, we are one Buddha and one Ancestor.
Awakening Bodhi-mind, we are one Bodhi-mind.
As they extend their compassion freely to us,
we are able to realize Buddhahood and let go of the realization.

If you are at all familiar with Dogen, you may be familiar with what he wrote about time. In “Uji,” he wrote that time isn’t something that just passes from past to future:

“Know that in this way there are myriads of forms and hundreds of grasses throughout the entire earth, and yet each grass and each form itself is the entire earth. The study of this is the beginning of practice. When you are at this place, there is just one grass, there is just one form; there is understanding of form and no-understanding of form; there is understanding of grass and no-understanding of grass. Since there is nothing but just this moment, the time-being is all the time there is. Grass-being, form-being are both time.

“Each moment is all being, is the entire world. Reflect now whether any being or any world is left out of the present moment.”

In other words, all of time is present in every moment. All beings and all worlds are present in every moment. The Buddhas and Ancestors of old are in this moment. We as Buddhas and Ancestors of the future are in this moment. Future Buddhas and Ancestors are in this moment. We are one Buddha and one Ancestor.

In Zen, often we’re told to focus on the present moment. “Present moment” can get to be a real fetish. But even as we focus on the present moment we may still be clinging to an idea of “present moment” that leaves things out. Can you focus but not cling?

Understanding “present moment” in this way illustrates, among other things, why it’s a mistake for westerners to be in a big rush to sever ties with the Asian traditions. If you’re shoving the Asian ancestors out of your western “present moment,” you’re missing the present moment.

Reflecting on the Buddhas and Ancestors can be useful if you are feeling discouraged. You might meditate with the words of Master Dogen’s Vow. Feel the strength and compassion of Buddhas and Ancestors within you, within the present moment, and let it radiate out to all beings who are struggling and discouraged.

[A version of this post was published on About.com Buddhism September 16, 2013.]