State of Belief Radio Show

I hope to have more time to post here soon. Since this is tomorrow, I wanted to pass along the following email update as a heads-up to anyone who is interested... Leahy Opposes Alito on Sunday's State of Belief Radio Gaddy, Leahy, Hackett, Eltantawi on the intersection of religion with politics, culture, media, and activism Washington, January 20 -- "State of Belief," the new, much talked about Air America Radio show on religion and politics, announces a terrific show for Sunday, January 22, building on the great success of the first show. This Sunday's State of Belief features interviews with Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Paul Hackett, US Senate candidate from Ohio. Leahy tells host Welton Gaddy that Judge Samuel Alito is only the second Supreme Court nominee he has opposed in 32 years in the Senate. Senators who supported Alito from the start and declined to ask Alito tough questions didn't serve their country well, Leahy says. "I don't go to church to get my politics anymore than I elect politicians to give me my religion," Hackett says. And Gaddy explains, "I'm doing this radio show because I want to hold up an attractive alternative to the Religious Right. I want to provide information and tools for action for all interested in working together for the good of all people regardless of their posture toward religion. In my vision, State of Belief, is, at least in part, to promote the proper role of religion in the nation, and thus, to prevent the Religious Right from hijacking religion and stealing our nation." Activist Sarah Eltantawi offers a compelling commentary on how the progressive Muslim movement is working with other progressive religious groups in America. And a student from Georgia explains how religion and politics intersected in her life --in this case, in her biology classroom. State of Belief talks about religion and politics in public in all the ways you're not supposed to. Through interviews with newsmakers and celebrities and field reports from around the country, State of Belief explores the intersection of religion with politics, culture, media, and activism. Welton believes that religion and radical freedom are best friends. And that the Religious Right is wrong -- wrong for America and bad for religion. State of Belief Religion and radio, done differently Brought to you by The Interfaith Alliance Foundation 5:00 to 6:00 PM EST each Sunday Air America Radio Network To see where Air America is broadcast, go to www.airamericaradio.com/stations. (It is likely that State of Belief will be on the air this Sunday at 5 PM EST on your local Air America Radio affiliate. Or, you can listen online or on XM Satellite Radio, channel 167). To listen online, go to: www.airamericaradio.com/listen To stream or podcast State of Belief, on Monday go to (http://www.stateofbelief.com/)

Jonah House

Haven't had much time to write new posts here for a while, as work, more work, bits of my computer going (virtually) kablooie. I am thankful that I still *have* a computer that more or less works, but it is going to take a while before I regain some vital pieces of functionality. Anyway, I just checked my e-mail and found a message from Susan of Jonah House, suggesting that I add their link to my page of Progressive Religious Links. Except, the web design software I used to set up that page is one of the things I'm having trouble with now. So for now, I'd like to post about Jonah House here, and will add it to my links page as soon as I am able... http://www.jonahhouse.org/ "We are a faith-based, nonviolent, resistance community, and I think that some people who go to your site would be interested in visiting us."

How do you define religion?

Something I have been thinking about lately is what makes an organization a "religion" rather than a charity, social club, activist group, etc.? From time to time I hear that some Unitarian Universalist church is in danger of losing its tax-exempt status because they do not require that one believe in a supreme being with supernatural powers. Of course, I'm sure that these challenges typically have more to do with the fact that UUs are often activists for issues of social justice, and don't tend to vote Republican. Having spent two years at a Unitarian Universalist church here in Columbus, I would never hesitate to call it a "real" church, but I'm not sure how to explain why I think so. Then today on a break at work, I saw a story in the Faith and Values section of the Columbus Dispatch about Universism. The article states that the only "rule" of Universism is "do not harm one another". In the article, the founder of Universism, 28-year-old medical student Ford Vox says "It's a matter of looking at it not as a transcendent truth that is immutable. Our central tenet is that truth is mutable and changes and depends on our own perception." How do you define religion? This is a question I am just putting out there for discussion, and I hope it is of interest to people. At the moment, I don't have an answer of my own to that question, so I am very interested in knowing what the rest of you have to say.

Science and religion

Via the Flying Spaghetti Monster web site (because the big noodly one gets a brief mention on the second page of the article, I found this Scientific American piece: Getting a Rational Grip on Religion Is religion a fit subject for scientific scrutiny? It's a review of the book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, Daniel Dennett. Interesting discussion on the evolution of religion, and the purpose it served. "I appreciate that many readers will be profoundly distrustful of the tack I am taking here," he writes. "They will see me as just another liberal professor trying to cajole them out of some of their convictions, and they are dead right about that--that's what I am, and that's exactly what I am trying to do." This warning comes at the end of a long, two-chapter overture in which Dennett defends the idea that religion is a fit subject for scrutiny. The question is how many of the faithful will follow him that far. For those who do not need to be persuaded, the main draw here is a sharp synthesis of a library of evolutionary, anthropological and psychological research on the origin and spread of religion. Drawing on thinkers such as Pascal Boyer (whose own book is called Religion Explained) and giving their work his own spin, Dennett speculates how a primitive belief in ghosts might have given rise to wind spirits and rain gods, wood nymphs and leprechauns. The world is a scary place. What else to blame for the unexpected than humanlike beings lurking behind the scenes? The result would be a cacophony of superstitions--memes vying with memes--some more likely to proliferate than others. In a world where agriculture was drawing people to aggregate in larger and larger settlements, it would be beneficial to believe you had been commanded by a stern god to honor and protect your neighbors, those who share your beliefs instead of your DNA. Casting this god as a father figure also seems like a natural. Parents have a genetic stake in giving their children advice that improves their odds for survival. You'd have less reason to put your trust in a Flying Spaghetti Monster. Read the rest here. Interesting. On the one hand, I certainly consider myself to be among "the faithful", but I do think that science can tell us some things about religion in a broad sense. But I don't think science can render faith meaningless, any more than religion can render science useless.

Pondering these things

I'm off to a slow start getting my mind around the new year, getting the kids back to school and myself back to teaching. And finding additional work to help make ends meet. And...well, suffice it to say that there are lots of things filling my time and keeping me from blogging as much as I'd like to. But I've been wanting to post this since I first heard it as a liturgical reading in my church last Christmas season. Since it was used again this past Sunday, and I have the text in front of me, I'd like to share it now... "Pondering These Things" by Gay Hadley Neighbors said it first. Surely this child belongs to someone else. Mary, too, when she held him, sang him to sleep, watched his deep brooding eyes, wondered where he came from. We ponder our children, blessed or not, depending on our point of view. We are afraid for the ones who are different, who talk early, speak with a shivering wisdom. We fear the world will be afraid and we know we may lose them, not understanding why, except to think they must belong to someone else.

Turning the world upside-down

If you've visited Howard-Empowered People maybe you've seen me use a portion of this picture as a Gravatar. Or maybe not, as I haven't used it in a while. The painting is entitled "Mary of the Magnificat". No, I realize that the first century peasant girl who was the mother of Jesus looked nothing like that. We've been watching these shows on the National Geographic channel which explain how much at odds the usual Christmas pageant imagery is at odds with what we know about life in first century Judea. Our 12-year-old is taking great pleasure in informing everyone that "The manger looked nothing like that--the animals were in a lower room, in the same building as where the people lived!" I don't know if he's ready to understand that stories can be true--or reflect deeper Truths--without being factually, literally true. (I read somewhere that myths are stories that aren't true on the outside, but they are true on the inside.) I think I first discovered what is beautiful and inspiring to me about this story back when we were attending a local Unitarian Universalist church. The Christmas sermon was entitled Turning the World Upside-down, and it said, in part: And in a world where the Roman intelligentsia believed that Augustus Caesar himself was born of a virgin mother, a virgin who had a vision in a temple from a messenger from the gods, what might the author be saying? Since he or she (and we really don't know whether the author we call "Luke" was a man or a woman by the way-cases have been made for both) deliberately brings up Augustus Caesar at the beginning of the story about another virgin birth, I grow suspicious. Isn't it more likely that here is another picture inviting us to look at the world in a totally upside-down manner? The story is asking us "Is Caesar the greatest power on earth, Caesar with his power and might, his obedience and his executions, his slavery and his caprice; or, is it this peasant baby from the outskirts of civilization whose head needs to be entirely supported in the crook of his tender mother's arm? Two virgin births. But which of them is the real center of the world? Choose. Mari herself, upon being told that she will be a mother, sings a clear song about the world turning upside down, The Magnificat, part of which you heard being sung this evening, by Peg Meckling and Edgel Alley, set to Bach's beautiful music. The Magnificat insists that the world is about to go topsy turvy. Remember the poem? Do you see? The lofty are now scattered through the arrogance of their own heart, and the all-powerful rulers of earth are pulled down off their thrones, and poor people like me are lifted up. The hungry are fed now, the sated go away with empty hands. The way I see it is this: when you worship a poor third world baby in a cattle-feeder, instead of a muscular and violent head of state on his throne, you begin to turn philosophy on its head, and certainly all theology. And, to say (as the Christians eventually did), that this weak child nursing at its mother's breast is a wonderful picture of G-d, you get another upside-down image…not the common image of G-d as Caesar in the sky, controlling the weather, the fates of individual human beings, and meting out punishments and rewards according to bribes, but G-d, or the Ultimate, if you will, as a helpless child in a dirty, splintery cattle feeder. By the way, I know that someone is bound to ask about the spelling G-d. Others can probably express it better than I can, but it is typically a Jewish convention. I have heard at least two explanations that I can recall--one is that if we try to give a name to the Ultimate, we risk making an idol of that name. Another is that, in the Hebrew scriptures, to name someone or something was to control them--have dominion over them. For obvious reasons, we could not expect to do that with God. Again, I'm sure someone else could explain this better, but I wanted to try to anticipate the question in an attempt to keep any confusion or curiosity about that from eclipsing the powerful truth of this story that I wanted to convey tonight. Turning the world upside-down...that's what resonates with me. Knocking the powerful off their thrones, while at the same time recognizing the power in the "lowly" who can be all too easily dismissed by those who are content with "politics and usual". I *love* this story, and I believe in it. Well, in my heart, deep down I do. Sometimes, after the people fighting the good fight get knocked down again and again, it's hard to keep believing. At Christmas time, one thing I try to do is to remind myself that this very old story still rings True in our hearts, because there are always Caesars who need to be knocked off their thrones. It seems impossible. But the impossible can be achieved by something greater than ourselves. Maybe we call that something "God", or another name that means something similar. Or maybe that "something greater" is our sense of being interconnected, part of a larger community rather than focussed on our own narrow interests. The sense that "we're all in this together". Now, where have I heard *that* before? ;-)

An Advent Meditation

We have been scrambling all day, trying to get ready for our holiday travels. It's one of my many least favorite parts of this season. It is now way later than we had hoped to be leaving, and we're pretty much guaranteed to hit rush hour traffic. Can't be helped, so I'm not going to stress about it. Rather, I thought it would be a good idea to take a few moments to center myself with a few moments of quiet while my husband finishes packing his clothes. Without getting exceedinly maudlin, one of the roughest things about the whole Christmas season--especially coming as it does right before my birthday--is that it is a time when all of the little ways I occasionally feel inadequate all impinge on my consciousness at once. So I definitely need to take a few moments and remind myself of the miracle that this season represents. The following is from an Advent sermon at St. Clement's Church in Berkeley: In the ordinariness of a peasant girl’s body, the word was made flesh. In the business-as-usual of a society focused on material things, a holy stillness descends. Into the repetitive cycle of violence, peace and justice break through. All incredible. All a myth, whose truth we see and cling to. Mary said to the angel, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ Mary, young, pregnant, visited by angels, poor, expectant, and scared: in her body heaven and earth meet. What Mary offers us is the hope of light in our darkness, the breaking through of holy love into our sad, sorry world. She carries the sacred burden of our redemption even as she suffers the grief, love, fear, and joy of a human mother. Whatever else she is, Mary is a sign for us of God’s ridiculous love for us, the love that takes our very ordinariness, the good and the ill of the human condition, and turns it into blessing and grace. Ready or not ready, here it comes. Bidden or not bidden, God is present – here, with us, now. My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant. From this day all generations will call me blessed: the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name.