The B.U. religion scholar Stephen Prothero addresses the recent Pew survey in Friday’s Houses of Worship column in the WSJ.
A new Pew study, released last week, shows that Americans are swingers as well as switchers, flirting with religious beliefs and practices other than their own without officially changing their religious affiliation. Catholic leaders have long denounced “Cafeteria Catholics” for going down the line and picking and choosing the Catholic beliefs and practices they choose to uphold. According to this new study, Americans as a group are now bellying up to what my Boston University colleague John Berthrong has referred to as the “divine deli.”
The survey has some stats about people dabbling in various religions and believing in concepts that contradict their own faith such as astrology and reincarnation. After seven years reporting on religion, this doesn’t surprise me too much. But I find it interesting to read Prothero’s reaction to the “divine deli.” (For those of you unfamiliar with him, Prothero a few years back wrote a book called Religious Literacy that highlighted our embarrassing ignorance about the world’s faith traditions. And here in this column he revisits his frustration with that ignorance, noting that most Americans cannot name the four Gospels and are largely clueless about Islam.)
As a scholar of religion, I am supposed to simply observe all this without rendering any judgment, but I can’t help feeling that something precious is being lost here, perhaps something as fundamental as a sense of the sacred. Harvard philosopher George Santayana once observed that “American life is a powerful solvent,” capable of neutralizing new ideas into banal clichés. I worry that this solvent is now melting down the sharp edges of the world’s religions, bending them toward purposes other than their own.
I have to admit, I was a bit surprised when my cousin in Minneapolis told me about this Quaker story. I guess it never occurred to me that Quakers would take a stand on gay rights. Apparently the Twin Cities Friends Meeting has decided not to conduct any marriages until gays are permitted to marry legally. (I’ve seen this done here in Austin, notably at Trinity United Methodist Church. A friend of mine wanted to be married there, but the Rev. Sid Hall, pastor, said he would not do any marriages inside the church because of the denomination’s policy on gay marriage. He did perform the ceremony outdoors, however.)
Anyway, here’s the deal with the Quakers in Minnesota:
“We’re simply trying to be consistent with the will of God as we perceive it,” said Paul Landskroener, clerk of the Twin Cities Friends Meeting, in an interview with MPR’s All Things Considered on Monday.
The congregation will continue to hold both opposite-sex and same-sex weddings at its meeting house, but will no longer sign the legal marriage certificate for opposite-sex couples. Instead, couples will need to have the certificate signed by a justice of the peace.
Sen. Orrin Hatch wrote a Hanukkah song. Naturally. Here’s the backstory. And the video. Warning: This song is annoyingly hard to get out of your head once you’ve heard it.
Oh boy. I remember this crank from the Statesman online comment section. Not sure if the Jewish community should feel insulted or honored by his confusion about my religious background. (I, for one, am honored to be mislabeled as a Member of the Tribe.) Anyway, if you need a laugh, check out this response to my column on the Christmas wars:
You just dont get it Mrs Flynn do you? Mr Zipp said his reporters would stop attacking Conservative Christians in the Austin American paper and here you go again attacking them. You are Jewish right? What if people around Austin started using the Hewbrew word for Shalom that the Palestinians use in Israel in place of Shalom? Most Israelis hate it because they know it is said to attack their culture. Would you be upset? When you understand the Christian culture then you can write about it otherwise your words are just noise and unfortunately the Austin American continues is policy of attacking conservative Christians.
Oh, Swt, I wish I could find you funny, but your condition is too tragic for me to laugh.
Ah, this felt good to write. No punches pulled. Just me venting about one of my biggest gripes: the Christmas wars.
Here’s the link.
And the full text.
Happy Advent.
Amid the Christmas wars, are we forgetting the purpose of Advent?
Saturday, December 05, 2009
It wasn’t even Thanksgiving when I woke up to hear local radio talk show hosts talking about a public school using the term holiday tree instead of Christmas tree.
That prompted a series of indignant calls from listeners who saw this as another example of liberal secularists trying to destroy Christmas. “This is a Christian country,” one caller railed.
The radio hosts agreed and made a point to wish the callers “Merry Christmas.”
As I said, it wasn’t even Thanksgiving yet.
Sometimes I think Christians are their own worst enemies when it comes to protecting the sacredness of Christmas.
If a battle must be waged (and sadly, we’ve come to referring to these debates as the Christmas wars, a seasonal version of the culture wars), why not fight for that too-often-forgotten season of Advent, the four weeks of solemn preparation for the birth of Jesus? Why insist that Christmas be attached to everything — from a tree to a store sale — when the Christmas season hasn’t even arrived (and arguably has little to do with those things anyway)?
I should note that each year I do see more Christians embracing the Advent season, resisting the mad consumerism and dedicating themselves to preparing spiritually for Christmas.
But every year, too, plenty of Christians arms themselves for the Christmas wars.
The American Family Association, a nonprofit that bills itself as a pro-family group on the “front lines of the culture war,” last month announced a boycott of the Gap because the clothing chain did not use Christmas in its ads. The boycott ended because, as the association trumpeted on its Web site, “After thousands of phone calls, e-mails and petitions, Gap has just released a very ‘Merry Christmas’ television commercial. On Nov. 28, Gap’s Old Navy division broadcast a television commercial featuring its ‘Supermodelquins’ proudly cheering ‘Merry Christmas,’ along with Christmas trees, lights and ornaments.”
And this honors Jesus how?
The association features on its Web site a list of companies that are “friendly” to, “marginalizing” and “against” Christmas.
Let’s be realistic. These companies are trying to make a buck. By demanding they use a holy day to make an even greater profit, what have Christians won? Doesn’t tying the birth of a savior to a corporate ad campaign actually cheapen Christmas?
I’ll bet you can guess my answer.
Not all conservative Christians concerned about the influence of secular culture support this Christmas battle. In a column published in World magazine, evangelical journalist and author Warren Cole Smith argued:
“First of all, Jesus is most certainly not the reason for the orgiastic spending spree modern Christmas has become. I certainly think anyone should be able to say ‘Merry Christmas’ if he or she wants to. But given what this holiday has become, there’s a part of me — a big part of me — that wants to keep the Jesus I worship as far away from this commercial debauchery as possible.’
Smith wrote that the Christmas wars have ironically become the “ultimate commercialization of Christmas.”
But what about the argument those callers made on the radio program that November morning? America was founded as a Christian country, they said, and people should proudly celebrate Christmas in the public square.
As my history teacher father liked to remind me growing up, the earliest settlers were not exactly fans of the yuletide. The Puritans, ever committed to rejecting the traditions of the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, disdained the pageantry of Christmas as papist frivolity.
They even banned Christmas celebrations in Boston.
I’m not calling for a ban. I’m merely suggesting that we end this obsession with whether corporate America (or anyone else for that matter) is acting sufficiently Christmasy. And that we have a little patience.
Liturgically, the Christmas season doesn’t actually begin until Christmas and (depending on the tradition) extends through the Feast of the Epiphany on Jan. 6 or Candlemas on Feb. 2.
This season, Advent, is the time for Christians to consider the importance of the birth of Jesus. In rushing to celebrate that before it happens — or in demanding that retailers promote it to sell their sweaters and blue jeans — believers miss an opportunity for spiritual preparation. It’s like skipping Lent and diving right into Easter. These religious cycles have their purpose.
Roger Temme, a local nonprofit leader who is leading an Advent series at the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection in North Austin, said this season is part of his spiritual journey, offering “a moment we can be still … reflect … shout out the rancor and be quiet … so we can hear what is the next thing we should be doing.”
For Christians who truly want to resist a secular culture that has commercialized the birth of their savior, now is a perfect opportunity to show just how countercultural they are.
Eileen Flynn blogs at eileenflynn.wordpress.com.
This NYT story about a rabbi, a minister and a mullah reminds me that a) interfaith dialogue is hard to do beyond a superficial kumbaya moment and b) the Israel factor is always going to be a stumbling block and c) there are folks out there who are willing to be honest not only about their beliefs but about the problems in their scriptures. This Seattle-based trio, made up of Rabbi Ted Falcon (Reform), the Rev. Don Mackenzie (UCC) and Sheik Jamal Rahman (Sufi), travel the country giving talks and have written a book about their experiences.
Here’s a particularly interesting passage:
The room then grew quiet as each stood and recited what he regarded as the “untruths” in his own faith. The minister said that one “untruth” for him was that “Christianity is the only way to God.” The rabbi said for him it was the notion of Jews as “the chosen people.” And the sheik said for him it was the “sword verses” in the Koran, like “kill the unbeliever.”
“It is a verse taken out of context,” Sheik Rahman said, pointing out that the previous verse says that God has no love for aggressors. “But we have to acknowledge that ‘kill the unbelievers’ is an awkward verse,’ ” the sheik said as the crowd laughed. “Some verses are literal, some are metaphorical, but the Koran doesn’t say which is which.”
The American Humanist Association has launched an ad campaign just in time for the holiday season. They’ll be posting ads inside buses, rail cars and on the sides or tails of buses in Washington over Thanksgiving weekend. Ads in New York, Chicago, LA and San Francisco will appear in early December.
This ad below reads: “No God? No Problem!” and then in smaller print: “Be good for goodness sake. Humanism is the idea that you can be good without a belief in God.”
We were talking about this concept in class recently, and a couple of students couldn’t past the idea that people need the promise of a reward (heaven, a better rebirth, etc.) or the threat of a judgmental being or at least a set of divinely-given rules in order to behave well. I think a lot of folks think that way, and I can see why these ads are necessary …. if only to introduce the notion that you don’t have to believe in a supernatural entity to be a good person. Maybe that will lead to a more robust discussion. One can hope.
This guy has a great story. He grew up the sixth of seven children, all of whom traveled every years to Washington State and worked with their parents in the fields and in the canneries. He went to St. Edward’s University on a scholarship and felt drawn to the philosophy and practice of Holy Cross brothers.
Here’s the link to the column and the full text because we all know these Statesman links don’t last forever:
When poverty’s a sacrifice to embrace, not endure
By Eileen Flynn
Saturday, November 21, 2009
When Jesus Alonso was a boy, he spent months on his knees picking strawberries alongside his parents and six siblings in the fields of Northwest Washington. He knew he would never see the money he was earning. As migrant farm workers, the Alonsos shared everything, and everyone contributed.
“When you come from a poor background, you understand what it means to sacrifice for each other,” Alonso said.
Last month, I watched Alonso promise to make those sacrifices again, this time as a brother in a new family: Congregation of Holy Cross , a religious order that serves poor people and emphasizes education.
On Oct. 25, in a crowded chapel at of St. Edward’s University, Alonso made his final profession of vows as a Holy Cross brother. (A brother is different from a priest in that he doesn’t offer sacraments.)
The vows of this religious order include poverty, chastity and obedience.
Any one of those could give a person pause, especially when the word “forever” is attached.
The Rev. Richard Wilkinson, the priest celebrating the Mass, talked about the loneliness of the celibate. Obedience — following the direction of religious superiors— can also challenge a brother or priest. And poverty means sharing resources and never attaining private wealth.
Wilkinson said these vows provide “the freedom to risk letting go, to stop grasping and be open to serving the world, especially the most needy.”
But I kept wondering how Alonso saw the vow of poverty.
Here was a man who grew up poor in a family of migrant workers in Brownsville. Every spring, his parents, Mexican immigrants who spoke no English, would load up the seven children in a Suburban and drive for three days to Washington to harvest strawberries and blueberries and work in the canneries. They would return to Texas in the fall.
Alonso broke out of that cycle by studying and going to college. He attended St. Edward’s with the help of the university’s College Assistance Migrant Program and earned a degree in computer science. He’s pursuing a doctorate in microbiology at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.
And yet here he was, at age 30, willing to embrace poverty.
He explained to me that growing up in a migrant worker family had taught him a sense of “communal unselfishness.” It’s the same idea in a community of Holy Cross brothers.
After spending several years discerning his call to religious life, Alonso, who lives in a Holy Cross house in San Antonio, said he makes the sacrifice happily.
He first encountered Holy Cross brothers and priests while a student St. Edward’s, which was founded by the religious order. At the time, Alonso wasn’t a practicing Catholic. He stopped going to Mass as a teenager when his parents made church attendance optional.
But he was impressed by the brothers’ spirituality and knowledge. He lived with the them at Moreau House, a campus community of brothers and male students considering religious life. Eventually, Alonso felt a call to become a brother himself.
He had to give up some things — having a girlfriend, for one — but he said life in a religious order is more fulfilling than people might think.
And in many ways, his years with his family in the strawberry fields prepared him for the discipline of religious life.
“My understanding of poverty (is) whatever gifts or whatever talents you may have, you share it with the group,” he said.
The spirituality he has gained, he said, helped him to see how he can share his gifts on a larger stage.
As brother Donald Blauvelt, provincial superior of the southwest province of Holy Cross, confirmed Alonso at last month’s ceremony, he told him, “We, all of us, whether we’re priests or sisters or brothers in Holy Cross … believe that we can change the world.”
We had a robust discussion about the Fort Hood shooting in my Journalism & Religion class on Monday. This tragedy quickly became a religion story. Really, it was within hours of the shooting that we learned the suspect’s name and religion. And right away, we journalists began calling Muslim leaders and organizations for comment. And right away, those Muslim leaders and organizations provided statements condemning the attack. This is religion coverage in a post-9/11 world. We in the media know how to track the religion angle, and Muslims know it’s in their best interest to speak up when one of their own commits a crime.
Still, one of my students said that another professor had complained bitterly that the media was overlooking Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s religion, that the Islamic faith motivated the killings and journalists were pussyfooting around the issue.
I don’t see it. Not at all. I mean, the second-day Web headline on Statesman.com blared Hasan’s alleged pre-rampage declaration of “Allahu Akbar.” And all the major news outlets covered Hasan’s Muslim identity and connections to a radical imam, the whole bit.
And now, this conservative media watchdog group accuses the mainstream media of downplaying the Muslim link. From One News Now:
Rich Noyes, director of research at the MRC, feels that the media is overlooking another piece of evidence linking the shooting to Muslim terrorist activity. ”You see a lot of timidity in the media trying to connect terrorism with the broader war on terror in spite of the evidence that keeps coming out,” he argues. “I think a lot of the PC media are skipping over these things.”
I really enjoyed Don Miller’s new book “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.” He’s a very accessible writer, very honest and self-deprecating and insightful. He says he isn’t a “Christian writer” producing “Christian books.” And that’s true in the sense that he’s not using churchy language, isn’t preaching or using heavy-handed theology to tell his story. He is a Christian, to be sure, and I think the conclusions he comes to about his life are heavily influenced by his Christian ethos. But I think anyone could pick up “A Million Miles” and relate to Miller’s journey.
Incidentally, he’s in Texas now (on his book tour) and will be speaking Nov. 10 at First Baptist Church in Georgetown.
Here’s the link to the column and the full text:
Christian beliefs don’t hamper author’s raw honesty
In Donald Miller’s new book, life does not make a good screenplay.
Saturday, November 07, 2009
I made two assumptions when I began Donald Miller’s new book, “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life.” First, that this would be a Christian book, a memoir interlaced with Bible lessons. Second, that there would be a happy ending, your typical story arc of conflict, climax and resolution.
I’m happy to say I was wrong about both. Nothing against Christian books or happy endings. But when you get to know Don Miller (and you do feel like you know him after reading this book), you realize he’s not easily pigeonholed.
Miller told me he isn’t a Christian writer. He’s a writer who happens to be a Christian. And happy endings? Well, we’ll get to that in a minute.
Miller, a Houston native whose books, including the best-selling “Blue Like Jazz,” have won critical and popular acclaim, is wrapping up a cross-country book tour and will be speaking at First Baptist Church in Georgetown on Tuesday.
“A Million Miles” finds Miller at home in Portland, Ore. He’s developed a successful career as a writer, has good friends and a loyal dog and is even participating in the adaptation of one of his memoirs into a screenplay.
As they map out scenes for the film, the screenwriters make it clear that Miller’s real life will have to be adjusted. The real Don Miller doesn’t make for a good script.
And as they crafted the story line, Miller found the fictionalized character of himself was living a better, more meaningful story than he was.
“My life was a blank page, and all I was putting on the page were words. I didn’t want to live in words anymore; I wanted to live in sweat and pain.”
So Miller decided to embark on a series of inspiring adventures in his real life, which are detailed in the book. He gets in shape and hikes the Inca Trail to the sacred city of Machu Picchu. He tracks down his long-absent father. He kayaks up the Jervis inlet in British Columbia. He works on the screenplay. He rides his bike across the country to raise money for water wells in Africa. He starts a mentoring program for fatherless boys. He falls in love.
As a reader, you are thinking, “Wow, Don took some risks and created a better story, and now his life will work out perfectly.”
But with raw honesty, Miller reminds us that movies are only two-hour snapshots of a life. They are not the whole story.
Yes, you may accomplish a goal or find true love or acquire money and prestige. You may triumph today, but in a week or a month or a year, you will fail again. You will struggle. You will feel empty.
In “A Million Miles,” love falls apart. Miller suffers pain and isolation. Life is not tidy.
Hollywood and Madison Avenue have trained us to believe in the quick fix, the happy ending, the notion that if we do this or get that, we will find permanent fulfillment.
Miller writes that even churches participate in this illusion.
“Growing up in church, we were taught that Jesus was the answer to all our problems. We were taught that there was a circle-shaped hole in our heart and that we had tried to fill it with the square pegs of sex, drugs and rock and roll; but only the circle peg of Jesus could fill our hole. I became a Christian based, in part, on this promise, but the hole never really went away. To be sure, I like Jesus, and I still follow him, but the idea that Jesus will make everything better is a lie. It’s basically biblical theology translated into the language of infomercials.”
But — and this is at the end of the book where Miller’s spirituality comes fully to the fore — he still believes in pursuing better stories, stories that God wants for his people. He still holds hope for lasting peace and fulfillment. That hope rests on his Christian belief in the world to come, the kingdom of heaven and the banquet that awaits.
In the meantime, Miller writes, “We live in a world where bad stories are told, stories that teach us that life doesn’t mean anything and that humanity has no great purpose. It’s a good calling, then, to speak a better story.”
