Bill's 'Faith Matters' Weblog

An interfaith week in KC: 11-9-09

All right, let's go over this just one more time.

The annual Kansas City Festival of Faiths is on, and two major events are happening this week.

Should you go to them? Of course. Will I? You bet.

So I'm going to tell you again what they are:

* Eboo Patel, founder and executive director of the Interfaith Youth Core, based in Chicago, will be the keynote speaker tomorrow night at Beth Shalom at 9400 Wornall. The link I've given you to the Festival of Faiths above will tell you how to attend, though I hope by now you have tickets for you and everyone you know. I'll be moderating the Q&A after Eboo speaks, so come with some good questions.

* The Greater Kansas City Interfaith Council's annual Table of Faiths luncheon will be Thursday. Click here for details and a way to get tickets. This year the luncheon will honor youth involved in interfaith work, which I wrote about in the Faith section of The Star a week ago Saturday.

There are other events on the Festival of Faiths schedule, too, but for sure you shouldn't miss these two this week.

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WHY FEAR INTERFAITH CONNECTIONS?

And speaking of things interfaith, Peter Steinfels, a great religion writer, has done this piece for The New York Times about two books that draw on various religions. I frankly don't understand the fear some people have about interfaith relations and even learning about other religious traditions. Failing to learn means staying ignorant, which is the breeding ground of fear.

Remembering our pasts: 11-7/8-09

 
It astonishes me in some ways to realize that, had he lived past 1992, my father would have turned 100 on Saturday.

Born Nov. 7, 1909, in Delavan, Ill., W.H. (for Wilber Harold) Tammeus, also known as Bill, lived through the bulk of a remarkable century. The grandson of German immigrants and farmers, he grew up on a farm -- the same farm his younger (87) brother still lives on today. And he had a degree in agriculture from the University of Illinois, where he met my mother, both of whom are pictured above. He spent some of his life in the ag field but not all, later becoming a financial advisor and a map company owner.

Dad grew up a Methodist but became a Presbyterian when he married a Presbyterian. (The photo at the left here shows Mom and Dad on their wedding day, Aug. 15, 1937. Eventually Dad grew into his ears, and so did I.) Both my parents served the church faithfully as elders, but I wouldn't call either of them profound theologians. Rather, both of them tended to live according to some words found in the New Testament book of James, "Faith without works is dead."

I used to joke that later in his life my father survived on all the dollar-a-year jobs he acquired in doing his civic and religious duties.

I mention my father's centennial this weekend not because any (well, many) of you knew him but because I want to make the point that again that we lose our way if we lose our memories. Our personal history creates the story that shapes us. But, in the end, we also can shape that story. We can change the future of the story, even if we can't change the past.

One of the thing faith communities help people do is to reimagine their futures, to see that better, brighter, more productive and beautiful futures are possible. But those futures should honor what was good in our past. My father -- a funny, dedicated, hard-working, trusting, honest man -- is part of what is good about my own past. So as I continue to imagine my future, I will do what I can to remember that and to bring that with me.

(The photo at the bottom right may be my favorite of Dad. My nephew Mark took it one day while Dad was busy hauling nothing, apparently, in our old wheelbarrow from a small storage shed at the back of the house in which I grew up. Dad often laughed, but not in this picture. And, no, my mother did not -- repeat, not -- buy him those overalls or that hat.)

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CLERGY IN CRISIS SITUATIONS

When a catastrophe like the shootings at Ford Hood occurs, one of my first thoughts if for the on-duty clergy who must help people get through all the associated trauma. Catholic News Service has done this intriguing story about one priest at Fort Hood and what he experienced on that awful day on Thursday. Army chaplains receive lots of training, but probably nothing really can prepare someone for a massacre. Still, I'm glad the military has chaplains.

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P.S.: You can follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/BillTammeus.

World to end yet again: 11-6-09

 
Perhaps you've been keeping up with some of the hype about the movie "2012," which opens next week, and its focus on the Mayan calendar.

One interpretation of that calendar is that the Mayans predicted long, long ago that the world would end in 2012.

Oh, brother. Another end-times date setting effort. One thing we know about the date setters is that they've always been wrong. Always. (Pretty obvious, eh?) Many of these date setters get all twisted up in the New Testament book of Revelation, which has become a playground for bad theology and date setters.

But, of course, the Mayans weren't exactly exegeting the last book of the Bible. Nor, says a professor and Maya scholar at the University of New Hampshire, is it accurate to suggest the Mayan calendar calls for an end of the world in 2012.

Eleanor Harrison-Buck, assistant professor of archaeology at New Hamphire, says that misinterpretation has come about because the Mayans' calendar system envisions cycles of time, and the current cycle ends December 21, 2012.

“Rather than simply ‘the end of the world,’" she said in a press release from the school, "the Maya would no doubt have viewed the end of this great cycle as an important and powerful time of reordering and renewal of the world. The current push for sustainability and renewable resources suggests that perhaps the ancient Maya were not that far off in their predictions for this time period, that our world by 2012 would need a time of reordering and renewal.”

But, of course, that wouldn't make a very compelling movie. So the movie imagines that the Mayans called for the world to end on Dec. 21, 2012. The movie Web site calls the film "an epic adventure about a global cataclysm that brings an end to the world. . ."

I remember writng a longish piece for The Kansas City Star (you can find it in my book, A Gift of Meaning) about all the end of the world hype happening as we moved toward the year 2000. Again, it was all nonsense (not my piece, which was naturally brilliant, but the predictions).

That doesn't mean there might not be a cataclysmic end of the world some day. What we know, however, is that each of our individual world's will end when we die. And if you ask me, that's the end for which we should be prepared.

(The image here today is from http://www.tedswiet.com/lightfixtures/Images/exploded_view%20_05.jpg.)

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OLD AND NEW TO BE DISPLAYED TOGETHER

Did you see the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit, either when it was in Kansas City a couple of years ago or elsewhere? Well, it opens in the Twin Cities next March, only this time the exhibition will include some pages from the St. John's Bible, the fabulous hand-written work of art being done at St. John's Abbey in Minnesota. I own a couple of the completed books of that Bible and they're simply amazing works. Look around on the St. John's site.

An ode to freedom: 11-05-09

 
As 1989 drew to a close, I gave my daughters (then 17 and 14) some uncirculated American coins bearing that date and told them to hang on to them as a reminder that they had just lived through what surely would be understood as a watershed year -- not unlike, say, 1968 (no, not because that was the year I married their mother), and 1945 (no, not because that was the year I was born).

And I want to use the upcoming (Nov. 9) 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall as an opportunity to take note of the paradoxical messages of freedom and slavery that religion sometimes offers. In the Christian tradition that is my home, these messages may be paradoxical, but they are not inconsistent and not in conflict when properly understood.

Just to remind ourselves: Under the direction of East German leader Walter Ulbricht, construction on the Berlin Wall began suddenly on Aug. 13, 1961. It soon blocked East Germans from escaping their Communist-led, dour country by slipping in to West Berlin.

It took a long time, but in the late 1980s, East German people began protesting the continued presence of the wall. Finally, an East German official remarked almost in passing that of course citizens could travel freely to the West. At that point, citizens attacked the wall and brought it down -- causing a domino effect across Communist eastern Europe that eventually led to the collapse of the Soviet Union itself.

It was one of freedom's finest hours.

So what is the corresponding message of freedom that religion offers? Well, it varies at least a little, of course, from faith to faith, but many traditions suggest that we can be free only if we submit to God. Indeed the very name Islam means such submission. Even in Buddhism, which is a non-theistic path, people are encouraged to let go of their personal desires as a way of being free from suffering.

As I say, in my Christian tradition, we are fond of quoting Jesus in John 8:32 as saying that "you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." This is often used in secular society almost as an ode to freedom of the press, but when put in its original context, it is paired with the idea that Jesus himself is the truth. So in Christianity, knowing the truth means becoming a disciple of Jesus (sometimes called -- as in I Corinthians 7:22 -- "Christ's slave." It's why Christians say that in Baptism we die to our old selves.)

The message of the great religions is pretty consistent. If you live by your own standards and not by divine standards, you will ensnare yourself in destructive sin, whereas if you submit to the life God calls you to live, you will ultimately be free of such destruction.

So freedom in a religious context does not mean licentiousness. Rather, it means finding your true self by becoming part of a story that is larger than your personal desires. The anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, as I say, offers us a good chance to think about the various meanings of freedom.

(The photo here today of the breaching of the Berlin Wall is from http://library.msstate.edu/libguidefiles/phillips/Berlin%20Wall%20Freedom.jpg.)

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SMOKE-FILLED VATICAN ROOMS?

Pope Benedict XVI has invited various world political leaders, including Vice President Joe Biden and former British PM Tony Blair to come to the Vatican to talk about the role of the church in politics. I'd love to be a fly on the wall at that gathering. I hope someone makes the point that politics is woven through ever aspect of life and that the role of the church is to be in the world but not of it -- in the world, meaning to call politicians and the people who vote for them to act with honor, honesty and integrity.

An Arkansas interfaith model: 11-4-09

 
There's a great interfaith story playing out in northwest Arkansas I want you to know about today. I know about it because a friend of mine is a member of the synagogue where it's happening.

Temple Shalom (temple of peace) in Fayetteville, Ark., will hold its first service in its new building this Hanukkah. It will be a dedication on Dec. 12 that will include leaders of many of the faiths followed by people in that college community. The service will launch the temple's "Faith to Faith Initiative," an effort to create more interfaith understanding.

How did all this come about for this 28-year-old Jewish congregation?

Well, several years ago the congregation was thinking about renovating a home into a synagogue. But Fadil Bayyari, a Palestinian Muslim offered to serve as general contractor to build a new temple -- and he would do it free of charge. Not only that, but his construction company offered to lay the building's foundation at cost.

That generosity -- plus the congregation's use of Episcopalians as architects for the new building -- inspired members to create the "Faith to Faith Initiative," which will include an interfaith library, lecture series and study groups.

If you surf around on the temple's Web site to which I've linked you above, you can read various stories about how all of this came together.

What a great model. No one gives up his faith. Instead, people act together in harmony out of their own faith traditions, and everyone learns.

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HAND OVER YOUR BIBLES AND NO ONE GETS HURT

No doubt many of you have been following the issue of whether Ebay would allow supporters of the man accused of murdering abortion provider Dr. George Tiller to auction off items to raise defense funds. Good for Ebay for saying no and for removing items when they got posted anyway. Who in the world would want to own a Bible just because it belonged to a woman who once shot and wounded Tiller? Still, maybe the wise thing to do would be to remove Bibles from such people if they can't read them for comprehension.

A celebration of memory: 11-3-09

In addition to the new book I wrote with Rabbi Jacques Cukierkorn, They Were Just People: Stories of Rescue in Poland During the Holocaust, I also have a new book called Visitation: A Century of Faith.

It's the centennial book for Visitation Catholic Parish of Kansas City, which turned 100 last month.

This past weekend I was at Visitation to sign copies of the book for parishioners, which is what you see happening in this photo.

All of this raises the question for me of why our faith communities should even bother taking note of such anniversaries.

In a word, it has to do with memory. Without memory, we become untethered from reality. We lose our bearings. We forget the path that brought us to where we are today and, as others have noted, we repeat the mistakes of the past because we don't know the past.

Perhaps all religions prize memory. In my own Christian tradition, even Jesus asked us to break the bread and serve the wine of the Eucharistic meal "in remembrance of me." And the Hebrew Scriptures are full of the repeated stories of the way God rescued Israel.

For Visitation Parish now, there's 100 years of ministry to remember as a way of pointing the congregation toward the future.

The future is all disconnected and meaningless without an understanding of the past. As author and Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister has writeen, "memory is the seedbed of hope."

That's why churches like Visitation produce books like the one I wrote for it.

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A (SORT OF) NEW AMERICAN RELIGION

There's a "religion of thinness" in the U.S. and it's producing damnable results, a professor writes. What makes people worship such false images? And why aren't more young people learning that care of the body does not mean worship of the body?

A Jewish homeland anniversary: 11-2-09

Today is the 92nd anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, which declared that the British government favored "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people."

I remind you of it on this anniversary as a way of discounting a widely held view -- particularly among some Arab and Islamic leaders who continue to oppose the existence of Israel -- that modern Israel was created simply because of the Holocaust.

This historically inaccurate view allows them to add fuel to the fire of their arguments that Israel is illegimate and that if the world wanted to apologize to the Jews for the Holocaust, it should have created a Jewish homeland in Europe, the source and site of the Holocaust.

You can find that kind of thinking permeates the assumptions of Iran's Holocaust-denying president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as recorded in this interview.

Now, there are many legitimate areas of disagreement about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that broke out as soon as modern Israel was created in 1948, and I'm not going to delve into all of that in this small space today. Rather, I just want to remind all of us that the desire of a modern Jewish homeland predates the Holocaust by (at least) decades and found its most prominent expression in the Zionist movement.

Remember, too, that the Balfour Declaration -- essentially a brief letter from British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Lord (Lionel Walter) Rothschild, head of the British Zionist Organization -- was written in the midst of World War I, as the Ottoman Empire was collapsing and as Europe and the MIddle East were in major upheaval.

Please note also in the Balfour letter to Rothschild that Balfour said British government officials "will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious' rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."

Many people would suggest that a failure to carry out all of that in the creation of Israel in 1948 has been a major part of the struggle since.

But as for the historical desire for a Jewish homeland, no doubt one can argue that it goes back at least as far as the year 70 C.E., or A.D., when Rome destroyed Jerusalem and sent the Jewish people into yet another diaspora.

By the way, the best book on this subject I've read is The High Walls of Jerusalem: A History of the Balfour Declaration and the Birth of the British Mandate for Palestine, by Ronald Sanders. If you have another to suggest, let's hear it.

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SOME TROUBLE IN SCIENTOLOGYLAND

My friend Eric Gorski, who now covers religion for the Associated Press, has written this new piece about the recent troubles in the Church of Scientology. As I've said before, I've never been quite sure what to make of Scientology -- whether it's a legitimate religion as its adherents say it is or whether it's just a scam business, as it's called by its harhest critics. Any Scientology followers out there who wish to speak up? Or any former Scientologists willing to tell us why you left?

Religion's role in wars: 10-31/11-1-09

 

Over the years I have written several times about the Parliament of World Religions -- the first one having been held in Chicago in 1893. (One gathering from that event is pictured here.)

Indeed, somewhere on my bookshelves I have the two-volume record of that event, books I picked up at a garage sale in the 1960s. Go figure.

Anyway, the fifth Parliament of Religions will be held in December in Melbourne, Australia, and the people organizing it have just announced that it will include an important conflict resolution program.

The program, officials says, will feature eight peacekeeping teams from regions of the world affected by conflict. There will be panels that will talk about these conflicts from the perspectives of religion, media, women, Indigenous peoples and other viewpoints.

I invite you to surf around on the Parliament Web site to which I've linked you above to find out what else is going to happen Dec. 3-9 in Melbourne, but I'm glad that some specific attention will be paid to the idea of conflict resolution and the role religion can play in making that happen.

Often, but not always, religion is found as a source of conflict and war, and I hope the people participating in this Parliament program will delve into that history and see what lessons can be learned from it.

Certainly not all wars can be attributed to religious disagreements. But some have religious roots and/or religious overtones, and it's the responsibility of people of faith to figure out why that's happened and to prevent it in the future.

(The photo here today was found at: http://transformingcompassion.typepad.com/transforming_compassion_p/parliament-of-the-worlds-religions/.)

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MUSLIMS DON'T 'OWN' ALLAH AS A WORD

Authorities in Malaysia have seized Bibles because they use the Arabic word for God, Allah. Some Christians there think this indicates a growing move toward a radical interpretation of Islam. The Malaysian officials are making the same mistake a writer for The Kansas City Star made recently in an otherwise good piece about Muslims in KC -- saying that "Allah" is the exclusively Islamic name for God. No, it's the Arabic translation of the word God.

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P.S.: In this entry this past August, I shared with you some thoughts from an area pastor who was taking a trip to the Middle East with a peace group. The evening of Saturday, Nov. 7, that pastor, the Rev. Cindy Howard, will be speaking about her experiences at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Kansas City. For information, click here.

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ANOTHER P.S.: A Kansas City anti-poverty group called Care of Poor People will hold its periodic giveaway of clothing and other materials from noon to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 28, at 31st and Baltimore in Kansas City. For details and ways to help, click here for a pdf file: Download COPP. In fact, copy it and share it with your own faith community or other group. 

The beauty and limits of words: 10-30-09

A dispute within the Roman Catholic Church about a revision of a worship book provides a chance for all of us to think about how crucial language is -- or can be -- in faith communities. And also about the limits of words.

The Catholics are considering a new translation from Latin to English of the Roman Missal, but Bishop Donald W. Trautman of Erie, Pa., former chairman of the U.S. bishops' liturgy committee, recently leveled some sharp criticism at the revision, suggesting it was much too literal and thereby missed a lot of the intended meaning. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is to consider the changes when it meets in November.

Well, as a Presbyterian, I don't have a dog in this fight. So I won't be either leaping in on Trautman's side or defending the translators.

But I think Trautman's critique offers reminders about what use people of faith are to make of language and how important, if limited, that language is.

First, no matter what religion we claim, all of us should acknowledge that all words -- all words -- are simply metaphors in that they themselves are not the objects they describe. Rather, in an almost sacramental way, they point beyond themselves.

One of the implications of that reality is that we would do well not to fall in love with particular words or phrases because we think they exhaust the divine meaning in something. So none of the many creeds in our Presbyterian Book of Confessions, for instance, contains words that, if I say them, will guarantee me an eternal relationship with God. Rather, they direct me to eternal things. They themselves are not eternal. Some of them, it turns out, reflect misguided thinking from centuries ago, and we'd be foolish to hitch our wagons to them -- even though, as an ordained elder in the church, I have pledged to "sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reformed faith as expressed in the confessions of our church. . ."

In Christianity, at least, truth is not a doctrine or dogma expressed in exact words. Rather, truth is a person, Christ Jesus, known as the Word of God. And I find that enormously liberating.

But whatever our faith tradition, if any, let's remember not just the importance of beautifully crafted words but also their limits. That's partly what I draw from the current Catholic dispute.

(The illustration here today is from http://fysop.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/words-12.jpg.)

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THE VATICAN IS WATCHING

When Pope Benedict XVI met the new Iranian ambassador to the Vatican on Thursday, it gave him a chance to let Iran's leaders know that he and other religious leaders around the world are watching the ways in which that country either defends or denigrates the religious freedom of all its citizens. That's one good reason for countries with bad histories of religious oppression to have formal relations with the Vatican.

When is it a miracle? 10-29-09

I want to use the publication of an excellent new book to talk today a little about religious language -- its uses and misuses.

The book is Miracle on the Hudson: The Survivors of Flight 1549 Tell Their Extraordinary Stories of Courage, Faith, and Determination, by William Prochnau and Laura Parker. Please note that this is not the book that my friend Jeffrey Zaslow helped Capt. Chesley Sullenberger write, Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters. I intend to read Jeff's book but haven't yet had a chance.

But back to the Prochnau-Parker book. Just what is a miracle?

I think we'd all do well to limit our use of that term to something that cannot be explained without appeal to divine intervention. We hear about "miraculous" basketball shots or we hear someone say it was "just a miracle" that she ran into an old childhood friend in a distant airport. Similarly, we hear the word "demonic" used to describe evil situations that are clearly the result of human agency.

My plea is that we be more careful about the use of language because using such terms for everyday occurrences devalues the words.

Did an honest-to-God miracle happen when US Airways flight 1549 landed safely -- with no deaths -- in the Hudson River this past January just a few minutes after taking off from from a New York airport and striking a flock of geese? Or was it just a combination of excellent pilot work, fortuitous timing and location and quick thinking by passengers and other crew members?

The authors of this new book do not answer that question directly. Good for them. And they are careful to attribute the original use of the label of "miracle on the Hudson" to New York Gov. David Paterson.

But fairly early in the narrative, they do say that "if a 'miracle on the Hudson' was about to occur, it would require a sequence of 'miracles' to enable it. One Safety Board official close to the investigation counted as many as eight 'miracle requirements' starting with the cockpit crew's experience and innate ability to make almost instant decisions. . ." The other seven "miracles" were: "weather, a calm river clear of traffic, trained rescuers ready at the snap of one's fingers, the structural strength of the airplane, senior flight attendants and, not least, passengers who, despite natural and dreadful fears that would not end when the plane hit the water, did indeed scramble, and occasionally lose it, but got it back fast and did not panic."

The book pays a fair amount of attention to the religious beliefs and practices of the passengers on the plane -- and in some ways these passengers represent the religiously pluralistic America we are becoming:

"Many were praying -- all those faiths, all those visions of God and the route to His Place:

"Balaji Ganesan, a Hindu, looking at the river from seat 20E, sat next to Amber Wells, a Methodist deep in her prayer.

"Heyam Kawas, a Muslim, was hunched over in prayer. . .

"A silent Russian prayer next to a silent Jewish prayer, the believers holding hands.

"There were Roman Catholics, Armenian Orthodox, and all the various Christian faiths that had set their own paths. Christmas and Easter churchgoers. Agnostics and nonbelievers. Men and women who had no idea they were religious until this moment, converts in a kind of flying foxhole."

But it's not surprising that some of the 1549 survivors believe that what happened to them was truly a miracle. As passenger Molly Schugel put it near the end of the book: "There was this miracle so the world could continue to have hope."

I don't discount the possibility that what happened that cold January day to 1549 was a legitimate miracle with some kind of divine purpose. But I think it's too easy to label it that. I know it sounds nit-picky, but just as we shouldn't say "I'm freezing" when we're just a little chilly in a house with a thermostat set at 67, so we shouldn't be calling events miracles when there are rational natural explanations. Exaggeration sucks the power out of words eventually.

I hope all this won't spoil a good read for you. The authors have told a compelling story in the right way -- by excellent reporting. And -- given all the trash "journalism" one finds these days, especially on the Internet -- that may be a small miracle in itself.

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DARN, HE COULD HAVE HAD A V-8

A man in Kentucky, arrested for car theft, said God wanted him to steal a Dodge Charger. Well, maybe. But if God were going to ask someone to steal a car, wouldn't it be a Christler?