Bill's 'Faith Matters' Blog

Americans as creationists: 5-22-13

Yesterday here on the blog I told you about an old evolution debate from the 1920s and earlier, one that affected my own denomination, the Presbyterian Church (USA), and others.

I want to follow that up today by linking you to this engaging piece about why so many Americans, who often seen so up-to-speed on scientific innovation and technology, are nonetheless drawn to reject macro-evolution and embrace the pseudoscience called creationism.

The reasons listed seem compelling to me but in no way an exhaustive explanation. Those reasons are that creationism:

* Appeals to our American democratic impulse.

* Demands fairness so all voices can be heard.

* Appeals to the authority of some people who reject evolution.

* Promotes freedom of inquiry for students.

* Rejects the scientific establishment's dismissive views of alternative theories.

* Appeals to the sympathy of Americans who learn that creationists are not embraced by academic institutions.

All that may be true, as the piece to which I've linked you suggests, but I think another major reason has been left out.

And that is this: Creationism reflects a literalistic reading of the Bible, and it's exactly that kind of reading that many branches of Christianity in America promote. In such a reading, the world was created in six literal days and is only a few thousand years old. Of course, the brains God gave us to examine our world must necessarily reject that as poppycock, but sometimes fundamentalist thinking overrides reason and scientific evidence.

One day, perhaps, some of the literalists will grasp the reality that all language is metaphorical and that religious language is especially so. Until then, however, we're going to have lots of Americans wandering about happily claiming the creationist label as long as that label means a literalistic reading of the Bible.

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MONITORING RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

The U.S. State Department's annual report on religious freedom around the world was released this week. Good. I'm glad our government keeps doing this through the State Department and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. I also found worth reading the transcript of the remarks and press conference by our ambassador at large for international religious freedomk Suzan Johnson Cook. Have a read.

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An old evolution debate: 5-21-13

Sometimes it's instructive to look back at the history of one's own religion -- or branch thereof, at least -- to get a sense of what has been left behind and what still matters.

I raise this point because I was reading the other day that it was in May 1924 that so-called liberals in my own denomination, now known as the Presbyterian Church (USA), issued what was called the Auburn Affirmation in response to the 1923 reaffirmation by the church's national governing body of "five fundamentals" of the faith (first adopted in 1910) that people were required to believe.

Essentially those fundamentals were in complete harmony with the nascent fundamentalist movement that had a strict list of what Christians were supposed to believe.

Remember that all of this was happening at the time of a huge national debate over evolution -- a debate fueled by the so-called Scopes Monkey Trial, which the fundamentalists technically won, although in the process they became a national laughingstock.

So by action of the Presbyterian General Assembly, church members were told that the theory of evolution proposed by Charles Darwin was, well, the devil's work. Yes, I know there still are branches of Christianity today that cling to that belief, and I know many Americans are perfectly willing to denigrate evolution as unbiblical.

The Auburn Affirmation would have none of that. Indeed, it declared that the Bible is not inerrant. In other words, it took the Bible seriously, not literally (you can't do both).

Such fights go on in various places today and no doubt most of 100 years from now some faith blogger will be dragging out today's controversies and shaking his or her head over what some people think is worth arguing about. But it won't be me, barring divine intervention.

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THERE'S NOT JUST ONE ISLAM

The author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, now a film, argues here that although Islam is certainly monotheistic, it's not monolithic. He's got that right. In fact, no major world religion is monolithic but is, rather, full of different approaches and ideas.

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Renewing stem cell debate: 5-20-13

Before I retired from full-time work at The Kansas City Star in 2006, I wrote a fair amount about early, or embryonic, stem cells and their potential to create ways to heal many diseases.

Embedded in that discussion was the question of whether one day it might be possible to clone human embryos that could produce embryonic stem cells and eventually whether it might be possible to clone whole human beings. In turn, that led to profoundly troubling ethical questions about whether it would be right to do so.

Those questions now have taken on greater urgency with the recent news that for the first time, as National Public Radio reported here, scientists have "cloned human embryos capable of producing embryonic stem cells."

On one side are scientists who believe they are ethically bringing forward curative technologies that will make life much better for suffering people. On the other side are ethicists and others who say that cloning a human embryo for the purpose of destroying it to get stem cells is a morally inadmissable behavior.

Beyond that, the scientists who have achieved this latest break-through say the embryos they create almost certainly could never be used to grow a fully healthy new human being and are not meant to. But they are meant to help heal disease, which is a good thing.

Others warn that we're on a slippery slope toward cloning humans and once that gate is crashed there's no telling where it will lead.

I have oversimplified the arguments here, which in reality come in lots of different shades. But the point is clear that humanity is -- or should be -- in the midst of a debate about what's the ethical thing to do.

I'm not sure it's either possible or wise to slow down the work of scientists in this area, but I do think it's necessary to have a public discussion about all of this as this work goes forward, and my hope is that the very scientists engaged in this work would have a prominent place in that conversation.

I can imagine all kinds of evil ways to use to cloning technology as well as many uses that are not just morally acceptable but morally praiseworthy. Let's educate ourselves about all of this before we wake up one day to find that we've crossed some line we never should have come near.

* * *

THE POPE AS AN 'EMERGENT' LEADER?

Pope Francis is sounding more and more like some of the leaders of the Emergent Church Movement as he urges Catholics not to be "barricaded in transient structures which have lost their capacity for openness to what is new." In remarks on Penetecost Sunday, he added, "Newness always makes us a bit fearful, because we feel more secure if we have everything under control." It's the same message such Emergent gurus as Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, Tim Keel and others have been preaching for years now. And if the pope's advice is followed it can only make the Catholic Church more healthy.

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What ritual does for us: 5-18/19-13

One of the gifts religion has given the world or at least helped to affirm and nurture is ritual. Yes, there's empty, meaningless ritual. But ritual also can be profoundly healing.

(The book to read is Caring Liturgies: The Pastoral Power of Christian Ritual, by Susan Marie Smith. The fact that I helped Susan edit the book should not deter you. It's a fine read)

Some faith traditions rely on ritual more than others, but all of them employ it in some way or other and by doing that they help to teach its efficacy in even non-religious situations.

Recently, Scientific American offered readers this thoughtful piece called "Why Rituals Work: There Are Real Benefits to Rituals, Religious or Otherwise." Here's a key in the article:

"Recent research suggests that rituals may be more rational than they appear. Why? Because even simple rituals can be extremely effective. Rituals performed after experiencing losses – from loved ones to lotteries – do alleviate grief, and rituals performed before high-pressure tasks – like singing in public – do in fact reduce anxiety and increase people’s confidence."

It's kind of fun to watch for rituals as you wander through the day. I especially like to pay attention to rituals that athletes use. Watch a batter prepare to step up to the plate in baseball, for instance. Often he will go through the very same motions each time.

Rituals can offer a sense of stability and routine in a world full of uncertainty. It's more than just a crutch. It's a way of giving people at least a small sense of control and focus. And in many religious rituals, the point has to do with connecting the finite to the infinite and the ordinary to awe and wonder.

Which strikes me as a perfectly good thing to want to do.

* * *

RELIGION STATS IN THE U.K.

Friday here on the blog I wrote about religious statistics. To follow up that discussion, new figures for religious affiliation in the United Kingdom have just been released. Have a look. Lots of interesting stuff there as what once was an area dominated by Christianity now is going more pluralistic.

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The statisticians of religion: 5-17-13

No doubt someone could earn a Ph.D. doing research on statistics about religion -- how they're compiled, by whom, their reliability, their purposes and on and on.

Journalists who cover religion often are looking for statistics to show that there are blank point blank million Presbyterians in the U.S. or blank point blank million Muslims in India.

None of these statistics, of course, tells us anything about whether the people who identify as Presbyterian or Muslim are serious about their religion or simply members in name only.

Still, the stats keep showing up. And perhaps the most reliable source of such stats comes from the Association of Religious Data Archives. It's sort of fun to surf around on that site.

Speaking of stats, the other day Vatican Radio reported on the worldwide Catholic population based on new figures from the 2013 Pontifical Yearbook, which keeps track of all stats Catholic.There were some interesting stats about the growth of the number of deacons, for instance, but the total worldwide Catholic population hadn't changed much since the last report.

If Catholic stats are your thing, have a look.

And when someone figures out how to keep statistics of commitment or statistics of the heart, let me know.

* * *

TWEETING YOUR WAY TO DOOM

The head of Saudi Arabia's religious police says people who use Twitter probably are going to hell. But once there, they probably can sign right up for Flamebook.

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Enough of 'welcoming' churches: 5-16-13

When the visioning task force I chaired for my congregation issued our "GPS Report" early last year, one of the sections under which our recommendations fell was called "Radical Intentional Hospitality."

In effect, it called on our congregation not just to welcome people warmly when they came to our building but -- much more important -- to encourage our members to get outside our walls and meet the needs of people in our community. That's why I volunteer at Hope Care Center, a 24-hour skilled nursing facility for AIDS patients. That's why I volunteer at the Southwest Early College Campus (SWECC) as part of the SWECC Faith-based Coalition.

So I was introgued recently to find this blog from a church that says it has given up trying to be a "welcoming" congregation.

Rather, it has decided to be an "inviting" congregation.

Here's how that blog entry explains the difference: "You see, 'welcoming' from a missional perspective is passive. It denotes waiting for visitors and guests to drop by. . .'Inviting,' however, is different. That means we leave the comfort of our congregational home-court advantage."

The object "isn’t about getting the world into God’s church; it’s about getting the church into God’s world."

That idea is why we used the photo here today as an illustration in our GPS Report. It shows us looking out our church doors to our neighborhood.

However difficult this concept may be to implement, it makes a lot of sense to me. If your congregation is doing anything similar, tell me your experience by e-mailing me at wtammeus@kc.rr.com.

* * *

THE BOOK CORNER

Pope Francis in His Own Words, edited by Julie Schwietert Collazo and Lisa Rogak. Anyone could see this book coming from almost the moment that Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was chosen as Pope Francis. Unlike the most recent two popes, this pontiff came into office without a long paper trail familiar to people around the world. So journalists and others have been scrambling to figure out what he's said on this or that subject and where he fits on the sliding theological scale of Christianity. The benefit of this small book is that it hits lots of subjects with bite-size quotes from the new pope -- mostly from pre-election sources. The disadvantage is that the quotes are bite-size, meaning that readers can't always be sure of the broader context and, thus, of whether the quote truly exhausts or even represents the pope's thinking on the subject. But it's a start. And although it's misleading to reduce the papacy to a series of epigrams or one-liners, some of this intriguing man shines through here.

* * *

P.S.: My latest National Catholic Reporter column now is online. To read it, click here.

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Not About George Brett at 60: 5-15-13

Yes, I know that today is George Brett's birthday and that the Hall of Famer whose career I was privileged to watch (some of it in person) turns 60. But mostly I don't write about sports here, so happy birthday, George, but I'm moving on to another birthday today.

Dante Alighieri (depicted here), the Italian poet who wrote The Divine Comedy, was born on this date in 1265 in Florence (Italy, not Alabama), and as far as I know never played third base.

That work of Dante, considered the first great Christian poem, has been in my life off and on since childhood. My parents had a huge illustrated copy of The Divine Comedy, and I spent lots of time over the years reading and thumbing through it, paying special attention to the sensationally graphic drawings of the various levels of hell and all the poor suffering souls there.

Yikes.

In the end, I think I understood the work as metaphor, but the accompanying art made it seem so real. It was like a train wreck from which it was impossible to avert one's eyes.

Now there's a copy of the work on one of our bookshelves as part of the Harvard Classics that my bride inherited from her ancestors. And I've dragged it out to read parts of now and then, though I must say that without the gory illustrations it seems not as exciting.

Still, metaphor is metaphor (religious languages is especially metaphorical), and if this is an allegorical or metaphorical description of one's journey toward God, then there are plenty of entry points and plenty of levels of meaning to explore.

Some day I'd sit still for a one-hour really engaging walk through Dante's work by someone who understood its depth and yet didn't put an audience to sleep. Perhaps the pictures in the book of my childhood could be brought to animated life. That would be cool -- unless I ran screaming from the venue.

Hey, about about Dante Night at the ball park when the first 20,000 attendees would get Dante bobbleheads?

* * *

LAWS AGAINST INSULTING ISLAM

Two more recent examples of people being arrested for insulting Islam once again raise the question of why religious leaders in some countries are so defensive and frightened that their religion isn't strong enough to handle public criticism. There's this case in Egypt and this one in Qatar. Surely one of the world's great religions doesn't need such laws to protect it. If I could be arrested for insulting my own faith, Christianity, I'd have been in jail long ago. Well, at least for insulting some Christians, me included, for failing to live out our values.

* * *

P.S.: My latest National Catholic Reporter column now is online. To read it, click here.

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A church's slavery history: 5-14-13

Over the decades, the question of what Christian churches did to oppose or support slavery in the United States has been an embarrassing one that many adherents of the faith have chosen not to explore, given that so much time has passed and that no legitimate church now supports slavery.

Issue settled. Let's move on. But hold on. We forget our own history at our peril.

The slavery question figured prominently in the formation of my own congregation. Second Presbyterian Church of Kansas City started at the end of the Civil War by 10 people who were opposed to slavery and, thus, were identified with the "New School" movement in the denomination. They broke away from old First Presbyterian Church, an "Old School," meaning essentially pro-slavery. It took another 100 years or more, but eventually old First Church in Downtown KC dwindled to almost nothing and eventually was merged into another congregation -- St. Mark Union Church, which is a predominantly black church. Nice irony, eh?

At any rate, my friend Glenn Carson, who heads the Disciples of Christ (Christian Church) Historical Society, has alerted me to an online exploration of the slavery question in his denomination. It's really well done and worth some time to explore.

You can find it by clicking here. Each section goes on in some depth, but you always can return to the starting place by clicking "home."

What I especially like about this historical display is that it is quite honest about the failure of the Disciples of Christ to be ardent advocates for freedom, though of course some Disciples were exactly that. But the church was split north and south and churches in the south tended to defend slavery, which, in fact, was true of many, if not most, churches in the pre-war south.

There should be a lesson to be learned here about other freedom movements, including the question of how to welcome gays and lesbians to all segments of ministry in congregations. But we're slow to learn, and lots of churches continue to stand as barriers to full inclusion in this matter. No doubt years from now they'll be as embarrassed about that as they are now about their support of slavery. At least one can hope so.

* * *

THE SAINTS ARE MARCHING IN

In many Protestant churches we speak of other members informally as "saints." Everyone is a saint, in effect. That's not the approach the Catholic Church takes, but it got a bit closer to that Sunday when Pope Francis presided over the canonization of more than 800 new saints. And as the piece to which I've linked you here notes, the choice of some of those saints may make relations with Islam a bit more difficult.

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Young Holocaust scholars: 5-13-13

One of the obvious truths about history is that as new generations come along they must be taught from scratch what has happened (and why) before they arrived.

We are not, after all, born with a data bank in our skulls containing files describing events 10, 50 or 2,000 years before our birth.

Some of this history is not as important as other parts, of course. Who, in the end, needs to know the names of each of Elizabeth Taylor Hilton Wilding Todd Fisher Burton Burton Warner Fortensky's husbands? But wars, inventions, the Holocaust -- well, those are different matters.

So I was pleased again this year to be a preliminary judge for the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education's annual White Rose Essay contest for middle- and high-school students.

The theme this year was "Flight from the Reich: The Search for Safe Haven," and students were asked to describe various ways in which the threatened Jews of Europe (they were all threatened) sought to escape almost-certain death at the hands of Hitler and his killing machine.

(For a related post, see this past weekend's blog entry about Nechama Tec's new book about the many ways in which Jews resisted the Nazis and their allies.)

I hope you'll have a look at the two top winning essays, which ae posted here on the MCHE website. The good work by Amanda Nguyen from Harmony Middle School and Kenneth Berglund from Rockhurst High School (both pictured above) offers reassuring evidence that important history is not being neglected but is, rather, being taught to new generations.

Remembrance, after all, is our only hope that this kind of genocide won't be repeated, though even at that it sometimes seems like a slim hope. For reasons I say that, I invite you to read my recent review in The National Catholic Reporter of Alvin Rosenfeld's new book, Resurgent Antisemitism.

* * *

BURIAL WAS DOING GOD'S WORK

The woman who helped to arrange the burial of the dead Boston Marathon bomber says she was simply doing what God would have wanted her to do. Agreed. I was disappointed generally in the silent treatment that most Christians engaged in when confronted with this problem. Here on the blog I urged them to show some radical hospitality, but mostly there was no response.

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Did the Jews fight back? 5-11/12-13

One of the persistent myths about the Holocaust is that Jews did not resist, giving in like sheep to the slaughter that was led by Hitler's murderous vision of the end of European Jewry.

It's hard to know where to begin to analyze history to see how much truth there might be in the myth and how much of it is simply wrong. One place to start, perhaps, are with those Jews who managed to find non-Jews to hide or in other ways help them survive. You can read 20 or so stories of such survivors and the families who helped them in a book I wrote with Rabbi Jacques Cukierkorn, They Were Just People: Stories of Rescue in Poland During the Holocaust. Surely that was an example of resistence.

Another reality to consider is how completely unbelievable in the 1930s was the idea that any government could adopt as a goal the elimination of an entire people merely for being who they were. Thus, though Jews may have expected discrimination and oppression, it was hard to believe that they all would be targets to be exterminated. So instead of fleeing at the election of Hitler in 1933, they waited, hoping things wouldn't be so bad.

But Jewish resistance is much more complicated than all that and, in fact, much more common than the relatively small number of Jews who managed to slip away from Hitler's death machine with non-Jewish help.

Some scholars have looked at this matter in the course of writing about the Holocaust as a whole, but now Nechama Tec focuses entirely on the subject in her new book: Resistance: Christians and Jews Who Defied the Nazis Terror.

It's an important and necessary book. And, what's more, it's written not for already-in-the-know scholars but for anyone and everyone, including those just beginning to learn about the horror that was the Holocaust, or Shoah.

Tec, an emerita professor at the University of Connecticut and author of several other Holocaust-related books, tells the story of resistance not just from a 30,000-foot level but also from an on-the-ground level with stories of actual resisters based on interviews with some of them. And she puts all of this in perspective by reporting that German oppression and violence "was met by three distinct reactions: submission, resistance, and collaboration." Her new book, obviously, focuses on the second of those.

She wants readers to know that "resistance is more than not submitting -- it is active and requires taking action, and that means cooperation with others." You might have an individual resilient spirit, but to resist something as massive and deadly as Hitler's "Final Solution" required people to work together. And even then, of course, two-thirds of Europe's Jews died anyway.

One of the things that makes this book so helpful is that as it seeks to understand resistance and the widespread myth that not much of it happened, it also offers a broad outline of how the Holocaust itself came about and played out. And, as our own They Were Just People book does, it asks readers to think about what they might do if faced with life-and-death questions. And although we'll never know how we'd react in any given situation, the more we can think through our options before a crisis happens the better we might be prepared to do the right thing.

* * *

WHAT MAKES THE WORLD WORTH IT

A Catholic publication reviewing "The Great Gatsby" movie concludes that the world is an empty place without faith. Theists, atheists, discuss. But with civility, please.

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