Tag Archives: religion and politics

Open Letter to Friend and Foe

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I remember

As far back as I can remember, I’ve said that if, God forbid, what happened in Germany would ever happen in America, I would stand up and speak out. It’s always been part of who I am. I made that commitment early on as a fledgling Christian who saw the flag and cross as the warp and woof of the same cloth. To be a disciple of Jesus was to be an American patriot, to take up my cross on behalf of democracy and freedom. As I saw it then, there was little, if any, distinction between standing for the Hallelujah Chorus on Easter and standing for the national anthem on the Fourth of July. Every school day began standing with hands over our hearts to face the flag and say the Pledge of Allegiance. When we finished the pledge, we took our seats for the Bible reading and a prayer. Once a week we ducked under our desks in fear the Russians would hit Marple Elementary School with a nuclear strike.

American Civil Religion

That was a long time ago, but not so long ago to have forgotten. Flawed though it was, there an unspoken code which Robert Bellah later called the “American civil religion,” a societal consensus that knit us together in one commonwealth, an aspirational commitment to goodness, however strong the forces that threatened to shred it.

Humility was a virtue; arrogance was not. Pride goeth before the fall — don’t get too big for your britches — the foolish man built his house upon the sand, and the rains came down and the floods came up…. When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down in the place of honor . . . For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. Honesty was a virtue; lying was not. Revenge was not a virtue. Blessed are the merciful . . . . You have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, but I say to you . . . . Glamour, greed, and wealth were not virtues. Blessed are the meek . . . . Your rich men are full of violence; your inhabitants speak lies, and their tongue is deceitful. Blessed are the poor. The rich man went away sorrowfully. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the poor…. Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust consume, and thieves break in and steal… For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also; you cannot serve both God and wealth.

The Golden Mean between Extremes

Robert Fulgrum’s Everything I Learned in Kindergarten gives insight into a social ethic akin to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, by which, in the pursuit of happiness (eudaimonia), one navigates the “golden mean” between the opposites. The virtue of courage, for example, is the middle way between cowardice and recklessness. Generosity is the golden mean between the extremes of stinginess and profligacy. Confidence avoids the opposing extremes of arrogance and self-loathing.

Robert Fulgrum’s Everything I Learned in Kindergarten offers practical insight into a social ethic like Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, by which, in the pursuit of happiness (eudaimonia), one navigates the “golden mean” between the opposites. The virtue of courage, for example, is the middle way between cowardice and recklessness. Generosity is the golden mean between the extremes of stinginess and profligacy. Confidence avoids the opposing extremes of self-loathing and arrogance.

A Social Consensus

This moral consensus is rooted in classical Greek and Roman philosophy and culture every bit as much as it is in the Judeo-Christian tradition and scripture. A Thesaurus lists the following adjectives to describe the most egregious extremes of unacceptable behavior and character to be avoided:

  • big-headed
  • boastful
  • braggin
  • cocky
  • conceited
  • condescending
  • egomaniacal
  • haughty
  • high and mighty
  • hoity-toity
  • nose in the air
  • ostentatious
  • patronizing
  • pretentious
  • self-admiring
  • self-centered
  • snippy
  • snooty
  • snotty
  • stuck-up
  • superior
  • uppity
  • vain.

The social code at Marple Elementary

At Marple Elementary we feared bullies, but we did not respect them. Though we were often rude, crude, cruel, and mean, we knew better. We were taught that all of us are responsible to each other. We were accountable for our behavior. We were taught to be good sports. We didn’t like sore losers. Getting revenge was not a virtue.

“I am your revenge”

What is happening to us? “I am your revenge.” When did vengeance become a virtue, while truth-telling, honesty, and personal accountability went out of style? How did it become acceptable to insult another person with belittling nicknames? How did attacks on courts, judges, prosecutors, and grand juries (ordinary people exercising their civic duty without favor or prejudice) become accepted practice in American daily life? How did it happen that the party of Abraham Lincoln has become the party of Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Goetz, and a Freedom Caucus cowering in fear of the bully? How did criminal indictment become a Medal of Honor?

Legitimacy and a Mist that Vanishes

“I’m a legitimate person. I’ve done nothing wrong. It’s all a hoax.” Legitimacy is the question now. Can it honestly be said that a former president and the Grand Old Party are still legitimate players in a constitutional republic? I’m old now, but not too old to forget the promise I made as a child.

“What is your life?” asked the writer of the Epistle of James. “You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes…. As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin.” (from the Letter of James 3:13-17 NRSV.)

Marple Elementary School vanished. The wrecking ball of time demolished it, but some of its old students are still here to fulfill the promise we made to our young selves. If ever there was a time to stand up and speak out, that moment is now.

Gordon C. Stewart, Presbyterian Minister (HR), author of Be Still! Departure from  Collective Madness (49 two-four page meditations of faith and public events), host of Views from the Edge: To See More Clearly (gordoncstewart.com); Brooklyn Park, MN, September 13, 2023.

Religion and Politics: Cain and Abel

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The Ongoing Saga of Cain and Abel

Gordon C. Stewart | published by MinnPost.com

Religion and politics: oil and water? The problem is that each stakes a claim for the same turf. They both answer the question of how we live together. The fact that religious creeds and political creeds stake claims to leads some of us to separate them, not only as they are separated by the U.S. Constitution, but by carving out different spaces on the same turf: one private/personal sphere (religion), the other public/social sphere (politics). Religion says to politics: Keep your hands off my private beliefs! Politics says to religion: Keep your hands off public policy!

With the exception of adherents of the extreme right or left in religion or politics, most of us have had enough of religious or political fundamentalism. We’re tired of explosive tirades and single-issue politics whose test-tube is organized religion. We’re equally tired of political power plays that dress up a political party (take your choice) as the incarnation of righteousness.

The U.S. Constitution does a good thing when it insists that there be no established religion in this country. Looking back on the failed experiment of the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s blending of religious creed and political authority that resulted in the banishment of dissident Anne Hutchinson (1637), the execution of Quaker Mary Dyer, and the Salem witch trials, the framers of our Constitution had every reason to protect the body politic from the tyranny of any religious majority.

Faith, a vision of the peaceable society

But even as I celebrate the anti-establishment provision of the Constitution, there is no way to separate faith and politics. It’s impossible because faith is about more than the private/personal sphere — it’s a vision of the peaceable society. Faith and politics live in the same territory every time the vexing questions appear regarding the public/social/economic/military ideas and beliefs that create public policy for good or for ill.

The three Abrahamic religions — Judaism, Islam, and Christianity — answer Yes to the question “Am I my brother’s/sister’s keeper?” Our three traditions refuse to confine religion to the vertical and the private. Faith is a living relationship with the Divine that expresses itself, according to Amos, Jesus, and Muhammad, primarily in the daily practice of keeping or caring for the neighbor. Jewish, Christian and Islamic faiths are social as well as personal, public as well as private. While alms-giving and charitable giving are essential, they count for little without also addressing the public policies that set the fires that drive people into the arms of charity. The Cain and Abel story strikes me as a place to anchor the discussion. In the biblical story, Cain (‘kayin’ which means ‘Get’ in Hebrew) is humanity’s first child East of Eden. When Cain kills his young brother Abel (‘puff’ or ‘vapor’ in Hebrew), YHWH asks Cain where his brother is. Cain answers with a crafty question that still echoes down the centuries with war and bloodshed and religious hatred: “I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”

A call from the NRA

While concentrating on the Cain and Abel story last Monday, my phone rang. The little window on the phone said “NRA.” “Mr. Stewart?” “Yes.” “I’m calling for Ronald Schmeits, president of the National Rifle Association, to invite you participate in a survey with one simple question. It will take just a minute of your time. Mr. Schmeits has an important message. When the message is finished, Mr. Schmeits’ assistant will come on the line for the one-answer survey.”

The message went something like this: “Right now the United Nations is meeting behind closed doors planning to ban all guns everywhere in the world. Even as I speak, they’re planning behind closed doors to take away your freedom in this country. The United States is a sovereign country. We cannot allow a bunch of banana republic dictators to take away the American people’s freedom to bear arms. If we let them succeed, it will be the end of the Second Amendment and the end of freedom in our own country.” Mr. Schmeits’ assistant came on the line to pose the survey’s one “simple” question: “Mr. Stewart, do you think we should allow the United Nations and a bunch of banana republic dictators to take away our freedom? ”

“May I ask how you got my name?”

“Yes, sir, you’re in our data base either as an NRA member, contributor, or as someone who believes in the civil liberties.”

“Well …,” I said, “… I am an advocate for civil liberties.”

“So, Mr. Stewart, would you like to answer the question?”

“Are you serious?! You want me to answer a question that has only one answer, a question premised on demagoguery, fear and lies? Give me a break.”

“You’ve had your break! Have a nice day, Mr. Stewart!”

At that point I wished I’d had a gun. In the name of Abel and all things good, I was becoming Cain.

The work of all religion and politics

YHWH tells an angry Cain in the Genesis story that “sin is crouching at the door, and its urging is for you. But you must master it.” It is the human leaning toward violence that humanity must overcome.

The story of humankind is Cain’s story, the refusal of this mastery. The long sweep of human history is the story of slaying the brother because we have not mastered the beast that crouches inside ourselves. “I am not my brother’s/sister’s keeper.” The sin — i.e. the refusal to take responsibility, the rebellion of separation and of slaying that from which we cannot be separated — goes un-mastered and slays the brother. It comes hurling down the centuries of human development as a rock, a caveman’s club, a sling shot, a rifle, a handgun, a Bazooka, an M-15, an airplane turned into a missile, a drone that kills innocent civilians whose blood, as in the Genesis story, “is crying out to Me (YHWH) from the ground.” Abel’s blood is the ink in which our story is written. Cain’s story sets the stage for the work of all religion and politics worthy of their callings. It is the real story of the Fall from grace held in common by Christians, Jews, and Muslims. It also holds the key to re-writing the story, not by claiming innocence, but by taking responsibility for a violent world.

For faith and for politics alike there is one over-riding question: Am I my brother’s keeper? Or will I insist on the right to slay him? Am I willing to take responsibility for my neighbor, to master the urge to violence that crouches at my door? Do my religion and my politics slay or keep my brother/my sister from deadly harm?

Are we willing to re-claim the Earth as sacred turf — through responsible religion and responsible politics — so that the voice of Abel’s blood no longer cries out from the ground to a horrified God?