Bruce Feiler: October 2007 Archives

With this blog, I thee wed.

I'm using this occasion to join my colleagues at Beliefnet in a new joint-blogging venture called Casting Stones. As anyone who's checked out the effort knows, it can be very fast-moving, occasionally heated, but quickly apologetic. And for most the last few days it's been focused on the cover story in last Sunday's NYT Mag about the crack up up the religious right. The general idea is that a growing number of evangelical Christians has grown tired of the incessant focus on abortion, gay rights, and a few other social issues, and may even be tiring of wading into politics itself. Mix religion and politics and you get politics, goes one oft-quoted line. This frustration, coupled with despair over the war in Iraq and dissatisfaction over the GOP field, has led to declaratons of the END OF THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT. Ta-dum!

Casting Stones is filled with people who are much more knowledgeable about the inner-workings of American Chrsitianity than I am, so allow me to pose this as a question rather than an insertion. But I find myself wondering whether this entire question is being framed upside down. Rather than: Is the leadership of the Christian Right losing its grip on the polticial views of its evaneglical flock? How about: Did the leadership of the Christian Right ever have that much control over the political views of its evangelical flock?

Let me explain. First, I've spent most of the last two years re-reading the history of religion in America, and traveling around the country talking to experts, working on a new book. One thing comes through loud and clear: Even the greatest waves of religious revivalism in American history lasted very short periods of time. I'm thinking of the Great Awakening in the 1730's, which last less than a decade before being overshadowed by the political mashup with Britain. I'm thinking of the Second Great Awakening in the 1830's and 40's, which may have lasted slightly longer than a decade, but was then overshadowed by the political mashup of the Civil War. And I'm thinking especially of the first rise of Fundamentalism in the 1920's, whose peak of influence also lasted less than a decade before being cut off by the Great Depression. So for starters, the idea that this movement would be different and could extend its influence for much longer than it has is deeply questionable, I'd say. Movements tire. Leaders covet and abuse power. People move on.

Second, and more important: Nearly every single major trend in American life, politics, medicine, media, dating, parenting, etc., etc., etc. is toward less concentrated power and more devolved power. With the Internet and countless other technological advances, people simply have access to more information and a greater ability to make up their own minds. One theme of my most recent book, WHERE GOD WAS BORN, which describes my travels retracing the Kings and Prophets through Israel, Iraq (in the middle of the war), and Iran, is that religion is the last major human endeavor which is finally catching up to this societal trend. We live in a time where Americans no longer trust our politicians, our journalists, our parents, our doctors. Why should our preachers be immune from this development. Answer: They're not. We live in a time where people make up their own minds. Where people are becoming their own theologians.

And this certainly applies to politics. Where people no longer need their pastor -- or anyone else for that matter -- to tell them whom to vote for.

FeilerFaster takes you where few other blogs, or at least few other blogs on Beliefnet, dare to go. Earlier this year, it was backstage at the Super Bowl. Now, the World Series!

On Sunday night, following an all-night blow-out for my sister-in-law's wedding, I went to an even bigger all-night blow-out, Game 7 of the ALCS. My father-in-law, father, brother-in-law and I screamed through the last remaining voices we had as we took advantage of awesome seats in the private club behind home base and watched the Boston Red Sox defeat first their fans, who spent most of the game convinced they would lose, then the Cleveland Indians. By the end, everyone was cheering except the police, who put the city on tigther lockdown than Baghdad, hoping to avoid recent rioting after Red Sox victories. The most impressive achievement of the night was my brother-in-law Dan, who knew the names of all the retired numbers in Fenway Park, including Jackie Robinson, in blue, while all the rest were in red.

The other interesting tidbit I was reminded of is that star first baseman Kevin Youkilis (he hit .500 in the ALCS and got more hits last night in Game One of the WS), just one of many Red Sox with unusual facial hair, is Jewish.
He apparently asked one of the limited partners I know whether he should play in Yom Kippur this year and opted to suit up but not play, a decision, as you might imagine, that suited few. The Internet being the Internet, I found the controversial clip from a few years ago (before the facial hair) when Denis Leary pitted Youkilis against Mel Gibson. I also stumbled on some comments he made on the topic back in his minor league days.

Growing up in Ohio in the 80s and 90s, the 24-year-old Youkilis did not have any Jewish baseball stars to admire.

“There weren’t that many,” he says.

Heroes of the past such as Greenberg and Koufax were just that, not relevant to a kid looking for inspiration from current stars. Today, however, Jewish players, some current and former MLB All-Stars, pepper the baseball landscape. Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Shawn Green is one of the more promising power-hitters in the game, while Brad Ausmus and Mike Lieberthal have established themselves as franchise catchers for the Houston Astros and Philadelphia Phillies, respectively. Atlanta Braves pitcher Jason Marquis, Anaheim Angels lefthander Scott Schoeneweis, and outfielder and recent Red Sox acquisition Gabe Kapler round out a solid core of up-and-coming Jewish major leaguers.

Although he does not shrug off his association with these other Jewish baseball players, Youkilis downplays the influence that faith has on his game.

“I don’t really bring it into baseball,” he says.

However, he does credit his faith with making him a disciplined person, which not only helps shape his character, but also his approach to the game. Though raised Jewish, Youkilis’ parents did not push the faith upon him past his bar mitzvah and Hebrew school, and allowed him to choose his own level of involvement.

These days, most of the Youkilis family, including Kevin, attend synagogue only on the high holidays, and they do not keep kosher. “We keep the faith,” he says, adding, “we believe in what we believe.”

When asked how his faith plays into the clubhouse dynamic, he says that “everyone knows” that he’s Jewish. But it doesn’t seem to be a big deal. Although Youkilis is unique among his teammates, he is able to joke about it with them. In fact, Youkilis says that he hasn’t experienced any form of anti-Semitism among his teammates since his high school days. He recalls anecdotes from his minor league seasons, one of which involves a bright orange t-shirt bequeathed to him by his Portland teammates that reads, JESUS IS MY HOMEBOY.

Though the list of Jewish ballplayers is not large, it includes a member of the Rockies, and this week the NYT talked about the challenges Jason Hirsch has faced on a team with evangelical inclinations.

Hirsh said not once during the season had he felt uncomfortable with the place Christianity occupies within the organization.

“There are guys who are religious, sure, but they don’t impress it upon anybody,” Hirsh said. “It’s not like they hung a cross in my locker or anything. They’ve accepted me for who I am and what I believe in.”

The role of religion within the Rockies’ organization first entered the public sphere in May 2006, when an article published in USA Today described the organization as adhering to a “Christian-based code of conduct” and the clubhouse as a place where Bibles were read and men’s magazines, like Maxim or Playboy, were banned.

The article included interviews with several players and front office members, but team players and officials interviewed this week said it unfairly implied that the Rockies were intent on constructing a roster consisting in large part of players with a strong Christian faith. Asked how his own Christian faith affected his decision-making, General Manager Dan O’Dowd acknowledged it came into play, but not in a religious way. He said it guided him to find players with integrity and strong moral values, regardless of their religious preference.

“Do we like players with character? There is absolutely no doubt about that,” O’Dowd said during a recent interview in his Coors Field office. “If people want to interpret character as a religious-based issue because it appears many times in the Bible, that’s their decision. I believe that character is an innate part of developing an organization, and to me, it is nothing more than doing the right thing at the right time when nobody’s looking. Nothing more complicated than that.

“You don’t have to be a Christian to make that decision.”

I haven't heard Jason Hirsch be interviewed, but I'm afraid I did hear Youkilis after the Game 7 victory on Sunday night. Not exactly a poet. I can't say I was surprised when, on hearing that he was quoted in Michael Lewis's book Moneyball, about the Oakland A's, where he was called the "Greek God of Walks," Youkilis said he hadn't read it. "I'm not exactly a big book kind of guy."

What's fascinating, though, is that once again, the biggest book of all has become a backdrop to American sport. At the Super Bowl, it was Tony Dungy who stirred passion and controversy by bringing his Christian philosophy to the fore. This year it's the Rockies. Fair enough. At least Hirsch and Youkilis remind that there are limits when owners, GM's, and managers put their own faith front and center. They just might need an occasional helping hand from the God of Walks.

Dick Cheney's comments over the weekend that Iran would face "serious consequences" for its nuclear actions -- the same words he used in advance of the war in Iraq -- faced a quick smackdown from the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

The new chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, expressed deep concerns that the long counterinsurgency missions in Iraq and Afghanistan have so consumed the military that the Army and Marine Corps may be unprepared for a high-intensity war against a major adversary.

He rejected the counsel of those who might urge immediate attacks inside Iran to destroy nuclear installations or to stop the flow of explosives that end up as powerful roadside bombs in Iraq or Afghanistan, killing American troops.

With America at war in two Muslim countries, he said, attacking a third Islamic nation in the region “has extraordinary challenges and risks associated with it.” The military option, he said, should be a last resort.

But TPM links to a fascinating take on the entire controversy from Israel, which has been bragging that it was the one who put influence on Russia to help moderate Iran. Not so, apparently.

Putin is not trying to restore relations with the U.S. and the West to the days of the Cold War, but neither is he willing to waive Russia's wishes and interests in favor of the West's. The complexity characterizing Putin's foreign policy is causing the messages emerging from Moscow on Iran to sound ambiguous and confusing. Russia does not want its Shi'ite Muslim neighbor to have nuclear weapons, but it also sees Iran as an important market for the sale of arms and nuclear power plants for producing electricity. As far as Russia is concerned, Iran has been a target of diplomatic influence throughout history.

Above all, Russia is opposed to solving the crisis of the Iranian nuclear program by military means. It believes the Iranian leaders can still be convinced to postpone, at least for a while, the realization of their right to enrich uranium by themselves on a low level for civilian needs. That means Putin will not agree, at least not publicly, neither by silence nor by a wink, to an American military attack against Iran, not to mention an Israeli one.

For several years the European Union countries, backed by the Bush administration, tried to formulate a "carrot-and-stick" policy toward Iran. They offered it benefits and diplomatic, economic and technological incentives, including nuclear ones, if it would agree to stop enriching uranium. This approach worked for a year and a half during the term of the previous president, Mohammed Khatami. But in 2005 Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president and reshuffled the deck.

In his approach to Iran, Putin is actually improving on the European carrot-and-stick method. When it comes to Israeli and international demands, if there is a chance Iran will listen to anyone, it will listen to Moscow. Russia's message to Iran is: You have a right to enrich uranium for civilian needs, but you don't have to do it now. Russia supports you, but you are liable to lose our support if you are too stubborn.

Again, the news out of Iran is much more complex than the brinksmanship coming out of the Administration -- and the simpleton approach being pedaled by many in the U.S media -- would suggest. And the news all points in the same direction: Now is not the time to lose the world by a needless bombing of Iran.

I just returned from a family wedding in Boston, where my sister-in-law was married in a beautiful ceremony, feted in a gorgeous room filled with oranges, greens, and tropical flowers arranged in fall bouquets, and gave one of the more extraordinary toasts anyone present had ever heard. During the ceremony, the rabbi talked about this week's torah portion, Lech Lecha, from Genesis 12, when Abraham is called to leave his native land and his father's house for the land that God will show him. The rabbi linked the portion with the marriage vow to bind yourself to a fellow person and go forth on a journey, promising to be with that person, even as you don't know where you are going.

Coincidentally, a friend in Israel forwarded me over the weekend a copy of the sermon that the great Jonathan Sacks, the chief rabbi of England, gave in honor of Lech Lecha this weekend. You can read about Rabbi Sacks and check out his other sermons this website, which I just learned about today. It seems to have copies of his sermons going back several years. What a great resource!

Meanwhile, here's a sample of what he had to say.

If we were to define Judaism in Abrahamic terms it would be the heroism of ordinary life being willing to live by one’s convictions though all the world thinks otherwise, being true to the call of eternity, not the noise of now. Which brings us to the key phrase, the first words of G-d to the bearer of a new covenant: Lekh Lekha. Is there, already in these two words, a hint of what was to come?

Rashi, following an ancient exegetical tradition, translates the phrase as “Journey for yourself.” According to him what G-d meant was “Travel for your own benefit and good. There I will make you into a great nation; here you will not have the merit of having children.” Sometimes we have to give up our past in order to acquire a future. G-d was already intimating to Abraham that what seems like a sacrifice is, in the long run, not so. Abraham was about to say goodbye to the things that mean most to us –land, birthplace and parent’s home, the places where we belong. It was a journey from the familiar to the unfamiliar, a leap into the unknown. To be able to make that leap involves trust – in Abraham’s case, trust not in visible power but in the voice of the invisible G-d. At the end of it, however, Abraham would discover that he had achieved something he could not have done otherwise. He would give birth to a new nation whose greatness consisted precisely in the ability to live by that voice and create something new in
the history of mankind. “Go for yourself.”

Another interpretation, more midrashic, takes the phrase to mean “Go with yourself” – meaning, by travelling from place to place you will extend your influence not over one land but many: When the Holy One said to Abraham, “Leave your land, your birthplace and your father’s house . . .” what did Abraham resemble? A jar of scent with a tight fitting lid put away in a corner so that its fragrance could not go forth. As soon as it was moved from that place and opened, its fragrance began to spread. So the Holy One said to Abraham, “Abraham, many good deeds are in you. Travel about from place to place, so that the greatness of your name will go forth in My world.”

Abraham was commanded to leave his place in order to testify to the existence of a G-d not bounded by place – Creator and Sovereign of the entire universe. Abraham and Sarah were to be like perfume, leaving a trace of their presence wherever they went. Implicit in this midrash is the idea that the fate of the first Jews already prefigured that of their descendants. They were scattered throughout the world in order to spread knowledge of G-d throughout the world. Unusually, exile is seen here not as punishment but as a necessary corollary of a faith that sees G-d everywhere. Lekh lekha means “Go with yourself” – your beliefs, your way of life, your
faith.

I love the idea of perfume. That's one I'd not heard before. But Sacks goes on to push the envelope of these traditional definitions.

This is the funnest thing I've seen on the Internet in quite some time. NYC has a new taxi logo that's absolutely hideous. It's here on the right: NYC is block letters, followed by a circular T in a different type, and then the letters AXI. As a design head, I don't think it works at all. As a resident of NY, I find it oddly disconcerting. It seems temporary and almost childlike when you see it in person -- that must be the one that got repainted after a wreck and is only here until it gets painted properly. Please, only temporary!

So meanwhile, the NYT asked eight designers to critique the new design and come up with ones of their own. Click here to read some of the submissions, and look for the box on the upper right to see some of the others. Above is one retro proposal: All 70's gangster!

Vanity Fair's October issue contains its annual list of "the world's most powerful people," 100 of the bankers and media moguls, publishers and image makers who shape the lives of "billions." A Jewish editor in Chicago has decided to count...

Karen Armstrong recently sat down for an interview with Islamica Magazine and was asked about the perpetual threats that we're in a "clash of civilizations." Here was her answer.The divisions in our world are not the result of religion or...

As a supporter of interfaith relations, I find it easy to be dismayed by the constant drumbeat of needless, knee-jerk anti-Muslim rhetoric coming out of the political-media realm today. I've been looking at old films of Moses for my new...

Good news-bad news today in the flurry of activity around a new initiative to promote Muslim-Christian dialogue. More than 130 Muslim scholars called on Thursday for peace and understanding between Islam and Christianity, saying "the very survival of the world...

For the last few years I've had a stat I heard once over dinner rattling around my head. The stat was that only ten percent of Americans will ever set foot in a bookstore. It sounded just implausible enough to...

On my flight to Greece, I read the most extraordinary article in the WSJ about a man now becoming justly popular on the Internet: Randy Pausch. At 46 years old, he's dying of cancer and his farewell speech to his...

I'm back from the Aegean and brief stops in Athens (my first), the islands of Hydra, Mykonos (above), and Rhodes, as well as Marmaris, Turkey. I was on board a yacht with around fifty real estate professionals and their...