June 2009 Archives

Having spent my teens committed to a way of life that celebrated faith and force, this story about a church event celebrating weapons and the right to keep them is more than a little disturbing. The track record of Guns and God is simply too toxic for anyone to easily tolerate.

I appreciate that there is room for real debate about gun laws in this country, but a pastor calling together his flock to extol the sacredness of guns is pretty disturbing - though clearly not to those who attended what Pastor Ken Pagano refused to call a service despite having stood in the pulpit and blessing the assembles congregation.

Whatever one thinks about guns, gun ownership, or gun laws, do we really need any more religious leaders officiating over a marriage between faith and firearms?

After three years in captivity, Israeli hostage Gilad Shalit, may soon be transferred to Egypt as part of a prisoner swap, according to European sources. I pray that it's true and I pray that the swap is a one for one deal. it's not that I object to offering the hundreds of Hamas fighters that I am sure will be required to gain this one young man's release. It's that lasting peace will a lot closer when both sides of the conflict agree about the supreme value of even one of their own. But either way, it's time for this to happen.

Meanwhile, the Consulate General of Israel in New York released a YouTube video to draw attention to Shalit's plight. The project features Shalit's own story, "When the Shark and the Fish First Met," about two sea animals that were raised to hate and fear one another but then realized that everyone would be happier by making peace.

The video shows people from around the world reading Shalit's story in their native languages, including Italian, German, French and Spanish, with English subtitles. It's pretty beautiful, and well worth checking out.

French President Sarkozy is throwing his weigh behind a law which would make burqa-wearing a crime in France. He could not be more wrong. Burqas are certainly a public matter which merit Sarkozy's attention. But the public, be it in France, the United States or anywhere else in the world is best served when its members are allowed the greatest degree of religious freedom - including the freedom to wear burqas should they choose to do so. The same can be said for skullcaps, turbans, wigs, long black coats, etc. Nicholas Sarkozy, like many leaders in France over the last two-plus centuries, confuses liberty for all with his own understanding of what it means to live free.

Who is Mr. Sarkozy to determine what is and is not a "religious sign", especially for those who practice a religion different from his own? The height of his arrogance is matched only by the height of his ignorance.

He might be surprised to learn that many women are quite comfortable wearing a garment which he describes as a "sign of subservience and a sign of debasement". That would be the case because for many religious people, including myself, subservience (at least a measure of it) is not always synonymous with debasement. In fact, many people find precisely those practices which declare their submission to God, highly liberating.

Members of the National Socialist Movement, a neo-Nazi group, not only participate in the Missouri Department of Transportation's Adopt-a-Highway program, but have named a stretch of the road, which they spend a few hours each month cleaning, in honor of their group. And in recognition of their volunteer effort, the state put up a sign on the road which acknowledges the group and its effort in this area. It's not the first time this has been done, either.

In Kentucky, the National Alliance, another hate group adopted a highway and named it after William Pierce, author of the "The Turner Diaries", a perennial favorite among dangerous lunatics including Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVeigh. And in St. Louis, the Ku Klux Klan also adopted a stretch of road. In that case, after losing a court battle to end their sponsorship, the DOT renamed the Klan-adopted road, Rosa Parks Highway and put a sign to that effect alongside the one acknowledging the Klan.

Now the state is planning to rename the road adopted by the National Socialists in honor of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, the world renowned theologian and civil rights activist. Considering the money saved by the government because of the volunteer efforts of these hate groups, is it really fair to rename the highways they adopt after people whose life work they diametrically oppose?

From Capitol Hill to Main Street, it's amazing how many people think the fight in Iran is a battle between the forces of freedom and those of religious fundamentalism. And it's amazing how wrong they are to reduce a complex struggle, the end result of which we cannot know regardless of who wins, to terms which miss the real issues which are in play and are likely to affect us all.

I am no fan of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and it's pretty certain that when even the Mullahs who back him admit that there were significant "election irregularities", the election was anything but fair and the results are anything but reliable. However, none of that means that the people marching in the streets are necessarily the champions of the kind of democracy which most Americans hold dear. In fact, there is not one shred of evidence that the followers of Mir Hossein Musavi would shrink one iota from the theocratic system in place, as much as they would shift power to a new set of theocrats.

Such change might bring a new level of openness to Iranian culture and politics, but the fact that this movement is about allowing every vote to count should not be confused with it bringing the kind of civil society in which most of us believe. Cell phones and Chadors are far more compatible than many people understand.

Ultimately what goes on in Iran will be determined largely by the Iranians, but our response to the ongoing struggle there shines a light on any number of misguided premises that we hold about the relationship between faith and politics.