FAMILY AGREEMENT

I just returned from my holiday vacation visiting relatives where arguments abound. To my surprise, my brother and I agreed on politics and economics for the first time in memory. He lives in Texas, has been a life long Republican while I live in Southern California, vote Democratic and support various progressive agendas. Until now, I have been cynical that the crisis on wall street had changed anything; but my brother ended up arguing in favor of new financial regulations deemed necessary by unbridled greed on Wall Street and further pointed out that human nature always tries to get away with whatever it can thus needing to be curbed by rules enforced by an agency with some teeth. And he was disgusted by the huge salaries paid to CEO's of financial organizations. Perhaps, the crises of the last year, despite the political turf wars taking place on the internet and in Washington, D.C., have created more common ground throughout the nation than party leaders are willing to acknowledge. I remain stunned, pleasantly so, and maybe a touch more hopeful than I was before my trip to Texas.

A Dragon's Observation

"Turmoil accompanies every great change, said Saphira to both of
them."

(Brisingr, Christopher Paolini, p. 18.)

Even when we favor change and know its necessity, it is not easy. We draw upon our internal warriors, doing battle driven by visions of justice, truth, goodness and loved ones. We know that In waging such a war, certain customs and norms will be destroyed or made increasingly irrelevant. But that doesn't make it simple to let go of the past because we will have to say goodbye to ideas that once served us and put to rest beliefs that once warmed us. It is like returning to our childhood haunts only to discover that we no longer belong there. What used to impress us now seems so small; and in some cases what seemed so clearly right, now is wrong. We are living in an age when knowledge expands so quickly that we are forced either to ride its wave or wipe out. Sadly, many good people cannot stomach so much change, so they fight it and become the enemy of history, the enemy of time. Yet changes will happen despite their efforts because that is the nature of life.

Epic Battle Literature

I have been watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy on television and noticed that literature of epic battles seem to be a mark of our age. Fantasy literature, perhaps the genre most in touch with the modern subconscious, seems to revolve around forces pitted against each other in a way that threatens to destroy or enslave whatever exists. The good of course ends up triumphing over evil and usually introduces an era in which many of the familiar forms give way to the new created out of the fiery crucible of the war. Other examples are the Star Wars Saga, Harry Potter, Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Saga and many others. What they reflect is a subconscious awareness that we are living in age of momentous transition. Politically this has been vocalized in what the conservatives call the "Culture War".

An older order is being replaced by a newer order, but the roots of this conflict reach back hundreds of years and are not shallow or recently conceived. In a nut shell, the conflict is between science/reason and revealed religion. All of the liberation movements from the outlawing of legalized institutional slavery, African-American liberation, to women's liberation to gay rights, are justified on the basis of a scientific view of human life which categorizes each of the people involved as equals. And the conservative forces which have opposed advancements in each of these areas has always pointed back to the Bible as justification for not changing things. And of course, there are many people who have tried to bridge the differences, but as time goes by that tactic seems less attractive. Thus, the modern flowering of the epic battle literature which heakens back to the great myths of past transitional ages such as King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Like it or not, we are in the midst of great social change.

The Roaring Twenties and Now

Last year's financial collapse and its continuing fallout in the form of extravagant management salaries, gouging interest rates on bankcards, insurance companies working overtime to keep from having to honor their commitments and the powerlessness of the middle class to do anything about it are all signs of decline. What happens to a society when large numbers of its citizens worship power politics and glorify greed? Even the churces are doing it. Afterall, isn't that what mega-churches are all about? Isn't that what the C Street Church in Washington D.C. is all about? Also, we hear religious people justifying torture and turning a deaf ear to the economic plight of the poor and the middle class; it all seems beyond belief. But that is the era in which we live.

The roaring Twenties, which the movie, Caberet, uses to illustrate Berlin's decadence shoud serve as a warning to us. We are out of balance and lets hope we make some changes so as not to duplicate Germany's descent into hell. It is not a mistake that greed is one of the traditional seven deadly sins. And real politic practiced on a wide scale will rip a society apart. The good news is that Germany survived and rebuilt itself. We can do the same and hopefully we will not have to descend as far as they did.

Time and Chance

Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to the skillful; but time and chance happen to them all. (Ecclesiates 9:11, New Oxfored Annotated Bible)

This is a rarely quoted verse, not cited because the idea runs contrary to what we expect from religion. And from the clerics point of view, it undermines a large portion of moral teaching. Most of the Bible assures us that if we obey God's commandments, we are guaranteed to prosper (cf. Deuteronomy 29:9) We want to believe that religion makes us better people and that society improves because of God's influence. Indeed that is the idea behind fundamentalism's political involvement in the world today.

Yesterday, I was reading an article from Newsweek (cf. Newsweek, "Furture Perfect" by Geneive Abdo, November 18, 2009)which was reporting that the theological ideals upon which the Iranian Islamic State was established thirty years ago are now being questioned because having a religious leader control politics has not ushered in an era of peace and justice as promised. The opposite has happened and even seminarians in Iran, after last June's brutal suppression of oppostiion forces and cynical manipulation of the election have come around to admitting their new system does not prevent corruption and persecution.

Perhaps the religious right in the United States should take notice as they strive to gain control of our government. Do we have to learn all over again from bitter experience that religion and politics, religion and economics, religion and justice don't always function well together? And the reason is hinted at by Ecclesiastes - this world is ruled by time and chance. Jesus put it another way when he said that the sun shines on the just and the unjust alike. (cf. Matthew 5:45) The Deuteronomy guarantee of temporal success arising out of moral obedience is not the truth.

This Fundamentalist Age

Somewhere back in my youth, I made choices which created distance between my church/family and myself. I was reared as a fundamentalist Baptist and my choices, which arose out of a sincere piety, ended up being a pathway to liberal thought. At the base of it all was a story from the life of Jesus where a Talmudic scholar asked him what was the greatest commandment and Jesus responded that it was to love God with all your soul and that the second greatest commandment was to love your neighbor as yourself. Then Jesus stated that all of the Law and the Prophets are based on those two. (cf. Matthew 22:34-40) The Apostle Paul went a step further when he declared that all the commandments are summed up in the following words, "Love your neighbor as yourself." (Romans 13:9) Thus, Paul's statement omitted the first commandment and thus defined religion in one sentence.

To me that sounded both simple and right. Furthermore it offered a benchmark against which we can judge theological debate and behavior. Love of God and neighbor, whenever the pious lose sight of these two commandments and become hateful or fearful, they have clearly lost their way. So I made those my operating principles and took my first giant step away from fundamentalism. It never occurred to me at the time that my decision would create any problems with either my family or church. However, my spiritual journey began that day and it has broadened me beyond my imagination.

However, from the 60's to the present, America and the world has gone in the opposite direction. The people, the traditions and mindsets I left behind have triumphed politically and materially not just among Christians, but also among Jews and Muslims. Fear, hatred, greed and cynicism have triumphed as a means of trying to protect certain traditions against change. We need to think about this and the kind of people we as a society are becoming. We need to challenge the pious with their own teaching and reverse their direction. To put it into religious language, they need to repent.