Faithful Philly Forum

It is pretty amazing that some people can justify smearing the church of  a presidential candidate they don’t like, in this case Barak Obama. As a seminary student in Chicago, I remember making a journey to south Chicago to Trinity UCC where we were introduced to this congregation’s work and passion for justice in the city (and beyond). My professors lifted it up as a model of a socially engaged congregation. I was impressed. The General Minister of the UCC denomination, John Thomas, who has already delivered anti-war petitions signed by nearly 70,000 Christians to legislators and the president (and been arrested for it), is now speaking adamantly against such  vicious lies. It appears that in this current climate it is now acceptable to bash God and pronounce the ideocy of any believers in the Divine. Peacemaking Christians must not cower. These times call us to speak up and counter harmful actions and words with truth.

Poor Jesus. For all the people who truly heard his message there were so many more who did not get it. Even among the people for whom he worked miraculous healing. One day it was two blind men who were given sight, at least of the material kind. He asked them to keep quiet but they ran off shouting the news. Another time he healed ten men and women with leprosy and only one of them turned back to praise this work of profound, incarnate, power and love.
Buddhist monks incarnate the hopeful, outraged, spirit of love and march in the streets of Myanmar. People notice for a minute when the monks are brutalized, but then they rush off to shout about other things. And see Frank Rich’s op-ed piece in the NY Times on Sunday. The US is using torture techniques developed in Hitler’s Germany. Where is the outrage? Daily we are called see and hear the Incarnation and that which would destroy it … to notice and to choose.

If 20,000 clergy took to the streets in support of democracy in Iraq I find it hard to believe that the US couldn’t find the resolve to encourage such efforts to continue. The Buddhist monks in Myanmar whose number of 400,000 is equal to theat of the military have lent a moral voice and physical presence of protest signaling to the populace they have every right to demand a change in the dictatorial government. So why is it that the US and the rest of the world seem so helpless in the wake of such atrocities? I simply don’t understand how our politicians can be so exorcized about Saddam Hussein’s brutality but plead impotence in the current situation of gunning down citizens, especially unarmed, peaceful ones. Oh yes, I forgot. They don’t have any oil under their soil.

May God bless their efforts because it is clear they are getting no help from the self-declared ‘police force of the world.’

There was a congruence of stories I noticed in the news this week, across a wide gulf of cutlure, affluence and faiths. While the monks of Burma are being controlled by force of the gun and being kept in bounds, a church in Pasadena is being hemmed in by the IRS. All Saints Episcopal Church, a large, affluent, socially active congregation was investigated for electioneering from the pulpit in the 2004 election–with the threat to cut off tax exempt status. This month, the IRS simply closed the case, thus leaving it unresolved–will they be investigated again? I think we should all think of ways to call our tax exempt status into question. How will I transcent the putative controls the government and culture seems to have on my willingness to speak out? What would it take for me to launch into the streets with my bowl in the air?

Continue Reading »

I just discovered that both Newsweek and Time have put out different cover stories (that are lighter and more frivolous) for the US reading public than for everybody else in the entire world. While others are reading about the the jihadists in Afghanistan we are reading about Annie Leibovitz (Newsweek). And while the rest of the world reads about Talibanistan we in the US are treated to a cover story of thepros and cons of teaching the Bible in the classroom (Time). What’s wrong with this picture? Is it that we as citizens are naturally not globally interested or resist such difficult and unpleasant information? Or, is that there is a need to keep us unaware of what the rest of the world can easily observe about our foreign policies? As people of faith, how can we be as wise as serpents in staying aware of and critiquing the ways of the world if there is a concerted effort to keep us, not only harmless as doves, but as blind as bats!

One of the bright lights of social science in the past half century is also one of the most criticized. Phil Zimbardo conducted the Stanford Prison Experiment, where mentally and physically healthy college student were randomized to be guards or prisoners. Its common material in the ‘research ethics’ unit for Psych 101 or masters level research methods courses. I think he is a bright light because he has learned from his most notorious work what the rest of us need to learn–that we are inextricably shaped by our surroundings, and that while we are accountable for our individual behavior, that leaders are also to be held accountable for the environment in which individuals make behavior choices. Continue Reading »

Keith Olbermann has been providing powerful commentary during many of his nightly broadcasts (8PM edt) on MSNBC. His focus has been on the anti-democratic tendencies of the Bush Administration and its general incompetence.

These commentaries are striking. First, it is a complete sea change that these pointed attacks are allowed at all. You may remember that Donohue was cancelled in late 2002 because he dared to air anti-Iraq war opinions on his show.

It is also interesting that Olbermann on MSNBC (and Cafferty on CNN) are now able to find the anti-Bush voice. Today roughly 65% of Americans disapprove of Bush and 51% want him impeached according to Newsweek. So is this just piling on?

If we are to be a free society in which the empire (see Walter Bruggemann) can be challenged it is important to be able to allow anti-empire voices to be heard even when it is unpopular.

It is good that Olbermann is speaking up. It is remarkable in fact and I fear for his job should the R’s claim victory on November 7.

Perhaps those of us in the peace/justice camp need be more assertive when our views are in the minority. When we are attacked again there will no doubt be another effort to intimidate/mute our voices. Hopefully we will remember Olbermann?

Some days it is best not to read the newspaper. How shall we be faithful in the context of a Congress who has voted that Habeas Corpus does not apply to some people? When we read of the Canadian citizen who was removed from LaGuardia, interrogated, assumed guilty by the US and sent to Jordan and Syria where he was subsequently tortured? When a lecturer at Penn tells us that 80% of the world’s infectious diseases comes from unsafe water and that the UN is not going to make its 2015 goal to reduce by 50% the number of people who don’t have access to safe water. Even a Penn professor in criminology is saying we need to be talking about the morality of the death penalty! Then a seriously disturbed father of three goes to a school and murders three little girls before commits suicide and we reel about trying to get our heads around that! Let’s not forget the fox in the chicken house who was supposed to be protecting exploited children who was himself  apparently sending illicit pornographic communication to young boys! And this just in, Condi did indeed get briefed by Tenet about an imminent attack and she dismissed it. And this is just the news today! How shall we be faithful today?? I think it might be best to say “One day at a time.” BD

Beverly Dale and the CA have been witness to the failed US policy in Iraq from the beginning.

Along comes Bob Woodward, former publicist for the Bush Administration, with the wonderful insight that all is not well in Iraq.

Hello! Smell the coffee Bob.

What is it that RevBev knew that the MSM failed to recognize?

Perhaps it is that foreign policy devised by those without justice-based values can only be destructive. Maybe Bev should send George some instructions on being faithful?

OSF 10/03/2007