I don't want to start a fight or anything, but ...
I used to have a "disclaimer" box that would come up before you could get to my blog. It was pretty funny, I think anyway. But it was there for a reason: I reserve the right to say offensive and insensative things. I'm exercising that right, now.
In this case, it should draw no flack from anyone. I'm about to "bitch" about some people's intolerance of others, and if anyone supports the group I'm about to slam, well they sort of have to support my right to slam them too.
might not have this whole "making a new paragraph" thing down yet, so bear with me.
From Yahoo News comes this nice little headline: Va. parishes split from Episcopal church ,
There, that should be "lavender". Pardon me, while figure out what font I want this in ...
How's this? OK, I'm sticking with it. Anyway, here is a link to the article:
This has happened before, and I don't just mean this stuff going on with these churches freaking out over gay people. I'm reminded of the way the Southern Baptists started. Yes, I'm "going there" (as I answer the little voice in my head that is saying "Don't go there").
I can agree that gay marriage shouldn't be so analogous with the civil rights movement, but that doesn't make all the applicable analogies any less informative when looking at this issue. In this case, we're talking about the start of a new sect.
New sects start, everyy religion we have today started either as a sect or something bigger or something smaller. Most were looked at as cults, and most got their start from some actual theological innovation or spiritual awakening. Most can point to a leader with a new take on things. I think it would be instructive to look at the big picture and see how these sects evolved in comparison with sects that started in other ways.
I don't see this breaking away from parent churches as a theological matter, just as I don't see the manner in which the Southern Baptists were created as a manner of theology. To point out that both groups-- this new Aglican and Episcopal group, and the Southern Baptits- are "conservative" might make some of us groan at an oversimplification of the word, but I say that is very much a part of it all too. (I have on deck a review of conservatives in Iran, and how it is bickering caused by "conservatives" here and between "conservatives" in cross-cultural conflict that is at the heart of many of our problems in the world.)
This split now is not about how one views God; it isn't about one's relationship with God, and it isn't about anything that is in the chain of command (if I may use such a term) of parishioner to clergy to God. It isn't about church book keeping, or business, or anything else. It is about the relationship between the parishioners, and really let's admit it: hate.
It is one thing for a person to be so freaked out by gays that they become all kinds of disfunctional-- you know, like failing to see the person for who they are because of some perference they have, and failing to welcome them into their own community in the manner every person should be welcomed--- but for entire congregations to up-and-leave a church over it is pretty amazing. They are saying "we don't have to like, respect, tolerate, sit next to, and listen to any gay people". That is it-- let's not pretend otherwise. To them, an openly gay person can't stand in front them at church delivering sermons. Closeted gays can, self-hating gays can, crooks can, racists can, idiots can; anyone can except gays, and women if you're Catholic.
The Southern Baptists have a distinction I'd frankly be embarrassed about: they were formed because their members could not abide the anti-slavery stance of the rest of the church. OK, you might think it should be left in the past, after all the church has made statements of apology and we're supposed think it has "come a long way".
I don't think so. I think it should come as a realization to the members that they were way wrong, and that maybe they might be wrong else where. Maybe it isn't about admitting wrong, but just about letting go a position that is so untenable that it is no longer worth keeping in public. That is no more outragous than the idea that gays and hollywood have a secret agenda of converting the world's population.
Why am I picking on Southern Baptists, do I want a fight? No, not at all. All I'm saying is there is something very wrong with a "conservative" church that splits itself way in that manner. The idea that they were wrong about is not held in isolation but as part of a larger world view; and it is not reasonable to assume that switching from hating blacks to accepting blacks corrected the problems in the world view. It isn't the same thing as putting tumeric into a tomato sauce instead of oregano.
The hate was justifed and rationalized in their minds and they carried over those rationalizations into their theology and their reading of their bible. Correcting the whole "hate blacks" thing takes more than switching it to "accept blacks, in order for the world view to be corrected a lot of relearning and personal growth had to take place. They didn't just make a wrong or selfish choice when breaking away over slavery, they went down a long and wrong path.
There is no quick two-block change of direction to get back. How do I know this? Below are a few links. The war in Iraq had at it's very begining when too many of our sheepish population were cowering in fear from Sadaam's phantom nukes and chemical weapons (which Reagan sold him) that there was talk in the media (to help drum up support for the war) of a "biblically just war". At most only and barely half our population ever supported the invasion before it was started, and that can't mean that more than half of any religious group would have supported it-- well, except for one. The Southern Baptists seem to stand alone as not only supporting the war and Bush, but they seem to be war-mongers-- or at least war cheerleaders. No concern over the deaths, no love as the solution to any problems, no turning the other cheek, nope: war is their answer. Deep down inside they must know that the answer to the bumper-sticker question "who would Jesus Bomb" is no one. There is something disfunctional in their world view that prevents them from accepting and acting on that truth. It is the same thing that made it alright to hate blacks.
It is probably the same thing that takes the shock out of the odd fact that the president-elect of the Christian Coalition had to resign before even taking office because he wanted to fight poverty and take seriously being responsible stewards of the planet. I can appreciate that there is little time after: fighting for tax breaks for the wealthy, fighting to destroy public education, fighting gays, fighting against affirmative action, fighting to make every pregnancy end in a baby (not a healty baby, not a baby that has a healthy mom and shelter and a doctor though), and fighting to get every town county and state to put baby Jesus on every street corner from labor day to presidents day to the exclusion of any other display. Yes, they have little time to fight poverty or take the environmental problems of the world seriously. They may have little time to add poverty relief to their agenda but they also have their priorities screwed up, and for the same reasons that lead the Southern Baptists to break away and from their own church.
Is it fair to compare the Southern Baptist relationship to slavery and the Christian Coalition's disregard for the poor to this new group of Anglican's hatred for gays? Yes, very much so. There is something I've always liked about the phrase: kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out. We should love them all too, and let God sort them out; we should accept them all too, and let God sort them out; we should feed them all, and let good sort them out; we should share out communities and our churches and our institutions with them all, and let God sort them out. We should deny nothing to anyone, isn't that in keeping with Jesus' teaching? Freaking out over a gay minister or bishop without giving them the same chance and the same respect any other new minister or bishop would receive is just mean. It says nothing about the openly gay person and everything about the newly created -- and not surprisingly-- conservative group.
I don't have a way to preview this, so I'll publish it and edit it after. I put this in Religion, but not because I'm looking for a fight. If I wanted a fight, I'd put in in Food or Cooking so I can pick a fight with people that put tumeric in tomato sauce. We have to fight back in this war on pasta.
posted by: surrogate (reply)
post date: 12.18.06 (3:31 am)
Well. first of all, anyone using much turmeric in their tomato sauce had better have a damn good reason, otherwise, I'll take 'em on one handed and end up throwing them in the drunk tank with people who pour half a cup of sugar into theirs to cut acidity, instead of.... oh never mind.
This post hits the nail squarely on the head.
Anyone trying to use anything said in the Bible as justification for any form of hate misses the point of the laws by a mile. It's like saying that, because the Wolf ate Grandma in Little Red Riding Hood, we too should eat Grandmothers, as though everything stated in a story is to be taken not only literally, but completely out of context, or, and this is where people really get in trouble, perhaps even in context, but where what's said is simply meant as a historical footnote, "this is what people belived then."
Any time the Bible is used to justify any sort of hate against people created by the same creator that created us all, however he/she chose to do it, misses the point of the story as a whole.
posted by: akelso (reply)
post date: 12.18.06 (9:41 am)
"There is something I've always liked about the phrase: kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out. We should love them all too, and let God sort them out; we should accept them all too, and let God sort them out; we should feed them all, and let good sort them out; we should share out communities and our churches and our institutions with them all, and let God sort them out."
Now *this* is a faith practice I can subscribe to unblinkingly! Thanks for this brilliant piece, Music. Too, the whole SBC process over time never ceases to fascinate me. I keep forgetting that slavery's just beneath the fabric of the congregational cloak inherited by so many southern baptists.
It seems important to me to speak of that cloak as "inheritance" since so many now disown that particular history, as "long gone." Naturally, many more are living the memory of it, as if it happened this morning. Fact is, our ancestry is as much a part of our reality as the air we breathe ..
Nice work.
posted by: akelso (reply)
post date: 12.18.06 (9:44 am)
Reply to: surrogate
"Any time the Bible is used to justify any sort of hate against people created by the same creator that created us all, however he/she chose to do it, misses the point of the story as a whole."
So, so true - and any time the Bible (really *any* sacred scripture) is so hatefully used, beware the apocalypse! - ak
posted by: musicalhair (reply)
post date: 12.18.06 (9:34 pm)
Reply to: surrogate
Right on! And not just about those infidels putting tumeric in their sauce either. Shred a carrot, and toss it in with the onion-- or garlic just before the tomatos go in.
posted by: musicalhair (reply)
post date: 12.18.06 (9:50 pm)
Reply to: akelso
I like the imagry of an inherited cloak.
I can appreciate that a young Southern Baptist might be offended at my pointing out of their sects beginings, but we all can look back in our history-- any thread of history we choose-- and find fault. Finding fault isn't the point, finding enlightenment from reflecting on the fault is. I'm sure none of us need to go back in history to find fault, I know I had a great humbling when I started to think about those I had wronged. The more I thought about the various things that have happened in my life the more I found. At some point we have to learn from our faults and turn them around, and we have to realize that our faults are never apparent to us and that they often grow out of our place in our culture and our society. Racism and prejudice definately falls into that catagory.
I'm glad you liked the post!
posted by: akelso (reply)
post date: 12.19.06 (7:31 am)
Reply to: musicalhair
"a young Southern Baptist might be offended at my pointing out of their sects beginings" - I fear that there are few alternatives to a clean reckoning by all of white American societyon this point of slavery as launching pad for the wealth of this nation. Short of honest self searching and acknowledgment that is basted in contrition (how's *that* for an image?) - there can be no lasting reconciliation between the "races" and hatred will always simmer between us. This is that serious an historical segment for all of us, and utterly inescapable.
Music, thanks again - so much, for allowing this to be part of the discussion. We can only hope for some kind of consensus that will bring healing once and for all on this matter. Personally, I believe (as much as I believe in a living God,) that for America to resolve and reconcile with the matter of race and the history of horror and terror inflicted on people of color, we might more easily find our way to solution of the problems we face in the Middle East. Do you suppose there might be some connection??
- ak
posted by: musicalhair (reply)
post date: 12.20.06 (10:18 pm)
Reply to: kurtmaddox
Hey Kurt, thanks for the excellent comment. There is a lot of great stuff in there. I couldn't disagree more with the stuff about Iraq, but that will have be for another post-- of which there will be plenty for that topic. But thanks for your insight into the Southern Baptists.
I want to pull two quotes from what you said because they were so well said:
1)
"their very identity is directly tied to continually defending the past from the future."
There is so much in that line, and it can apply to a lot more than the southern baptists. It is funny but one of my favorite Gosple quotes could apply here: "Do you think I come to bring peace on Earth? No, I tell you, but division. Fron now on there will be five in one family divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter in law and daughter in law against mother in law." in Luke 12: 51-53
The thing that strikes me about that is he is dividing generations against each other. Like we should feel free to break from the past, and battle the the mistakes of our past to create a future.
Anyway, another quote from your comment I liked was:
"The status quo is always most valuable to those who've already won or are currently winning the game."
This is true. Those that have already won or are winning, or those whose grandparents had won, are not just interested in maintaining things as they are but rigging the game so that new players in are at a competitive disadvantage. It is why the concentration of wealth is increasing in the top 1% of the poplulation while it is dropping for the rest of us.
As for being a trouble maker, hopefully we can make a lot of trouble with issues like this!
posted by: musicalhair (reply)
post date: 12.20.06 (10:21 pm)
Reply to: akelso
Without a doubt racism and slavery have troubled and held back our country, and ultimately to no one's advantage. When the working classes can be divided, the ruling classes can play them off each other for the lowest wage, and fight each other instead of recognizing their common goals.
posted by: akelso (reply)
post date: 12.21.06 (8:04 am)
Reply to: musicalhair
"When the working classes can be divided, the ruling classes can play them off each other ..."
Agreed. What baffles me, is that even amongst peoples of faith, there's an inability to bow the head and bend the knee to the shame of our past.
How can we proceed without that as a starting point? (Oppressors and the oppressed obviously have parallel yet distinctly different work to accomplish toward healing the breach!)
- ak
posted by: musicalhair (reply)
post date: 12.21.06 (8:11 am)
Reply to: akelso
there are thoe that haven't professed faith but haven't been humbled, and haven't turned their own humbling experience into a source from which they can feel compassion for all of humanity. It isn't like any church leaders at all anywhere really encourage this.
posted by: musicalhair (reply)
post date: 12.21.06 (8:12 am)
That should be those that have professed faith, I have to many haven'ts in there.
posted by: akelso (reply)
post date: 12.21.06 (9:28 am)
Reply to: musicalhair
"haven't turned their own humbling experience into a source from which they can feel compassion for all of humanity. It isn't like any church leaders at all anywhere really encourage this."
I fear this is the nutshell of it. The "I fear" of this, is genuinely a way to approximate a despairing of how to move forward. Compassion for all humanity, as grandiose as it sounds, is *precisely* what's required - apologizing in advance for my huge mopiness, it does seem the survival of all humanity could depend on our getting this together.
posted by: musicalhair (reply)
post date: 12.21.06 (2:57 pm)
Reply to: akelso
You are right, that level of compassion is what it is about, and when one asks for a coat we're supposed to give the coat and some pants or something like that, right? That doesn't sound like a limited level of compassion, or compassion at a distance, to me. That, coupled with the quote I used above in a reply to KurtMaddox, is somehow related to a quote from George Washington about our country being about ever expanding liberties and rights.
posted by: akelso (reply)
post date: 12.21.06 (4:04 pm)
Reply to: musicalhair
Music. I think I'll not be able to keep up with you at this point! You're brilliant, and I hope you'll keep up with this discourse until I return home on Tuesday next week ...
Keep up the good work for this struggle!
In solidarity,
Andrea
posted by: musicalhair (reply)
post date: 12.21.06 (7:31 pm)
Reply to: akelso
Have a nice and safe trip! I'm sure you can "keep up", but thank you for the kind words. Have a great Christmas.
