Disowning Conservative Politics, Evangelical Pastor Rattles Flock By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
MAPLEWOOD, Minn. — Like most pastors who lead thriving evangelical
megachurches, the Rev. Gregory A. Boyd was asked frequently to give his
blessing — and the church’s — to conservative political candidates and
causes.
The requests came from church members and visitors alike: Would he
please announce a rally against gay marriage during services? Would he
introduce a politician from the pulpit? Could members set up a table in
the lobby promoting their anti-abortion
work? Would the church distribute “voters’ guides” that all but
endorsed Republican candidates? And with the country at war, please
couldn’t the church hang an American flag in the sanctuary?
After refusing each time, Mr. Boyd finally became fed up, he said.
Before the last presidential election, he preached six sermons called
“The Cross and the Sword” in which he said the church should steer
clear of politics, give up moralizing on sexual issues, stop claiming
the United States as a “Christian nation” and stop glorifying American
military campaigns.
“When the church wins the culture wars, it inevitably loses,” Mr.
Boyd preached. “When it conquers the world, it becomes the world. When
you put your trust in the sword, you lose the cross.”
Mr. Boyd says he is no liberal. He is opposed to abortion and thinks
homosexuality is not God’s ideal. The response from his congregation at
Woodland Hills Church here in suburban St. Paul — packed mostly with
politically and theologically conservative, middle-class evangelicals —
was passionate. Some members walked out of a sermon and never returned.
By the time the dust had settled, Woodland Hills, which Mr. Boyd
founded in 1992, had lost about 1,000 of its 5,000 members.
But there were also congregants who thanked Mr. Boyd, telling him
they were moved to tears to hear him voice concerns they had been too
afraid to share.
“Most of my friends are believers,” said Shannon Staiger, a
psychotherapist and church member, “and they think if you’re a
believer, you’ll vote for Bush. And it’s scary to go against that.”
Sermons like Mr. Boyd’s are hardly typical in today’s evangelical
churches. But the upheaval at Woodland Hills is an example of the
internal debates now going on in some evangelical colleges, magazines
and churches. A common concern is that the Christian message is being
compromised by the tendency to tie evangelical Christianity to the Republican Party and American nationalism, especially through the war in Iraq.
At least six books on this theme have been published recently, some
by Christian publishing houses. Randall Balmer, a religion professor at
Barnard College
and an evangelical, has written “Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious
Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America — an Evangelical’s
Lament.”
And Mr. Boyd has a new book out, “The Myth of a Christian Nation:
How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church,” which is
based on his sermons.
“There is a lot of discontent brewing,” said Brian D. McLaren, the
founding pastor at Cedar Ridge Community Church in Gaithersburg, Md.,
and a leader in the evangelical movement known as the “emerging
church,” which is at the forefront of challenging the more politicized
evangelical establishment.
“More and more people are saying this has gone too far — the
dominance of the evangelical identity by the religious right,” Mr.
McLaren said. “You cannot say the word ‘Jesus’ in 2006 without having
an awful lot of baggage going along with it. You can’t say the word
‘Christian,’ and you certainly can’t say the word ‘evangelical’ without
it now raising connotations and a certain cringe factor in people.
[To read the whole piece, click here.] _______________ mp
[Thought that some MOJ-readers might want to consider this response to Leiter's post, by Eliot Reed.]
But what about this argument for banning stem cell research, which
makes no appeal to the doctrine of any religion? I use "stem cells" as
shorthand for "embryonic stem cells" below:
1) Ceteris paribus, it is unethical to experiment on nonconsenting human life.
2) Stem cells are nonconsenting human lives.
3) None of the conditions that would negate the ceteris paribus condition in (1) are present.
4) Therefore, it is unethical to experiment on stem cells.
5) The government should not fund unethical research.
6) Therefore, the government should not fund stem cell research.
Or, alternatively,
7) Defining other members of homo sapiens as not really human, or as
subhuman, or unworthy of moral consideration, has been the cause of
great moral evils such as genocide.
8) The tendency to degrade or "other" members of homo sapiens and
define them as not really human, subhuman, or unworthy of moral
consideration, has been present and widespread in a great many
societies and cultures, including our own.
9) Therefore, we should be extremely wary of defining other members of
homo sapiens as nonhuman or subhuman or not worthy of moral
consideration.
10) Stem cells are members of homo sapiens.
11) Therefore, we should be extremely wary of defining stem cells as
not really human, subhuman, or unworthy of moral consideration.
12) If we are extremely wary of defining X as not really human,
subhuman, or unworthy of moral consideration, the government should not
fund research on X's.
13) Therefore, the government should not fund research on stem cells.
I don't see any appeals to God, immortal souls, revealed truth, the
teachings of some particular religion, or any such indica of
religiousness in these arguments. I see some controversial premises
there, including ones I don't buy, but I don't see why any of these
premises would be the wrong kinds of reasons, or why the commonly
accepted truths of science etc. would render them obviously false.
"Ignatian Spirituality and the Life of the Lawyer: Finding God in All Things - Even in the Ordinary Practice of the Law" Boston College Law School Research Paper No. 95
ABSTRACT: All of us know lawyers who seem unhappy, unfree, directionless, and disintegrated, who seem to be following paths they haven't consciously chosen, leading them to places they would never have chosen to go, seemingly locked in lives they haven't freely chosen to live. Some would characterize this reality as a manifestation of a spiritual crisis, a crisis of meaning and value in the law, rooted in the difficulty lawyers have integrating the practice of the law into the whole of their lives. This article argues that the spirituality flowing from the life of Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus, offers resources for addressing the spiritual crisis afflicting the contemporary legal profession. Ignatius shows us how to pay attention to God calling us to freedom and wholeness in the ordinary experience of our daily lives. The Ignatian understanding of God as one who labors, who struggles with hard work to bring all things to life, wholeness, freedom, and integrity, may well resonate with people whose lives are given over to the hard and rigorous work of practicing law. Ignatius understands God as one not distant from our labors in the law. Instead, we are working in the trenches alongside God who is always already at work in our midst, giving a "religious density" to our lives as lawyers, and the challenge for us is to try to discern more clearly how God is at work in us and around us, so that we can more fully align our labors with God's. If lawyers today experience a spiritual crisis because there is a compartmentalizing wall between their faith and their work, the Ignatian understanding of God might spark the renewal this crisis calls for, by bringing a new depth of meaning and integrity to our labors in the ordinary practice of the law. _______________ mp
Every MOJ-reader should take the time to familiarize him- or herself with what Brian Leiter has to say about President Bush's recent "stem cell veto". Click here.
Do you find Leiter's comments persuasive? Unpersuasive? If the latter, where, precisely, do Leiter's comments misfire, in your judgment? Leiter replies to something our own Rick Garnett has said. I'm eager to hear Rick's rejoinder. I'm also eager to hear what Robby George has to say about Leiter's post. Robby is surely as well qualified as anyone--better qualified than most--to engage Leiter critically and productively.
As the author of three books about religion in politics (I'm now writing a fourth), I would prefer, for now, to shut up and listen. Imagine that! Must be something in the water ... _______________ mp
Faith, Reason, God and Other Imponderables By CORNELIA DEAN
Nowadays, when legislation supporting promising scientific research
falls to religious opposition, the forces of creationism press school
districts to teach doctrine on a par with evolution and even the Big
Bang is denounced as out-of-compliance with Bible-based calculations
for the age of the earth, scientists have to be brave to talk about
religion.
Not to denounce it, but to embrace it.
That is what Francis S. Collins, Owen Gingerich and Joan Roughgarden
have done in new books, taking up one side of the stormy argument over
whether faith in God can coexist with faith in the scientific method.
With no apology and hardly any arm-waving, they describe their
beliefs, how they came to them and how they reconcile them with their
work in science.
[To read the article, click here.] _______________ mp
We partisans of Catholic Social Thought can surely agree that the Bush Administration has gotten *this* one right. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that anyone who can't agree that the Bush Administration has gotten this one right doesn't know what the hell Catholic Social Thought is all about. Read on. From today's New York Times:
The federal government is moving to eliminate the jobs of nearly half of the lawyers at the Internal Revenue Service
who audit tax returns of some of the wealthiest Americans, specifically
those who are subject to gift and estate taxes when they transfer parts
of their fortunes to their children and others.
The administration plans to cut the jobs of 157 of the agency’s 345
estate tax lawyers, plus 17 support personnel, in less than 70 days. Kevin Brown, an I.R.S. deputy commissioner, confirmed the cuts after The New York Times was given internal documents by people inside the I.R.S. who oppose them.
The Bush administration has passed measures that reduce the number
of Americans who are subject to the estate tax — which opponents refer
to as the “death tax” — but has failed in its efforts to eliminate the
tax entirely. Mr. Brown said in a telephone interview Friday that he
had ordered the staff cuts because far fewer people were obliged to pay
estate taxes under President Bush’s legislation.
But six I.R.S. estate tax lawyers whose jobs are likely to be
eliminated said in interviews that the cuts were just the latest moves
behind the scenes at the I.R.S. to shield people with political
connections and complex tax-avoidance devices from thorough audits.
[To read the whole inspiring piece, click here.] _______________ mp
If you are interested in the subject of criminal punishment, here is a must-read for you: a review (from Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews) by Jeffrie G. Murphy (Arizona State, Law and Philosophy) of William Ian Miller, An Eye for an Eye (Cambridge 2006). Click here. _______________ mp
Some of our sisters and brothers (more often, the latter) commit horrible crimes. Yet, we believe that even they have inherent dignity and are inviolable.
Can it possibly be that a punishment of solitary confinement for life is consistent with the dignity/inviolability of any human being? Or is it, instead, a form of torture?
If this question interests you, you may want to read this report, in today's New York Times. _______________ mp
MOJ-readers may be interested in this fine article by Howard Lesnick, who is Jefferson B. Fordham Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania: The Consciousness of Religion and the Consciousness of Law, With Some Implications for Dialogue, 8 Univ. of Pennsylavania Journal of Constitutional Law 335-354 (May 2006). _______________ mp
