John Haynes Holmes & Harry Emerson Fosdick

Two forward thinking theologians active in the early part of the twentieth century have been brought to my attention recently. Harry Emerson Fosdick began his ministry in the Baptist tradition of my own upbringing, while John Holmes Haynes started his ministry in the Unitarian tradition which I have now adopted in its Unitarian Universalist incarnation. Both were outspoken liberals within their traditions, creating some uproar in their day, but also engendering a dedicated following of progressive religious thinkers.

Reading their brief biographies points up the extent to which we share the same battles simply in different garb as those of our forebears, and that those on both sides of these battles have their foibles as they do their inspiration. Anyone with insight into the lives of either of these two, or perhaps on any interaction between them is invited to comment here.

Bill Moyers

Integrity was on display last night, as I joined a full house of kindred spirits in Seattle's Paramount Theatre to hear the wisdom of 'retired' journalist Bill Moyers. Moyers continues to spend the capital he has so richly earned during a career in newspapers, government, and television, to warn America of the dangers she faces from the marriage of a narrowly defined religion with one-party government.

Though the right wing noise machine has laughably mocked him as part of the "loony left", what makes Moyers so remarkable is not that he was one of the last liberal journalists on mainstream television (many may be more liberal), but that he was one of the last with the courage to speak the truth plainly, unconstrained by the government's definition of what makes news.

Anyone who has been watching Moyers for years, is well acquainted with his gentle manner, deep personal religious convictions, and gracious ability to engage a wide range of guests of a multitude of different persuasions in thought provoking conversation. While I've been delighted to be witness to his increasing forthrightness in exposing and condemning bought government, media consolidation, government secrecy, and political corruption, he retained to the end his ability to have cordial conversations with the likes of Grover Norquist or Richard Viguerie.

Responding to questions collected from the audience last night, to one which asked if he ever felt like strangling any of his guests, Moyers joked that perhaps there were times that the opposite may have been true, but went on to say how much he enjoys interviewing all sorts of people. The question betrayed the likelihood that Moyers may have been one of the more conservative people in the hall last night, but he is certainly one of the most courageous.

Another question asked him if in debate, who would he choose to represent the other side. He mentioned George Will, and it sounded like he was contemplating listing some other options, but instead segued into reflections on the importance of dialogue. "You know" he said, "we owe our adversaries the compliment of an argument."

His speech got right into the way that the Republican National Convention has leveraged the cultural conservatism of the religious right to establish a base which ultimately serves the interests of the corporate elite. He talked about the large faction of earnest, well-intended people who have made Timothy Lahaye's Left Behind series one of the best selling sets of books in America, subscribing to a particularized interpretation of the book of Revelation regarding End Times and the Rapture. Moyers believes that we dismiss these folks as loonies at our own peril, for their theology meshes with the greed of corporate elites who are drunk with power at their ability to roll back all manner of environmental regulation endangering the future of our species. If we are already in the last days the thinking goes, there is little concern about preserving our planet for future generations.

Midway through the speech I came to my senses and got out a notecard to capture some of the better quotes. In referring to today's power elite Moyers used an analogy from the Aztec [or was it the Maya?] civilization, where those in power so "insulated themselves from the consequences of their actions" that they eventually became "victims of their own privilege." In such an environment, as that which permeates Washington, D.C., the powerful become "devoid of the moral imagination to see life as others live it."

Moyers noted that it is not only the left which is seeing these dangers. He referred to an article in the Economist which states

A growing body of evidence suggests that the meritocratic ideal is in trouble in America. Income inequality is growing to levels not seen since the Gilded Age, around the 1880s. But social mobility is not increasing at anything like the same pace: would-be Horatio Algers are finding it no easier to climb from rags to riches, while the children of the privileged have a greater chance of staying at the top of the social heap. The United States risks calcifying into a European-style class-based society.

He also referred to the speech that he decided not to give us last night, which would have focused on media consolidation, but did capsulize his concerns about how the agenda of what is often decided to be news today is constrained to what the newsmakers will publicly say. But that's not really news. "News is what people want to keep hidden, everything else is publicity."

I cried a little bit on the night that Moyers bid us adieu on NOW, back on December 17, saying

I've learned from you not to claim too much for my craft, but not to claim too little, either. You keep reminding me that the quality of journalism and the quality of democracy go hand in hand. Or as a character says in one of Tom Stoppard's plays, "People do terrible things to each other, but it's worse in the places where everybody is kept in the dark."

Well, here I am trusting that more brave souls will come forward, and shine a light in the darkness as Moyers has done.

Preacher dies with heaven on his lips

Everywhere I look these days I see the relevance of the book I just finished -- Bruce Bawer's "Stealing Jesus: How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity". When this bizarre headline caught my eye, I found the minister's church's own article on his death. I dug a bit further on their web site as further confirmation that his was very much what Bawer would refer to as a "Church of Law". These several quotes point to the sad truth of Bawer's analysis of a legalistic approach to Christianity:

... everyone of us is much much worse than we care to believe we are ...

... For those who trust in Him, there is no more need of “measuring up” and working hard to satisfy God’s righteous demand. ...

... Have you realized ... the hopelessness of your attempts to “be good”?

Isn't the subtext that we humans are just so awful that there's no point in trying to behave; just grab our free salvation and coast.

Bawer's book which I hope to review here in greater detail before long, points to alternative approaches to Christianity which could open its doors to those whose upbringing and innate moral sense led them to believe there was no place in the 'traditional' church for them.

America's Theological Complexion

With the election behind us, I've wondered what direction to take this web log. While the election was a prime motivator in pushing me to start it, I have no wish to abandon the effort, though quiet periods will likely punctuate it, as other foci intervene.

No it will not become primarily a theological blog, but theology is clearly an area of interest, and one which contributes strongly to the political debate which continues in America. A recent article by Tim Appelo in the Seattle Weekly caused me investigate further the religious, and in particular the Christian, challenges to the doctrines of the religious right which have garnered such attention lately. I bought Bruce Bawer's Stealing Jesus; How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity, and have almost finished it. While it can serve as an excellent primer on the most radical elements of the fundamentist, evangelical, and charismatic movements in today's American culture, it falls short of examining in detail (at least so far) those portions of the conservative Christian movement which still buttress the main parts of conservative evangelicalism while distancing themselves from the most simplistic, doctinaire, or hate-laced portions of the movement.

A visiting relative brought into my home a book from that very perspective, Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey. Thumbing through its pages, I quickly became skeptical of its scholarship, as the Apologetics therein, defend Intelligent Design as the truthful alternative to a Darwinistic worldview of the emergence of life. Intelligent Design is generally thought of by liberals and those who revere church/state separation as a buzzword created to mask "Creationism" in fancier clothing to give it greater legitimacy in the public classroom of the future. The ACLU is currently involved in a case challenging its introduction in a public school in Pennsylvania.

Unlike 6-day creation literalists though, Pearcey accepts what she differentiates as micro-evolutionary principles, and writes with considerable force and intellect, though I have yet to read even close to all of the 400-page tome. While I doubt she will convince me that macro-evolution is less likely than the theory which she proffers, I've decided to give it a read and decide if the ACLU would do better spending its energy elsewhere. The book deals with other general cultural considerations, and is subtitled "Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity". Pearcey is largely informed by the theology of Francis Schaeffer whose L'Abri Fellowship in Switzerland she visited in her youth.

What troubles me most about Apologetics is that it is shamelessly referred to as the intellectual backing for the more extreme forms of fundamentalism, which Bawer and others such as John Shelby Spong correctly note distort the teachings of Jesus into something legalistic and hateful. I am speculating that Pearcey and others who advance Apologetics realize that their theories need the backing of the religious right establishment, and refrain from highlighting their differences with these natural allies in order to avoid alienating them. References to her book on the Web are almost uniformly supportive and associated with right leaning sites, this critique being the sole exception which I found. The absence of reference to it by liberal theologians may be in large measure simply due to the newness of the book. I wonder, though, if there is not a strategic element in liberals' avoiding analysis of more intelligent writing from Christian conservatives, as it is much easier to dismiss the excesses of Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed, Jerry Falwell and the like, and then dismiss others such as Pearcey, simply by association.

Given the huge proportion of the population of America which identifies itself as Christian, it strikes me that greater public conversation about the faith and its many faces is sorely needed, perhaps a rare point on which Pearcey and Bawer could agree. As important as the separation of church and state is to the running of the government, we lose much if we translate that principle into keeping matters of faith entirely private. To do so is to grant the religious right the title of the standard bearers of Christianity, which is the danger Bawer so urgently seeks to avert.

Having delved into this area at all, has reminded me of the extraordinary theological diversity within Christendom, just as having examined the foregoing election exposed the extraordinary political diversity in America. And yet in both politics and Christianity a deep bifurcation has developed which results in unfortunately simplistic analysis of what the "two" sides believe, when in fact the question is so multi-faceted.