The Best of 2006

The most widely linked and viewed blog post for the year 2006 was the July 15th post on "What is Progressive Faith?" that recorded comments I made to the Progressive Faith Blog Conference in Montclaire, New Jersey. Here is a reprise of that blog:

What is Progressive Faith?

I think progressive faith to has at least ten characteristics. It is conscientious, chastened, hopeful, strong, humble, growing, questioning, dialogical, active and interdependent.

1. First, and foremost, a progressive faith is a conscientious faith.

I understand conscience to be an exercise of human understanding or imagination that involves three steps.

The first step is an act of intellectual (mental) distantiation that produces self-consciousness -- it is the ability to step outside yourself (whatever "self" is) and look back at yourself (as though you were looking at yourself in a mirror).

The second step is an act of sympathetic imagination by which you look at the world from the perspective of another.

We often hear this described by the phrase, "Walk a mile in my shoes." My good friend Foy Valentine, now deceased, once told me jokingly that doing this had proven highly profitable for him. He said that, whenever he did it he got a new pair of shoes and was a mile away before the poor guy he took them from knew what was happening. That's one of the reasons why I think conscience formation requires a third step.

It requires an act of reflexive self-consciousness. In simplest terms, this is the ability to put yourself in the place of others and to look at yourself through the eyes of others.

Essentially, this defines progressive faith as a faith that practices the Golden Rule.

Jesus of Nazareth gave the rule a positive formulation when he said "Do to others as you would have them do to you," (Luke 6:31 (NIV)) but the Golden Rule is not unique to Christianity.

Judaism teaches, "What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man." (Hillel, Shabbath 31a.)

Islam teaches, "No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself." (Hidith)

Even Buddhists, some whom deny the existence of any God, teach, "Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful." (Udana-Varga)

Some formulation of the Golden Rule or some principle of respect for other persons seems common to all religions and philosophies.

2. Second, a progressive faith is a chastened faith.

It is a faith that sorrowfully acknowledges the pain, suffering and injustice that its own community has inflicted on others.

Chastening occurs when persons of faith look at themselves and their faith through the eyes of people of different faiths.

Christians need to look at themselves through the eyes of Jews -- particularly, through the eyes of those who were herded into boxcars and slaughtered like cattle in the holocaust.

Jews need to look at themselves through the eyes of Muslims -- particularly, through the eyes of those who were displaced from their homes in Palestine.

Muslims need to look at themselves through the eyes of Bahai's.

We all need to look at ourselves through the eyes of the hungry and the homeless, the impoverished and the imprisoned.

All of us need to summon the courage to honestly look at ourselves through the eyes of others who are strange and foreign to us and/or who have been injured and ignored by us.

If we do that, I believe that we will begin to view things the way that God views them.

3. Third, a progressive faith is a hopeful faith.

It is a faith that exercises a sympathetic and creative imagination to transcend the past and present realities of self, family, community, and nation to envision a world with a more benevolent, loving and hopeful future.

Guilt, shame and sorrow all summon us to search for forgiveness, reconciliation, restoration, regeneration, renewal, recreation, transformation, a new birth, -- i.e., some better way of living.

If life is just an endless cycle of violence, conflict and strife, then there is not much reason for a hopeful future.

4. Fourth, a progressive faith is a strong faith.

It is a faith that is strong enough to demand both equal rights in civil life and genuine respect in social life for those who have other convictions and different worldviews -- while remaining firmly committed to its own convictions and worldview.

Fundamentalist faiths can achieve power, but they can never be strong. All fundamentalisms are weak faiths that compensate for their inadequacies by scapegoating those who differ from them.

Fundamentalists fear differences and social change and the "other." They react to their fears by fight or by flight. Whenever they fight, they demonize and destroy whatever makes them afraid and insecure.

Faith can never become strong until it overcomes its fears and insecurities and begins to respect the integrity of conscientious difference.

5. Fifth, a progressive faith is a humble faith.

It is a faith that acknowledges the finitude and fallibility of all humanity. It recognizes that all forms of interpersonal communication and understanding fall short of perfect comprehensibility.

Different faiths privilege different expressions of faith as conveyed by different texts, practices, and rituals. Some make absolute claims for the authority of their competing texts, practices, and rituals.

Generally, it is not necessary to directly challenge the authority of these differing truth claims. It should be enough for all to acknowledge that no matter how sacred, perfect and privileged these texts, practices and rituals are believed to be, all historical faiths are subject to differing interpretations and understandings by adherents within their own faith tradition. Humility, therefore, is proper for people of all faiths.

No system of communication is adequate to fully express the meaning of the Divine. No language is perfectly transparent.

While some interpreters of religious traditions may be considered authoritative, infallibility is an attribute that is best reserved for the Divine.

6. Sixth, a progressive faith is a growing faith.

It is a faith that is growing, expanding, striving for depth and never satisfied with its progress. It is a faith that is incomplete, unfinished, and has never arrived.

Progressive faith does not lay claim to human perfectibility in this life.

7. Seventh, a progressive is a questioning faith.

It is a faith that is undaunted by critical thought. It is not a blind faith that expects adherents to surrender their intellect.

Instead, it practices what Paul Ricouer calls the "hermeneutics of suspicion" because it desires to be more than a projection of human wishes and desires, more than an opiate for the masses, and more than merely a slave revolt by which the weak seek to gain power over the strong.

Progressive faith welcomes doubt and raises questions because it knows they are necessary for the extension of understanding, for spurts of growth and for the testing and strengthening of genuine faith.

8. Eighth, a progressive faith is a dialogical faith.

It extends itself both by random acts of kindness and by deliberate acts of compassion and mercy.

It refuses to extend itself by force of law or arms.

Whenever it seeks to convert others, it seeks to do so by persuasion and example shared in moments of genuine dialogue.

9. Ninth, a progressive faith is an active faith.

It gives more than lip service to love.

It puts love in action by waging peace and working for justice.

It is faith with the courage to put itself at risk by publicly opposing injustice and by actively resisting it by non-violent means.

10. Finally, a progressive faith is an interdependent faith.

It recognizes both the value and the interdependence of all life on this planet.

It is a faith that affirms and honors the claim that future generations have on the present by responsibly stewarding the resources that make life possible on this planet.

On the Blood Lust of the Christian Right

Robert Parham has written an insightful essay about the futility of connecting evangelism with military crusades. Here's a quote:

For several years, some readers of EthicsDaily.com have voiced the crusade mentality, contending that the ultimate solution in Iraq is Christian conversion.

The problem with this view is American Christians themselves. In America everyone knows about the birth of Jesus Christ and the accompanying message of peace on Earth. That knowledge is escapable, especially at Christmas. But that knowledge hasn't changed the bloodlust of the Christian Right, who see America as the Christian nation that it is not and violence as a missionary strategy that it isn't.

The knowledge of Jesus Christ hasn't turned fundamentalists, evangelicals, Catholics, mainline Protestants and quasi-church attendees from their self-righteous commitment to holy war.

No, Christian conversion hasn't converted America's pro-crusade churchmen.

Why do some American Christians think that converting others to Christianity would do for non-Christians what it hasn't done for them?

On Moon's Mouthpiece for the Political Right

Robert Parry has published an enlightening essay about the influence of Sung Myung Moon's Washington Times under the title "The GOP's $3 Billion Propaganda Organ."

It leaves little doubt that Moon is the most influential cult leader in American history.

Where are the Mainstream Christians?

William Fisher at Truthout has posted an outstanding essay entitled "Where are the Christians?" He is concerned about the silent complicity of Christians in the media in response to Rep. Virgil Goode's outrageous remarks concerning Congressman Keith Ellison's desire to take his oath of affirmation on the Qur'an.

Here's a quote from Fisher:

But the silent Christians seem to have forgotten to ask, "What Would Christ Do?"

One wouldn't expect the likes of Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, or Pat Robertson to be caught dead defending a Muslim's right to be a Muslim. They've already made the denigration of this religion a cottage industry for the far right in Christendom.

So have senior military officers like Gen. Jerry Boykin, who has inveighed in uniform that his God is better than their God.

But there are tens of millions of other Christians out there. They ought to know that love of all God's creatures is at the core of their religion. They ought also to know that an attack against one religion is an attack against all religions. Next week, it could be Jews. Next month, it could be Christian fundamentalists or evangelicals.

Mainstream Baptists have not been silent. Here's a link to a blog about Baptist Historian Walter Shurden's response to Goode's statement.

Carter's Bottom Line for Middle East Peace

Ethics Daily has posted a story about reactions to former president Jimmy Carter's controversial new book "Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid."

I have not had opportunity to read the book yet, but I certainly agree with Carter's bottom line:

"The bottom line is this," Carter wrote. "Peace will come to Israel and the Middle East only when the Israeli government is willing to comply with international law, with the Roadmap for Peace, with official American policy, with the wishes of a majority of its own citizens--and honor its own previous commitments--by accepting its legal borders. All Arab neighbors must pledge to honor Israel's right to live in peace under these conditions. The United States is squandering international prestige and goodwill and intensifying global anti-American terrorism by unofficially condoning or abetting the Israeli confiscation and colonization of Palestinian territories.

Top Ten Religious Talk Podcasts

Here's a list of the top ten downloads from the Religious Talk radio program's Podcast Archives:

1. Peak Oil Interviews with Bob Stephenson
   
   Our most popular podcasts are a couple interviews in which Oklahoma Petroleum Geologist Bob Stephenson discusses peak oil and some ways to address it. Here are links to the July 2005 interview and the August 2005 interview.

2. Muhammed Cetin Interview
   
   Here's a link to the 1-29-06 radio interview with Muhammed Cetin, Visiting Scholar at the University of Houston and President of the Institute for Interfaith Dialog. We talk about the work of the Institute for Interfaith Dialog, Muslim-Christian relations, and the trips to Turkey that he leads for IID.

3. Fred Clarkson Interview
   
   The radio interview with Frederick Clarkson, author of Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy is in two parts. Here's a link to the first half and here's a link to the second half of the interview. Clarkson is an expert on the radical right.

4. Sally and Terry Jackson Interview
   
   The 4-3-05 interview with Sally and Terry Jackson was about the Terri Schiavo case and end of life issues. Sally Jackson is a nurse practitioner who specializes in Alzheimers disease and neuro degenerative diseases at the VA Medical Center in OK City. She has also served on the hospital's ethics committee. Her first husband was in a vegitative state prior to his death. Terry Jackson is a Baptist minister who serves as a hospice chaplain.

5. Randall Balmer Interview
   
   The 8-20-2006 interview with Dr. Randall Balmer came as part of a dialogue between Balmer and myself that was posted on the Faith in Public Life website. Balmer is professor of American religious history at Barnard College, Columbia University and visiting professor at the Yale University Divinity School. He was also an expert witness against Roy Moore's Ten Commandments monument in Alabama. We discuss his new book Thy Kingdom Come: An Evangelical's Lament -- How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America.

6. Michelle Goldberg Interview
   
   My 8-13-06 radio interview was with Michelle Goldberg. We talk about Michelle's widely acclaimed book "Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism."

7. Charles Kimball Interview
   
   The 11-24-02 interview of Dr. Charles Kimball comes in two parts. Dr. Kimball is the Chair of the Department of Religion at Wake Forest University and author of the best selling book, When Religion Becomes Evil. Here's a link to part 1 and a link to part 2 of the interview.

8. David Berliner Interview
   
   The 11-30-03 interview of Dr. David Berliner comes in two parts. Dr. Berliner is professor of Education at the University of Arizona and author of The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud and the Attack on America's Public Schools. Here's a link to part 1 and a link to part 2 of the interview.

9. And Justice for All
   
   On the 9-10-06, the day before the fifth anniversary of 9-11, I gave a reprise of my February 2003 speech to the Oklahoma Conference of Churches at the House Chamber in the Oklahoma State Capitol. The speech was a lot more controversial then than it is now.

10. Barbara McGraw Interview
    
    The 1-11-04 interview of Dr. Barbara McGraw comes in two parts. Dr. McGraw is author of Rediscovering America's Sacred Ground. Here's a link to part 1 and a link to part 2 of the interview.
    
    Rising Stars in the Archive:

11. OU Students Discuss Turkey Trip

12. Jan Linn Interview

13. Hollyn Hollman Interview

14. Jonathan Hutson Interview

15. Michael Korenbilt Interview

On Finding Room for Arab Christians

Thanks to Thabet Swaiss for calling my attention to an essay by Rowan Williams entitled "Pray for the Little Town of Bethlehem" that is published in today's Times Online. Here's an excerpt:

Speaking up for and befriending the ancient Christian communities of the Middle East is good for them and for Muslims too; it's a reminder of the healthier and saner relationship between the faiths that existed in many parts of the Middle East for long tracts of its complicated history.

It comes home most poignantly in the Holy Land itself. I have spent the past two days with fellow Christian leaders in Bethlehem, its Christian population down to barely a quarter. There are some disturbing signs of Muslim anti-Christian feeling, despite the consistent traditions of coexistence. But their plight is made still more intolerable by the tragic conditions created by the "security fence" that almost chokes the shrinking town -- the dramatic poverty, soaring unemployment and sheer practical hardship of travelling to school, work or hospital. The sense of desperate isolation is felt by Christians more acutely than most.

Once heavily represented among the professional classes, many feel they have no choice but to leave. One Christian Palestinian friend said to me: "I never imagined that people like us would find ourselves hungry, unemployed, facing daily violence." Some of the people who would be most helpful in making Palestinian society stronger and more democratic feel they have no future in the Holy Land: to the zealots on one side they are potential terrorists, to the zealots on the other they may be seen as infidels. And unfortunately it's the zealots who make the running.

Presidential Library No Plum for SMU

The faculty and staff at Southern Methodist University and Progressive Methodists around the country are fiercely opposed to efforts to house George W. Bush's presidential library at SMU.

Here's a quote from a letter to the editor of the United Methodist Reporter by my fellow blogger Dr. Andrew Weaver and from Ret. District Superintendent Fred Kandeler that strenuously rejects Methodists giving any appearance of condoning this administration's policies that approved the use of torture:

After crossing the Delaware River and winning his first battle at Trenton, New Jersey, on Christmas Day, 1776, George Washington ordered his troops to give refuge to hundreds of surrendering foreign mercenaries. "Treat them with humanity," Washington instructed his troops. "Let them have no reason to complain of our copying the brutal example of the British army."

Contrast this with the Sept. 15, 2006, Washington Post lead editorial titled "The president goes to Capitol Hill to lobby for torture." "President Bush rarely visits Congress. So it was a measure of his painfully skewed priorities that Mr. Bush made the unaccustomed trip yesterday to seek legislative permission for the CIA to make people disappear into secret prisons and have information extracted from them by means he dare not describe publicly."

If the Bush Library and think tank are placed at SMU, the United Methodist Church should withdraw its association from the University and demand that the good name of Methodism be removed from the name of the school. If the United Methodist Church cannot take a stand against the use of torture and those who employ it, including President Bush, what does it stand for?

Will the New Year See an Escalation of War in the Middle East?

Robert Parry at Consortium News has written a foreboding essay entitled "A Very Dangerous New Year." Here are the opening paragraphs:

The first two or three months of 2007 represent a dangerous opening for an escalation of war in the Middle East, as George W. Bush will be tempted to "double-down" his gamble in Iraq by joining with Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair to strike at Syria and Iran, intelligence sources say.

President Bush's goal would be to transcend the bloody quagmire bogging down U.S. forces in Iraq by achieving "regime change" in Syria and by destroying nuclear facilities in Iran, two blows intended to weaken Islamic militants in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.

The Israeli army and air force would carry the brunt of any new fighting albeit with the support of beefed-up U.S. ground and naval forces in the Middle East, the sources said. Bush is now considering a "surge" in U.S. troop levels in Iraq from about 140,000 to as many as 170,000. He also has dispatched a second aircraft carrier group to the coast of Iran.

No Way Forward

Sydney Blumenthal, former assistant and advisor to Bill Clinton, has written an alarming essay for Salon Magazine on "Behind Bush's "new way forward." Here's a quote:

The opening section of the ISG report is a lengthy analysis of the dire situation in Iraq. But Bush has frantically brushed that analysis away just as he has rejected every objective assessment that had reached him before. He has assimilated no analysis whatsoever of what's gone wrong. For him, there's no past, especially his own. There's only the present. The war is detached from strategic purposes, the history of Iraq and the region, and political and social dynamics, and instead is grasped as a test of character. Ultimately, what's at stake is his willpower.

Repudiated in the midterm elections, Bush has elevated himself above politics, and repeatedly says, "I am the commander in chief." With the crash of Rove's game plan for using his presidency as an instrument to leverage a permanent Republican majority, Bush is abandoning the role of political leader. He can't disengage militarily from Iraq because that would abolish his identity as a military leader, his default identity and now his only one.

Unlike the political leader, the commander in chief doesn't require persuasion; he rules through orders, deference and the obedience of those beneath him. By discarding the ISG report, Bush has rejected doubt, introspection, ambivalence and responsibility. By embracing the AEI manifesto, he asserts the warrior virtues of will, perseverance and resolve. The contest in Iraq is a struggle between will and doubt. Every day his defiance proves his superiority over lesser mortals. Even the Joint Chiefs have betrayed the martial virtues that he presumes to embody. He views those lacking his will with rising disdain. The more he stands up against those who tell him to change, the more virtuous he becomes. His ability to realize those qualities surpasses anyone else's and passes the character test.

The mere suggestion of doubt is fatally compromising. Any admission of doubt means complete loss, impotence and disgrace. Bush cannot entertain doubt and still function. He cannot keep two ideas in his head at the same time. Powell misunderstood when he said that the current war strategy lacks a clear mission. The war is Bush's mission.

Controversy Erupts Again In Segregated Bus

Thanks to Robert Cunningham for calling my attention to Brian Whitaker's blog about a recent tumult in a gender segregated bus.

The spirit of Rosa Parks lives on in the most unlikely places.

On the Long History of Baptist Worship Wars

Pam Durso, Associate Executive Director of the Baptist History and Heritage Society, has written a brief essay on the long history of Baptist worship wars. Posted on Ethics Daily, it provides a valuable resource for putting controversies over changing styles of worship and music in perspective. Here's a quote:

Another Baptist pastor in England, Benjamin Keach, had a very different understanding of singing in worship and the use of hymns, and he helped English Baptists to see the value of congregational singing.

In 1673, he persuaded his church to sing a hymn at the close of the Lord's Supper, allowing those who opposed this to leave before the singing began. Six years later, his church agreed to sing a hymn on public days of thanksgiving, and fourteen years after that, his church agreed to sing a hymn as part of worship every Sunday.

In all, it took 20 years for him to convince his congregation that singing hymns was a worthwhile addition to worship services. Even so, 22 of his members left when the hymn singing was instituted, and they joined a non-singing church.

Peter Berger on Extremism

Thanks to Melissa Rogers for calling attention to sociologist Peter Berger's essay on "Going to Extremes: Between Relativism and Fundamentalism." Here's Berger's introduction:

Contemporary culture (and by no means only in America) appears to be in the grip of two seemingly contradictory forces. One pushes the culture toward relativism, the view that there are no absolutes whatever, that moral or philosophical truth is inaccessible if not illusory. The other pushes toward a militant and uncompromising affirmation of this or that (alleged) absolute truth. There are idiomatic formulas for both relativism and what is commonly called fundamentalism: "Let us agree to disagree" as against "You just don't get it."

Beware of concluding too quickly that both can be legitimate components of civil discourse: Imagine the first being the response to an interlocutor who favors pedophile rape, the second uttered by someone who favors the mass murder of infidels. Rather, both formulas make civil discourse impossible, because both (albeit for opposite reasons) preclude a common and reasoned quest for moral or philosophical agreement.

For reasons that may not be immediately obvious, relativism and fundamentalism as cultural forces are closely interlinked. This is not only because one can morph and, more often than may be appreciated does morph, into the other: In every relativist there is a fundamentalist about to be born, and in every fundamentalist there is a relativist waiting to be liberated. More basically, it is because both relativism and fundamentalism are products of the same process of modernization; indeed, both are intrinsically modern phenomena, and both pose a serious challenge to any modern society that intends to be civil. Relativism is bad for civility because it precludes the moral condemnation of virtually anything at all. Fundamentalism is bad for civility because it produces irresolvable conflict with those who do not share its beliefs. And both are bad for any hope of arriving at valid normative conclusions by means of rational discourse, the relativism because there is no will to such a discourse, and fundamentalism because there is no way to it. Consequently, it is important for both political and intellectual reasons to stake out a middle ground between the two extremes. What follows is an attempt, by means of a sociological analysis, to show how the two phenomena are related.

On Preparing for War with Iran

CBS News is reporting that the defense department is preparing to deploy a second aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf.

Pentagon spokemen say no attack on Iran is imminent.

As I read this, a thought keeps recurring in my mind. It is the conclusion of James Galloway's essay on the Bush administration's reaction to the Iraq Study Group report a few days ago:

Did you notice that at every stop on the President's information --gathering tour this week, there was a very familiar face looming over his shoulder? There was Vice President Dick Cheney, looking as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

Should the president suddenly have an original thought or seem to be going wobbly, Cheney will be right there to squelch it or to set him straight.

It can be argued that George W. Bush understood little about war and peace and diplomacy and honesty in government. Cheney understood all of it, and he bears much of the responsibility for what's gone on in Washington, D.C. and in Iraq for the last six years. Keep a sharp eye on him. Desperate men do desperate things.

On Rooting for War with Iran

Bill Berkowitz has posted an alarming essay about right-wing "Holy Warriors Set Sights on Iran." He quotes best-selling Christian Zionist author Joel Rosenberg as saying:

"If President Bush believes Iran needs to be neutralised (and I believe he does), and he is convinced that military action is the only way (I don't believe he is there right now), then the U.S. should take the lead."

After all, wrote Rosenberg, "If anyone is going to stop Iran from threatening the world with nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them, it has to be soon, perhaps no later than the end of 2007. After all, 2008 is an American election year. 2009 will be the start of a new administration. By then it may be too late. The thermonuclear genie may be out of the bottle."

Berkowtiz reveals that Rosenberg has quite a following in Washington, D.C.:

In one recent [television] appearance, Rosenberg said that he had made several visits to "speak at a White House Bible study" and had conversations with "a number of congressional leaders and Homeland Security, Pentagon [officials] about my novels, which are based on Bible prophecy."

Rabbi Haim Dov Beliak, co-founder of JewsOnFirst and the rabbi of Beth Shalom Temple in Whittier, California gave an astute analysis of Rosenberg's work:

"Rooting for war with Iran and lobbying for world destruction using Israel, as catalytic agent, is no longer 'entertainment' -- it is obscene."

Administration Neo-Cons Blaming Israel for their Defeat in Iraq

Jim Lobe has written an enlightening essay about "Neo-Cons Wanted Israel to Attack Syria" that is posted on the Common Dreams website.

The article quotes Meyrav Wurmser, director of the Centre for Middle East Policy at the Hudson Institute. She describes a cabal around Vice President Cheney that, in essence, was attempting to divert attention from this administration's failures in Iraq by pushing Israel to attack Syria last summer. Here's a quote:

Indeed, Wurmser, who is herself an Israeli closely identified with the Likud Party, expressed a sense of imminent defeat. Noting last week's departure of former UN Amb. John Bolton, a key neo-conservative ally, she said, "[T]here are others who are about to leave."

"This administration is in its twilight days," she said. "Everyone is now looking for work, looking to make money... We all feel beaten after the past five years..."

While she blamed Rumsfeld, the military, and the State Department for the failure to achieve neo-conservative goals in Iraq and the wider region, she also attacked Israel's conduct of last summer's war, insisting that it provoked "a lot of anger" in Washington, presumably in her husband's office, among other places.

"The final outcome is that Israel did not do it [attack Syria]. It fought the wrong war and lost... [i]nstead of a strategic war that would serve Israel's objectives, as well as the U.S. objectives in Iraq."

Public School Classrooms are not the Place for Evangelism

The New York Times has published a story about the public classroom evangelistic efforts of a school teacher in Kearney, New Jersey.

Public school classrooms are no place for evangelism.

Religious education should be done under the supervision of the children's parents -- preferably in the home or a house of worship.

On Oaths of Affirmation -- on the Qu'ran

Walter Shurden, Executive Director of the Center for Baptist Studies at Mercer University, has written an exceptionally good essay on "Should We Swear Congressman Ellison in on the Qu'ran" for the December 2006 issue of the Baptist Studies Bulletin. Here's a quote:

Of all people -- OF ALL PEOPLE -- we Baptists ought to understand and endorse Ellison's call for free expression of religion! Our ancestors went to jail for that kind of freedom! Our ancestors suffered idiotic indignities for that kind of freedom. Our ancestors struggled for a century and a half in this country for that kind of freedom!! Some of our ancestors suffered physical abuse for that kind of freedom.

Do we Baptists not remember any of our history at all? Have we really forgotten the sorry saga of Roger Williams being chased out of Massachusetts by Christian zealots and his subsequent heroic founding of Rhode Island where religious freedom could flourish? Have we forgotten the sad tale of Baptist fathers John Clarke, Obadiah Holmes, and John Crandall being jailed for conducting a worship service in a blind man's house in Lynn, MA? Have we forgotten Obadiah Holmes' bloody whipping on the streets of Boston? Do we not remember that long list of jailed Baptist ministers in eighteenth century Virginia?

But even if we were not Christians and even if we were not Baptists, if we were only good citizens of this republic with no religious faith at all, we ought to understand that call for religious freedom that Congressman Ellison wants. Article VI of The Constitution of the United States says, "The Senators and Representatives . . . shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States (bold mine)."

Is the Golden Rule Communist Ideology?

Sufragan Bishop Ira Combs, a frequent spokesman for Walmart corporation, insinuated on CNBC that businesses that practice the Golden Rule follow communist ideology.

Appearing on CNBC's "On The Money" on behalf of Walmart to discuss a pastoral letter and television ad that challenged the world's largest retailer to be a "Golden Rule" company, Combs said:

"So Wal-Mart really has become a target because it is successful at mastering the tenets of free-market capitalism, free enterprise, and they have boomed globally and grown in the system of globalization that so many unions and socialists and communists are against."

Combs was not responding to a union representative, or a socialist, or a communist. He was responding to Dr. Robert Parham, a Baptist minister and Executive Director of the Baptist Center for Ethics.

Last week, Parham wrote a pastoral letter to Walmart CEO H. Lee Scott asking Walmart to use the Golden Rule -- "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" -- as the standard by which it treats both its employees and its customers.

Apparently, Combs equates the Golden Rule with unionism, socialism and communism. Here's the best part of Parham's response to Combs:

Parham said he was "disappointed" that a minister would "abandon the Golden Rule and have another standard by which we evaluate the moral performance of a company."

"He knows full well that Wal-Mart has a lot of children that go without health-care coverage, that either have no insurance or they are dependent upon public assistance," Parham said. "We think the company should strive toward achieving the Golden Rule. That's a noble cause, and I think all people of faith affirm the value of the Golden Rule. And we think that the Wal-Mart company should strive to be a Golden Rule company, not follow secondary standards and seek only profit for a few, but try to be a Golden Rule company. That's what Jesus would want Wal-Mart to do."

Here's a link to Ethics Daily's report about this discussion.

Here's a link to a video of the exchange.

There is No War on Christmas

Ethics Daily has posted an outstanding essay by James Browning, Assistant Professor of Religion at Pikeville College, entitled "No, Virginia, There is No War on Christmas." It addresses the now annual crusade by right-wing zealots to reduce the Prince of Peace to a tribal warlord in their culture war. Here's an excerpt from Browning's essay:

Virginia, our reality check reveals that the "War" turns out to be mostly hot air and overheated anxiety, with a few incidents of ill-conceived political correctness. If I were inclined to be frightened, I would be concerned about the underlying message of all this rhetoric. Evidently, some of the huge majority of complacent, cultural Christians feel threatened by small minorities of atheists, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains, Zoroastrians and Neo-Pagans.

In the Land of False, Forced Options created by the prophets of culture warfare, no one can be inclusive or sensitive to others who are different. You are either for Christmas, or you are besieging it.

I had a dream that Jesus was born in the United States this Christmas. Mary gave birth in the county hospital because Joseph didn't have health insurance. The wise men couldn't visit the baby Jesus. They were denied visas because they were religious leaders from Iran. No one noticed that Jesus was born because they were too busy shopping and arguing over how to celebrate Christmas.

No, Virginia, there is no War on Christmas. Go back to sleep. Christmas will come as always in this land of religious liberty for all.