President Obama

My wife and were among the millions who watched the inauguration via live video stream on the Web. We never watch television and were unable to figure out how to get a broadcast signal on our new TV; but the set was hooked up to Stacey's laptop and we picked up a great stream from MSNBC. I was working from home that day, but admittedly didn't get much done for a couple hours during the height of the festivities. (Don't worry, I did work several hours into the evening to make up for the lost time.)

The enormity of the crowds was amazing, even as viewed on a TV screen. It was a great moment for my country, a chance to regain some of the reputation that we had in our best years--and possibly even to better live up to that reputation than we did then.

Since that historic day, the words have sounded like music every time I have heard them in the media: President Obama. It represents the passing of the torch to a new generation, my generation, a generation that, as a whole, has experienced a broader world than even the boomers that preceded us. Howe and Strauss call us the Thirteenth Generation and define birth years 1961 to 1981. As a whole, we're a generation that has experienced complexity to a degree that our forbears have not.

Mr. Obama represents our generation well. Far more Thirteeners have multi-ethnic backgrounds, blended families, and a history of living in multiple, diverse locations than any preceding generation. Most of the people I work with at a large technology company are Thirteeners, and they are a diverse bunch.

It's a generation that wants to move beyond partisan politics, yet has a definite progressive philosophy on human rights, warfare, the economy, and poverty. We favor civil unions for the LGBT community, and the Millennials (born after 1982) are starting to pull our generation in the direction of favoring gay marriage.

The Millennials and Thirteeners cheered the loudest when President Obama issued his first executive orders:

• Closing Guantanamo Bay and banning torture, with the explanation that our values and our safety cannot be put at cross purposes.
• Championing disclosure and open government and restricting the influence of lobbyists, with the warning that secrecy for secrecy's sake will not be tolerated.
• Drawing up plans to end the senseless, expensive, and oppressive war in Iraq, ending a boondoggle that extremely conservative estimates show 90,000 lives lost and almost $600 billion spent (not counting interest and ongoing costs of reprovisioning, medical care, and rebuilding--which will bring the cost to several trillion dollars).

I won't agree with everything Obama does, but his spiritual presence will be a welcome change from a decidedly unspiritual administration that has left office. Religious, yes, but not spiritual. That's another characteristic of my generation: we tend to count spirituality as more important than religion. Not too different from another reformer in another era, Jesus of Nazareth.

Tax Cuts or Spending Increases?

Given the economic situation that the Bush administration has left for president-elect Obama, everyone agrees that stimulus is needed. Congress has already passed the $700 billion bailout of the financial services industry, and we have gotten zero benefit from that so far because the administration has treated it as a corporate handout program rather than a stimulus program for the country. Thankfully, the last $350 billion or so from that program will be spent and monitored by the Obama administration, and I still have some hope that taxpayers will be made whole for that program through the equity and repayment mechanisms that congress inserted.

The next stimulus, as structured by the Obama administration, is divided between middle-class tax cuts and increased spending on infrastructure. I heavily lean toward the Keynesian model over the much-hyped economic theory of Milton Friedman, which still holds sway among conservatives and some moderates.

The Keynesian model was used in FDR's response to the Great Depression--which had been underway for three years when he took office. Keynes, however, would have advocated much more aggressive goverment action than Roosevelt tried, and he would not have slashed the programs so soon. (After four years of very good economic growth, Roosevelt slashed programs in 1937, triggering another recession.)

FDR's response to the Great Depression was largely successful, despite an enormous effort by conservatives to discredit it for the past 75 years. The conservative narrative--which has been largely adopted by the corporate media and has been taught as fact in public schools for 30 years--is that FDR's policies resulted in 13 years of stagnant growth and that it was World War II that pulled us out of the Depression. The fact is that GDP skyrocketed and unemployment steadily declined under Roosevelt--with a small blip in 1937 when he departed from the Keynesian model. Here is a chart of GDP:




Unemployment was a tougher nut to crack, arguably because FDR was less aggressive than he could have been during his first term at job-creation programs. In the wake of the 1937 downturn, he dramatically increased WPA funding, which finally began to break the unemployment cycle. I would argue that the institution of the minimum wage in 1938 was anothe factor in the reduction in unemployment. As seen in the following unemployment figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, FDR's administration realized a 14-point reduction in the unemployment rate prior to the beginning of World War II:

• 1923-29: 3.3%


• 1930: 8.9%


• 1931: 15.9%


• 1932: 23.6%


• 1933: 24.9% (FDR's first year in office)


• 1934: 21.7%


• 1935: 20.1%


• 1936: 17.0%


• 1937: 14.3%


• 1938: 19.0%


• 1939: 17.2%


• 1940: 14.6%


• 1941: 9.9% (last year before U.S. entry in WW II)

I would make note, by the way, that the Johnson administration changed the way that the unemployment rate is measured, removing those who had given up looking for a job and those who were in part-time work when they needed full-time work. By that measure, the December 2008 unemployment rate is 13.5 percent (you can calculate this at the BLS website by selecting the U-6 category). So we're getting close to 1931 levels, as would be expected in year two of an extreme economic downturn. Fortunately, we have a sane administration entering office now, rather than two years from now.

Anyway, back to the stimulus. By any measure, tax cuts on the wealthy provide the least stimulus of any expenditure of a government dollar. Fortunately, Obama is not proposing any of these. Middle-class tax cuts result in less stimulus than infrastructure spending, because consumers use a large portion of their tax cuts for savings and/or debt reduction from consumption already done. That said, low- and middle-income consumers are in need for cash for the above purposes now, and this can bring good long-term strength if done with proper balance.

I would argue, with Pelosi and others in the Congress and against Obama's preliminary proposal, that the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy be repealed immediately, rather than being allowed to expire in 1-2 years. History has shown us that higher taxes on the wealthy results in sustained economic growth (for instance, in the late 1930s, 1950s, 1960s, and 1990s), while tax cuts on the wealthy result in a boom-bust cycle that hurts the economy in the long term (1970s, 1980s and 2000s). This would provide revenue to partially offset the other tax cuts (reducing the impact on the national debt) and provide economic stimulus at the same time. For now, I'd raise the top tax rate to 39.6 percent--where it stood during the Clinton boom--and raise it further in a few years. The higher the taxes on the wealthy, the more likely they are to put revenue back into their businesses rather than taking it as profit. This increases the value of the businesses, reduces unemployment, and generally strengthens the economy.

The disadvantage that Obama has that FDR did not have is that the national debt before the economic bailouts is 70 percent of GDP--largely the result of profligate spending and tax-cutting by Republican administrations. So the caveat to the stimulus package is that someone needs to lend us the money. I expect the dollar to lose a lot of value over the next several years.

Happy New Year; Good Riddance to the Old

I have to agree with Bob Herbert:

When Mr. Bush officially takes his leave in three weeks (in reality, he checked out long ago), most Americans will be content to sigh good riddance. I disagree. I don’t think he should be allowed to slip quietly out of town. There should be a great hue and cry — a loud, collective angry howl, demonstrations with signs and bullhorns and fiery speeches — over the damage he’s done to this country.

The corporate media and the Democratic congress have steadfastly refused to broach the subject of impeachment, and it appears that the appetite even for hearings has waned. What we need is a Truth and Reconciliation Commission with the power to send people to prison; what we will get is a country wounded by lies and deceit, with no one brought to account and no negative example set for the next politician that thinks that fascism is the way to go. It's really unfortunate.

This is the man who gave us the war in Iraq and Guantánamo and torture and rendition; who turned the Clinton economy and the budget surplus into fool’s gold; who dithered while New Orleans drowned; who trampled our civil liberties at home and ruined our reputation abroad; who let Dick Cheney run hog wild and thought Brownie was doing a heckuva job.

The Bush administration specialized in deceit. How else could you get the public (and a feckless Congress) to go along with an invasion of Iraq as an absolutely essential response to the Sept. 11 attacks, when Iraq had had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks?

And the cost:

He then set the blaze that has continued to rage for nearly six years, consuming more than 4,000 American lives and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. . . . The financial cost to the U.S. will eventually reach $3 trillion or more, according to the Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz.. . .

Mr. Bush traveled the country in the early days of his presidency, promoting his tax cut plans as hugely beneficial to small-business people and families of modest means. This was more deceit. The tax cuts would go overwhelmingly to the very rich.

The president would give the wealthy and the powerful virtually everything they wanted. He would throw sand into the regulatory apparatus and help foster the most extreme income disparities since the years leading up to the Great Depression. Once again he was lighting a fire. This time the flames would engulf the economy and, as with Iraq, bring catastrophe.

It's good that the public has finally seen through this facade, but it wuld be much better if our society could muster up the courage to force some contrition.

Virginity Pledges Don't Work Either

Another study shows that the best thing we can do for our kids is provide comprehensive sex education:

According to a study released earlier today, teenagers who have taken a "virginity pledge" are still just as likely to engage in premarital sex than those who have not pledged their abstinence. But worse than that, the study found that those same abstinence-swearing teenagers are far less likely to use a form of birth control - condoms, etc - when they do become sexually active.

As I have opined in the past, attempts to achieve a certain outcome through misinformation, censorship of information, or pressure from authority figures simply does not work. We need to be honest and open with our youth, give them the information they need about sexuality, and most importantly, teach them the values of respect for the earth and its creatures, for other human beings, and themselves. If they learn this ethic, things will be okay for them (even if the actual behavior differs from what was desired).

Pixar, Dreamworks, and the Spiritual Evolution of Humankind

My wife and I have been to a number of animated movies from Pixar and Dreamworks lately: WALL-E, Bolt, and The Tale of Despereaux. We really enjoy movies from these studios--partly because they're wholesome and fun, but mostly because they reflect some positive spiritual progress that we're beginning to see in humankind, especially among the younger generations.

The Tale of Despereaux is an especially striking example. Never in the past would such a non-conformist "child" have been praised so highly in a children's movie. Yes, there have been non-conformist children in children's cinema for a few decades, but they're typically presented in a slapstick comedy style, which blunts any sense that a young viewer might want to emulate them.

Desperaux is a mouse who defies his cultural convention of living in fear to bring salvation to a community. Even at the human level, this community had reverted to living in fear due to a tragic event, and the result had been no sunshine, no rain, and general despair in the kingdom. (I think the story's creators aere right on target, by the way, when they attributed changes in weather, the success of crops, etc., to the spiritual condition of the community.) The change agent turned out to be a mouse who was shunned by his community because he had courage.

Of course, an easy parallel can be drawn to the outgoing Bush administration. Ever since the tragic events of 9/11, the administration's only tool for achieving critical mass for its policies has been to stoke fear, and fear of terrorism has been its excuse for maintaining its fascist policies even after that critical mass evaporated. The McCain campaign made a long list of political mistakes in a year that was already bad for Republicans, but arguably its worst mistake was its "fear and smear" campaign tactics, which began early and intensified as the campaign got desperate.

A look at the election results shows that McCain won the "fear" vote by a landslide, but that the percentage of the electorate who voted out of fear declined tremendously. People began to realize that, as in Despereaux's community, living in fear has produced dreadful results--less freedom, less prosperity, a less fulfilling society--and a more dangerous world, despite claims to the contrary. People began to seek out hope over fear.

Our younger generation is leading the charge in this regard. Despereaux is an excellent rendition of what aura readers are calling "indigo children," and sociologists are using the term
"Millennial Generation" to describe the generational group that most of the indigos belong to. A large body of data--from the woo-woo community and the scientific community alike--indicates that the next few years will be very difficult and that this generation will make a significant contribution to leading us on a path to recovery. That path will be environmentally sustainable, more oriented to peace than to war, and geared toward local communities over globalization.

My wife has been reading a study on spiritual messages in cinema, and it's very revealing. I do believe that global consciousness is on the rise, and creative types are catching the wave and putting out some very good cinema. I'm glad to see that "children's movies" are included in this trend, and indeed are leading the charge in some ways. That's the generation that will most benefit from an "expanded spiritual toolbox."

And this is a whole 'nother post, but there are a number of very interesting parallels between WALL-E and City of Ember.

Happy Holidays

Happy holidays. In corporate America, that's the proper way to convey wishes for peace and joy at this time of the year. And it's appropriate in our global and pluralistic society. At work, I have a team member who has already celebrated her "holiday season" with observance of Ramadān and Eid ul-Fitr. I work daily with people who emphasize Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Pancha Ganapati, or Chinese New Year above Christmas.

For many others in Western countries, December 25 is, for cultural reasons, the default date for a secular observance of giving and family togetherness--and "Christmas" is the default name even though the individuals involved might not be practicing Christians. This is actually quite appropriate in a way, since Christmas began as a Christian alternative to a cultural festival occurring on the same date.

To me, spiritual diversity is a beautiful thing. Back in the Bible Belt, family members who tell me about a person I'm not acquainted with there will inevitably describe him/her as a "good Christian man" or "good Christian woman." For them, someone's identity as a member of a religious grouping or faction is the most important thing to know about that person.

For me, the spiritual and energetic qualities of a person have little to do with religious identity. Even though I am a Christian, I would not want my workplace to be exclusively Christian. I have known enough Christians who are incompetent, passive aggressive, needy, or judgmental that the odds are that my work life would be less pleasant if my colleagues were replaced by a subset of Christians. And I wouldn't want to work in an all-Muslim or all-Hindu or all-New Age workplace either--for the same reasons. Diversity is the best answer.

Maybe we can find a better way to express heartfelt, spiritual wishes to a fellow traveler than "happy holidays." My hope is that through a spiritual renaissance, spiritual people will honor one another without competition, without prejudice, without proselytism.

Rick Warren at the Inauguration

Progressives have raised a bit of ire about Obama's cabinet, but their real fury has been leveled at the person who will lead a 5-minute prayer at the inauguration. Chuck Currie, a spiritual progressive in Portland, was quoted nationally when he wrote a blog post about this, so I decided to respond with my point of view. Due to technical difficulties, I thought my first version of the post was lost in cyberspace, so I re-wrote it, and did a better job the second time. When I pressed "Submit" on the second post, the first one appeared on Chuck's blog. Oh, well. Below is the second version of what I wrote to Chuck:

Chuck,

First of all, I must be significantly more liberal than you if you think that Obama campaigned on a "progressive agenda." His healthcare plan is not single-payer but instead maintains large profits for insurance companies; he opposes gay marriage; he supports corporate personhood; he supports certain kinds of warfare and continued huge military spending; his tax increases on the wealthy are very small and now will likely be delayed; he supports so-called "clean coal"; he does not oppose capital punishment; etc. At best, his policy positions can be described as moderate.

Having said that, I was an enthusiastic Obama supporter because I believe that he has the rare personality and presence that will bring our nation together and move it in the direction of effective, compassionate, and yes, progressive government and society. His progressive Christian faith is a big part of who he is in this regard. I have never given money to a political cause before, but contributed significantly both to Obama AND to No on 8.

I have been very happy to watch Obama's cabinet come together--a "cabinet of adults," as one commentator put it. Bush rightly was criticized for surrounding himself with ideologues who were more interested in power and ideology than in competence and the good of the country. I do NOT want a liberal version of the same thing, as such would continue the same negative spiritual energy that has hurt our country so badly over the last eight years. Obama has signaled that he will be in charge, and his will not be a conservative administration even though there are some conservatives in the cabinet.

He's doing similar things with the religious ceremonies at the inauguration. He's reaching out to evangelicals AND spiritual progressives with his two selections. Warren has certain objectionable political views, but does not insist that others agree with them and, in fact, goes out of his way to give progressives an occasional voice in his church. I would not want him to "preach" at the inauguration, but having him deliver a prayer is a powerful way of saying to evangelicals, "I am not going to marginalize you and oppress you," as Bush did with spiritual progressives. It says nothing about the policies he will promote, but it says something about the spirit he will exude.

As an exile from an evangelical upbringing (I currently attend a liberal mainline church in Beaverton), I know that many evangelicals are weary of the Republican Party and the religious right's aging leadership. They will support a pro-choice, pro-gay politician if s/he connects with them on other values such as compassion for the
poor. If we're really to have a progressive future in this country, we need to unify the country around the core principles we agree on rather than continuing to polarize and marginalize. This is the real principle that Obama ran on.

It is vitally important that we make a clean break from the past eight years. Secular progressives tend to focus on policy positions, but spiritual progressives should recognize that the main problem during the past eight years has been the spiritual bankruptcy of the Bush administration. The ridiculous policies were just a symptom of this existential paralysis. If we are to really begin to heal and undo the damage, we are going to need to achieve critical mass at a spiritual level. Creating another members-only "club" and marginalizing everyone outside it is not the way to achieve this.

Shalom,
Mark Mullins

Re-Imagine the World

Our church recently hosted a book study on Bernard Brandon Scott's book Re-Imagine the World: An Introduction to the Parables of Jesus. Scott is one of the world's foremost parables scholars, and I had read his more scholarly work Hear Then the Parable in seminary years ago. I heard him speak at a Jesus Seminar on the Road event on the Oregon coast last April, then met him personally when he was one of the presenters at a Jesus Seminar on the Road event at my home church last October. It was interesting to see that his mannerisms were very typical for an Oklahoman, but his insights were anything but.

I was asked to lead the last two sessions after missing the first two sessions due to business travel, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book and dissecting the last few chapters with a group of six or so people. We discussed Scott's compelling interpretations of the Unforgiving Slave, Shrewd Manager, and Dinner Party. Then we delved into the final two chapters that attempt to tie all the parables together.

The title of the book gives some clue as to his perspective, and the next-to-last chapter carries the same title, "Re-Imagine the World." He describes the parables of the Jesus tradition as falling along three "coordinates":

1. God is unclean, exemplified by the Leaven. Leaven is said to represent the empire of God, but at the time it was considered unclean, and even worse, symbolic of evil. This radical concept says that God is not aloof and "otherly," but rather is best seen through society's most unattractive.

2. God is present in absence, exemplified by the Empty Jar parable found in the Gospel of Thomas. This notion would have been no less radical than the first one to Jesus' original hearers, and it says that the best indication of God's presence is God's absence.

3. Cooperation, not contest, exemplified by the Samaritan. In a world in which one's whole being and identity was tightly intertwined by one's class, one's social level, the Jesus tradition emphasized collaboration, cooperation, and undeserved love--rather than warfare and competition.

In thinking through these concepts, I thought of how distorted those ideas have become in much of today's Christianity. Today, many believe that the Chrisitan charter in this age is to help build an (American) empire, whereas Jesus' parables indicate that God's empire is anything but imperial. And yes, Jesus was a very political figure--something I'll write on further in a later post.

News Flash: False Statements Preceded War

I guess I understand the reasons why the corporate media has avoided using the word "lie" to describe numerous and various statements by our president, but it's hard not to use that word in analyzing the leadup to the Iraq war.

But two organizations recently released a study that stops just short of using that term, after doing exhaustive research of what was said by administration officials in comparison to the information that was available at the time.

The study, which got a surprising amount of media coverage, identified 935 false statements regarding Iraq over the two-year period following September 11, 2001.

The study concluded that the statements "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."

...

It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.

"It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida," according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. "In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003."

The full study can be found on the Center for Public Integrity's web site, which also contains a graphic that would be humorous if so many human lives had not been lost. Titled "False Statements by Month," it shows the number of lies growing steadily throughout 2002, peaking in February 2003 at 140, and then gradually declining after that.

I'm not sure that most Americans needed such a detailed study to realize that the administration is morally and spiritually bankrupt, but it's nice to see someone willing to call a spade a spade, backed up by irrefutable research, and get some media coverage for doing so.

Worst Healthcare in the Industrialized World

Well, it was already obvious to me that health care stinks in the U.S., and now even the corporate media is reporting this fact. A recent article (as well as a report I heard on NPR) describes the latest analysis by the Commonwealth Fund that ranks our country dead last in timely and effective healthcare delivery among 19 industrialized countries studied.

[The study] looked at death rates in subjects younger than 75 that could have been prevented by timely and effective medical care.

The researchers found that while most countries surveyed saw preventable deaths decline by an average of 16 percent, the United States saw only a four percent dip.

The result of this slower improvement is that the U.S. moved from 15th to 19th since 1997-98. Interestingly, the number one country was France, a country derided by conservatives for its socialist leanings. That nation's healthcare system, fully funded by the government and serving citizens and visitors alike, is often noted for its quality of care, efficient administration, and effective public health strategies.

Some might say that as long as we're improving here in the U.S., what's the problem? The problem is that we're improving from a pretty dismal low point. The fact that hundreds of thousands of people die unnecessarily in our health care system is inexcusable. Yet this is a little-reported aspect of our healthcare crisis. Journalists, polititians, and even educated liberal activists typically have the financial resources to avoid situations of marginal care, and family and friends with the ability to advocate for them if they do wind up in such a situation.

But there are many without those resources, and it's this demographic that fuels our high mortality statistics. Our two-tier system--good insurance for some, little or no coverage for others--creates the situation of uneven care that we see today. It also increases costs for everyone.

"It is notable that all countries have improved substantially except the US," said Ellen Nolte, lead author of the study.

Had the United States performed as well as any of the top three industrialized countries, there would have been 101,000 fewer deaths per year, the researchers said.

Our country needs universal care. The most efficient and effective delivery system for such care is a single-payer government system, which is politically untenable. The major Democratic presidential candidates have decent proposals--not as good as single payer, but better than nothing.

And one more thing--don't let the AMA get too involved in writing the rules. Alternative care must be a big part of improved health in this country. The M.D. no longer has the godlike status of a generation ago. The best care is a balanced approach--compassionate, spiritual, scientific, and holistic.

Alternative Giving

This year, almost all of our Christmas gifts for family members were made through the alternative giving program at our church. We're a liberal church, and many of us have families that are mostly conservative, theologically and politically. We're also a mostly middle class church, and most of our families don't have material needs.

As a result, our missions and outreach ministry saw an opportunity to provide an alternative to the traffic jams around the malls, the dilemma of trying to buy gifts that avoid offending the values of either the giver or the recipient, and the perceived obligation to buy someone another trinket that doesn't have lasting value. It also signaled the end of most of my own efforts to convince my family that my faith and my politics are better than theirs, mostly by giving liberal books as Christmas gifts.

Our alternative giving program enabled people to give donations in honor of friends of family members to any of a couple dozen charities that were pre-screened by the committee. Those who wanted could write a single, tax-deductible check to the church, from which the money is dispersed to the charities. I paid the charities directly to enable employer matching of the gift.

Our committee selected 20 or so charities, all of which reflect our church's values, and some of which reflect values of more conservative people. My family members did not receive donations to the charities on our list that advocate a response to global warming, equal rights for sexual minorities, universal health care, civil rights for oppressed people, and so forth, because those would have made them feel uncomfortable politically. Instead, we gave to Habitat for Humanity, Care, Medical Teams International, and Save the Children--charities that are consistent with the values of just about everyone. Yet across our church, almost all of the charities on our list received a donation.

The program was a tremendous success in our church, and the committee found in its research that a number of families in the church have practiced alternative giving for many years. One family described the family Thanksgiving celebration, which includes a time when everyone goes through the Heifer Project catalog and requests alternative gifts--a cow or a dozen chicks for a poor farming family, a well for a village without clean drinking water, etc.

Alternative giving has become something of a fad within progressive circles, with many web sites offering resources and ideas, and even radio commercials on our progressive talk station. It's even becoming more common in evangelical churches, something that offers me additional hope that Rick Warren's generation of evangelical leaders will have more balanced priorities than the generation of Jerry Falwall, Pat Robertson, and James Dobson.

Who Is God?

Last summer, my church had a 6-week discussion class on Paul Alan Laughlin's excellent book, Remedial Christianity: What Every Believer Should Know about the Faith, but Probably Doesn't. I highly recommend this book for all Christians, liberal and conservative. It's the first book I've seen that deals honestly with traditional Christian theology--its positive points and its inconsistencies. It also deals honestly with the history of how traditional Christian theology developed during the fourth and fifth centuries C.E. as a way to solidify Constantine's empire, shutting out alternative theologies that existed at the time.

While Laughlin certainly casts a critical eye on traditional beliefs, his tone is not derogatory or dismissive. In fact, unless s/he is particularly hyper-partisan, a conservative Christian should find the book's tone non-offensive, and would indeed find valuable content within, even while disagreeing with the author at points. The book is written as a textbook for undergraduate-level "Introduction to Christianity" classes, so it's accessible to non-specialists that have attended at least some college.

Anyway, the first chapter on The Bible in Historical Perspective covered material that was familiar to me from my academic background. However, having avoided the study of pure and systematic theology, the rest of the book was very eye-opening to me--particularly Chapter 2, "Christian Theism and Its Alternatives."

I had always had a problem with the traditional view of God--a separate being with a separate identity, inevitably male, theoretically loving of all creation but practicing love only for those on "his side." As a pastor, I explained away some of the more offensive commandments in the Hebrew Bible by saying that God was "meeting people where they were and nudging them toward the ideal of human equality." There's some validity to that statement, and the trend continues into the New Testament in my opinion. But something in the traditional view of God that made it difficult for that claim to make a lot of sense.

I had read books by writers such as Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan that seemed to have a healthier view of God, but I had not been able to get a handle on the relationship between these various theologies.

Laughlin hits the nail on the head by explaining that the various views of deity differ in two areas: transcendence and immanence. Transcendence refers to the "otherness" of God, while immanence refers to the nearness or "within-ness" of God. Thus there are four possibilities:

• Theism (active God above), the traditional view of God in monotheistic religions, involving high transcendence and a relatively weak immanence. God is separate from the universe and everything else, and is active to some degree in the world today.
• Deism (uninvolved God), well known as the theology of many of the U.S. founding fathers, involving high transcendance and no immanence. A separate God created the world, set it in motion, and then became uninvolved.
• Pantheism (everything is God), an element of many Eastern, Native American, and New Age spritualities, involving virtually no transcendence and very strong immanence. The spirit or concept of God infuses the universe as a whole; thus the universe is God. When this concept is used without reference to "God," it's called Monism.
• Panenthism (everything in God), espoused by Borg, Crossan, and other progressive Christian theologians, and involveing very strong immanence and a certain amount of transcendence. Panentheists agree with pantheists that God saturates and infuses the universe as a whole, but they see God as "the entire universe and then some." God is present everywhere and in everything, and also has another aspect that is untouched by the universe.

You might have guessed that I have gravitated to panentheism, now that I understand it more fully. Now I want to go back and read more of Borg and others, now that I have a "nail to hang them on." I'm also excited that our pastor, Peg Pfab, has agreed to teach a class delving more deeply into these concepts as a part of our adult education program this spring.

Among several books I'm reading now is another book by Laughlin, Getting Oriented: What Every Christian Should Know about Eastern Religions, but Probably Doesn't. It's a great read so far.

Merry Christmas

Contrary to the right-wing complaint that there is a "war on Christmas," I see the profound influence of Christmas on people of all faiths and non-faiths:

• A friend I recently met is the adult education minister at a non-Christian new age congregation, but celebrates Christmas with her family as the time to refocus on a giving life.
• The message board at our local Baha'i worship center currently reads: "Jesus: A Gift from God."
• My corporate intranet featured a picture of the Christmas tree in our office in Pune, India, where Hindus, Christians, and others celebrate the holiday.
• My office, consisting mostly of non-churchgoing folk, is well-known within our company and in Washington County for our hands-on work in the community, including providing Christmas gifts and food for around 20 families (in an office of 250+ people).
• The commercialization can be maddening, but it can't be denied that totally secular people have fallen in love with the inflatable yard figures--the Cat in the Hat with the Grinch, Santa on a motorcycle, etc.

The point is that for good or for bad, Christmas is a cultural, religious, and spiritual phenomenon globally. It's a contribution of my faith tradition to the spirituality of the world at large.

And the true meaning of Christmas? From this global perspective, I would say that the Christian doctrine of incarnation symbolizes our union with the universe and with each other. Jesus did not come to establish a systematic theology. He came that we and the universe might be transformed. As Zechariah sings in Luke's story,

"By the tender mercy of our God,
the dawn from on high will break upon us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace."
(Luke 1:78-79)

Merry Christmas!

For the Bible Tells Me So

Last night my wife and I watched the new documentary For the Bible Tells Me So, and I highly recommend it. It features interviews with five families from evangelical Christian backgrounds who had to deal with the fact that one of their number was gay or lesbian. The prominent names among the five are Bishop Gene Robertonson of the Episcopal Church and former congressman Dick Gephardt (whose daughter is gay). The others were the family of a young gay man who came out as a teenager several years ago; a woman whose daughter committed suicide after the mother rejected her identity as a lesbian; and an African-American Baptist preacher's family whose daughter is gay.

The movie also features theologians, sociologists, and clergypeople, inlcuding Harvard chaplain Peter Gomes, Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, and others. Their interviews focus on the biblical text and the sociological phenomenon of homophobia. They offer good perspectives on the six or seven biblical verses that are ripped out of context by fundamentalists and evangelicals to provide a "biblical veneer" to cover their fear and exclusion of people different from themselves.

It's a series of well-weaved-together quotes and clips, and it illustrates in a powerful way the spiritual growth that these issues forced within several normal American Christian families. Toward the end of the movie, one of the families participates in a march at the Focus on the Family headquarters in Colorado Springs, staged to call attention to the homophobia propogated by that ministry.

The movie is a clear illustration of the well-documented fact that people who know a gay person are much less likely to be opponents of the "homosexual agenda," and are almost certainly less belligerent about it if they are. But gay people who exist in fundamentalist and evangelical communities typically don't come out, and thus most people in those communities do not know an openly gay person.

Political issues around GLBT rights are not really moral or theological issues for most. Certainly allowing gays to marry won't hurt heterosexual marriages. The real issue is fear--fear of the unknown, fear of the 'other'. It's the same reason that the current Republican rhetoric against "scary brown people"--Latinos and Arabs--is so effective. It's fear of the 'other'.

A friend of mine is an engineering manager at a local tech company, and a member of his team is a lesbian. He has had several experiences of co-workers who learn of her orientation for the first time, and their first response is always, "But she's so nice!"

Once Americans realize that GLBT people are just normal, everyday, nice people, we will have come a long way. I'm very optimistic that today's younger generations, once they hit critical mass in our culture, will lead the way for us.

Countdown on Climate Change

A couple of my friends have "coundown watches" that are counting down the seconds to the end of Bush's term. I only hope that his term ends as scheduled; I have a real fear that he might pull something to stay in office. More on that in another post.

One reason to celebrate 1/20/09's becoming more imminent is for the sake of the earth. The Bush administration's blatant disregard for the environment has softened a bit with the political winds, but his practice is to disregard, or even change, the findings of science to fit his political ends. The latest salvo is the EPA's decision yesterday to deny California and 14 other states the right to regulate greenhouse gases from cars. My home state of Oregon is included in this initiative, which will do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in this country than any other.

Why should the federal government care if a state wants to enact regulations more strict than the federal standards? Federal leadership on these issues has been anemic over the past seven years, leading more than 200 cities and 25 or so states to enact their own environmental standards. Now the party that has always trumpeted "states' rights" has denied them the right to do this in a very crucial area.

California, Oregon, and other states have already indicated the intention to sue. As has been noted on at least a couple blogs, the fastest method of reversing this terrible decision lies with the 2008 elections.

How To Deal With Traffic Congestion

For 40 years, our nation disinvested in public forms of transportation such as streetcars, and invested the vast majority of transportation funds on highways. The result in most major cities is unending sprawl, few public transportation choices in newer areas, and yes, traffic congestion.

Most people believe that the way to reduce congestion is to widen freeways. But every time freeways are widened, development goes farther out, creating congestion once again within a few years. There's no way to build yourself out of congestion.

An article a few months ago in The Oregonian cites the fact that Portland, Oregon has done better than its peers at limiting the growth of congestion, thanks to our urban growth policies and our investment in public transit.

Rush-hour traffic clogs the nation's cities more than ever, but the Portland area appears to be fighting the growth in misery behind the wheel better than many regions.

Portland-area motorists were delayed 38 hours in 2005 because of rush-hour congestion -- about 14 percent less than the 44 hours a year average for the nation's top 85 metro areas.

Take away our mass transit, and the region's congestion delay would be 21 percent longer.

It's not necessarily a good thing that the average motorists waits 38 hours in traffic, but the trend lines show that Portland is doing better than most cities, and better than many cities whose philosophy has been to build wide freeways and not limit sprawl.

Our average commute here is 7 miles--one-third the distance of many other cities--and the Metro government has encouraged development of all levels of housing near all major employment areas. They've also introduced the concept that the best transportation system is one that has more than one choice in terms of mode of travel.

As a result, our light rail, streetcar, and bus lines (as well as our new aerial tram) carry enough people to reduce congestion by 21 percent.

Good public transit is not a socialistic plot to deprive people of the choice to drive. It's an option that many people actually find more convenient than driving. We will need to widen some roads, and even build a few roads, over the next 20 years. But I hope that the majority of investment continues to be on rail. With Peak Oil approaching and climate change accelerating, we need to provide options.

The Spiritual Benefits of "Leaving Church"

I recently read Barbara Brown Taylor's Leaving Church, the memoir of an Episcopal priest who decided that serving a church was draining her spirit. About the time she felt a breakdown coming, by luck or providence, a college approached her about a teaching position, near enough to her beloved rural Georgia property that she did not have to move. The memoir is the story of her happy and successful years in ministry and what she has discovered from being on the other side of the altar. In a few words, what she has discovered is deeper spirituality.

As an ex-clergyman, I identified closely with much of her writing. True, her experience in ministry was almost the polar opposite of mine. Hers was a denomination that was open, at least in theory, to many expansive concepts that mine would have rejected out of hand. Her tradition settled the "women's role" argument years ago and is on its way to justice and equality for gays, lesbians, and other sexual minorities. Her church was open to diverse spiritual practices while remaining unapologetically Christian in its orientation.

Her churches were not beset with serious conflict or shrinking vitality; in fact, her last church had grown significantly and had established counseling and other ministries for the community. Despite the fact that her last church was in rural north Georgia and mine was in urban California, her church was truly progressive while mine was more rural in character.

Yet the spiritual refreshment of "leaving church" has been similar for me as it was for her. Neither of us has left church in terms of membership; we're just free to open our spiritual lives beyond the walls of the church. She suddenly didn't have anything to inhibit her from participating in the Native American spiritual ceremonies that her husband had attended and even hosted on their property (which, they learned, was considered a sacred place). Such practices brought her closer to the earth and to God, and strengthened her Christianity. The ability to do such things without fear of criticism refilled her spiritual gas tank.

For me, it was a longer process; but with the help of my wife, my church, and others, I'm discovering that the real truth in Christianity is its connection to the spirit that unifies us with each other and with the cosmos. Jesus never intended his teachings to be made into a systematic theology. Paul leaned more in that direction, but it's really Augustine's misinterpretations of Paul that form the basis for traditional Christian theology. As Marcus Borg points out, faith is not affirming a list of statements, but rather is being spiritually transformed. And there are many ways that this can be accomplished.

In some reflections on what she has kept through the transition from clergy to laity, Taylor says this about the Bible:

I will keep the Bible, which remains the Word of God for me, but always the Word as heard by generations as flawed as I. As beautifully as these witnesses write, their divine inspiration can never be separated from their ardent desires; their genuine wish to serve God cannot be divorced from their self-interest. That God should use such blemished creatures to communicate God's reality so well makes the Bible its own kind of miracle, but I hope never to put the book ahead of the people whom the book calls me to love and serve.

I will keep the Bible as a field guide, which was never intended to be a substitute for the field. With the expert notes kept by those who have gone before me, I will keep hunting for the Divine Presence in the world, helped as much by the notes they wrote in the margins while they were waiting for God to appear as by their astonished descriptions of what they saw when God did. I know that nine times out of ten, the truth scripture tells is the truth about the human search for God. Still, with the help of the guide, there is always the hope of glimpsing the bright dove that splits the sky, fluttering in full view before turining with a whirr and a cry to make its clean getaway.

Reducing Emissions Doesn't Kill the Economy!

An article in the Portland Tribune details the fact that greenhouse gas emissions in Multnomah County, Oregon, are just 0.1 percent above 1990 levels despite 15 percent population growth. It shows great progress toward the county's stated goal of complying with the Kyoto Protocol, which in industrialized countries mandates emission levels slightly below 1990 levels by 2010. The City of Portland has made the same commitment, and actually has an Office of Sustainability in City Hall. (I heard the office's director make a presentation awhile back, and was very impressed.)

If you read the article, you'll see there are those who disagree somewhat with the numbers, but the trend is unquestioned. One interesting tidbit is that gasoline sales in Oregon have remained flat while skyrocketing in other states. Rational, compact land use planning keeps more land available for farming and wildlife. and improves quality of life by reducing sprawl, but it also helps with global warming because people don't need to drive as much.

Our president has refused to ratify Kyoto and has done next to nothing to address global warming--at a crucial time for our planet. While Kyoto has its problems, it's a place to start. Portland has achieved virtual compliance with Kyoto while remaining among the top U.S. metro areas in terms of high-wage job growth and other economic quality-of-life indicators. It's really possible, and it's time we did this on a national basis.

An Ethical Way To End the War in Iraq

What a busy summer it has been! I was unexpectedly busy at work; and several visits by friends and family, an Adult Education task force at church, and myriad other things have kept me busy. I certainly haven't been blogging.

I want to re-commit to putting my thoughts in writing this fall, despite an ongoing busy schedule. Many things fill my mind, and it helps to give them some organized expression. I'm going to start with Iraq.

The surge failed miserably even by the administration's metrics, so it's even more obvious that it's time to end our Yosemite Sam blustering and return as a serious player to the table of nations. Our immaturity is obvious to the world, so the best solution is to grow up instead of continuing to act childishly. (I believe I got that advice from my mother more than once.)

The question that arises is how to exit without leaving behind a situation for the Iraqis that is even worse than the desperate circumstance they're in now. My impression, having listened to a number of experts, is that our presence is a catalyst for a good deal of the violence, so our exit might well reduce the intensity of the civil war--or at least not increase it. But as Christians, we should want much more for the Iraqis than what they have now.

The Network of Spiritual Progressives has assembled the best plan I have seen for an ethical exit from Iraq--a plan that has the best chance of making Iraq a respectable, nonviolent nation. (Ironically, the same group assembled the best plan for avoiding war with Iraq--while ending or changing Saddam's regime--in 2003.) The group created a full-page ad detailing this plan, and published it in The New York Times in the early summer.

1. Repentance. The first step--a step missed by even most anti-war politicians--is that we must repent. We must admit that it was wrong to invade Iraq, and we must ask and earn forgiveness for our actions.

And in repenting on behalf of all Americans, including those who are not religious, the president (or Congress) should acknowledge that this entire society has mistakenly adhered to the view that safety and security can be achieved through domination or control of others, but that a better path to safety and security is to treat others withgenerosity, kindness and genuine concern for their well being.

2. Replace U.S. and British forces with an international peace force acceptable to the Iraqi people. This can't happen while we are occupying Iraq, but it can happen if we get out. This force would be

composed primarily of Muslims from non-neighboring states, but also non-Muslims from other states not engaged in violence or economic boycotts against the Iraqi people, could provide security and fill the power vacuum and conduct a plebiscite so that the Iraqi people themselves could determine their own future. The U.S. should give all our Iraqi military bases to this force, leave no forces behind as “advisors” or deployed in neighboring states ready to re-intervene. And we should require that all U.S. corporations operating in Iraq give at least themajority of their Iraq-derived profits to the task of Iraqi reconstruction.

3. Rebuild Iraq and launch a Global Marshall Plan.

True repentance requires the works of repentance. . . It is not enough to simply say “We’re sorry!” So the U.S. must commit the hundreds of billions needed to fully rebuild Iraq.

Yet the rebuilding of Iraq should only be part of a larger Global Marshall Plan which the U.S. should announce now—to commit at least 1% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the U.S. each year for the next twenty years toward the goal of eliminating global and domestic poverty, homelessness, inadequate health care, inadequate education, and for repairing the environment. Just as the first Marshall Plan allocated 1.5–2% of GDP after the Second World War to the rebuilding of Europe, this second Marshall Plan, extended to the rest of the world, will provide far more homeland security for the U.S. than the currently planned military spending that will squander our resources.

This is a workable plan. One percent is around $150 billion annually--approximately what we're spending annually on the war with no positive results. I pray that the Democrats come to their senses and cut off funding for the war and divert it into reconstruction.

The Human Cost of Farm Subsidies

We Americans like prices to be cheap, and we don't tend to look at the full cost of what we are buying. A case in point is illustrated by an article in the New York Times Magazine entitled "You Are What You Grow."

"A few years ago, an obesity researcher at the University of Washington named Adam Drewnowski ventured into the supermarket to solve a mystery. He wanted to figure out why it is that the most reliable predictor of obesity in America today is a person’s wealth. For most of history, after all, the poor have typically suffered from a shortage of calories, not a surfeit. . . .

"Drewnowski gave himself a hypothetical dollar to spend, using it to purchase as many calories as he possibly could. He discovered that he could buy the most calories per dollar in the middle aisles of the supermarket, among the towering canyons of processed food and soft drink. . . . Drewnowski found that a dollar could buy 1,200 calories of cookies or potato chips but only 250 calories of carrots. Looking for something to wash down those chips, he discovered that his dollar bought 875 calories of soda but only 170 calories of orange juice.

Contrary to what one might assume, the reason for this disparity, as Michael Pollan explains in the article, is not the free market but rather government subsidies. The Farm Bill comes up for renewal every five years, but with little fanfare. It has primarily been seen as a chance for big-city congresspeople to trade a vote with a rural representative. Yes to corn subsidies, yes to a freeway project.

Pollan points out that things are a bit different this time. Public health officials realize that the obesity epidemic will not abate until farm subsidies quit making unhealthy foods unnaturally cheap. And some who watch the wave of illegal immigration realize that this problem will not subside until Mexican farmers are no longer put out of business by subsidized wheat and corn from the U.S. Even free trade hawks realize that global free trade agreements will be stalled until the issue of subsidies to U.S. and European farmers is resolved.

"Like most processed foods, the Twinkie is basically a clever arrangement of carbohydrates and fats teased out of corn, soybeans and wheat — three of the five commodity crops that the farm bill supports, to the tune of some $25 billion a year. (Rice and cotton are the others.) For the last several decades — indeed, for about as long as the American waistline has been ballooning — U.S. agricultural policy has been designed in such a way as to promote the overproduction of these five commodities, especially corn and soy.

"That’s because the current farm bill helps commodity farmers by cutting them a check based on how many bushels they can grow, rather than, say, by supporting prices and limiting production, as farm bills once did. The result? A food system awash in added sugars (derived from corn) and added fats (derived mainly from soy), as well as dirt-cheap meat and milk (derived from both). By comparison, the farm bill does almost nothing to support farmers growing fresh produce. A result of these policy choices is on stark display in your supermarket, where the real price of fruits and vegetables between 1985 and 2000 increased by nearly 40 percent while the real price of soft drinks (a k a liquid corn) declined by 23 percent."

. . . .

"To speak of the farm bill’s influence on the American food system does not begin to describe its full impact — on the environment, on global poverty, even on immigration. By making it possible for American farmers to sell their crops abroad for considerably less than it costs to grow them, the farm bill helps determine the price of corn in Mexico and the price of cotton in Nigeria and therefore whether farmers in those places will survive or be forced off the land, to migrate to the cities — or to the United States. The flow of immigrants north from Mexico since Nafta is inextricably linked to the flow of American corn in the opposite direction, a flood of subsidized grain that the Mexican government estimates has thrown two million Mexican farmers and other agricultural workers off the land since the mid-90s. (More recently, the ethanol boom has led to a spike in corn prices that has left that country reeling from soaring tortilla prices; linking its corn economy to ours has been an unalloyed disaster for Mexico’s eaters as well as its farmers.) You can’t fully comprehend the pressures driving immigration without comprehending what U.S. agricultural policy is doing to rural agriculture in Mexico."

Yet any changes will no doubt be attacked as an assault on the free market. Let's begin focusing on fair trade, fair prices for farmers here and elsewhere, and healthy food for all.