The Illusion of Money (1)

Originally this post was going to be about the growing trend for businesses not accepting money any more. But it has moved about in different directions and I've settled on focusing on the idea of the illusion of money. And once again, this has grown into more than one post.

Much of the following is derived from an excellent book called The Secrets of the Temple, by William Greider, ISBN 0-671-47989-X It is quite an eye-opening book about the Federal Reserve in the US and the power invested in it. I believe it provides a better, more balanced exploration of the Fed than a documentary I saw last week called Freedom to Fascism.

The illusion of money is ancient and universal. It is present in every human transaction and absolutely necessary for each transaction. Money is worthless unless everyone believes in it. A buyer could not possibly offer a piece of paper in exchange for tangible goods if the seller did not also believe the paper had any value.

This shared illusion comes down the ages. It is old as stone coins and wampum. It is a power universally conferred by every society throughout history. Many different objects have been seen as money. For some, it was seashells, others dogs' teeth. Groups used tobacco, whiskey or cattle as money during transactions. And in time, shiny minerals like silver and gold were used. All evolving to paper and numbers in an account book. And now plastic.

For contemporary people, they have some difficulty acknowledging that they share this linkage with the primitive past. Money is now deeply embedded in elaborate technology. Money is now ruled by electronic accounting and payment systems that are growing in speed and complexity. For many people, today's concept of money is real and not like quaint and amusing tokens used by ancient tribes. A dollar bill is rational; seashells are blind faith.

Of course, modern money requires a leap of faith. It requires the same social consent that primitive societies gave to their money. Yet in fact, modern money is even more distant from concrete reality.

Over the centuries, the evolution of money has been a long and halting progression. During this time, human societies hesitantly transferred their money faith from one object to another. At each step, the object of this faith moved farther away from real value and closer to pure abstraction.

A good example would be cattle used by some African tribes. Now, for the people in these tribes, the cattle is of value. If the money illusion were to collapse for some reason, the coins are still cattle. The seashells that became precious currency among aboriginal tribes in North America and other continents were desirable things. Pre-Revolutionary colonies like Virginia and the Carolinas used tobacco as currency, which was a valuable commodity in its own right. And even silver and gold were not entirely useless; they could be fashioned by an artist into beautiful items.

In that sense, modern money is utterly worthless. At the same time, it becomes more efficient because its value does not get confused with the value of real things. Therefore the money illusion is now refined to a new level of abstract faith. Which is only visible if one consciously pauses to consider how the money process has evolved. At each stage in history, one can see money retreating from concrete reality.

It is suggested that paper money originated with the goldsmiths of Europe. These goldsmiths held private gold hoards, deposited by wealthy citizens for safekeeping. The goldsmith would issue a receipt for the gold deposit. Over time, it became clear that the receipt for the gold deposit could be used in commerce since whoever owned that piece of paper could go to the goldsmith and claim the gold.

This provided two boons for the goldsmith: security and lending. For many of the wealthy citizens, it was dangerous to travel about Europe with gold. The receipt gave a level of security. If a merchant in Antwerp wanted to purchase something in Paris, there was no need to transport gold for the transaction, they just needed to send a receipt for the appropriate value. At the same time, groups like the Knights Templar innovated many of the financial techniques that can be considered the foundation of banking. Often it was these “warrior monks” that ran the banks and transported receipts from one place to another.

The other boon for the goldsmiths and groups like the Knights Templars was the discovery that they could safely write more receipts and lend them to people. This would exceed the total gold that was on hand but as long as the lender always kept a responsible minimum of gold in reserve to honour any withdrawals, no one would be the wiser.

This is the origin of fractional-reserve banking and the bank doing the lending would be created money. This private money system endured centuries and was inherited by the American Republic.

In the States, privately owned banks created money by issuing paper bank notes, paper that was backed by a promise that at any time, the notes could be redeemed for gold.

In the nineteenth century America, the money in use consisted mainly of these privately issued bank notes, backed by gold and silver guarantees. Yet the money's value was extremely dependant on the soundness and honesty of each bank that issued notes. Banking scandals were recurrent in the States, especially on the frontier. There ambitious bankers were eager to make loans for new enterprises, sometimes printing paper money that had no gold behind it. Be it in the States or elsewhere, governments had to impose regulations to keep banks honest, but the bankers were still free to create their own varieties of money. And all too often, if a bank failed, their money failed with them.

Over time, the money illusion was transferred to a new object: demand deposits or more commonly known as checking accounts. So instead of just being a substitute for gold, paper money now existed simply as an account in a bank's ledger and was redeemable by personal drafts or checks.

This shift took time. People were hesitant about the change. In the United States, the transition was inadvertently stimulated by government regulations. During the Civil War, the National Bank Act was enacted. This federal law established a system of national charters for banks. It encouraged development of a national currency based on bank holdings of U.S. Treasury securities. At the same time the law placed a heavy tax on new bank notes issued by state banks. So in order to avoid the tax, banks encouraged their customers to use demand deposits; encouraged them to write personal checks instead of drawing out their money in cash.

It took quite some time for the general public to overcome its natural distrust of checks. But by the turn of the century, 1900, most people were persuaded. Personal checks, written by the buyers themselves now were accepted as just as valuable as dollar bills.

Currency, obviously, remained in use but demand deposits became the bulk of the money supply. The nationalization of currency issuance, completed with the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913, simply continued this arrangement in the States. A new dimension of trust was added to the money illusion.

During the twentieth century, the last prop of the money illusion was removed: the gold standard. Demand deposits had been backed by the same promise that applied to currency, that is, any private citizen could, in theory, go to the bank and redeem their money in a quantity of gold.

Well that promise was extinguished by government edict, starting with the warring nations in Europe, during World War I. Belatedly the United States joined these countries in 1933. Without the gold standard, money became only money or “legal tender for all debts, public and private” as it is printed on each Federal Reserve Note. So now a citizen can still go to the bank and redeem the pieces of paper but their money will be redeemed only in new, identical Federal Reserve Notes.

Whereas most mainstream economists applauded the abandonment of the gold standard, the change was traumatic for some ordinary citizens. The main question was: what is money really worth? Still to this day some people yearn for a return to the old guarantee - “a dollar as good as gold”.

Of course main economists, like John Maynard Keynes believes that the transition from gold is a historic liberation of money. It was an enlightened step beyond the obsessive attachment to shiny metals. So “commodity money” was replaced by “representative money”.

Yet economists like Keynes did agree that without the gold standard, money has to be managed. Its true value would ultimately be determined by governments, by the judgements of fallible humans or, more specifically, by the monetary policies of central banks like the Federal Reserve or the Bank of Canada.

For many people, this is a deeply disturbing situation. They long for some system that would take money regulation out of human hands and return it to some sort of fixed set of values that is impersonal. Proposals have be suggested from the “invisible hand” of market forces to some sort of higher authority. In the meantime, for people in the United States, every coin and bill offers their citizens the reassuring motto: “In God We Trust”.

And tomorrow I will conclude this post with the current abstraction of money which troubles me: plastic.

In God’s Name (4)

So we are getting to the end of my discussion on the first of a series of articles in the New York Times about how religious groups in America are using special exemptions to get extra goodies. The last part continues from the previous post about zoning laws and how various religious organizations are trying to get around them.

As I presented in the previous post, there is a law from 2000 that various religious groups are using to contest zoning laws, and one specific case in Boulder County is being investigated.

There are many critics of this law. They argue that the First Amendment itself has long prohibited religious discrimination in zoning. Therefore the decisions being challenged would be just as successful in court if the law had never passed. The article presents one point here:

When Congress considered the law, “what was actually being discussed was ‘How do we make sure churches don’t get discriminated against,’ ” said Marci A. Hamilton, a law professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in Manhattan and the author of “God vs. The Gavel: Religion and the Rule of Law” (Cambridge University Press, 2005), which calls for closer scrutiny of some religious exemptions, especially those affecting land use and family law.

Professor Hamilton is advising Boulder County in this case. She adds:

Unfortunately, the answer was to give such an expansive remedy that not only are they not getting discriminated against, but they are now capable of discriminating against all other landowners.

Whether it is the Rocky Mountain Christian Church or other growing churches, the financial stakes a high. In Boulder, under the 2000 law, if the county loses, it will have to pay not only its own legal bills but also those of the church.

If the church loses, it will sacrifice the money it spent on not just legal fees. Money was spent on architectural and public relation fees (of course). What is interesting is that unlike the county, the church could have taken free legal help from various religious advocacy groups. But it has not done so yet.

Yet the stakes is not just about money. If the county wins, this may provide a template for other local governments to use when defending against similar challenges. But if the county loses, then some lawyers fear then most other local governments will also fail. The key element here is that Boulder County has a long history of careful land-use planning and its voters are environmentally demanding. If Boulder loses then successfully arguing that preserving open spaces is a “compelling public interest” may not work elsewhere.

The deputy county attorney David Evan Hughes is quoted as asserting in the county’s filings:

Religious institutions have realized that land-use authorities are vulnerable to the threat of litigation.

Greater clarity from the courts is necessary else the new law’s reach:

will expand to the point where religious institutions are effectively dictating their own land-use regulations.

The article ends with something that echoes the posts I did on the paradox of America and being a Christian nation. In Boulder County, several church members say they cherish the open spaces preserved by the county’s past land-use decisions. But, of course, they think the county is wrong in rejecting the church’s proposal.

The article turns to Lanny Pinchuk, a church member who had formerly served on the county planning board. Whereas he praises all of what the county has done to preserve the environment, when it comes to the church’s plan, he is quoted as saying:

But you can’t keep people from coming to the religious institution of their choice.

Then he adds:

I feel that is just, well, un-American.

Now the church leaders and members have said that their current proposal is the “forever plan”. This would be the last expansion the church would make on this site.

Yet it is important to remember that over its 33 year period, the church has expanded the original building 5 times. And I don’t see this megaplex church being any different that others. Especially since Pastor Ahlgrim is eying the expanding subdivisions from other counties.

It is simple to say “this is it” but in reality, who is to say? Can they really guarantee that in a few years they won’t need more room for other facilities, parking spaces and a large worship area. What happens when this “forever” building if full.

The article ends with Gerry Witt, a founding church member. He is quoted as saying:

At some point, we’re going to have to say we can’t accommodate any more; I mean, we’re not going to have a 100-story building over there

The article ends with:

“So is there any limit?” He thought a moment, then answered his question. “Yes,” he said. “There’s God’s limit. When he says, ‘You’re at your limit,’ that’s when we will stop.”

But what is interesting, he and his wife have put their house on the market so they can more to a less-populated place in the area.

We have more posts on how religious organizations are using loop-holes, the courts and other legal aspects to get advantages others can’t. But I will spend a little time ending these four posts. Which will be echoed in the next series of posts.

For me, it is critical that there is a separation of church and state. A theocracy is dangerous for the average person. It is no different that having a dictatorship. It is important for those of a smaller faith to have protection against a large, dominant one.

Yet the conservative Christians in America has come to dominate various levels of the American governing system. More and more they are dictating American policy. And it threatens groups be it Muslims, Sikhs or Wiccans.

American was founded on Christian values, since the majority of the settlers were Christian. But the Founding Fathers knew that all the sects that came over to America had to be protected. And as America grew, it had to be extended to the faiths of those who immigrated there.

That is why I am spending time on all of this. More and more, America is starting to sound like a theocracy. Conservative Christians get up in arms when a non-Christian takes offence to the Christian language found in secular, government areas. They see it as an attack on their religion.

But for a Muslim or Jew, the signs and details of Christianity in court houses or schools echoes a long history of how Christianity tried to remove them from the world. Be it the pogroms of Europe to the Crusades, Christianity has a long history of trying to get rid of non-Christians. And for a Jewish child standing in a class, having to listen to other children recite the Lord’s Prayer, it reinforces this attempt to destroy or convert.

The other point I am getting from these series is the idea of being a good citizen, be it corporate or private. The government is designed for the whole population, not just a small group. The laws are supposed to be for all.

But when a religious faith, not just Christianity, wants to place itself above the laws, it worries me. In the New Testament, the words of Jesus does not tell followers to go against the government.

Christians are supposed to be good citizens. They are supposed to pay taxes. There are aspects like serving in an army which is not a problem. Even atheists have the right to be an objector and not serve.

But I worry when any faith, be it Christian, Muslim or Jewish, try to separate themselves from society. There are rituals and aspects of each faith that cannot be denied. But they are still members of the society at large, and should appropriately remember that. Not everyone follows the same faith.

With this article and subsequent ones, it strikes me is the selective gleaning of the Bible by many of the Christians out there. They want their cake and eat it too, damn the other people around them.

Yet we have just begun. There will be more posts on this. But for the next couple of days, I am going to take a break so I and you gentle reader can read about something else.

In God’s Name (3)

Now we turn to an area of growing contention between church and state: zoning laws. The article I am using as a base turns to Boulder Colorado. The article quotes Ben Pearlman, a young lawyer:

When you fly in to Denver at night, you can always pick out Boulder. It’s the only one with big patches of darkness around it.

Ben Pearlman is one of the three governing commissioners. He talks about protecting the county’s spectacular beauty as if it is a sacred trust.

Back in 1978, the county limited intensive development to already urbanized areas, buffered by the large swaths of prairie and farmland. As Pearlman pointed out, the landscape stands in a stark contrast to the growing carpet of subdivisions, office parks and malls in neighbouring counties.

Yet, in contrast, there stands Alan Ahlrgim. He is the preacher who founded the Rocky Mountain Christian Church in eastern Boulder County in 1984. He sees the encroaching subdivisions as spiritual vineyards. They are full of families ready to be transformed. The article presents him with:

“The church has never grown fast enough to suit me,” Pastor Ahlgrim said with a grin that showed he was almost, but not quite, serious.

His church is one of more than 200 in the county. Over the past 22 years it has grown from three dozen families in 1984 to more than 2,200 people today. Over these years, the church had five expansions from its original building, approved by the county.

This growing congregation has a 106,000 square-foot home, which sits on 55 acres in an agricultural buffer zone around the small town of Niwot. And it is too small for the current size.

The church has to hold multiple services to handle the overflowing congregation. Its Sunday school is so full, some classes are spilling out into hallways and temporary buildings set in the parking lot.

This has created a dilemma for the Rocky Mountain Christian Church. Are they to just turn newcomers away? Put a ‘no vacancy’ sign up? That doesn’t make sense for a faith that is always trying to reach out to people and have them learn about God and Jesus.

What the church wants to do is renovate. They want to almost double the size of the facilities so they can accommodate up to 4,500 people. But it doesn’t stop there.

The expansion is not just for the church itself. They want to provide a new children’s wing, more rooms for adult classes and a gymnasium with room for two basketball court or hold potluck suppers for 1,000.

The new wings would be linked to the existing building by spacious galleries and be surrounded by more than 1,200 landscaped parking spaces.

Up front, I will admit that I understand the problem they are facing. When you have a thriving and growing congregation, you need to expand. It is difficult for the pastoral staff to deal with multiple masses. And you need facilities for the many different functions the church is running.

I can see that at VCC. When I was involved with Alpha, there were times we had a hard to time organize space for meetings and functions because the basement was already booked and there was no other room.

But I wonder if the plans for the expansions are being done because of necessity or because they can do it. There was one thing about the expansion which was spacious galleries for linking the wings to the existing building. It that really necessary?

I look at some of the megaplex churches I’ve seen. The main one I know is the Crystal Cathedral run by the Schullers. The whole complex looks amazing but they really did not need all of what was built. The cathedral did not need the massive vaulted ceiling of crystal or the landscaped land around it.

I look at cathedrals of old, the amazing Gothic structures I’ve seen in Europe. They were awe-inspiring. But as I would walk around, I would see that much of them were not functional. There was no need for such a massive and ornate structure. Yet it could be done, so it was done. Also, be it then or now, there is a drive to build something more impressive compared to what already exists. Something the Catholics know all too well and the Protestants are now starting to emulate.

So I wonder how much of the expansion is necessary and how much is just for show. This is because the county’s land-use plan and zoning rules for the agricultural buffer zone where the church sits is going to limit construction. And the church cannot build without the approval of the Boulder county commissioners.

So you can imagine what happened when the commission met to discuss the expansion back in February. The article mentions that it was an emotional public hearing which was attended by more than a thousand people. And in the end, the commission said no.

Ben Pearlman is quoted as saying:

People are always trying to develop their properties to the limits of the law and sometimes beyond.

As the article points out that the worst suburban sprawl is the consequence of:

lots of little decisions that have this cumulative effect. We’re trying to resist this death by a thousand cuts, and preserve the land where we can.

Pearlman said. And I can see his point. One small thing leads to another and it can start to snowball. And once that happens there is no going back. And this goes for the growing church. How much of the expansion is really necessary and how much is for show? There has to be a balance between the need of the county and the need of the church.

And this is a problem all of the large, fast-growing megaplex church are confronting. The zoning laws are restricting their expansion plans. Of course, Pastor Ahlgrim is unhappy. He felt the decision:

is severely restrictive to our mission,” he said.

Again I see his point. An important aspect of the Christian life is things like worshipping, teaching and gathering for fellowship. The practice is sharing within and outside the community. And for many Christian churches it is important to allow certain outside groups to use the church when it is available. As Pastor Ahlgrim continues to say:

vital to our mission. When one of your core values is generosity and you are restricted from sharing what you want to share — what God has provided — we consider that to be a severe limitation.

So the church felt it had no choice but to go to court. The church sued the county under a federal land-use law enacted by Congress and signed by Bill Clinton back in 2000. This law was to protect religious organizations from capricious or discriminatory zoning restrictions by local governments. And it is important to note that this law came after a decade-long bipartisan tug-of-war between Congress and the Supreme Court.

It seems that before 1990, the Supreme Court generally held that any government restriction on religion must serve a compelling public interest in the least burdensome way.

This standard was known as the “strict scrutiny” test. One example the article gives is based on an Oregon case dealing with two Native Americans. For them, the use of peyote was of sacramental use. Which as we all know is an illegal drug. The majority of the court concluded that there was nothing unconstitutional about states expecting citizens to comply with valid, neutral and generally applicable laws. In this case, like those criminalizing peyote. Even if compliance conflicted with religious beliefs.

This “Smith decision” from Employment Division v. Smith provoke a fierce reaction which energized the drive for more legislative protections for religion ever since.

As the article points out:

In 1993, under pressure from a broad coalition whose members ranged from the Anti-Defamation League to the Southern Baptist Convention to the American Humanist Association, Congress adopted the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which restored the “strict scrutiny” test to any federal, state or local government action affecting religious practice. A new tool had been added to the First Amendment emergency kit, although no one was quite sure how to use it.

In 1997, the Supreme Court tugged back. It ruled that the religious freedom act could not be applied to the states. This generated a reaction from the states so 13 have subsequently adopted similar actions of their own.

Thing is, though, Congress thought the decision left room for it to address zoning restrictions. And in a separate mann, religious restrictions imposed on prisoners.

So in 2000 there came the act, adopted by Congress and signed by Bill Clinton. It restored the “strict scrutiny” test to local zoning decisions.

This made it easier for churches to challenge decisions they did not like. At the same time, the act also made it easier for prisoners to challenge restrictions on their religious practices.

So far, the Supreme Court has upheld the provision that apply to prisoners but as of yet has not ruled on the land-use provisions. So groups like the Rocky Mountain Christian Church can go ahead in the court system and contest the decision of the Boulder county commission.

What is interesting is one of the church’s allies is the Justice Department’s civil rights division, which is defending the law’s constitutionality in cases around the country.

The article points out something interesting about all of this:

Defenders of the law say that some cases invoking its protections have addressed actions by local governments that seem to reflect blatant religious bias. For example, Rabbi Joseph Konikov of Orlando, Fla., successfully sued his local government under the law in 2002 after county officials repeatedly cited and fined him for holding small worship services in his suburban home, in violation of a zoning provision later found to be an unconstitutional burden on religious freedom.

Of course part of me is going “huh?” I can’t see what happened with Rabbi Konikov is of relevance to the expanding of a megaplex church. Other zoning challenges, all invoking the 2000 law include:

• a Sikh society that wants to build a temple in a low-density residential area of Yuba City, Calif.
• a Hindu congregation seeking permission to expand its temple and cultural centre on a busy highway in Bridgewater, N.J.;
• a Muslim organization that has been trying for years to build a mosque on land that the local government in Wayne Township, N.J., now wants to buy for open space.

But of course law is based on precedent and lawyers are good at putting square pegs into round holes. Yet I look at the decision with the Rabbi and see it make sense. He was holding worship services in his home. He was not expanding his home beyond the zoned areas. Whereas the megaplex churches want to expand into areas that are zoned for things like agriculture or public parks.

Well, tomorrow I am going to conclude this train of thought because I don’t want this post to become too long and dense as some readers have commented. And then I’ll wrap all of this first article before heading into the next ones.

In God’s Name (2)

And now I continue focusing on a recent series of articles in the New York Times about how religious organizations are getting benefits from the government.

Thing is, religious organizations are not just getting regulatory and tax exemptions, some which have been in place for decades. Recently they have become eligible for an increasing flow of federal grants and contracts issued from the state and federal governments.

This did not happen on George Bush’s watch. This started back in 1996 with Bill Clinton. What George did was give it greater force, which the administration call the Faith Based Initiative.

What is interesting is how this increasing weave of regulatory and tax exemptions has gone largely unnoticed. Over the past while, religious leaders and politicians are focused and focusing the press on other issues like the public display of religious icons. A good example is showing the Ten Commandments.

And what I find curious is the rhetoric that is coming out from these leaders. All too often they say that religious groups in America are targets of antagonism, not favouritism. One example is from the House Speaker J. Denis Hastert from Illinois. When introducing a legislative agenda in July, he said:

Radical courts have attempted to gut our religious freedom and redefine the value system on which America was built.

Then there was a conference called The War on Christians and the Values Voter in 2006 in Washington in March. There Tom DeLay is quoted telling the crowd that society:

treats Christianity like a second-class superstition. Seen from that perspective, of course there is a war on religion.

Now back to Alabama for a moment. When the argument that religious groups are victims of discrimination, Ms. White sighed. Thing is, she is finding it harder to compete with unlicensed faith-based centres that don’t have to comply with expensive licensing requirements and regulations.

Lets jump to the other side of the point, to the Harvest Temple Church of God. Paston Fuson says that the busy church-based centre, next to the sanctuary covers its costs and helps support the work of the church. He is quoted as saying:

We have talked about getting licensed before in the past, but it would cost us quite a bit of money.

He points out that the staff would be probably large enough to meet state standard but the centre would need costly renovations to upgrade the facility.

That made me stop and go “Huh?” Be it here or in the States, the requirements for day care centres are strict. They have to comply to everything, including the specific toys required for each age group. And there is a reason for these regulations: the security of young lives. But if it would be too costly to renovate the facility, what does that say?

The main problem is broached by Ms. White. The state funds day care centres and the resources are limited. So it seems unfair that subsidies are available to unlicensed centres as well as the licensed ones. Shouldn’t the financing and licensing be universal? We are talking about the safety of children here.

But in Alabama, some churches have voluntarily obtained licenses. In Huntsville, the First Christian Church has a fully licensed day care centre. The pastor of the church, Paul B. Koch Jr thinks it is appropriate and raises the quality of care. But he also says:

But the Christian Coalition is still strong in Alabama and this is an issue for them.

Of course, we need the Christian Coalition to jump in here. John W. Giles, the president of Alabama’s “chapter” confirmed that his organization supported the exemption. He noted that state oversight would be intrusive and was unnecessary because:

because the pastors and congregations are your quality control.

When I read this I just flipped. You don’t need quality control because the pastor and congregation are your quality control??? What planet does this man come from?

I think back to the scandal with the Catholic church and the young people who were abused by the priests. Here in Canada we have also had problems with institutes run by the Church.

One of the major incidents was the Mount Cashel Orphanage in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Yet there were many other reports of other Church run facilities. Here is part of a report:

I saw many young children beaten up and strapped. I saw Brother --- wake up young children and take them to a room to sexually assault them. I saw children handcuffed to a pillar in the basement. They would be pushed and kicked. I saw Brother --- use a pool table stick to hit children if they would not have anal sex with him. Children were given cold showers then strapped. If I told any Brothers that another Brother tried to have sex with me, I would be strapped." [From a report on abuse at St. Joseph's and St. John's Training School for Boys]

The society had put their trust in these institutions. The people believed that they were doing God’s work and no quality control was necessary. And look at what happened.

Now, I am not saying this is happening in places in Huntsville or at the Harvest Temple, but the idea that these unlicensed centres have the appropriate quality control because of the people and the pastors is just inane.

Although many of the unlicensed centres are run by Protestant churches, the exemption covers all faiths, from an Islamic preschool program in Huntsville to a Catholic parish centre in Tuscaloosa. Each faith brings in different rules to the centres. Some strict faiths may institute “spare the rod, spoil the child” as an appropriate method of disciplining the children. And because they are not covered by a general, universal set of criterion, who can stop them? Certainly not the government.

Many of these centres are regulated internally. A good example is in Texas. In 1997, Governor George Bush pushed through legislation that exempted faith-based day care centres and addiction treatment programs from state licensing. He allowed them to be monitored instead by private associations controlled by pastors, program directors and other private citizens.

But who are these associations answerable to? I understand the government can be a pain to work with, and things can fall through the cracks, but people can work through the system to find someone who is answerable. A nebulous association does not have to answer to anyone.
What is interesting is that George enacted other laws steering more state financing to these “alternately accredited” institutions. Yet:

Fewer than a dozen child care centres and about 130 addiction treatment programs took advantage of this new alternative, according to subsequent studies. But several of these later became the focus of state investigations into complaints of physical abuse. A study by the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund, a nonprofit research organization that opposed the faith-based initiatives, found that “the rate of confirmed cases of abuse and neglect at alternatively accredited facilities in Texas is more than 10 times that of state-licensed facilities.”

So the self-policing by the private associations does not seem to work, in Texas that is. Again, we should not paint the whole situation with a wide brush but it has to make people stop and think.

The New York Times asked two leading First Amendment scholars, about faith-based day care licensing exemptions like these. Both were unfamiliar with the practice but though it sounded legally dubious.

Ira C. Lupu, a law professor at George Washington University and the co-director of legal research for the Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy, an independent project of the Rockefeller Institute of Government said:

I think what you describe is unconstitutional.

Professor Witte, the director of Emory University’s Center for the Study of Law and Religion, responded in an email and said that he:

would frankly be surprised to find even this Supreme Court going that far.

But the courts are going that far. When a group of licensed day care centres challenged the Alabama law in a federal court in mid-2001, guess what? They lost. They argued that the law deprived them of their constitutional right to equal protection before the law.

Well, Judge Myron H. Thompson of United States District Court, who ruled on the case, did not see it that way. He

said the state could have adopted the arrangement to avoid church-state entanglements or simply to accommodate the free exercise of religion. Indeed, he cited four other federal cases, all decided since 1988, that had upheld similar exemptions for day care centers in other states.

And the New York Times concludes this section of the article with:

In Judge Thompson’s view, it is “well settled” constitutional law that “the possible economic inequalities that might result from religious exemptions such as day care licensing exemptions” are not a violation of anyone’s equal-protection rights.

That is it for today. Tomorrow we get into aspects like exemptions from zoning rules.

In God’s Name (1)

What started the previous series of posts was the article I wrote about and a series that is going on in the New York Times entitled:

In God’ Name

by Diana B. Henriques. This lengthy series is giving me more on this subject to continue on. So here goes another series of posts, especially with this tag line about:

how American religious organizations benefit from an increasingly accommodating government.

The reason I am following up the previous post right away is because of they are linked. As you will see this presents the ever increasing blur occurring between the Christian ethos in America and secular institutions, especially the courts and the IRS. It also looks into the important issue of the separation of church and state and abuses that are arising from it.

The article in the series is called:

As Exemptions Grow, Religion Outweighs Regulation

The article starts with two different child care centres in Auburn Alabama. The first is run by Ethel White. At any time, state inspectors can come in, unannounced to make sure her centres meet state requirements. Which makes sense because the law is intended to ensure the children are safe.

For Ms. White, this means continual training for the staff, and details like having two sinks, one exclusively for food prep. And important things like all cabinets require safety locks, and things like medications are kept under lock and key.

Then there is a day care centre run by the Harvest Temple Church of God with the Reverend Ray Fuson. Alabama exempts church day care programs from state licensing requirements.

It is important to note that recently, the requirements were tightened after almost a dozen children died in both licensed and unlicensed day care centres in two years.

As the article continues, the differences do not end there. As an employer, Ms. White must comply with the civil rights laws. Therefore if employees feel mistreated, they have a recourse in the courts. Yet:

Religious organizations, including Pastor Fuson’s, are protected by the courts from almost all lawsuits filed by their ministers or other religious staff members, no matter how unfairly those employees think they have been treated.

And another telling difference has to do with financial statements. Anyone can see how Ms. White’s nonprofit centre uses its public grants and donations because she has to file her financial statements each year with the IRS. But there are no IRS reports from Harvest Temple; federal law does not require churches to file them.

Because of the separation of state and church, religious organizations are enjoying an abundance of exemptions from regulations and taxes. And the number in the States is increasing rapidly.

Yet it is important to point out, this is not just for the mainline Christian megaplex churches. Mosques, synagogues to Hindu temples also enjoy the growing area of exemptions.

Some of these exemptions have existed for much of America’s history. Originally they were devised for Christian churches but as the nation became more religiously diverse, it expanded to other faiths.

What is curious is that many of them have been granted only within the last 15 years. And often, it seems, they have been added to legislation anonymously and with little attention. As the article suggests:

An analysis by The New York Times of laws passed since 1989 shows that more than 200 special arrangements, protections or exemptions for religious groups or their adherents were tucked into Congressional legislation, covering topics ranging from pensions to immigration to land use. New breaks have also been provided by a host of pivotal court decisions at the state and federal level, and by numerous rule changes in almost every department and agency of the executive branch.

The article quotes Professor John Witte Jr. the director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at the Emory University Law School. He say that the special breaks amount to a sort of religious affirmative action program. And then he says:

Separation of church and state was certainly part of American law when many of today’s public opinion makers were in school. But separation of church and state is no longer the law of the land.

The obvious reason for the changes is the growing political influence religious groups are having, especially conservative Christians. This influence is not just in the political arena like Congress but there is a growing presence of conservatives in the courts and regulatory agencies.

I can see some people jumping up and down complaining about people like the Republicans, but it is important to realize that these tax and regulatory breaks have been endorsed by politicians from both parties, by judges across the country and at all levels of the government.

As Richard R. Hammar, the editor of Church Law & Tax Report and an accountant with law and divinity degrees from Harvard is quoted saying:

The religious community has a lot of pull, and senators are very deferential to this kind of legislation.

The end result is that religious organizations of all faiths are in a position that American businesses and all non-religious nonprofit groups can only envy. What is telling is that the new breaks these organizations are getting is at a time that they are expanding into activities like day care centres, fitness clubs, books and broadcasting. They are coming into the market place and competing with others that do not have the benefit of these exemptions.

Thing is religious organizations are exempt from many federal, state and local laws. One area of growing contention is that federal law gives religious congregations unique tools to challenge government restrictions on how they use their land. The result is things like land-use restrictions that are a result of a long standing public demands like open space or historical preservation can be superseded by a religious congregations’s construction plans. More on this later.

As mentioned before, another area is the civil rights laws. Exemptions protect religious employers from all legal complaints about things like faith-based preferences in hiring. And the courts have shielded religious employers from different complaints on other forms of discrimination such as race, nationality, age, gender, etc. What surprised me the most is that most religious organizations have been exempted from federal laws meant to protect pensions and to provide unemployment benefits. More on this later.

The one area which is guaranteed to raise an eyebrow has to do with taxes. Congress has imposed limits on the IRS’s ability to audit churches, synagogues and other religious congregations. Which has allowed more vague religious groups like the Church of Scientology some great exemptions. At the same time, at the local level, houses of worship have long been exempt from local property taxes in every state.

If we were just talking about a local church and the pastor, I don’t see a problem. But religious activities, especially in the States are expanding far beyond the weekly worship and the running of a soup kitchen.

In Minnesota, you can find a church-run fitness centre with tanning beds and a video arcade. In Florida, there is an biblical theme park. These are just two examples of the expanded activities which are getting tax breaks. And if the local officials don’t want to give the breaks, the courts or state legislators step in.

So these organizations are exempt from the local taxes. Yet they still rely on public services. They still want police and fire protection. They need street lights and storm drains. The roads need to be maintained. But these exemptions shift the cost of providing the local benefits onto other citizens. The tax burden is placed on the ordinary Joe in the town or city. And the resulting cost is unknown because no one keeps track.

Now it is important to go back a few hundred years. One of the brilliant aspects of the framers of the Constitution was the insight they brought to the Constitution and Bill of Rights. One area, from the onset, was they wanted to protect religious liberty. There were two clear goals in mind, as constitutional scholars point out.

• The framers wanted to assure that everyone, even members of a small and possibly unpopular sects could practice their faith without the fear of persecution. All too often many came to America because a dominant religion was allied with the state, as it was in England, and persecuted smaller sects.
• The framers wanted to make sure that the government would not become captive to a particular religion or set of beliefs at the expense of people with other faiths.

Many scholars say that this tradition of religious freedom and tolerance helped America avoid sectarian violence that erupted in places like Ireland and attracted immigrants, bringing talents from around the world.

For some legal scholars and judges, they see the special breaks for religious groups as a way to prevent the government from infringing on religious freedoms. As Douglas Laycock, a law professor at the University of Michigan who has written and testified in support of greater legislative protection for religious liberty is quoted as saying:

Never forget that the exercise of religion is a constitutionally protected activity. Regulation imposes burdens on the free exercise of religion. Exemptions lift those burdens.

He adds:

That is constitutionally a good thing.

Yet he is talking about the exercise of religious freedom here, not running a day care centre. We are now entering murky waters that the Founding Fathers could not have envisioned. Until recently, churches, mosques or synagogues were a local matter. And whatever exemptions they received were not far-reaching. Yet as some of these churches grow into megaplexes and other just jump on the bandwagon, these special interests start to collide with other values important in the country. For example:

like extending the protections of government to all citizens and sharing the responsibilities of society fairly.

Of course, religious organizations defend the exemptions as a way to recognize the benefits these groups are providing. From early on, religious organizations operated things like schools, orphanages, hospitals, etc. long before social welfare and education were seen as a responsibility of the government.

Yet the question arises about fairness. These ministries benefit from exemptions with things like soup kitchens and homeless shelters but the nonprofit organizations that provide the same services get nothing. It would make sense to have any and all breaks available to any charitable organization.

I saw that when I was living on the streets. Nonprofit shelters like the Old Brewery Mission were run down compared to those run by the Salvation Army or other religious organizations. What kept some people away from the religious shelters was the dollop of religion that would be forced upon them be it like during meals. While others took it in stride because the food was a little better, as was the bedding. Even back then I wondered about the fairness that the religious run shelters had more than the non-religious ones.

But now, religious nonprofit groups are expanding vigorously into other areas. These groups do things run nationwide broadcasting networks or generate best-selling publications and take full advantage of exemptions that are not available to secular nonprofit groups that are engaged in similar activities.

Of course one of the key elements is the First Amendment and the command that:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

As I said before, the Founding Fathers did not envision churches moving into endeavours like publishing books or running fitness centres. And what they are doing, does it really have to do with exercising their religious faith.

As the article states:

For most of the past half-century, courts interpreted the first part of that clause as a barrier to government action that seemed to treat religious groups more favorably than secular ones, legal scholars said. But today, many lawyers agree, courts are taking a more accommodating view of government actions that benefit religious groups.

But it seems the change started to change under the influence of William H. Rehnquist when he was the chief justice of the Supreme court. This is suggested by Derek H. Davis, until recently the director of the J. M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies at Baylor University in Waco, Tex. Additionally, he feels:

Clearly, we’re going to be in this accommodative mode for some time.

This is because Mr. Davis sees Chief Justice Rehnquist’s successor, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. to continue to follow in his footsteps with respect to cases affecting religious groups.

The issue here, for people like the Supreme Court is to protect the free exercise of religion but also assure that religion is not being favoured by the government. Yet all too often the two efforts collide and become messy court cases.

In the next post we look into more about exemptions including how religious organizations are now eligible for things like federal grants and continue this exploration.

Yet There is Hope

I am going to follow-up the last three posts with something I read recently in the New York Times. The title of the piece was:

Disowning Conservative Politics, Evangelical Pastor Rattles Flock

In Maplewood, Minnesota, there is megaplex church called Woodland Hills in suburban St. Paul. The pastor, Gregory A. Boyd is leading this thriving evangelical megaplex. And he is frequently asked to give his and the church’s blessing to conservative political candidates and causes like many other pastors of the megaplex churches.

These requests came from church members and visitors alike. Some of them mentioned in the article were:

• Would he please announce a rally against gay marriage during services?
• Would he introduce a politician from the pulpit?
• Could members set up a table in the lobby promoting their anti-abortion work?
• Would the church distribute “voters’ guides” that all but endorsed Republican candidates?
• And with the country at war, please couldn’t the church hang an American flag in the sanctuary?

To my surprise, Pastor Boyd refused each time. And he finally became fed up. Even more surprising, Pastor Boyd, before the last presidential election preached six sermons called The Cross and the Sword in which he said that the church should steer clear of politics, give up moralizing on sexual issues, stop claiming that the United States was a “Christian nation” and stop glorifying American military campaigns.

I read this and went whoa! And even better was a quote from him:

When the church wins the culture wars, it inevitably loses. When it conquers the world, it becomes the world. When you put your trust in the sword, you lose the cross.

It is important to point out that Pastor Boyd is not a liberal. He opposes abortion and believes that homosexuality is not God’s ideal. So we are not dealing with a liberal megaplex church that is conducting gay marriages and gives abortion as an option during counselling for someone who has an unwanted pregnancy.

Yet it is the response from his congregation that is telling and ties in with the previous posts I have put together. Keep in mind that Pastor Boyd’s congregation is packed mostly with politically and theologically conservative, middle-class “Christians”.

The response from his sermons was passionate. Some members walked out and never returned. By the time the dust settled, Woodland Hills, which Pastor Boyd founded in 1992 had lost about 1,000 of its 5,000 members.

Yet there were congregants who thanked him, telling Boyd that they were moved to tears to hear him voice concerns that they had but were too afraid to share. Sharon Staiger, a church member and psychotherapist is quoted as saying:

Most of my friends are believers and they think if you’re a believer, you’ll vote for Bush. And it’s scary to go against that.

What is interesting is that Pastor Boyd’s sermons is starting to reflect a common concern that the Christian message is being compromised by the tendency to tie evangelical Christianity to the Republican Part and American nationalism, especially through the war in Iraq.

And grass-roots churches, even the megaplex ones are starting to question this. And it isn’t easy when you have the airwaves filled with people like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson whose words are dire and threatening. Or the feel good theology of people like Joyce Meyers. And it doesn’t help when you have moronic pitbulls like Ann Coulter who spew invectives laced with religious wordings. Just look at the title of her last book: Godless: The Church of Liberalism.

Yet amongst these strident voices, some others are trying to counter the movement. As the Times points out, at the time of the article, at least six books had been published on the Christian message being compromised. Pastor Boyd published The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church, based on his sermons.

Randall Balmer, a religion professor at Barnard College and an evangelical, has written Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America — an Evangelical’s Lament.

The article turned to Brian D. McLaren, the founding pastor at Cedar Community Church in Gaithersburg, Md and a leader in the evangelical movement known as the “emerging church”. This movement is at the forefront of challenging the more politicized evangelical establishment. He is quoted as saying:

There is a lot of discontent brewing. More and more people are saying this has gone too far — the dominance of the evangelical identity by the religious right. You cannot say the word ‘Jesus’ in 2006 without having an awful lot of baggage going along with it. You can’t say the word ‘Christian,’ and you certainly can’t say the word ‘evangelical’ without it now raising connotations and a certain cringe factor in people.
Because people think, ‘Oh no, what is going to come next is homosexual bashing, or pro-war rhetoric, or complaining about ‘activist judges.’

But let us go back to Pastor Boyd because the more I read the more his church is an interesting case study which reflects on my previous posts.

Pastor Boyd said he had cleared his sermons with the church’s board. Yet his words left some in his congregation completely stunned. Some felt he was disrespectful of the President and the military. Some felt he was soft on abortion. Some felt he was telling them not to voice. A telling quote comes from William Berggren, a lawyer who had joined the church with his wife six years ago. He is quoted as saying:

When we joined years ago, Greg was a conservative speaker. But we totally disagreed with him on this. You can’t be a Christian and ignore actions that you feel are wrong. A case in point is the abortion issue. If the church were awake when abortion was passed in the 70’s, it wouldn’t have happened. But the church was asleep.

The article continues to give a little history and detail about the church. It seems that Pastor Boyd, who is 49, preaches in blue jeans and rumpled plaid shirts. The church is in a squat block-long building that was once a home improvement chain store.

The church started with 40 members about 12 years ago. The article says that the church’s growth was because Boyd is not just because he is an electrifying preacher. He has degrees from Yale Divinity School and Princeton Theological Seminary. And taught theology at Bethel College in St. Paul.

It was at Bethel that Boyd created some controversy a few years ago by questioning whether God fully knew the future. Some pastors in his own denomination, the Bapist General Conference, mounted an effort to evict Pastor Boyd from the denomination and his teaching post but in the end, he won.

Thing is, Pastor Boyd said that he never intended his sermons to be taken as merely a critique of the Republican Party to the religious right. He will not share his party affiliation, if he has one. He believes there are Christians on both the left and the right. And both have turned politics and patriotism into “idolatry”.

In an interview, Pastor Boyd explains where this is all coming from. It seems that he first became alarmed years ago visiting another megaplex church during a worship services on July 4th. The service ended with the choir singing “God Bless America” and a video of fighter jets flying over a hill silhouetted with crosses. He says in the interview:

I thought to myself, ‘What just happened? Fighter jets mixed up with the cross?’

As was pointed out in the previous posts, politics and evangelical Christianity have become fused. Patriotic displays are mainstays in some churches. Across town from Pastor Boyd’s church, the sanctuary of North Heights Lutheran Church was draped in bunting on the Sunday before the Fourth of July for a “freedom celebration”. Military veterans and flag twirlers paraded into the sanctuary. An enormous American flag slowly rose behind the stage. And a Marine major, who had served in Afghanistan preached that the military was spending the parishioners hard-earned money on good causes.

What impresses me about Pastor Boyd is that in his six sermons he lays out a broad argument that the role of Christians is not to seek “power over” others. That is by controlling governments, passing legislation or fighting wars. He feels that Christians should, instead, seek to have “power under” others. That is “winning people’s hearts” by sacrificing for those in need, as Jesus did. He says:

“America wasn’t founded as a theocracy. America was founded by people trying to escape theocracies. Never in history have we had a Christian theocracy where it wasn’t bloody and barbaric. That’s why our Constitution wisely put in a separation of church and state.
“I am sorry to tell you that America is not the light of the world and the hope of the world. The light of the world and the hope of the world is Jesus Christ.

As if this wasn’t enough for me, Pastor Boyd lambasts the sheer hypocrisy and pettiness of Christians who focus on sexual issues such as homosexuality and abortion. And lest we forget Janet Jackson’s little breast-revealing performance. He points out that Christians these days are constantly outraged about sex and perceived violations of their rights to display their faith in public. He says:

Those are the two buttons to push if you want to get Christians to act. And those are the two buttons Jesus never pushed.

What is interesting, as the article continues, is that some of his parishioners applauded the sermons because they had resolved their conflicted feelings. The article focuses on one person, David Churchill who is a truck driver for UPS and has been a Teamster for 26 years. He said he was raised in a religious-right home but was torn between the Republican expectations of faith and family and the Democratic expectations of his union. Yet when Pastor Boyd preached his sermons, Churchill said:

it was liberating to me

What is fascinating and a telling aspect of the “Christian” nation of America is that Pastor Boyd gave his six sermons while his church was in the midst of a $7 million fund-raising campaign. In the end, only $4 million came in. Which meant some staff members had be to laid off. But it doesn’t stop there.

The family pastor, Mary Van Sickle said she lost 20 volunteers who had been the backbone of the church’s Sunday school. She says, of the volunteers who quit:

“They said, ‘You’re not doing what the church is supposed to be doing, which is supporting the Republican way.’

It is too bad that the article never interviewed some of the 20 odd twits that quit. I would love to see them justify Biblical how it is the church’s job to support a political idealogy, let alone one that embraces bring violence and chaos to other countries.

I thoroughly adored a quote the article brings up from Reverend Paul Eddy, a theology professor at Bethel College and teaching pastor at Woodland Hills:

Greg is an anomaly in the megachurch world. He didn’t give a whit about church leadership, never read a book about church growth. His biggest fear is that people will think that all church is is a weekend carnival, with people liking the worship, the music, his speaking, and that’s it.

The sad fact, the article continues, is that those who left tended to be white, middle-class suburbanites. Yet in their place, the church added more members who live in the surrounding communities which include African-Americans, Hispanics and Hmong immigrants from Laos.

What I applaud is that this suits Pastor Boyd. His vision for his church is an ethnically and economically diverse congregation. A congregation that exemplifies Jesus’ teachings by its members’ actions. And he now, about the upheaval his church had, he says:

I don’t regret any aspect of it at all. It was a defining moment for us. We let go of something we were never called to be. We just didn’t know the price we were going to pay for doing it.

Obviously the older members of his congregation needed time to digest his message. When Pastor Boyd organized his book, based on his sermons, he arranged a forum to allow members to sound off. The reception was warm but many of the 56 questions submitted in writing were pointed. They included.

• Isn’t abortion an evil that Christians should prevent?
• Are you saying Christians should not join the military?
• How can Christians possibly have “power under” Osama bin Laden?
• Didn’t the church play an enormously positive role in the civil rights movement?

During that forum, one woman asked:

So why NOT us? If we contain the wisdom and grace and love and creativity of Jesus, why shouldn’t we be the ones involved in politics and setting laws?

Pastor Boyd responded:

I don’t think there’s a particular angle we have on society that others lack. All good, decent people want good and order and justice. Just don’t slap the label ‘Christian’ on it.

For me, all of this is refreshing, yet not new. The church I occasion, VCC, I’ve seen Pastor Billy stand up and say things that makes the congregation uncomfortable. He tries to remind people what the Bible really says, not what people want to hear.

And after spending some time with the previous posts, I am glad I can present an exception to the rule. Yet the problem is that for one or two of Pastor Boyd, we have ten like Joel Osteen.

And someone like Boyd has the power to change things locally. The problem with the feel-good theologians is that be in their megaplex churches or massive services, they focus on the self not God.

The shows these pastors have are really just infomercials. They interview an author about his/her brilliant book about how God has a miracle for you today and then at the end of the show, offer it free for a one-time gift of $24.95. If you go, for example, Joyce Meyer’s website, with the blah-blah about her sermons and missions, there are ads for books like The Confident Woman and Look Great, Feel Great.

So people like Boyd have a long way to go if they are to impinging on the end time or self-obsessed creed of Americas. Yet at least there are some out there that are trying and not just small pastors for a congregation of 200. There is hope, albeit a small one.

With all of this said and done, I would like Pastor Boyd to have the last word. On his church’s website, speaking about the books that came from his sermons, it comes down to the following:

Sadly, many people today claim that if you’re really a Christian, you’ll vote a certain way, support a certain candidate or take a particular stand on a particular issue. But most political issues are ambiguous enough that sincere, intelligent and Bible-believing people can and do strongly disagree about them!
However, nowhere in the New Testament do Jesus or any of his followers weigh in on any of the many divisive political issues of their day. This doesn’t mean that they didn’t have political opinions. They did – and they were very different from each other! Matthew (a tax collector) and Simon (a Zealot) were much farther apart in their views about political issues than (say) a Liberal Democrat and a Conservative Republican would be today. Yet, we never read a word about which view was “better” in the Gospels. And the reason is that our widely different political views are insignificant next to the one thing we are called to do as followers of Jesus: express God’s love for others the sacrificial way God expressed his love for all of us!

The Christian Paradox (3)

The last part of this piece concludes focusing on an article by Bill McKibben. And as I ended the last post, it seems that American Christians have lost sight of the message Jesus was trying to explain to his disciples, and in turn, us. And I think it is important to stress the point, so I will give the text in full:

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. [Matt 22:34-40 (NIV)]

As mentioned before, this was a radical notion back in Jesus’ time and is still a radical notion. Jesus, in all his teachings makes it crystal clear who one’s neighbour is. They are:

• the poor person
• the sick person
• the naked person
• the hungry person

And the hardest one to swallow would be:

• your enemy.

What makes the New Testament so radical is that Jesus would say things like the last shall be made first. You should turn the other cheek. A rich man aiming for heaven is like trying to get a camel through the eye of a needle. The basic, unique message of Jesus’ call was, as McKibben writes:

a call for nothing less than a radical, voluntary, and effective reordering of power relationships, based on the principle of love.

Then McKibben writes a telling point:

I confess, even as I write these words, to a feeling close to embarrassment. Because in public we tend not to talk about such things—my theory of what Jesus mostly meant seems like it should be left in church, or confined to some religious publication. But remember the overwhelming connection between America and Christianity; what Jesus meant is the most deeply potent political, cultural, social question. To ignore it, or leave it to the bullies and the salesmen of the televangelist sects, means to walk away from a central battle over American identity. At the moment, the idea of Jesus has been hijacked by people with a series of causes that do not reflect his teachings. The Bible is a long book, and even the Gospels have plenty in them, some of it seemingly contradictory and hard to puzzle out. But love your neighbor as yourself—not do unto others as you would have them do unto you, but love your neighbor as yourself—will suffice as a gloss. There is no disputing the centrality of this message, nor is there any disputing how easy it is to ignore that message. Because it is so counterintuitive, Christians have had to keep repeating it to themselves right from the start. Consider Paul, for instance, instructing the church at Galatea: “For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment,” he wrote. “‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”

Thing is, be it churches in the States, here in Canada or elsewhere, they are good at loving the neighbour in the next pew. When someone in the congregation is in trouble, most of the congregation will rally around that person. But personally, I have seen how that does not translate to outside the church.

The soup kitchen I volunteer at occasionally often has trouble getting volunteers to help out, especially in the summer. Usually it is the same people over and over again. And it is not because the parishioners are old and can’t help. The congregation is quite youthful. Yet Penny could use a constant flow of people but doesn’t get it. All in all, every week, it is the same few people.

Now Pastor Billy has stood up in front of the congregation and brought up the importance of loving your neighbour. I’ve heard him. But it seems that all too many don’t see beyond the church walls.

And the thing is the congregation does not just have to be involved in church sponsored aspects like the soup kitchen. They could be volunteering to help make food at places like the Old Brewery Mission, where I stayed at for 9 months.

I’ll give a salient example. The block party the church had at the end of August had some problems getting the knapsacks and supplies they wanted to give to the kids. They did not get as many as they had hoped. Here was an opportunity for many of the parishioners to step up, be it with cash donations or help to get more. But many did not. It was only the volunteers involved that tried to do something In the end, we had enough but it made me stop and wonder.

But back to the dominant creeds that saturates the American psyche right now. It seems that the current theology is making it harder to love one’s neighbour, especially the poor and weak. As McKibben writes that is a problem right now. And:

the dominant theologies of the moment do just that. They undercut Jesus, muffle his hard words, deaden his call, and in the end silence him. In fact, the soft-focus consumer gospel of the suburban megachurches is a perfect match for emergent conservative economic notions about personal responsibility instead of collective action. Privatize Social Security? Keep health care for people who can afford it? File those under “God helps those who help themselves.”

McKibben goes on to give a scathing example. In 2002, in Alabama, Bob Riley was elected governor. This is a state where 90% of the residents identify themselves as Christian. He could be safely called a conservative since Grover Norquist, a right-wing majordomo gave him a Friend of the Taxpayer Award every year he was in Congress, where he never once voted for a tax increase.

When Riley come to power in Alabama, he found that he was administering a tax code that dated back to 1901. As McKibben wrote:

The richest Alabamians paid 3 percent of their income in taxes, and the poorest paid up to 12 percent; income taxes kicked in if a family of four made $4,600 (even in Mississippi the threshold was $19,000), while out-of-state timber companies paid $1.25 an acre in property taxes. Alabama was forty-eighth in total state and local taxes, and the largest proportion of that income came from sales tax—a super-regressive tax that in some counties reached into double digits.

Because of this situation, Riley proposed a tax increase. Part of the reason was to get the state out of a fiscal crisis but also to put more money into the state’s school system which was routinely ranked near the worst in the nation. He argued that it was a Christian duty to look after the poor more carefully.

If the new law passed, the owner of a $250,000 home in Montgomery would have to pay $1,432. Not much to pay, some would think, only around 0.5%. Well, the bill did not pass. In fact, it was defeated by a factor of two to one. Approximately 68% of the state voted against it, so something like at least 60% of the Christians voted against the increase.

McKibben points out that the opposition was not just led by the state’s wealthiest interests. It was also led by the Christian Coalition of Alabama. The group’s president, John Giles was quoted as saying:

You'll find most Alabamians have got a charitable heart. They just don't want it coming out of their pockets.

Yes, this is a Christian speaking here, not just some rich twit. A Christian! And on its website, the group argued that taxing the rich at a higher rate than the poor:

results in punishing success

and that:

when an individual works for their income, that money belongs to the individual.

I wonder which part of the Bible Giles can point to therefore supporting that statement. Jeesh! McKibben brings up a point when a rich man came to Jesus and asked what he should do to get into heaven. This is what is written in the Gospels:

Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
“Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.”
“Which ones?” the man inquired.
Jesus replied, “'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,' and 'love your neighbor as yourself.'”
“All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”
Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth. [Matt. 19:16-22 (NIV)]

Jesus did not say he should invest, spend or let the benefits trickle down. The words here are plain and simple for anyone to understand. You don’t have to be a Biblical scholar to understand these words. And as I pointed out in the last post, Christians are not exempt from taxes.

If those that were trying to stop the tax increase were doing so because the tax increase was outrageous, say 20%, then I could see their point. But from what I can see, Riley was not going crazy and pulling a ridiculous amount from the rich in Alabama.

And to press the point further, McKibben points out that in 1989, the Christian Coalition of America was founded in order to

preserve, protect and defend the Judeo-Christian values that made this the greatest country in history

yet it proclaimed in 2004 that its top legislative priority would be:

making permanent President Bush's 2001 federal tax cuts.

The problem isn’t just in the area of taxation. McKibben brings up a furore that came up in the spring of 2005 when a Colorado jury consulted the Bible before sentencing a killer to death. This caused a major debate across the board. Legal experts debated whether the Christian jurors should be using an outside authority in their deliberations while the Christian right saw this as one more sign of a secular society devaluing religion.

But the important point here is that the jurors were focused on Leviticus 24, which calls for an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Yet they did not take into account Matthew 5 where Jesus specifically says:

You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. [Matt. 5:38-39 (NIV)]

Thing is, those jurors are just a reflection of the paradox that is in the States. The paradox rests in what I see as a problem in a democratic society: it devolves to a system where the minority with strong voices control the system.

In America, the power of the Christian right has rested largely on the fact that they can boldly claim religious authority. And by their very boldness, convince us that they must know what they are talking about. As McKibben writes:

They're like the guy who gives you directions with such loud confidence that you drive on even though the road appears to be turning into a faint, rutted track. But their theology is appealing for another reason too: it coincides with what we want to believe. How nice it would be if Jesus had declared that our income was ours to keep, instead of insisting that we had to share. How satisfying it would be if we were supposed to hate our enemies. Religious conservatives will always have a comparatively easy sell.

What I find interesting is that all of these religious conservatives are rolling in the money. And so are their followers. Be it Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell or the megaplex churches, they have money. They are not pastors from an inner city church or small town America. Their flock are not people who are worried about making ends meet. They are affluent Americans who do not want to hear the real message. And these pastors dare not speak the reality of the Gospels because if they did, they would lose their money base.

If you spend the time and read what Jesus had to say, you are struck by what it says. It demands a departure from selfishness. It conflicts with all of our current desires. And as the Gospels starkly show, what Jesus said was extremely unwelcome news for a large majority of people during his time. McKibben becomes quite pointed in his article with:

There is not going to be a modern-day return to the church of the early believers, holding all things in common—that's not what I'm talking about. Taking seriously the actual message of Jesus, though, should serve at least to moderate the greed and violence that mark this culture. It's hard to imagine a con much more audacious than making Christ the front man for a program of tax cuts for the rich or war in Iraq. If some modest part of the 85 percent of us who are Christians woke up to that fact, then the world might change.

The sad thing is that, in many ways, the message of Christ has been hijacked by a select few. Even sadder is that the Robertsons and megaplex churches are weakening the smaller churches that actually try to make a difference. They provide the instant gratification people want whilst people like Pastor Billy at VCC try to present what the Gospels really say.

I have heard Pastor Billy say some harsh things about people who say they are Christians but are not. And it makes some of the parishioners uncomfortable. But you aren’t going to hear that from people like Joel Osteen. They don’t want to rock the boat because if they actually presented the radical message of Jesus, parishioners might move to another megaplex church just to hear the platitudes they want to hear. And you will see an example of this in my next post.

The American Christian culture has become completely self-absorbed and legalistic. Be it stem-cell research, abortion, gay rights, whatever, we hear visceral words and warnings. It becomes a conflict between us and them. Yet the words are not Scriptural. They shy away from the challenge the Gospels presents. They are more comfortable with the language of sociology and politics.

McKibben points out the best-selling of all Christian books in recent years is Rick Warren’s The Purpose-Driven Life. As he says:

It has all the hallmarks of self-absorption (in one five-page chapter, I counted sixty-five uses of the word “you”), but it also makes a powerful case that we're made for mission. What that mission is never becomes clear, but the thirst for it is real. And there's no great need for Warren to state that purpose anyhow. For Christians, the plain spoken message of the Gospels is clear enough. If you have any doubts, read the Sermon on the Mount.

McKibben ends his piece wondering about the state of Christianity in America. He ends his piece with:

Admittedly, this is hope against hope; more likely the money changers and power brokers will remain ascendant in our “spiritual” life. Since the days of Constantine, emperors and rich men have sought to co-opt the teachings of Jesus. As in so many areas of our increasingly market-tested lives, the co-opters—the TV men, the politicians, the Christian “interest groups”—have found a way to make each of us complicit in that travesty, too. They have invited us to subvert the church of Jesus even as we celebrate it. With their help we have made golden calves of ourselves—become a nation of terrified, self-obsessed idols. It works, and it may well keep working for a long time to come. When Americans hunger for selfless love and are fed only love of self, they will remain hungry, and too often hungry people just come back for more of the same.

Now for a little of my own ruminations here. The reality is that the message in the New Testament is a difficult pill to swallow. Many of his disciples had a hard time with it. As did the people around him. But it is clear. Much of what Jesus presents is not cloaked in mystery and dense words, as some of the Scriptural references I’ve presented.

If America was truly a Christian nation, it would at least try to following the summons coming from the Bible. It would try to “lover thy neighbour”, be it outside America or inside America.
For an outsider like myself, when I look to the States, I am hard pressed to call America a Christian nation. Special interest groups lobby for themselves and no one else. The society is infused with an obsession of self and the dollar and victimology. It seems everyone is out for themselves and trying to get as much as they can.

The government gives lip service to helping people who are in trouble. The right would prefer that private enterprise take charge, which is absurd. The government’s charge is to protect and help all of the people. A business’s charge is to the stockholders and investors. All too often, I don’t see Americans helping out other Americans.

So I find it interesting that Americans are honestly confused when countries have no interest in being like them. And they wonder why places like Iraq and Afghanistan are in such a mess. They wonder why they don’t want an American style system.

Thing is, Americans should look to themselves without their rose-tinted glasses. Their system is riddled with corruption and hypocrisy. Politicians who espouse Christian values vote for pork-barrel items and help out friends. They cover up the misdeeds of their colleagues. They launch smear campaigns to get elected.

If America was really a Christian nation, then ideas like universal health care would not be slammed as it is. People are struggling to get adequate health care. There are people who have to decide between their prescriptions and eating. There are people dying because they can’t get proper treatment.

Yet if you mention things like universal health care or government control of the pharmaceutical companies, these Christians jump up and down with abject horror. Words like “Communist” get thrown about. They quickly point to Canada or the UK and say it doesn’t work.

In many ways, I look at Canada being more of a Christian nation than the US. Yes, we have major problems with our medical care. Yes, it make take a few days for someone to get treatment and there are waiting lists. But if you are in an accident, you don’t end up getting a massive hospital bill when you come out.

And the government here is trying to do things like make sure there is proper and affordable daycare. And, gasp, horrors, it is funded by the government. Canada has a long way to go to follow many of the Christian ideals presented in the Bible, but it seems to be a little more ahead than America.

Americans want to be the light of the world. They believe they have the way. But their Christian message has been hijacked by the affluent and self-obsessed. How are you going to convince an Iraqi your system is better when the conditions in many of the American inner cities rival the conditions in Iraq?

But to make things worse, Americans stumble around the world announcing they are correct and have the answer. There is an arrogance in the tone when you listen to Americans talking to non-Americans. A true Christian is humble.

I’ll use an old story to illuminate this. At the end of World War II, as the Americans were bearing down on Berlin, places like Belgium and Holland were left to people like the Canadians, Brits and Free Poles. The few Americans there were in the back.

As the Canadians liberated each town in the Low Countries, the soldiers would stop for a brief moment. If they could, they would give some of their rations to the people around them, especially candy to the children. And then move on. When the Americans finally arrived, they would be moving about with puffed chest saying if it weren’t for them, the liberation would not have happened.

Whereas most Europeans will admit that the American entrance in the war was decisive, many of the other participants that were in the war from the onset, like the Canadians, did not parade around like preening peacocks.

When you are in places like Belgium and Holland, you will see how the Canadian contribution to the war is celebrated. The Canadians that served in World War II did not expect the outpouring of love and respect after the war when they returned. As many of them have said, they were there to do a job. And it is this humility people remember. It is this that marks one as a Christian.

Yet not all is bleak. Even though this piece is done, the next post will follow up many of the points brought up here. It seems that not all megaplex pastors are the same. Stay tuned.

The Christian Paradox (2)

Last post I started with the idea of the paradox inherent in America calling itself Christian, as presented by Bill McKibben. Now we get into one of the possible reasons why this is so.

McKibben writes:

Are Americans hypocrites? Of course they are. But most people (me, for instance) are hypocrites. The more troubling explanation for this disconnect between belief and action, I think, is that most Americans—which means most believers—have replaced the Christianity of the Bible, with its call for deep sharing and personal sacrifice, with a competing creed.

As McKibben points out, in fact there are several competing Christian creeds in America. One area where American Christians are obsessed about is figuring out the schedule for the End Times. He gives a good website Rapture Ready for a taste of how some of these believes view the world.

And there are some End-Timers who believe in forcing the issue. They are convinced that can coax Jesus back to Earth if they “Christianize” America and then the world. Before you consider this crazy, McKibben points out that the House Majority Leader at that time, Tom DeLay was in church one day and the pastor was urging his flock to support the administration. He declared:

the war between America and Iraq is the gateway to the Apocalypse.

Now DeLay rose to speak, not just to the congregation but to 225 Christian TV and radio stations to pronounce:

Ladies and gentlemen, what has been spoken here tonight is the truth of God.

Of course, throughout history, there were some Christians announcing that the End Times were near. From the very beginning, the early Christians believed that Jesus was returning in their life time. But as the years went by, the reality of the End Times became cloaked and shrouded.

But comments from Tom DeLay show how a certain Christian creed has become infused in American politics. And there are people like Tim LaHaye with his Left Behind series or for Pat Robertson saying:

The Antichrist is probably a Jew alive in Israel today

that are trying to infuse it into the American psyche. But as McKibben points out, these apocalyptics are focused on the poetic and dense imagery of the Book of Revelation. The last of all the books of the Bible. McKibben asks:

Imagine trying to build a theory of the Constitution by obsessively reading and rereading the Twenty-fifth Amendment, and you'll get an idea of what an odd approach this is. You might be able to spin elaborate fantasies about presidential succession, but you'd have a hard time working backwards to “We the People.”

McKibben gives an interest example of this going backwards. Archbishop James Ussher (1581-1656), using the Bible, calculated that the world was created October 23, 4004 BCE and Noah’s ark came to rest on Mount Ararat on May 5, 2348 BCE, which was a Wednesday for him. Whereas this is interesting, it is but a distant distraction from the Gospel message.

Thing is, these apocalyptics are just one aspect of the problem. America has become the breeding ground of a competing creed that are rising from the sprawling megachurches that are growing all across America. Which spill onto TV with half-hour shows that almost seem like infomericals.

The apocalyptics can be dismissed but the output from these megachurches can’t. Their deviation from the main Christian creed is not obvious. In fact, much of was is preached in these massive structures isn’t off the wall, not loony at all.

But what these pastors do is focus relentless on you and your individual needs. As McKibben writes:

Their goal is to service consumers—not communities but individuals: “seekers” is the term of art, people who feel the need for some spirituality in their (or their children's) lives but who aren't tightly bound to any particular denomination or school of thought. The result is often a kind of soft-focus, comfortable, suburban faith.

As an example, McKibben points to a New York Times report that visited a booming megaplex church outside Phoenix. The reporter found a drive-through latte stand and they had Krispy Kreme doughnuts at every service. Some of the sermons included:

• how to discipline your children,
• how to reach your professional goals,
• how to invest your money, how to reduce your debt.

The report found that on Sundays, children played with church-distributed XBoxes and many of the flock had signed up for a twice-weekly aerobics class called Firm Believers.

One area where this creed has spread across America is just to look at the list of best-sellers compiled by the Christian Booksellers Association. When McKibben wrote his article, one of the top sellers was Your Best Life Now, by Joel Osteen. What is interesting is McKibben points out that the normally tolerant Publishers Weekly dismissed this book as:

a treatise on how to get God to serve the demands of self-centred individuals.

McKibben gives a few more examples of the best-sellers at that time. There is Beth Moore and her Believing God. She asks the tough questions concerning the fruit of a Christian life like “are we living as fully as we can?”

My favourite because I had heard about this book from my Christian friends is The Five Love Languages by Dr. Gary Chapman. This is a book that helps you figure out if you’re speaking in the same emotional dialect as your significant other.

I agree with McKibben, it is not that these books are bad. We live stressful lives and we need to pay attention to our own needs. We need positive things to help us through the day. And these text most likely have helped people to be better spouses or bosses. We can use all the help we can.

But the focus of this creed is the individual. They are presenting perfectly sensible advice yet they are managing to completely ignore Jesus’ radical and demanded focus on other. Yes it may be true that God helps those who help themselves, be it financially or emotionally, but that is just a subsidiary, secondary truth of Christianity.

As McKibben rightly points out, if one were to eliminate the Scriptural references in most of these best-sellers, ten to one they would have the same message. And whatever references they do pull out are just snippets of the whole message the Bible is trying to present.

And the Christian best-seller list mirrors the best-seller lists in the secular world. There is a fixation on self-improvement, on self-esteem. Bluntly on self! As McKibben writes:

These similarities make it difficult (although not impossible) for the televangelists to posit themselves as embattled figures in a “culture war”— they offer too uncanny a reflection of the dominant culture, a culture of unrelenting self-obsession.

What makes things even worse is these televangelists want their cake and eat it too. As they preach this creed, they want every break they can get from the government. They don’t want to pay sales tax on these books. A Christian theme park in Florida does not have to pay any taxes. A Christian retirement complex in South Dakota wants to be tax-exempt. Yet they want money from the government, from different levels to fund them for things like building their megaplex churches.

Daycare centres run by these different megachurches are exempt from all types of taxes including Social Security. Yet secular daycare centres are not. Now if these church run daycare centres were open to everyone, I don’t see a problem. Yet they are only for the parishioners. And for most of these megaplex churches, they are not that poor as is. Most are middle-class, affluent people.

The worst is how these megaplex churches try to get out of things like municipal taxes. These are taxes which are supposed to go into the infrastructure of the city these churches are in. It funds things like the fire department, water treatment, road repair. But they want all the benefits that the city has without paying for it.

They argue aspects of separation of church & state and some of the laws that exist to make pastors and such tax-exempt. But the Bible tells Christians that they should pay their taxes. When the Pharisees ask if it is right to pay taxes to Caesar, Jesus responds:

Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's [Matt 22:21 (NIV)]

And Paul, in the Letter to Romans, is even more explicit:

Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor. [Rom 13:5-7 (NIV)]

And by authorities, Paul means the government. Sort of makes these megaplex churches sound somewhat non-Christian, doesn’t it?

Now back to McKibben after that sidebar. He rightly says that it is not for him to criticize someone else’s religion. America was built on the idea of tolerating someone else’s religious expression. But the point here is to show that if you are going to profess that you are a Christian, then you should be walking like a Christian.

And it seems that neither the government nor the driving voices in America are really following the Christian message and summons.

McKibbin reveals in the article this all came about came about because he is an environmental writer mostly. It was his work with religious environmentalists that made him start to think about the essay I am commenting on.

He mentions that they have been trying to get politicians to understand why the Bible actually mandates protecting the world around us. There are complete sections that give sound advice on how to take care of the land around us, such as Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

McKibben points out countries like Norway and Sweden, where religion is relatively unimportant, who focus on things like carbon emissions, public transit, giving aid to the poor and making sure everyone has health care. As he asks how can that be? and says:

For Christians there should be something at least a little scary in the notion that, absent the magical answers of religion, people might just get around to solving their problems and strengthening their communities in more straightforward ways.

It may make people wonder, looking at some of the European successes compared to the American failure that it may be better to abandon religion for secular rationality. But for the foreseeable future, America will be a “Christian” nation. And McKibben then asks:

The question is, what kind of Christian nation?

Above I pointed to a couple of creeds that are dominating America: the apocalyptic End Times creed and the comfort-the-comfortable, personal-empowerment creed. But if one cracks open the New Testament, you find that these messages veil the actual and remarkable message of the Gospels. And that will be the concluding post for this piece, tomorrow.