| Saturday, August 30, 2008 |
| A Kinder, Gentler Nation |
The following commentary was published in my local paper this past Sunday. Of course, I was not able to find any links. The paper rarely archives any commentaries regarding religion and politics, thus I decided to retype it in its entirety here. Mr. Whitehead is the local watchdog for religion, politics, law, and civil rights, the founder and president for The Rutherford Institute. Fabulous organization.
When Pastor Rick Warren decided to hold a 'forum' on August 16, 2008, at his mega church Saddleback and invited both presidential candidates to avoid losing his tax-exempt status. This I'm certain of. Due to millions of Christians leaning away from the Religious Right and becoming more 'loving' and 'forgiving' -- thus of the evangelical persuasion -- Warren saw his opportunity and took it. The Purpose-Driven Pastorprenuer opened his arms and welcomed both sides -- surely a thing Christ would do, right? -- and asked questions... and charged tickets, to make sure this was not confused with a church event. Some went as high as 2 grand, from my limited websurfing.
was truly pointless, spineless, and lacked purpose, something Warren should really have some knowledge, considering his empire of books. I agree. Warren should have asked the tough questions instead of worrying about offending the evangelical masses. He is known for avoiding hot button issues and instead focuses on uniting the peoples. He avoids the issues of abortion, or specifically what causes abortions, and instead focuses on world poverty. A wonderful thing when you live in a rich country and the American Way is to fix problems with your checkbook... when the problems are thousands of miles away... when we are known for ignoring our neighbors down the street who are struggling financially or emotionally.
Christ was never worried about being offensive when it came down to it. He confronted the church leaders of his day who lived lavish lifestyles. He went out to find the poor and oppressed. He challenged the comfortable who thought they had done 'enough'. He wasn't afraid to die for what he believed, for those he cared for, which is what ultimately happened. So why is this pastor afraid to lose his earthly kingdom when he should be more concerned for his soul?
Commentary from "The Daily Progress" (Charlottesville, VA)
Sunday, August 24, 2008
by John W. Whitehead
America, meet your new evangelical leader
I have never been considered a part of the religious right, because I don't believe politics is the most effective way to change the world. Although public service can be a noble profession, and I believe it is our responsibility to vote, I don't have much faith in government solutions, give the track record. --Rick Warren
The recent Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency was a wash. Both candidates, who claim to be Christians, spent much of their time pandering to the nearly three million television viewers who tuned in. But in terms of what presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama had to say, their responses were largely lacking in content.
However, the Saddleback Forum wasn't insignificant. Its significance has less to do with what the two candidates had to say than in what the person asking the questions, Rick Warren, signifies for the future of Christianity.
The fact that it was Warren and not James Dobson, the Christian Right's de facto Godfather, is particularly telling. It speaks of a decided shift away from the rigid, right-winged mindset that has dominated evangelical Christianity in America over the last three decades. Warren, pastor of the 23,000-member Saddleback Church in California and the best-selling author of "The Purpose-Driven Life," seems to be about as far as you can get from the stigma of the Christian Right while still calling himself an evangelical Christian.
The Christian Right, represented by such prominent figures as Dobson, Pat Robertson and the Late Jerry Falwell, among others, has long stoof for the erection of a Christian State. As David Kuo, who served as special assistant to President Bush documents in his book "Tempting Faith," these Christian leaders worked hard to maintain ties to the Bush White House, complete with weekly conference calls to keep them updated on ever facet of the president's policy and political agenda.
However, the dismal failure of the Bush presidency has led inevitably to the decline of the Christian Right -- and can be credited with contributing to Warren's rise to prominence. According to a 2005 Nation article, Warren "disassociates himself from the religious right, noting that he shares its position on social issues but doesn't want to focus on them. He focuses on poverty, disease, and aid to Africa."
It's not difficult to see why Warren, a mainline evangelical in the Billy Graham mold, is enjoying such popularity. Disillusioned by the power-hawking, war-mongering of the Christian Right, the nation's 80 million evangelical Christians would have little trouble with the feel-good Christianity that Warren sells -- non-confrontational, congenial, and polite. That isn't to say that it lacks substance, merely controversy.
As a recent time article observed, like Graham, Warren "projects an authenticity that he helped him forge an exquisite set of political connections -- in the White House, on both sides of the legislative aisle and abroad. And he is both leading and riding the newest wave and change in the Evangelical community: an expansion beyond social conservatism to causes such as battling poverty, opposing torture and combating global warming.
"The movement has loosened the hold of religious-right leaders on ordinary Evangelicals and created an opportunity for Warren, who has lent his prominent voice to many of the new concerns."
Warren has avoided much that is controversial, such as abortion and gay marriage (what he refers to as "sin issues"). Instead, Warren focuses on issues that "unite," such as poverty, HIV/AIDS, climate change, and human rights. Warren is, whether consciously or unconsciously, shifting the national faith dialogue back to a pre-Regan era, before the small group of leaders that have come to dominate the Christian Right turned Christianity into a synonym for right-wing theocracy.
Sidestepping the siren call of politics, Warren has taken aim at what he calls the "five global giants": spiritual emptiness, selfish leadership, hunger, sickness, and illiteracy. Empowered by his publishing success and with the support of his megachurch, he launched his PEACE initiative -- an acronym for Promote reconciliation, Equip servant leaders, Assist the poor, Care for the sick, and Educate the next generation. Since coming up with the plan, he has taken his PEACE plan global, with Rwanda as his testing ground.
Warren is now being looked upon as America's pastor. Suddenly, Christianity appears somewhat appealing again. Yet while there is so much to commend this so-called New Evangelicalism, with its rejection of politics as the answer and its emphasis on carrying out Jesus' mandate to care for the poor and helpless, there is also an important lesson to the learned. The rise of the Christian Right came about at a time when the evangelical church in America was doing its best to be non-controversial an inoffensive. The evangelical church's subsequent failure was to morally impact the culture and the legalization of abortion can be directly attributed to the emergence ot the Christian Right.
The Christian Right was, without a doubt, a semi-militant reaction to a society that seemed to be lacking a moral compass. And as journalist Chris Hedges points out in his book "American Fascists," if a real crisis rises again across this country (such as another terrorist attack), it would not take much for the country to revert back to such a militant fundamentalism.
This brings us to the current presidential election. No matter who ascends to the White House, it's clear that Christians will not enjoy the kind of access that laid claim to during the Bush administration -- whatever good it did them. For example, abortions didn't decline under Bush, and it's doubtful that whether they would under either Obama or McCain.
The lesson to be learned is this: what is needed now is not a return to the overly polite Christianity of the pre-Regan era. Nor is it the politically charged Christianity of the Religious Right, but a brand of Christianity that does not shy away from speaking truth to power. In other words, the type of Christianity Jesus practiced.
John Whitehead is president and founder of the Albemarle County-based Rutherford Institute, a civil-liberties organization. He can be reached at johnw@rutherford.orgLabels: christian, GenX, GenY, liberal, politics, religion, right-wing, spirituality |
posted by Sara @ 4:06 PM   |
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| Wednesday, February 13, 2008 |
| Neil Young's Epiphany |
How many people does it take to change the world? Back in the 60's, it just took one. Just one guy (or gal), an acoustic guitar, and a dream. At least, that's what our parents generation wanted to believe. "All you gotta do is believe in yourself, man," I can hear them drone in that dusky, hazy voice that best sits behind oversized shades. "Just believe that you can do it... don't let anyone tell you that you can't do anything... you can do anything you set your mind to..."
I see this sermon preached again and again to over-indulged, tone-deaf GenY kids who exit the American Idol audition room, sobbing into a parent's arms. "There, there... you are a good singer... you will make it..." the lies ooze. "You will make a difference. You can do anything that you want. You just need to try harder."
But if you can't carry a tune in a bucket, how much practicing will it take?
Lie to me... go ahead and tell me everything is alright...
Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies...
Great songs. Now quit lying to your kids.
 Despair.com a great little snippet of wisdom on this--"Incompetence: When you earnestly believe you can compensate for a lack of skill by doubling your efforts, there's no end to what you can't do."
Which brings me back to the original singer-songwriter, Mr. Young.
I'm not ragging on him. He is an excellent lyricist, a musical legend. Not my style of music. Still a great musician. But he just realized what GenXers have known most of our lives -- music can't change the world.
Duh.
He made this statement to the Associated Press February 7, 2008: "I think that the time when music could change the world is past. I think it would be very naive to think that in this day and age... I think that the world today is a different place, and that it's time for science and physics and spirituality to make a difference in this world and try to save the planet."
The rest of the article, Mr. Young portrays himself as a cross-breed between an aging, crotchety hippie who wants the youngins to git off his lawn and a Nirvana burnout stuck in 1991, still angry and angst-ridden, beating it out in the garage.
From my limited and biased view of history, I remember the Me Generation boldly going forth into the 60's and 70's, proclaiming that they were going to "make a difference." And they did, don't get me wrong. The civil rights movement happened. But building blocks had been put into place before then by previous generations. Women's rights and women's lib happened. But again, a foundation had been laid thanks to womens suffrage and other progressive thinkers generations before. A spiritual awakening took place and freedom of thought began to flourish. But this again was not new. The turn-of-the-century previous brought new ideas in religion. Pentecostalism, the charismatic movement, revivalism, spiritualism, spiritism, and even a short rebirth of interest in the occult and mysticism. Many forms of religisiosity were laid down which brought the birth of fundamentalism and is now presently fighting underneath new emergent movements.
The quick fire of the Boomers died out when they discovered that the ideals were not easy coming and the fading youths found that money and fame did not come from this brave new world overnight. The Boomers soon were over 20 and 30, whom they had warned themselves not to trust, found that had children, and had to make money, so they settled into business and politics, and decided to make change that way.
The world was not the way they had envisioned. Music would not change the world as they said it would. People would not sit around in hippie drum circles, sharing everything they owned in one big happy commune, singing Kum-Ba-Yah. Instead, money becomes king, materialism becomes god because we must give our family everything we "never had", and layoffs becomes a way of life. The bottom line becomes more important than the worker bees, the little man becomes a number, children become a nuisance and the spouse becomes a roommate. Then, when the mid-life crisis hits, life suddenly becomes more than just an image that we stare at in a mirror, and we decide to sell it all, try to live simpler, and flirt with moving to Fiji because it's pretty there.
But is that really the answer? So Boomers get a life coach, a therapist, eat healthier. Maybe run twice a day.
There's a reason we GenXers are the way we are. We watch everything fall apart and feel we have to clean it all up because that's what we've done our whole lives.
And Mr. Neil Young suddenly has this epiphany a week ago that we need to change the world through other means.
Welcome to the real world.Labels: Boomers, general, GenX, GenY, spirituality |
| posted by Sara @ 7:44 PM |
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| About Me |
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Name: Sara
Home: gypsy wanderer, United States
About Me: Those who know me find me stubborn, opinionated, open-minded, strong-willed, of some intelligence, and yet they still hang around.
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Love God. Love all. Serve both. There is wisdom in turning as often as possible from the familiar to the unfamiliar: it keeps the mind nimble, it kills prejudice, and it fosters humor.
-George Santayana, philosopher (1863-1952) |
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