Thoughts for the Day – About Things That Matter

The Only Prayers Worth Saying

I don’t like to pray out loud. Never have. And this despite having been a priest years ago.

Praying in public is too much like a performance. Everyone’s expecting something eloquent, insightful, and inspiring. For me, such showmanship is not what prayer is about.

Rather, and as Yeshua instructed, prayer is something one does in secret (Matthew 6:5-7). It should be as close to wordless as one can get.

In fact, as I see it, there are only two prayers worth voicing. They go together. And while both are extremely brief and unpretentious, they are extremely liberating.

The first is “Hasa Diga Eebowai.” The second is simply “Thank You.”

Allow me to contrast the two prayers and the gods they envision while adding a note about the importance of doing so.

Hasa Diga Eebowai

The first prayer might shock you. It was originally explained in the delightful Broadway musical, “The Book of Mormon.” It was addressed to the traditional god preached by missionaries not only of Mormon faith, but of Christian faith in general.

That’s the familiar patriarchal god who is law giver, judge, condemner, punisher, and torturer. He’s the god (let’s be honest!) we fear and hate – you know, the one who stands ready to drown most of us in an eternal lake of fire for the simple crime of being human. He’s the one we all need to be saved from.

That Great Patriarch in the sky is the one that the professionally religious have often taught punishes an evil world with war, hunger, sickness, plagues such as AIDS, along with horrific “religious” customs such as female circumcision.

To him Hasa Diga Eebowai!

If you’ve seen “The Book of Mormon,” you know how to translate that.

“Eebowai,” the Ugandan chief explained to the twenty-something Mormon ‘elders,’ (watch the above video) “is our name for God. And ‘Hasa Diga means ‘f*ck you!’ So, I guess ‘Hasa Diga Eebowai’ means ‘F*ck you, God!’”

Yes, f*ck that punishing god described above!

What a powerful, liberating prayer! Let me say it again: Hasa Diga Eebowai!

I mean, we need to be liberated from that pseudo-divinity who’s so bent on punishment and inhibiting our growth especially around human sexuality.

Where did that execrable deity come from?

The Origin & Power of Eebowai

His origin might be traced to St. Augustine. Remember, he was the bishop of Hippo in Africa.in the early 5^th century – a powerful ideolog and writer about the human condition. As “Doctor of the Church,” Augustine’s influence remains incalculable. Until quite recently (and to some extent still), any theological treatise had to square its proposal with Augustine.

But what did he teach?

In his Confessions, he found the origins of sin in the human body. That carnal mass, he explained, (particularly in its sexual dimension) was evil and eternally at war with the spiritual soul.

As his doctrine came to be developed, any pleasure taken in sexual thoughts, words, or deeds outside the bond of marriage were mortally sinful. And unless confessed and absolved by an ordained priest, they would merit eternal consignment to that horrible lake of fire.

In the ensuing Catholic tradition, even married couples had to be careful about sex. Since seeking sexual pleasure for itself was culpable, every act of intercourse even by the sacramentally married had to be open to the exclusively god-defined purpose of coitus, viz., the begetting of children. Thus, any kind of artificial contraception was outlawed. Frustrating the divine purpose of intercourse would plunge married couples into that fiery lake as well.

Think about what all of that meant.

For one thing, it meant that the second strongest impulse of human beings (after self-preservation) had to be suppressed, controlled, and worried about as a threat and source of punishment and guilt. The centrality of the sexual drive insured that everyone would at some time (and usually quite frequently) commit an associated “mortal sin” (i.e., a sin meriting eternal punishment in hell).

For another, the criminalization of sexuality endowed the Catholic Church and its priests with inestimable power. The latter’s’ words of absolution given or withheld could open or close the gates of heaven. Anyone guilty of “mortal sin” and who died without priestly absolution (or its spiritual equivalent – a nearly impossible prayer expressing perfect, disinterested love of God) would end up forever tortured.

Some might say that the priest’s greatest “power” came from the belief that his words could transform bread and wine into the very body and blood of Christ. Socially, however, the priest’s main significance came from belief in the power he exercised over the gates of heaven and hell.

That capacity made him a necessary factor in every believer’s life.

[By the way, when Catholics stopped going to confession (gradually and spontaneously after the Second Vatican Council, 1962-1965) priests suddenly lost the status that the sacrament of Penance (Confession) gave them. They were left without the function that most justified their existence.]

Yes, F*ck that God! He is no God at all, but a figment of Augustine’s tortured and fevered imagination.

A Contrasting Beneficent God

How then speak of God in what Lutheran theologian and martyr (under the Nazis) Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “a world come of age?” How do those who still recognize the spiritual dimensions of life as primary talk of God when the very word has lost positive meaning for so many?

Here we can be comparatively brief – almost silent.

We could speak of Ultimate Reality, the Ground of Being, Life’s Deepest Mystery, Source, Divine Mother, Great Spirit, or simply of Nature with a capital “N?”

For me however, the most meaningful reference to the divine is to imagine God (as does spiritual teacher Niel Donald Walsch) as the sum total of all the energy in the universe and in the universe of universes. That would seem harmonious with the discoveries of quantum physics, which sees everything ultimately composed of energy and light.

The totality in question would include the that of evolution, love, and consciousness. It would include every one of us as manifestations of God. As conscious, the Energy in question could be addressed as “Thou.” We could also refer to it as our authentic Self.

That’s the God worthy of the second prayer I mentioned earlier. The only prayer to utter in such divine presence (of which each of us is a manifestation) is Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Conclusion

Why does any of this matter?

It matters first because most of us have been terribly damaged by Eebowai. We need to be saved from that God. We need capacity to look him straight in the eye and say Hasa Diga.

Do that right now. It’s very liberating.

Second, those of us who are convinced that we are basically spiritual beings need alternative, credible, and viable concepts and language to give voice to our convictions. We require another God to replace Eebowai. And yes, another God is possible. Or better put: another God is necessary.

That emerging God would have us set aside Augustine’s reasoning that was seized on and manipulated by a clerical class that deprived us of dominion over our bodies, our sexuality, our reason, and autonomy. We need liberation from all of that.

We need Ultimate Reality, the Ground of Being, Life’s Deepest Mystery, Source, Divine Mother, Great Spirit, and/or simply Nature with a capital “N?”

Whatever words we use, the autonomously spiritual among us need one we can look in the eye and say sincerely, “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” In the end, it’s the only prayer we need.

Americans Should Be Dying in Ukraine: Random Notes from the Resistance Underground

Let’s face it. The United States is the world’s classic bully – a synonym for “coward.” It’s like the playground tough who fearful of a bloody nose has others do the dirty work for him. “Let’s you and him fight,” is the bully’s refrain.

When you think about it, that’s exactly what the United States and the gang of thugs called NATO are doing in Ukraine. They admit it’s a proxy war. But our cowardly “leaders” know that a direct battlefield confrontation with Russia would be monumentally unpopular at home. (Imagine having to explain to American wives, children, parents, and grandparents why it’s worth their loved one’s death or maiming to bring “freedom” to a country more than 7000 miles away and which most would have difficulty locating on a map! It would be worse than Vietnam.)

Instead, it’s better to have Ukrainian husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers die rather than Americans. Yes: Let’s you and him fight. Few of us would have it any other way.

What I’m saying is that in the final analysis, it’s our permission, apathetic disinterest, and empty virtue signaling that has transformed the “land of the free and the home of the brave” into the land of cowardly and powerless bullies. I’m talking about you and me.

In other words, if we really believe that we’re the ones at war in Ukraine and (as Joe Biden said) “Putin must go,” then we should be willing to send our brothers, husbands, fathers, and uncles to die there, not Ukrainians. If we’re young enough, we should be willing to enlist and put our own heads into the Russian meat grinder.

But would any of us do that? Why should we dirty our hands? Why should Americans die in the war planned for decades?

No: Let’s you and him fight.

***

In the prolonged conflict in Ukraine, I’ve found that virtually the only completely informed, honest and balanced analysis derives from interviews involving Scott Ritter – the former Marine intelligence officer, Russia expert, and U.N. weapons inspector. Most others (i.e., all the mainstream media) are nothing but U.S., NATO, and Ukraine cheerleaders. Even the few who dare to speak out against “our” country’s belligerent policies miss the big picture that Ritter sees.

***

Here’s what he’s saying now:

Despite its undeniable battlefield successes, Russia is not winning in Ukraine.
Russia had three clear objectives in initiating its special operation: (1) Free Ukraine’s Russian-speaking populations in the country’s southeastern region from attacks by the Ukrainian army which over the last six years have cost the Donbass more than 14,000 lives. (2) De-Nazify Ukraine which has incorporated card carrying, swastika-tattooed Nazis into its government and military forces. (3) Force the Kyiv government to drop its ambitions to join NATO – instead adopting a position of neutrality like Sweden once did
Russia will surely achieve the first objective. Its forces have surrounded Ukrainian troops in the Donbass in ever-tightening pincers. There, Ukrainians will be compelled to surrender or be annihilated. They have no other options.
Russia success in Mariupol (a major Neo-Nazi center) has also removed from action many extreme right-wing cadres. It has achieved the same result in the Donbass where the Ukrainian army had been spearheaded by openly white supremacist, fascist troops. As already indicated, the latter are surrounded and trapped in what Russian military theory describes as an inescapable “cauldron.” In other words, Ukraine has been or will be significantly (though by no means completely) de-nazified.
However, the massive and unforeseen influx of U.S. funding and ordnance into Ukraine has rendered virtually impossible the achievement of Russia’s goal of demilitarizing the country and forcing it into political neutrality. (The $40 billion just authorized by Washington means that in just two months, Ukraine will have received dollar amounts exceeding Russian defense budgeting for an entire year!)
This unexpected development means that even if Russia declares “mission accomplished,” withdraws, and ends up controlling Donbass, Odessa, Crimea, and a few other cities and regions, it will always have to deal with a massively armed and NATO trained adversary threatening those gains.
Russia’s President Putin can counter such moves only by securing his Duma’s permission to move from special military operation to all-out war against Ukraine. That’s because his countermove would necessarily entail national mobilization including a military draft to increase Russian forces in Ukraine far beyond the 200,000 now deployed there.
In Ritter’s eyes, there’s no way anything short of the latter change in strategy might be called “victory.”
In other words, Russia will have won its battles but lost the war.

***

As he himself admits, Ritter makes the above analysis while wearing only his military glasses that allow him to perceive nothing but highly predictable battlefield realities. Such limited vision, he concedes, blinkers out crucial political factors whose effects are less foreseeable. For instance, how long will it take Ukraine’s mothers and wives to demand that Kyiv stop sending their sons, husbands, brothers, and uncles to certain death in that Russian meat grinder? How long will it take electorates in Europe and the States to rebel against food, petrol, home heating and cooling prices inflated by sanctions interdicting Russia’s supply of oil and natural gas? In other words, rebellion at the ballot box and/or in the streets could pressure NATO representatives to the negotiating table despite their desire to prolong the conflict. Ritter chooses not to highlight such factors.

***

Of course, the same holds true for Moscow. Though Russian casualties are fewer and though (contrary to the intentions of the sanctions) the ruble is now stronger than ever and even though Russia’s producers are successfully locating markets (in China, India, Iran, and by import substitution) and even though Putin’s approval ratings are over 80%, Russian wives and mothers find body bags just as repellant as their Ukrainian counterparts.

***

I do too. So let’s change the subject.

***

They say that about a thousand Ukrainian Neo-Nazi soldiers have finally surrendered after months of de facto imprisonment in the bowels of Mariupol’s Azovstal steel plant. But our deceitful MSM has called the capitulation an “evacuation” (Where? To Siberia?). They’ve called it a “leaving,” a “withdrawal,” a recognition of “mission accomplished.”

***

Can you imagine the MSM reaction if the situation were reversed – if the Russians were the ones virtually imprisoned for weeks in that steel plant? That, after all, is the way they would have been described – helplessly imprisoned rather than heroically resisting. And their “evacuation” from their underground holes waving their underwear as white flags would have been described as a humiliating surrender.

***

Where’s the peace movement in all of this? Why are the most prominent voices for peace in Ukraine coming from the right — from Trumpists for God’s sake? Can’t figure that one out.

***

And where are the followers of the one who said “Put away your sword. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword” (MT 26:2) and “Love your enemies; do good to them that hate you” (MT 5:44) and “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (LK 23:34)? Catholic Joe Biden’s not saying that — even though Pope Francis lays much of the blame for Ukraine’s war at his feet.

***

Are you saying any of those things?

***

Can anyone say “Bully for you?”

Face It: America Is a Failed State; Its “Leaders” Have No Legitimacy

More and more I’ve been thinking of the United States as a “failed state.” We’re in need of that revolution Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence saw as necessary when a government fails to meet the needs of its people.

Wikipedia defines a failed state as “a political body that has disintegrated to a point where basic conditions and responsibilities of a sovereign government no longer function properly.”

To my mind, that definition fits our country exactly. Our government is absolutely gridlocked in terms of serving us. It can’t deal with minimum wage, healthcare, climate change, infrastructure, immigration, the threat of nuclear war, or voting rights.

Moreover, the U.S. president is a criminal. He routinely disobeys international law without a second thought. Think, for example, about his worldwide illegal drone assassination program. It amounts to a mechanized death squad – a gang of robot murderers. Mechanized or not, drone killers roaming the world like that completely contravene international law. That makes the president a criminal – a murderer.

But, of course, Mr. Biden not alone in such designation. As Noam Chomsky has pointed out, the same criminality has been embraced by all U.S. presidents going back at least to the end of World War II.

Do yourself a favor and listen to Chomsky’s words. He points out that since 1945, all 13 White House occupants have been indictable criminals. Each of them deserved imprisonment if not execution. As such, none of them enjoyed legitimacy.

On top of that, the Supreme Court is entirely dysfunctional too. I’m thinking in terms of rendering unbiased judgments. SCOTUS has been packed with right wing idealogues through a blatant process of hypocritical fraud. Two of them are credibly accused sexual predators. The ideology of those “justices” exactly mirrors that of the Republican Party, an organization that (again) Chomsky has nailed as “the most dangerous organization in the history of the world.”

The GOP merits that title, Chomsky says, because its climate change denial expresses a willingness “to destroy the prospects of human existence.”

By the way, with their tepid approach to climate change and their openness to nuclear war with China (shared of course with the Republicans) Democrats are not far behind their rivals. Such positions by the two major U.S. parties rob them ipso facto of any legitimacy.

That leaves ordinary citizens like you and me governed by . . . tyrants. Yes tyrants!

Remember the cry of our 18^th century “founding fathers”: “Taxation without representation is tyranny.” Well, think about it: we’re all paying taxes, aren’t we? But tell the truth: do the people in Congress represent our interests?

I’d say not. Clearly not.

Think about our interests. According to polls, a clear majority of us want a minimum wage of $15; we want Medicare for all, forgiveness of college debt, free access to college for all who want it, increased environmental protection, an end to forever wars. We want affordable housing, renewal of the nation’s infrastructure, daycare, and freer access to voting. Americans want the rich to pay higher taxes.

Each of those is an important issue that affects our daily lives. But our representatives don’t care. Instead, they move in the opposite direction. They give their rich donors tax breaks, deregulation of businesses, and privatized public property and services. They unquestioningly increase the military budget at every opportunity. And they do so even though “our” nation already outspends the ten next highest spenders combined! But then when it comes times for the programs we want, there’s never enough money.

On the election front, I’m even convinced that the Democrats care less about defeating Republicans than I do! How else do you explain their impotent dysfunction before state laws whose undeniable purpose is to disenfranchise the Democratic base itself?

Laughably, the Dems defend their limp surrender on the grounds that the Senate parliamentarian won’t let them do otherwise! Meanwhile, every one of us knows that Republicans would never (have never) eschewed any tactic underhanded or overhanded that would advance the interests of their wealthy base. But Democrats can’t bring themselves to act similarly. They’re too high minded, they want us to believe, and too interested in (one-sided) bipartisanship to stoop as low as their rivals. Please!

Turns out, however, that the real Democratic base is the same as the Republicans’.

In any case, we’re left without representation.

See what I mean about “failed state?” Our government is completely illegitimate at all levels, presidential, senatorial, representational, and judicial.

Time for a revolution. As I’ve argued before, the January 6^th folks might not have been that far off.

Random Notes from a Bunker against Fascism

Black Lives Matter may represent the largest social movement in American history. So, it has a lot of powerful very scared.

Over the Memorial Day weekend, I had a couple of discouraging encounters with “liberal” opponents of Black Lives Matter. They had vague issues with the organization’s “funding,” “corruption,” “hypocrisy,” and “policy” such as defunding the police.

In one case, circumstances forced me to listen to a podcast of the type just mentioned. It was extremely critical of BLM – all in the name of independent thinking, balance, fairness, neutrality, and self-criticism. However, the liberals in question had no alternative to BLM. And so, in effect, they had joined forces with the right wing and status quo which gladly embrace such “fair-minded” liberals to keep blacks and browns in their place.

The syndrome is familiar. Any successful progressive organization or leader will be subject to such denigrations, personal attacks, “revelations,” and throwing the baby out with the bathwater. They did it to King; they did it to Gandhi; they did it to Jesus. It’s all an ancient right-wing strategy defending the putrid way things are.

Progressives have got to decide which side we’re on. Are we on the side of the victims of white supremacy or not? (And yes, contrary to the official story, there are victims in this world — victims of “our” policy!)

The truth is that if we’re not with BLM, we are against it. Why give and comfort to the fascists and make the perfect the enemy of the good?

Instead, support BLM. Join William Barber and Liz Theoharis in their Poor People’s Campaign.

What on earth are Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema thinking by resisting the voting reforms of HR1 and the Pro Act? They’re allowing Republicans to fix all future elections. Face it: Manchin and Sinema are really Republicans. Contrary to post-election happy talk, the Democrats really don’t have control of the Senate. Manchin and Sinema should be primaried.

What we studied as U.S. history in school was in reality Confederate history – no true account of slavery, labor movements, women’s struggle for the vote, or indigenous slaughter.

And those Confederate statues? Imagine what we’d think if Germany celebrated Nazism like that — statues of Hitler, Goering, Himmler, Eichmann. . . You won’t find monuments like those in Germany, but you will find their equivalents all over this great country of ours.

And what’s with all this anti-Russian and anti-Chinese propaganda? Everything nefarious that happens especially in the fields of “cyber-attacks,” Covid-19, and election improprieties is “potentially” linked to China or Russia (and “reportedly” to their governments). Where’s the evidence? Don’t be fooled. It’s all CIA B.S.

Never forget what CIA head, Mike Pompeo, said about the CIA. He admitted that they lie, cheat, and steal all they time. The CIA offers its spooks entire courses on the topics. The CIA and its agents are not our friends. Never were.

Neither is the U.S. military. We shouldn’t be proud of it. Never forget what MLK said about our country. “It’s the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.” Should we be proud that our children are part of such a gang? Yes, it’s a huge gang.

At last count, “we’re” now fighting seven wars (Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Niger, Yemen, Somalia – and who knows where else?). Do any of us care? The people under our bombing attacks do.

Tell me: is it better to deal with terrorism by killing alleged terrorists in those countries just mentioned (along with their children) or with re-education camps like the ones our “leaders” are so outraged about in Northwest China? (Actually, we know nothing about those camps.) Think about that.

“We” maintain 800 military bases throughout the world. Do you know how many extra-territorial bases China has? One! One!!

We drop bombs on Muslims every day. China hasn’t dropped a bomb on another country in more than 40 years.

Why was apartheid in South Africa despicable, but not in Israel-Palestine?

The U.S. of A is exactly in the position that Hitler aspired to gain in the 1930s. We control the world by military might.

And long before Hitler, we had already sponsored our own Holocaust (slaughtering more than 100 million indigenous here). It started centuries before Hitler’s atrocious but small by comparison carnage.
Sad to say: it seems the world would be better off in so many ways without the U.S.of A.
Does the evidence show that the Sandinistas may well have been right in identifying us Yankees as the “enemy of mankind?”

Mad as Hell!

Don’t get too excited about Joe Biden and his pretense at boldness in the model of FDR.

FDR? Don’t make me laugh. Biden doesn’t even measure up to Eisenhower’s liberalism!

The man and his party have already surrendered to the fascist Republicans who are busy passing new Jim Crow laws to insure their continued minority rule. The Democrats could prevent that by passing the “For the People” Act (HR1). But that would insure continued Democratic rule. It would also require suspension of the Senate filibuster. Uncle Joe and the Dems tremble at the very thought.

Unlike the Republicans, the Democrats just won’t play hard ball. Remember how the fascists refused to even consider Obama’s SCOTUS appointment, Merrick Garland? With the presidential election 11 months off, they said they wanted “the American People” to have a voice in the matter. Then the fascists turned around and rushed through the appointment of a right-wing fanatic Amy Coney Barrett – less than two weeks before the 2020 election!

That and the appointments of sexual predators, Thomas and Kavanaugh, have rendered the SCOTUS absolutely corrupt. None of us should recognize the validity of its decisions.

Yes, Trump is gone for the moment. But enjoy the respite while you can. He’ll soon be back in one form or another – very likely worse than in his last incarnation. And the reason he’ll be back is because the Democrats are gutless wonders who don’t represent any of us. They represent only their rich donors.

Think about it: “The American People” overwhelmingly support Medicare for all, $15 an hour minimum wage, free college, tuition debt forgiveness, gun control, and higher corporate taxes. But can we expect “our” elected officials to follow suit? Of course not! They don’t care what we want — only what their donors demand.

Face it: we’re living in a failed state. Gridlock remains the order of the day. Nothing substantial is done for any of us ordinary people.

Compare “our” government’s gridlock with China’s efficiency – which enjoys (according to U.S polls) the approval of 90% of its population. That sounds like democracy to me.

Do you know how China solved its drunk driving problem? It decreed that a first offense would result in 2 weeks in jail. A second conviction leads to the permanent confiscation of one’s driver’s license! Problem solved.

Last week, there was an extremely rare school shooting in Russia. Immediately, President Putin introduced new restrictions on gun ownership. Our country has mass shootings every week. How do our legislators respond? “Thoughts and prayers.”

Biden’s foreign policy is virtually the same as Trump’s. Old Joe’s man, Tony Blinken says he’s worried about China, the Uyghurs, and the world’s “rules-based order.” But he won’t condemn Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine, will he? He won’t even cut off funding of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince or call him the “killer” he is. Oh yes, “Putin’s a killer,” but not the man who had a Washington Post journalist murdered and dismembered.

What rules-based order?

And what about Cuba? And the Iran deal and old Joe’s continuance of the Donald’s crippling sanctions there? And Venezuela?

And the Pro Act? There’ll be no protection of workers under the Biden Administration. Why? See my note above on filibuster.

I hate to break the news, but it’s all smoke, mirrors, posturing and hypocrisy.

We’re living in a failed state. Yes, Trump will be back.

God help us!

I Go Overboard in Explaining How the Judeo-Christian Tradition = God’s Preferential Option for the Poor

[This is a second reflection on a pair of Zoom experiences I had last Monday. I reported the first here – some comments I made at a meeting of the Y’s Men of Westport. What I said and my insistence on saying it had me wondering about my role in the world during this third stage of my life. How much should I say? To what extent should I just shut up?

Today, I’m reporting on a Zoom meeting later that same day. It had me co-leading a Lenten discussion at our new church in Westport, CT. It was our third pre-Easter session devoted to examining controversial topics connected with our faith. Two weeks earlier, we had discussed miracles, their nature and possibility. A week later, the topic was healing. The topic last Monday was the question of “Jesus for the poor.”

Because of my interest in liberation theology and its signature “preferential option for the poor,” one of our two pastors had invited me to co-lead the discussion with him.

With the pastor’s consent, here’s the way I approached it.]

Introduction

The question of Jesus and poverty is fundamentally a religious question. And religion, of course, is a language. It marries words and concepts to a fundamentally ineffable (beyond words) experience that is open to all people. When that experience occurs in China, it comes out as Buddhism or Confucianism; when it happens in India, it’s expressed as Hinduism; when it happens in Arabia, it takes the form of Islam.

When the religious impulse finds words among the world’s poor and oppressed committed to improving their collective lives, it is expressed as the Judeo-Christian tradition. Yes, I mean that: the biblical tradition (virtually alone among the world’s great literature) thematically reflects the religious consciousness of awakened and impoverished victims of imperialism.

More specifically, the Judeo-Christian tradition found its origin among slaves in pharaonic Egypt. Those slaves formed a people (called Hebrews or “rebels”) who retained their worship of a God favoring ex-slaves, widows, orphans, and resident foreigners throughout their history of domination by empires of various sorts – under Assyrians, Persians, Babylonians, Greeks and Romans.

The Tradition’s Foundational Story

That fact becomes clear when we consider the basic biblical story. According to virtually all mainstream scripture scholars, that narrative begins not with Adam and Eve in the garden, but with the liberation of a motley group of slaves of various ethnic identities. The story told to give them a sense of national unity runs as follows:

Jesus the Christ

Here it is important to note that Jesus appeared precisely in the prophetic tradition. His message represented a defense of the poor. This is abundantly clear from the program he articulated in Chapter 4 of Luke’s gospel:

Jesus’ program represented a reversal of the world’s values. Everything in God’s kingdom would be turned upside-down. According to Luke’s “Beatitudes,” the poor would be blessed, so would the hungry and thirsty along with those suffering persecutions. Meanwhile the rich would be condemned. “Woe to you rich,” Jesus is remembered as saying, “you’ve had your reward.” “Woe to you who laugh now, for you will soon be weeping.” In other words, Jesus’ understanding of God’s future entailed a complete reversal of the world’s social arrangement. As he put it, “The first would be last and the last would be first” (MT 20:16).

What’s more, the early Christian community’s interpretation of Jesus’ message underlined the entire tradition’s “preferential option for the poor.” In the first Christians’ efforts to follow the Master, they actually sold what they had and gave it to the poor. That way of life is reflected in three important passages from the Acts of the Apostles:

Jesus Romanized

With all of that in mind, you can see why the Christian message was so popular with slaves, the poor, with social outcasts. You can see how it inspired revolts as it spread throughout the Roman Empire. You can also understand why Rome became alarmed and famously ended up sponsoring all those persecutions which iconically fed so many Christians to lions and other beasts in the Colosseum. However, it was all to no avail – as Christianity continued to spread like wildfire.

So, at the beginning of the 4^th century of our era, the emperor Constantine decided to co-op Christianity. But to do so, the new religion’s basic narrative had to be changed. It became Romanized and was effectively transformed into a Roman mystery cult.

Mystery cults worshipped gods like Mithra (whose feast day btw was Dec. 25^th), Isis, Osiris, and the Great Mother God. Their stories had the god descend from heaven, die, rise from the dead and ascend to heaven from which s/he offered life everlasting to believers who ate the god’s body and drank the god’s blood under the forms of bread and wine.

In Christian form, the narrative supporting such belief was best expressed by St. Augustine in the 5^th century. Drawing on stories in the book of Genesis and on statements found in Pauline writings, this is the story with which Augustine shaped and captivated Christian belief for the next 1500 years:

Notice here how the story abstracts not only from the histories of Judea and Israel, but from Jesus’ message about the Kingdom of God and its Great Reversal in the here and now. Instead, everything is mythologized.

And that brings us to our discussion questions:

For Discussion

What are your questions about the information in these slides?
What surprised you about that information?
What (if anything) do you find questionable or unacceptable about it?
What are the implications of this approach to the bible and Jesus for your own faith?
What are the implications of this approach for the Talmadge Hill Community Church?

My 1^st & 2^nd Mistakes

Of course, anyone reading what I’ve just presented can see that my first mistake was speaking too long and presenting too many new ideas for a 90-minute discussion. (My face is still bright red.)

My second mistake was even worse.

The slides I just presented had been shared beforehand with our group of about 20. And one member had done his homework. After expressing appreciation for my work, he went on to list in detail his points of disagreement. He began with his belief that the foundational story of the Judeo-Christian tradition was indeed found in Genesis, not Exodus. He went on to say that my presentation overlooked the crucial fact that Jesus is divine, the very Son of God, and that his words about poverty were meant to be taken in a spiritual rather than in a material sense.

In response, I should have kept silent. And if I chose to respond, I should have said, “I really appreciate your taking the time to express so well and clearly the most important points of the Augustinian story. What you’ve done sets us up perfectly for comparing the two basic biblical stories we’ve just reviewed. Does anyone else in the group have similar or different thoughts from the ones just expressed?”

That’s what I should have said.

However, instead (and forgetting all I’ve learned from 40 years of teaching this stuff) I attempted to respond point-by-point to the issues my friend had so well summarized.

Mine was such a bad decision that at one point, the pastor had to cut me off to give other people a chance. (As I said, my face is still a vivid crimson.)

Conclusion

I didn’t sleep well Monday night. I couldn’t help thinking, “When will I ever learn?” I even thought, “I’m getting too old to do this sort of thing. I think my days of teaching, public speaking, and playing leadership roles in church might be over. I’ve got to learn to say less and to stop trying to convince others about what I’ve learned over all my years of studying and dialoguing with Global South scholars. It’s all counterproductive.”

The next morning, however, things appeared a bit less dire. I received telephone calls of encouragement from the co-leading pastor and some others. Emails tried to console me. (But all of that almost made matters worse. It made me think, “They’re just trying to make me feel good. It must have been more awful than I thought.”)

The problem is that I still feel so passionate about rescuing the Jesus tradition from the irrelevance of its domestication by Augustine and subsequent theologians.

In a world of globalized poverty and exploitation, the life, words and teachings of the historical Jesus are too powerful to keep silent about. I’m just going to learn from this sobering, uncomfortable lesson and move on.

This is about something much bigger than my mistakes as a teacher.

At 80, Still Wondering Who I Am

Just yesterday, I had two experiences that made me wonder about myself. Even at the age of 80, I’m still questioning how I should present myself in this world that by all appearances is rushing headlong into terminal disaster? Am I being too outspoken? Should I temper what I say about politics and religion?

For me, those are constant questions. They arise not only in family conversations, but more publicly – e.g., in the context of a men’s group I’m part of in our new hometown, Westport Connecticut. My self-interrogations surface as well in the church that Peggy and are aspiring to enter. It’s the Talmadge Hill Community Church located in nearby Darien. In all three instances – family, the men’s group, and in church – I find myself wondering about transgressing the boundaries of polite discourse.

Today, let me first of all tell you about what happened yesterday with the men’s group. In a subsequent posting, I’ll share my questionable behavior in church – and then in my family.

The Y’s Men

In Westport, I’m a member of The Y’s Men. It’s a group of about 200 retired men, mostly Jewish and with backgrounds in international business, law, local government, and other administrative posts. The organization gets its cleverly ambiguous name from some distant association with the YMCA, which I can’t recall.

In any case, the Y’s Men meet every week and sponsor a myriad of activities that include (among other items) hiking, golf, sailing, a book club, and (before Covid) theater in New York City. I’m enjoying all of that. The Y’s Men are typically very bright and firm I their opinions.

That firmness takes center stage every other week, when a gathering of about 50 of us meet to discuss world issues. There, as we talk about matters such as China, 5G, the Middle East, and the Great Global Reset. In those contexts, the Y’s Men reveal themselves as basically patriotic, respectful of the military, and as “Americans” who understand their country as a splendid model honoring human rights, democracy and the rule of law.

I, of course, share none of those characteristics. Informed by social analysis reflected in liberation theology, my own tendencies have me looking at international affairs from the viewpoint of the world’s majority who are poor and under the jackboot of western imperialism led by the United States of America. As a result, I often find myself at odds with my fellow discussants.

U.S. Policy in the Middle East

This week was no exception. The announced topic is “Recalibrating US Policy with respect to Afghanistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia.” As usual, the conversation reflected the official position of the United States, viz. that “our” interests in recalibration are democracy and the protection of Israel from unreasonably hostile undemocratic forces represented principally by Iran, Islam, the Taliban, and Islamic terrorists.

For me, that position overlooked the provocative hostility of the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia towards Iran which is a major power in the area and whose interpretation of Islam has good reason for being defensively hostile towards foreign control of the Middle East. Consider the following:

Between 2010 and 2012, the intelligence agency (Mossad) of U.S. client Israel, assassinated four of Iran’s top nuclear scientists.
On January 3^rd of 2020, the Trump administration itself assassinated Iran’s revered general, Qassim Soleimani, a national hero.
On November 11^th, 2020, the Mossad also assassinated Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, yet another of the country’s leading nuclear scientists.
On May 8^th, 2018, President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from the internationally supported Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) by which Iran had renounced alleged efforts to develop nuclear weapons. By all accounts, Iran had not violated the agreement.
Instead, the United States intensified economic sanctions on the country which increased Iran’s poverty rate by 11%.
The strengthening of sanctions persisted even during the Covid-19 global pandemic.

Despite such provocations, Iran has taken virtually no retaliatory measures either against Israel or the United States.

In the light of these facts, here’s what said at this week’s meeting:

What we’re calling a “reset” in the Middle East is really a recommitment to traditional U.S. anti-democratic policy there. It has us supporting not democracy, but client kings and potentates throughout the region particularly in Saudi Arabia as well as an apartheid regime in Israel. U.S. enemies here are Islamic nations who understand their religion as an affirmation of independence from outside control – independence from western imperialism and neo-colonialism. (For their part, the United States and its puppets call Islamic striving for independence “terrorism.”) Of course, the point of that imperial control is what it’s always been, viz. transfer of resources. And in the middle east, the resource in question is oil. Nothing has changed. Nothing will change as long as our economy remains petroleum dependent.

My intervention was largely ignored. So, using other words, I reiterated the sentiment about three times more.

Too Insistent?

And that’s my point of self-questioning here. Am I saying too much? Are my positions too radical? If so, are my efforts counterproductive in that they turn people against the very viewpoint I’m trying to share (that of the world’s poor, imperialized and silenced). Should I just shut up and listen?

Family members often caution me in the direction of such judicious silence.

Truthfully however, I find such restraint a species of self-betrayal. My role models – the people I find most admirable in the world – never bit their tongues in similar circumstances and even on the world stage. Their list is long and includes Gandhi, King, Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, Malcolm X, Dorothy Day, William Barber II, Liz Theoharis, Naomi Klein, Cornel West, Jeremiah Wright, Chris Hedges, the Berrigan brothers, and the liberation theologians I’ve spent more than 50 years studying.

Most of all, the list of such truth-tellers is headed by the great prophets of the Bible and by the one who has grasped and held my attention my entire life. I’m talking about Jesus the Christ.

I’ll explore that dimension of my outspokenness and self-doubt in my next posting.

Guest Column: Where are we today?

(Here are some timely thoughts written by my life’s partner, Peggy Rivage-Seul. She is professor emerita of Women and Gender Studies at Berea College, where she taught for more than 30 years.)

The Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico warned us long ago that “another world is necessary.” To make this happen we must exit from the development paradigm of the neoliberal new world order and return to a future of non-violent relationships between ourselves and the planet we call home. Another world has indeed arrived, and perhaps it will soon lead to the vision the Zapatistas have articulated over the past twenty-five years.

Where are we exactly? We are in a globalized moment of social isolation. Unless we are living with our closest relatives, we have lost physical contact with those we love—our children, our grandchildren, our friends, our church, our colleagues, our neighbors. We can no longer break bread with our communities.

How do we make sense of this new social isolation in the world? There are many explanations, undergirded by ideologies that shape the way we perceive our global circumstances. Perhaps most popular is the notion that a virus has either escaped a laboratory created for bio-weaponry against humanity or it has evolved on its own in response to our poor stewardship of our natural resources. Mother Earth has to do some house cleaning because the “developed countries” have not heeded the call to slow down its demands on the earth. The planet warned us through climate changes and catastrophes, but the wealthy among us have prevailed in their global denial of the need to change the way we live.

We are all vulnerable—some of us more than others. Those of us who believe in Adam Smith’s idea that the environment and laborers are expendable can accept that the earth is purging the global population of its poor and elderly who no longer serve the capitalist enterprise. And the earth has been given a respite to re-gather her energies for even more domination and exploitation in the new world to come. There are many sub-scenarios about the “deep state” trying to wrest control of the entire world population, and the “fake news” that there really is a virus at work in our bodies. These are the tales that fill our days.

But there is another story. Eight years ago began a movement in the cosmos: our solar system passed through a portal that leads to another dimension of living much closer to the Zapatista vision for world happiness. This passage is from the third dimension of the material world of capitalist growth to the fourth and fifth dimensions where humans behave at much higher frequencies with strong spiritual values of love and cooperation.

Like the change from pony express mail to cell phone texting, our collective crossing over to these higher dimensions creates an exponential change in our thinking and actions. In the fifth dimension, we can process information with much more efficiency. Working a higher vibrations, both problems and solutions occur at much greater speed. In this new world, the cultural values of the 20^th century no longer serve us.

Wars are passe and violence toward one another is not tolerated. Co-creation for the good of everyone replaces capitalism for the privileged few, oppression gives way to liberation, etc. Most importantly, the mindset of globalized industrialism no longer functions and those unable to make the leap in consciousness will wither on the vine in the third dimension, unable to meet the requirements for living on the new earth.

Underlying this vision of a fifth dimension is a belief in the capacity of humans to claim their direct connection to a divine reality and to live the values of love and justice, cooperation and sharing, joy and sorrow. These values have been alive (and ignored by the developed world) in the ancient traditions of indigenous communities the world over.

The transition from the astrological Piscean Age to the new Aquarian era is made easier as we go back to the future by reclaiming the lessons of Zapatismo. There, we understand that as our consciousness changes and our frequencies rise, we see each other as one family moving into a world where there is room for everyone.

We are no longer individuals competing for scarce resources to survive. We are in this together. “I” becomes “We” as we make instantaneous connection to the source of life that is Spirit. We belong to the earth as much as earth belongs to us. My community becomes the entire world population. We all have a place at the table of life.

Which story will you choose?

Money for Nothin’: Why Pay Federal Taxes?

The do-nothing approach of the know-nothing Trump administration to the COVID-19 crisis has raised a fundamental question for me. Why are we paying federal taxes?

I mean, if (unlike countries even such as South Korea and China) “the greatest country in the world” can’t even make sure that its citizens have enough cotton swabs for coronavirus tests, what is it doing for us? Why am I paying taxes?

And I’m just talking cotton swabs – not to mention low-tech items like test kits themselves or plastic gloves, protective clothing for nurses and doctors, face masks for the rest of us, hospital beds, or ventilators. Cotton swabs!

Of course, the answer is that we’ve somehow bought in to Reaganism. To use his words, it somehow convinced us that “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

Remember that? I do.

It was Reagan’s version of the Edmund Burke quote: “That government is best which governs least. . .” Or as Republican operative, Grover Norquist, put it, “I’m not in favor of abolishing the government. I just want to shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”

Whatever the phrasing, its bottom line over the last 40 years has the government doing less and less for its citizens – and we end up paying more and more.

It’s as if we had two choices: (1) pay taxes those who provide us with the services we need (like healthcare, education, affordable housing, serviceable roads and bridges) or (2) pay them to those who on principle do nothing for us. Pay for something or pay for nothing! By electing Republicans (and many Democrats too), we’ve been making the latter choice.

Is that crazy or what?

And what’s the government doing with my tax dollars – and yours? It’s like we’re paying protection money — to our representatives — to protect us from the services we’re paying for.

I thought government’s first duty was to keep us safe. Right now, though, in the face of the biggest threat to our safety in the last 75 years, our “representatives” are doing nothing – absolutely nothing to that end.

And they’re proud of it.

In fact, we’re on track to re-elect the lot of them again next November.

Go figure.

Easter in the Time of COVID-19

It was a miracle
No one thought possible
Before Ash Wednesday.
Suddenly,
Traffic stopped,
Stores closed,
Schools shuttered,
Even churches.
Focus shifted
To health, family,
Leisure,
Jokes, stories,
Children, grandchildren
Lovemaking,
Reading, studying,
Conversing, writing,
Napping, dreaming,
Cooking and eating
Together.
Houses never cleaner –
Or messier (Your call).
Finally knowing
That Special Other,
And our very selves.
Imagining and living
Without hated jobs
And nosey bosses.
 
With cards freshly reshuffled.
The New Deal came
They said couldn’t be.
Hearts opened
Skies cleared
People sang
From porches
And open windows.
Eyes smiled
With other masks
Dropped and replaced.
Could you tell?
 
And now it’s Easter
Sad tears for the dead
Clear eyes
To see that their passing
Was no Act of God
Or preordained,
That New Life,
Another way
Is possible NOW
(It always was)
Where no one
Dies like that,
And no one’s work
Brings tears,
Where all finally
Get that recompense
Guidance and well-being
Each child deserves.
 
So, no matter what
Wall Street’s
Wolves and vultures
Might howl and screech,
From behind
Presidential Podia,
Tell them:
There’ll be no return
To the tombs we knew
Before Good Friday,
Ash Wednesday
And our cleansing
Lenten fast.
Seize the day:
It’s Easter
NOW
Like never before!