All apologies to my Muslim and Evangelical/Pentecostal friends for my new use of "evangelical Sharia" in describing the world that the extreme Christian Right in this country wants to impose on the rest of us. It does not do justice to long history of Islamic Jurisprudence, nor does it imply an unappreciative stance towards the complexities of the interaction of this form of religious law with modern governmental systems. Likewise, it does not reveal the subtleties of an evangelical tradition that has in the past, and for many still does, echo the best of what Christianity offers (community, morality, social consciousness, and prophetic truth to power).
What it DOES do, however, is bring radically to the fore the fact that the new Christian Right wants to bring about a Christian version of the world they claim that Islam wants to bring about in America - using a mutated and unrecognizable "Sharia" as the whipping boy for their project. They assume that if Americans are terrified of "Sharia," they will be open to the application of a radically redefined, heretofore nonexistent, and mightily misogynistic religious law - one that at every point echoes the one they act all terrified that the "MOOSLIM" bogeymen are going to impose on them! Of course, this leads us to the obvious point that their worry isn't really Islam or its philosophical and judicial underpinnings. What they are actually afraid of is a) women with any real power whatsoever, b) men that don't agree with them, and c) dominance by anything other than white American males or any of the "other" that promotes the continued dominance of the current CCRWRSWAM (Conservative Christian Right Wing Republican Straight White American Males - all regards to Todd Snider) in power.
So, my use of "Evangelical Sharia" is not a slam on either Sharia or Evangelicals as a whole - but rather an attempt to address in a directly satirical and mildly offensive way the fact that these bobble-headed giggle-twits (thanks to Lee Camp for that one) are not afraid in any real way that some radical form of Islam is coming to ensnare America. Instead, they are using a hopped up fear of some artificial mish-mash of Islam, secularism, science, education, and "Satanism" to attempt their own power grab - one that looks amazingly like the bogeyman they are scaring the public with. The Pentecostal world from which I arose had its issues, but its origins were radically communitarian and pacifistic. The heroes of my youth stood against killing, refused to vote so as not to be involved in worldly politics, and cared for the least among them. While there was inherent racism in the system, I was taught early on to avoid decisions based in prejudice, and that the value of each person was in their behavior and contributions as individuals. The founders of our movement stood up against wealth and power as ungodly, and stood up for humility and egalitarianism as models of a Christian civilization. I have watched sadly as the movement has lost it's socially conscious voice, suppressed the prophetic voice of its women, rejected its teachers, abandoned its pacifism, bought into the current frantic fear-mongering that passes for Christianity today, and - with open arms - embraced as models the very wealthy, prideful, arrogant, whited sepulchers that they rose up against in the beginning. Someone needs to say this. I have said it, am saying it now, and I will continue to say it. If it is offensive, I apologize - but not to those it was intended to offend. To them I say, "If it hurts, it must be striking a nerve."
Friday, March 16, 2012
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Some thoughts on birth control, abortion, and other uncomfortable subjects...
So, a quick few thoughts for my pro-life friends...
I understand your angst. The thought of the death of a viable or even non-viable fetus (if developed enough to sense what is happening) makes me sick. But there is a serious and rather glaring flaw in the logic being imposed from conservative leadership. For some reason, they deliberately seek to PREVENT the easiest method imaginable to stop abortions. Research shows that one simple political/social move could cut abortions in half (That means saving HALF of the babies you want to protect!!) The same decision could prevent a significant number of unwed births and remove countless children from welfare rolls. This magic bullet consists of a combination of birth control and sex education. Half of all abortions could be prevented by the use of contraceptives and the education necessary to use them.
Now, this flies in the face of Conservative Christian meta-narratives, and I will address that in a moment. But one must seriously ask why someone formerly (at least tacitly) in favor of birth control and women's choice such as Rick Santorum might fight the implementation of such measures. Giving such politicians the benefit of the doubt, we might suggest that they are "playing to their audience" in an attempt to gain support of the hard right core. On a less charitable note, one might ask if they are more interested in keeping the number of abortions high so they have a platform to stump on and sway core voters. Even worse, one might observe that in order for big business to function successfully, it needs to have a large pool of barely educated able bodies to pull upon in order to both man its manual labor pools and fight its wars. (Personally, I lean to the last two.)
As for the meta-narratives and myths on sex, birth control, and sex education in the RWCC story cycles...
It is simply not true that birth control or sex-ed lead to either more sex or to disease and unwanted pregnancies. That cat is already out of the bag. Arguably, this might have been true in the past, but it is highly unlikely. Historical research shows that even in Puritan America at least 1/3 of the marriages were for the convenience of making sure a baby wasn't a bastard. Unwanted babies arise from lack of knowledge as much as from the natural inclination in humans to engage in sexual activity. Greater access to birth control didn't result in an increase in single moms, though arguably the liberty to not suffer humiliation if one doesn't marry the father of one's baby does.
It is also not true that the Bible calls for a world with no birth control. The only scriptures that could conceivably be contrived to mean this consist of a morality tale from ancient Mesopotamia that involved keeping community laws and behaving morally towards others. If one were to assume that the story (found in Genesis 38 - the infamous "spill your seed" passage) was meant to imply universal law, then one would have to insist that widowed women have sex with and marry (often polygamously) the brother of their former husband... or even that in certain circumstances it would be perfectly OK to sleep with your father-in-law under false pretenses. If this was a prohibition on birth control or masturbation, one would be led to wonder why there was never law laid down that would have prevented these things, which were certainly well known in the time that the scriptures were being written. Certainly Jesus, Paul, Peter, James, or John might have thought to mention it in the NT? We certainly know that birth control, abortion, and masturbation occurred historically, if common sense didn't already tell us as much.
The other passages generally used consist of various rhetorical passages which state in various ways that the Lord created us in the womb or knew us before birth. Without taking up a theological or historically critical understanding of these passages, we might also simply recognize that this doesn't mean every chance at life was meant to BE life. Millions of sperm never reach an egg. Millions of eggs get passed out without encountering sperm. 50% of conceptions spontaneously abort in the first 2 weeks. Many never make it much farther. If the God of the Bible meant for sex to mean conception, then he is apparently quite capricious in the enacting of His ideas! Likewise, one must concede that if he manipulates who has sex and what the result is, then he is also able to control whether birth control works or not, and that he would know whether birth control would be used, and would actually be willing it when it both was used and when it worked. (My third daughter was proof of this concept in action =:-)
All this to say, once again, that the discussion on sex and birth control is too colored by politics and religious (and often male) bias, and not affected enough by logic or rational decision making.
So, some advice to my friends who DO buy into Conservative Christian meta narratives. Support Birth Control and sex education. Successfully prevent half of the unwanted pregnancies from becoming death statistics. Prevent more by being willing to provide homes for the children and hand-ups for the women and men involved. THEN work towards any goals you like in the direction of abstinence. If abstinence only is the goal, don't try to reach it by stubbornly "cutting off your nose to spite your face" in insisting that there MUST be enough abortions for people to recognize the importance of not having sex. If you believe what you say you believe, small lives are at stake.
I understand your angst. The thought of the death of a viable or even non-viable fetus (if developed enough to sense what is happening) makes me sick. But there is a serious and rather glaring flaw in the logic being imposed from conservative leadership. For some reason, they deliberately seek to PREVENT the easiest method imaginable to stop abortions. Research shows that one simple political/social move could cut abortions in half (That means saving HALF of the babies you want to protect!!) The same decision could prevent a significant number of unwed births and remove countless children from welfare rolls. This magic bullet consists of a combination of birth control and sex education. Half of all abortions could be prevented by the use of contraceptives and the education necessary to use them.
Now, this flies in the face of Conservative Christian meta-narratives, and I will address that in a moment. But one must seriously ask why someone formerly (at least tacitly) in favor of birth control and women's choice such as Rick Santorum might fight the implementation of such measures. Giving such politicians the benefit of the doubt, we might suggest that they are "playing to their audience" in an attempt to gain support of the hard right core. On a less charitable note, one might ask if they are more interested in keeping the number of abortions high so they have a platform to stump on and sway core voters. Even worse, one might observe that in order for big business to function successfully, it needs to have a large pool of barely educated able bodies to pull upon in order to both man its manual labor pools and fight its wars. (Personally, I lean to the last two.)
As for the meta-narratives and myths on sex, birth control, and sex education in the RWCC story cycles...
It is simply not true that birth control or sex-ed lead to either more sex or to disease and unwanted pregnancies. That cat is already out of the bag. Arguably, this might have been true in the past, but it is highly unlikely. Historical research shows that even in Puritan America at least 1/3 of the marriages were for the convenience of making sure a baby wasn't a bastard. Unwanted babies arise from lack of knowledge as much as from the natural inclination in humans to engage in sexual activity. Greater access to birth control didn't result in an increase in single moms, though arguably the liberty to not suffer humiliation if one doesn't marry the father of one's baby does.
It is also not true that the Bible calls for a world with no birth control. The only scriptures that could conceivably be contrived to mean this consist of a morality tale from ancient Mesopotamia that involved keeping community laws and behaving morally towards others. If one were to assume that the story (found in Genesis 38 - the infamous "spill your seed" passage) was meant to imply universal law, then one would have to insist that widowed women have sex with and marry (often polygamously) the brother of their former husband... or even that in certain circumstances it would be perfectly OK to sleep with your father-in-law under false pretenses. If this was a prohibition on birth control or masturbation, one would be led to wonder why there was never law laid down that would have prevented these things, which were certainly well known in the time that the scriptures were being written. Certainly Jesus, Paul, Peter, James, or John might have thought to mention it in the NT? We certainly know that birth control, abortion, and masturbation occurred historically, if common sense didn't already tell us as much.
The other passages generally used consist of various rhetorical passages which state in various ways that the Lord created us in the womb or knew us before birth. Without taking up a theological or historically critical understanding of these passages, we might also simply recognize that this doesn't mean every chance at life was meant to BE life. Millions of sperm never reach an egg. Millions of eggs get passed out without encountering sperm. 50% of conceptions spontaneously abort in the first 2 weeks. Many never make it much farther. If the God of the Bible meant for sex to mean conception, then he is apparently quite capricious in the enacting of His ideas! Likewise, one must concede that if he manipulates who has sex and what the result is, then he is also able to control whether birth control works or not, and that he would know whether birth control would be used, and would actually be willing it when it both was used and when it worked. (My third daughter was proof of this concept in action =:-)
All this to say, once again, that the discussion on sex and birth control is too colored by politics and religious (and often male) bias, and not affected enough by logic or rational decision making.
So, some advice to my friends who DO buy into Conservative Christian meta narratives. Support Birth Control and sex education. Successfully prevent half of the unwanted pregnancies from becoming death statistics. Prevent more by being willing to provide homes for the children and hand-ups for the women and men involved. THEN work towards any goals you like in the direction of abstinence. If abstinence only is the goal, don't try to reach it by stubbornly "cutting off your nose to spite your face" in insisting that there MUST be enough abortions for people to recognize the importance of not having sex. If you believe what you say you believe, small lives are at stake.
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