The Convenient Use and Disuse of God

When I visited the Holy Land some years ago, I remember standing on what I guess was a plaza. In back of me was the Wailing Wall, where Jewish men (no women !!) were praying fervently; to my left was the Dome of the Rock, or the Temple Mount, built atop the earlier place where the Jewish Temple had stood before being destroyed in 70 ACE, and to my right was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

All three sites are awe-inspiring; all mark important holy sites with rich histories for all three major religions. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, for example, stands on the site where Golgotha, or Calvary was, the place where Jesus was hung on a cross to die, and that site is also believed to be the place where his tomb was originally. Just the thought of the importance of that site is chilling.

For the Muslims, the Temple Mount is third in terms of being a holy site, after Mecca and Medina, but it sacred to Jews and Christians as well. It was the location of the Temple of Jerusalem, that built by Solomon and the Second Temple which was destroyed by the Romans in 70 ACE. It is supposedly the place where Abraham went to sacrifice his son Isaac. for Muslims, it is thought to be the place from which the prophet Muhammad journeyed to heaven.

The Wailing Wall is thought to be the western wall of the Second Temple. It is a moving site to see people praying there, sometimes wailing, and sometimes writing prayers and pushing them into holes that are in the wall itself.

The image of that place is something I cannot get out of my mind. The “truly religious” pray there, members of the three major faiths of the world. It is almost as if you can feel God himself there.

But in spite of the holiness of that place, the profound sense of the presence of God, there is the reality – and it hits you like a ton of bricks – that in spite of God and all this holiness, there is not peace but war, not a desire to be drawn together and live together, but a desire to use God and religious beliefs to keep apart and flame disagreements using God as the cover and the rationale.

The sense of holiness I felt was doused at that moment by cloud of sadness.

I thought about that site as I watched a program on the history of the Ku Klux Klan. I was mostly fascinated by what I was learning, but found myself deeply saddened as Klan members explained the meaning of the burning of crosses. Jesus was the light of the world, the Klansman said, and we light crosses to remind people that we bring the light of the world to a world of darkness, a world where (the “n” word) and Jews are not wanted.

Then the program showed a cross burning, or cross lighting ceremony, where scriptures were read and where, to my horror, the song “Amazing Grace” was sung as crosses were lit and were allowed to burn.

It hit me that God, or the sacredness of God, is different, and is explained and understood differently, by humans. The God of the KKK is one who allows murder and domestic terrorism in His name; this God condones racial and religious hatred. The God that everyone worships in Jerusalem on the site where all three major religions are represented is a God who allows, sanctions, enmity between religious groups, again in the name of God.

The God I believe in doesn’t condone or approve of any of that.

President Jimmy Carter explained, in an interview by Paul Raushenbush on the Huffington Post that he felt part of the reason he was elected president was to help bring peace to the Middle East. He was and is deeply religious, as was Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat. Three people of different faiths, President Carter suggests in the interview, had like minds when it came to what God would have wanted. These men seemed all to have been whispered to by God to bring the confusion about who God is and what God wants to an end.

Their efforts were not appreciated. Anwar Sadat was assassinated, and President Carter was voted out of office;Begin lost support amongst Israelis and after his wife died, became more and more depressed and kind o faded out of the spotlight. Before that happened, Begin and Sadat signed a peace treaty; they had been brought together by President Carter. The Camp David Accords were socially historic but religiously monumental. Here were three men who saw God in the same way, their different faiths notwithstanding…but they were not appreciated. Their people thought they were wusses.

I think of the first term of President Barack Obama. I remember him saying he was going to reach across the isles; he was going to try to make Washington a different place. It was going to be place where “change” included Republicans and Democrats actually working together.

Instead, it has been a mess, with the Republicans jamming the president at every turn and the president coming off and being touted as being “weak” and “too accommodating.” It is as though the Gospel precepts are good for church, but are damned if one tries to practice them in real life.

One must not appear to be weak, and how better to appear strong if you take controversial stands on things, like your political beliefs, and use God as justification?

I cannot help but thinking that believing in God is a hard thing to do, if one is genuine. Believing in God and trying to do what a loving God would want does not win people praise or accolades, but instead resigns them to places of despair and loneliness.

I found myself, as I watched the history of the Klan, being angry at God. “Why don’t You just fix us?” I asked, meaning, why doesn’t God make us differently, wire us differently, so that we are not only capable of bringing real peace to the world, but willing as well.

Of course, God didn’t answer.

God usually doesn’t…

A candid observation.

Girl Talk: Becoming

I have decided that in 2012, every Thursday I will write an article just for us girls.

I’m going to call it “Girl Talk.”

And today, I want to ask a question: By this time next year, how do you want your life to look? Where do you want to be? What do you want to be doing?

The phrase “by this time next year” was brought to my attention via a sermon preached by Rev. Lance Watson, who preached a sermon entitled the same. Taken from the story of Abraham and Sarah, who were old and childless, the Lord tells them that they will have children.

They are old; it says in the 18th chapter of Genesis that “they were already old and well advanced in years, yet this promise to them was made by God. “I will surely return to you about this time next year and Sarah your wife will have a son.

Sarah was past the age of childbearing and she laughs; God hears her and asks why? He confronts Abraham, asking “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old” Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year and Sarah will have a son.”

That sermon stayed with me, as did the question, and I have begun a women’s group here in Columbus called “Becoming.” The driver for the group is the statement, “By this time next year…” and the women have decided what they want and how they will get there “by this time next year.”

The idea behind the question and the work that we are doing is that we women, too many of us, are not even close to being what God created us to be. We have thwarted ourselves by comparing ourselves to other people; we carry low self esteem like it’s a part of our anatomy; we are not able to love ourselves and so our love relationships suffer. The fact is that too many of us do not realize who we are, and how innately gifted we are.

We need to “become” the people God created us to be.

I watched Michele Bachmann bow out of the 2012 Republican presidential campaign, and though I do not agree with her politics, it seems to me that she is a woman who has “become.” She has chutzpah and convictions and she is a bulldog in staying her course, in spite of sexism and all the other things she as a woman in man’s world has to face. She fought to be heard by media which really didn’t want to treat her as a serious candidate; she made herself heard.

She has “become” who God made her to be, and is still “becoming.” Think of what this world would be if more of us women would become.

Way too many of us stayed covered and protected, in cocoons or pupae, like butterflies or moths waiting to “become” the beauties that they are. There are a lot of reasons for that, but whatever the reason or reasons, we need to shed them.

The women in the group I began are moving. It is so inspiring to see! They are pushing out of their cocoons, trying things they always wanted to but were afraid to try. They are applying for jobs they always wanted to apply for, working to get their poetry published, no longer afraid of rejection. They are realizing that they have gifts that they have never used, and I can see them putting little toes in the water.Some of them by now are standing in the water they were afraid to even look at several months ago.

One of the members’ original goal was to have a husband “by this time next year.” Now, however, she has changed her goal. She is owning the fact that she has a gift for interior decorating and she is determined that by this time next year, she will be on her way to being able to do that as a living, something she loves and is passionate about. As she has made that decision, her spirit has resonated and she is actually drawing to herself clients who recognize her gifts and who want to use her.

She is “becoming.” She is pushing out of her cocoon. It is so exciting to watch!

Nobody in the group is allowed to just say what they will “be.” They are required to report on their progress on a monthly basis.

And so, if you asked yourself “by this time next year what do I want to be?” what would your answer be? Ask yourselves the question, and see if it doesn’t empower you.

Final thought: I am pushing out of my cocoon, too!

A candid observation…

Will The Real Church Please Stand Up?

In this new year, I wonder how many religious people, or “the Church” will have the nerve to be brave?

I have long been saddened at the Church’s silence on issues like racism, antisemitism, militarism,homophobia and materialism. In fact, the Church has been complicit in many of these “isms,” something which is troubling because the silence and complicity seems so out of alignment with what holy documents would want its followers to do.

How is it that the world is in such disarray, with “believers” going at each other in the name of God, or oppressing other people, in the presence of a loving God who would demand justice?

It takes guts to speak up and speak out against oppression. I remember in seminary a friend of mine saying that his father, a pastor, was afraid to speak against racism because people would leave his church. Or I think of how pastors advised Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King to not be so eager to change a racist system; they were “in bed” with an oppressive government and could not, in spite of their belief in God, condone a fellow Christian minister to right some amazing and long-standing wrongs in our society.

I wonder if they were trying to appease their congregations?

OK, I am making some very broad generalizations. There were and have been representatives of “the church” who stood up for civil rights, for the rights of Native Americans, for women, for gay people … But it seems that the broader picture of “the church” is that it has been largely silent as social viruses have ravaged our society and our world.

What brings me to this is my personal belief that “the church” has been afraid and unwilling to speak up and speak against what might be going on Israel. It seems that the Palestinians may not have been treated too well, but everyone is afraid to speak up, including the church. Why is it impossible to speak up for the Palestinians, and still be supportive of Israel? Why is it that “the church” cannot seem to support a people, the Palestinians, who seemingly have few people to speak up for them, and still support Israel?

Is the religion of our God that impotent? Doesn’t the Christian God demand that followers speak up on behalf of the oppressed? Does it make us “less Christian” if we speak up on behalf of a people who have nobody to speak for them?

The silence of the church today as regards Palestinians reminds me of the silence of the church during slavery, during the persecution of Native Americans, during the horrible mass extermination of the Jews under Hitler. Not only was the church silent during some of these events, but in some cases, it was complicit.

What is “the church,” anyway? Is it a mouthpiece and representation of and for God, or is it a network of social clubs?

I would hope that more churches will speak up against oppression of any kind in 2012. It seems that it is time for a new paradigm, a new demand that “believers” stop being so comfortable and be encouraged to lean on the God they believe in in order to bring about change in this world.

Surely, a change is needed. There is just way too much chaos – in spite of God.

A candid observation …

Would the World be Better Without Religion?

A report issued this week said that lobbying and advocacy by religious groups has increased by fivefold since 1970 and has become a $400 million industry.

The study, issued by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life, said that religious groups are making their voices and opinions known as never before, addressing issues including abortion, marriage, the relationship between church and state, and bioethics and life issues, among others.

Religious groups include Roman Catholics, evangelical and mainline Protestants, Jews, Muslims, and other, smaller religions of this country, and all of them seek to influence both domestic and foreign policy.

But a question arises: Why? Why should religion get so heavily involved in politics and policy-making? Is there separation between church and state, or not? And, echoing a question argued this week on National Public Radio, “Would the world be better off without religion,” would it? Would there be less of a mess, less gridlock and less acrimony on Capitol Hill if religious people would simply “do God” and leave politics alone?

Some argue that there is a moral crisis in this country and in the world, and if that is the case, a co-mingling of religion and politics hardly seems the way to address and rectify the problem. Religion is supposed to be the vehicle in which rule of morality and “right behavior” are carried to people and taught. Politics, on the other hand, would scoff at such a vehicle because the aim of politics, or politicians, is to win, no matter what.

Forget the “golden rule” would seem to be the battle cry of those looking to win an election. Politicians, it would seem, push God to the periphery so that they can freely ignore all religious precepts as they go for the “big win.” The quest for salvation can come later, if at all.

There seems to be no concern for religious precepts or the will of God when it comes to politics and elections, so what are religions trying to do as they spend close to $400 million annually lobbying politicians?

In the NPR debate, which occurred on a program called “Intelligence Squared US,” a rabbi, a descendant of Charles Darwin, a philosopher and a scholar squared off over the value of religion in the world. Predictably, the rabbi and scholar argued for the good of religion in the world, and the descendant of Charles Darwin and the philosopher saw no real need for religion.

Matthew Chapman, the great-great grandson of Charles Darwin, and A.C. Grayling, argued against the value of religion for the world. On the cheer team for religion were Rabbi David Wolpe and Dinesh D’Souza.

Religion, the “keep-religion in the world” proponents said, organizes people “to do good things.” If that is the case, then we might assume that the lobbying going on by religious people are encouraging politicians to “do good things.” But, notes A.C. Graying, there is no one “great rule” or one model of what is good. So, what is “good” for an evangelical might not be seen as good by a Muslim, or what is lobbied as a good thing by a mainline Protestant might seem reprehensible by a Roman Catholic.

And, noted Chapman, “religion makes everyone an infidel to something.”

Those statements are baffling, seeing as how presumably there is one God who gave one blueprint of what “good things” are, but “we the people” seem to have participated in revisionist interpretation of the sacred texts, so that “we the people” decide what is “good,” according to our own values, culture and predicament, God notwithstanding.

So, what “good” are the religious groups lobbying for? What good are these religions, which have allowed so much pain, and in fact inflicted so much pain, based on their definition of “good?” While religions are lobbying, using these millions of dollars, I find myself wondering if that money might better be spent on doing “good” for those who really need it, who have nothing to pay except extreme gratitude for being looked upon as human and worthwhile by one who says he or she loves God.

That would be a candid observation.