9/11 is only going to become more important as the distance from it to the present increases. The kids I see in schools everyday weren't even alive when it happened and so many young people have no living memory. As much as telling our stories can feel old, at times, it's important to help our collective memory.
The world is different now than it was, which is always true, but rarely do we have such definitive, recognizable transition moments as 9/11. The militant nationalism so prevalent in our society can be traced to that day and the ones following. Our obsession with safety and security are collective travails that extend from the emotional trauma of watching a nation that had never previously been attacked succumb to the kind of violence that's commonplace in so many countries around the world.
It's a real thing and we must, absolutely, with all our might, prevent it from becoming legend.
Legends lack complexity and context. When we were in Hawaii a few years back, we got to tour the Pearl Harbor memorial. What struck me most about the museum was the dearth of historical context. The US was competing with Japan for influence and control in the Pacific, and part of that meant limiting Japan's supply of oil. War was inevitable, because that particular US policy was an existential threat to their country. We can talk about tragedy - a surprise attack that cost a lot of lives - without negating the issues surrounding it's place in history. We don't tend to do that, though, we paint ourselves the innocent victims and the "other guy" as the bloodthirsty evil.
The speed with which we did that in 2001 is why 9/11 has much a troubled connection in my mind. We set out for revenge real quick. It didn't even seem to matter who was on the other end of our national fist. It got us into a lot of trouble and it shaped our society in really negative ways (beyond the governmental and economic consequences, which were nothing to sneeze at).
9/11 was a violent attack; all violence should be denounced. I don't like the distinction between civilian and military targets, because, as I said, all violence should be denounced - but 9/11 was certainly beyond even the commonly accepted rules of war: terror at it's very definition. The purpose of terror, of course, is to create a fear that grows, panic and overreaction that feeds itself in a cycle of expansion that ultimately gnaws at the roots of a society.
In that sense, the terrorists won.
That's why context is so important. We need to tell the stories of our experiences and emotions on that day. We need to communicate just how traumatic it was for people entirely disconnected from the lives lost, because violence has real consequences - when we do it and when we're the victims of it. We need to tell the stories to learn the lessons of how to respond to terror, how to control our very real and right fear and not allow it to eat us up and dictate our actions.
We need to keep 9/11 within the larger narrative of international politics, recognizing the out-sized influence the US has played in middle eastern politics and how quickly a religious narrative can be used to manipulate people and power. We need to keep perspective on the "good vs evil" dynamics and tell the story of 9/11 honestly - not filtered through the lenses we'd like it to fit.
Things have been sanitized that don't deserve cleaning. The impact of the clean-up on the fire and police officers, the rescue workers, both paid and volunteer - they're lionized in the stories we tell as they lie forgotten, suffering and dying as a result of their work. Hundreds of thousands of ordinary people in Iraq and Afghanistan died because of decisions our government made. Casualties of war are not just numbers on a page or phrases in a history book; they're real people - and there's many more of "them" who died than there ever were of "us." Such small numbers of "us" were ever asked to serve or sacrifice and we continually cut corners and pinch pennies to care for the hearts and heads of people who gave life and limb and family to fight angry, vengeful wars. We can't even be bothered to sacrifice the next marginally better drone or fighter jet to provide the medical care veterans across the country need.
Yes, I'm opposed to war and violence, precisely because they dehumanize and devalue life. It's all the more reason to support and care for those who've been victims of such war (and there are always many victims on every side of a fight).
I feel very different about 9/11 today than I did seventeen years ago, but that should also be part of the story. Reliving the vivid memories and emotional legacy of the moment as well as the changes it's wrought in us since that day, both individually and collectively. We need to recognize that while this is a singularly remarkable event, it is but one of many singularly remarkable events in our history and each come from somewhere and lead to somewhere. They fit in a larger narrative with both causes and consequences. While we may not be able to internalize all the complexities of experiencing such an event, we can understand why it happens and how we need to respond.
We can only do that, though, if we're honest - not just about the story we want to tell, but about the story that must be told. The worst possible way to memorialize 9/11 is to make it legend. The best thing to do is to keep it real.
May we all keep it real. On this day and on every one to come.
Rarely do you find a piece of history so interesting that's not already in the common knowledge. A few books have been written about Operation Azorian, but it was all new to me. In 1968 a Russian nuclear sub had an accident and sunk, mostly intact, in 17,000 feet of North Pacific water.
The US wanted to recover the nukes and any coding information on board and thus concocted a crazy scheme to essentially invent a whole slew of new technology and build a huge, experimental ship, strictly for this purpose.
We could get caught up in the follies of war or the economics of spending $250m in 1970s dollars for such a project, but I'd rather just focus on the well-written, enthralling history of this unlikely mission. Josh Dean gives detail, but not so much as to bog the story down. He gives background that's interesting and mostly leaves out what's not. It's a pretty dense 450 pages, but they fly by with great anticipation. Chapters are short, and it reads like a novel.
Being a real story, the ending is a bit of a letdown, but there's great joy in discovering and learning about a really fascinating piece of history. I didn't really have a blog post topic for today I was excited about, but if even four or five of you pick up this book, the time and space will be worth it. I think a lot of my regular readers would really appreciate The Taking of K-129.
This all has to be said in the context of exasperation that we're in 2017 and this is what we're happy about. It shouldn't take 150 years to get to this point, but we are where we are. The words that people like Lindsay Graham, who's accent sounds like a caricature ripped from Django Unchained, use to condemn the President of the United States from his own party are pretty amazing. The critique that these words mean less than the votes these GOP leaders tend to cast in the opposite direction is entirely true, but the words aren't meaningless; it's progress, albeit small.
We like to think that the world which changes so quickly in some areas, should easily be transformed by truth and justice. It should. It really should, but it isn't. Love is patience; it takes time - painful, frustrating, unjust time. And despite the ease with which we see war and violence and hatred and racism rear its head around the world, there are plenty of signs that love does change people. It's not much, but it's something. Even if this show of conscience is, in its skeptical extreme, entirely politically motivated, the very fact that politics is playing in this direction is, sadly, progress for the United States.
For many white people, it seems like things are getting worse, but the reality is we've just largely isolated ourselves from the national racial tension, ignored it, and avoided the discussion that is now being thrust before us. The reality is, most of us haven't faced up to the prejudice that lives inside each of us because we just haven't had to do it.
That prejudice is real. The implicit bias test, conducted by Harvard researchers, shows that just about every person - black and white - has at least a subconscious bias against dark skin. We react differently to black people than to white people. The cliche shortening of breath, clutching of purse, walking to the other side of the road is not perception, but reality. Regardless of how we act, think, or speak, we should be able to say, "Sometimes, my first reaction is not one I'm proud of."
The difference between that - between you and me - and those lunatics rioting in Charlottesville is that they lean into it, they embrace it.
While I do believe the world is changing - and for the better - there is a reality with which we must deal before we can move on. There will always be prejudice; there will always be outsiders and "other," at least for the forseeable future - but the battle of prejudice doesn't have to be about race. That can change, but it's got to be dealt with.
Rarely, if ever, in the history of civilization, did the losing side get to keep its culture and identity relatively unchecked. There have been thousands of volumes written that analyze the aftermath of the Civil War, but the truth is, enforcing a culture change, resultant from war,
would've been a more difficult task than a still fledgling nation was willing to bear. The South got left with a don't ask/don't tell racial policy for generations as the can was kicked down the road.
Southern culture has made 150 years of gradual improvement - much as was expected (and hoped) when the nation left it to its own devices - but that underlying culture of racial superiority still exists in some measure and it's not just going to walk out the door on its own. I'm a student of history (literally - I've got a degree to prove it), more than anything I rue our current inability to understand historical context.
Well, I guess I thought I rued that more than anything - now it appears, even worse is the understanding of historical context poorly.
There might - and I say 'might' with the generosity possible understanding that this is merely hypothetical and not at all reflective of reality - be some case for statues or monuments erected in the 1860's, commemorating fallen loved ones with historically and culturally appropriate descriptors. That's an at least defensible use of historical context. When it comes to statues and memorials erected during the most intense periods of racial strife, celebrating "heroes" with incendiary and inaccurate descriptors, it's hard to make any sort of respectable defense. Real historical context, at least in the case of the vast majority of southern monuments, includes a lot of facts that don't appear on the plaques. That's reality, too.
Robert E Lee may have been a paragon of manners and civilized society, acting in accordance with a disciplined code of perceived honor, especially in contrast to many of the other less educated, less refined personalities we associate with the confederacy. That doesn't make him a saint. Maybe Lee really did fight for the South entirely because of his belief in States' Rights, and his association with those virulent racists was simply because of a common foe - that's best case scenario, right? Still, he didn't free his slaves to prove his position - and there's certainly evidence to the counter the long-held perception of the man that's worth looking at.
In the end, though, even Lee felt holding on to the culture and memory of the Confederacy was detrimental to the healing of a nation. He specifically spoke out against the kind of monuments so many towns would one day dedicate to and of him. The families of these "heroes" don't want the statues to remain, neither do the majority of the populations in most of the municipalities where they reside.
Some cities have changed the plaques to better represent the reality of the Civil War; sometimes they've added statues of civil rights heroes alongside to tell a more fleshed out story of our nation's history. There are ways to do this that really do keep history front and center, but which also avoid the whitewashing (now there's a word that's right on the nose, am I right?) or avoidance of the realities of race in the US.
I can't finish this overlong post, though, without at least mentioning the difficulties these kinds of considerations create for our future. People have gotten mad at Trump for asking if George Washington is next. I'm not sure why - it's a fair question. The man had no more forward-thinking or enlightened opinions about slavery than General Lee - he was a generally selfish and belligerent guy who was unfairly lionized due to some accidents of timing and his refusal to become king.
That doesn't make George Washington a "bad" guy - although I wouldn't want him as a role model to my kids. He's like just about everyone else in history: unfailingly human. We've got few true saints out there - and they'll be the first to argue there's none. We've got no real saints when it comes to people of power and influence - those things just don't go hand in hand.
I'll admit its difficult. Princeton has been dealing with the legacy of Woodrow Wilson for years now. The guy was smart - PhD, Ivy League President, Governor, President - he served through WWI and is generally listed among the 5 or 10 best Presidents we've ever had. He was also pretty darn racist, in overt and activist ways - an above-average racist at a time when average (or even below average) was still pretty darn racist. How do we deal with people who aren't just imperfect, but seriously flawed?
I suspect old George Washington gets a pass because we all agree on the value of the country he helped to found, we've all bought into the mythos well enough to leave things be. Would the mythos around Washington or Jefferson (or, God-forbid, Andrew Jackson) be any different than that surrounding Lee if Native Americans had survived in the same numbers and with the same voice as African Americans? Or if they'd simply lived a hundred years later?
I'm in total support of our difficult embrace of the racial problems in this country. Let's take down the statues and take a second look at the history books and the mythology and the stories we take for granted about who we are. We just can't stop when our liberal comfort is comfort is challenged or our white guilt starts to fade.
The world is a mess. Life is a mess. We are a mess. The solutions will not be easy or pretty or fun. We're gonna have to be okay with that and we're going to have to sacrifice as much, if not more, than what we're asking "those others" to sacrifice right now.
That episode, which I'd recommend to anyone, centers on the history of the relationship between the LAPD and the black community. It's a sad, tragic story. For me, it was eye-opening. I have a history degree. I am well-read. I care to know and understand issues of social and racial justice as well as I can for a privileged white guy. I was floored by just how much well-documented history I was simply unaware of.
I don't mean the countless thousands and thousands of beatings, rapes, and lynchings that went virtually unnoticed in our nation's history; I mean the dozens and dozens of serious abusive incidents, intensely publicized and covered by media that are just lost to even the sympathetic white racial narrative.
I know, intellectually, that Emmett Till was not the only black teenager who's life brutally ended for being black, and I know, intellectually, that Bull Connor was not the only law enforcement to use dogs and fire hoses to quiet peaceful protesters. However, it's real easy to believe those were isolated incidents when they are the only ones you know. Episode three opened my eyes to this huge middle-ground of racial injustice - events that were covered, named, exposed, and then all but forgotten. Not forgotten by the black community, for sure, but lost to white history altogether.
You sort of know there's a lot you don't know - if there's one thing education teaches it's just how ignorant we really are - but this has really rattled me the last few weeks. Probably more so because my white sense of justice tells me there should be some way for me to remedy this oversight, when there really isn't. Part of understanding injustice is the reality that we, who come from the class of perpetrators, can never even understand it in ways that we'd like to.
Healing comes not in understanding or explaining - not even in apology or reconciliation - but in mourning. We have to be comfortable with the grave discomfort of injustice, because no matter what we do now, or moving forward, it cannot be undone.
Racial tension is not something new and its not immediate. Whatever problems we have now are firmly rooted in the past. If we don't understand that, we cannot act in appropriate ways in our own lives. This OJ documentary really helps put that in perspective for me. It's worth seeing. I hope you do.
I've always been a hound for facts. I consume knowledge for its own sake - with all the good and bad that comes with it. I've always been this way. My parents, until they sold it, had a set of encyclopedias with a bookmark in it marking how much I'd read. The book mark was a library pass from 7th grade. Yeah. That's me.
I did the Geography Bee as a kid in school (and did very well), I still love maps far too much. I like dates and timelines and any display of any kind with even remotely interesting facts on it. You do not want to play me in Trivial Pursuit (and you really wouldn't have wanted to play 22 year old me, before the ravages of age took hold on my memory). Needless to say, I became a history major in college. I've got a degree in it. I find the past fascinating, mostly for what it tells us about who we are and what's going on today.
In high school I geeked out over this guy, David Barton (I feel like I've written about this on the blog before, but I can't find it, so we'll go again). He was a Christian historian who traveled around telling people how Christian the founding fathers were and making a really strong case for Christian patriotism. Being the uber-evangelical kid I was, I latched on to this pretty heavily. I read his books and touted his information all over the place. At one point, he even came to our church and spoke. It was really, really cool. I'm guessing he was a big reason I became a history major in the first place.
I was a pretty good history student, I like to think, maybe a bit lazy at times, but good. When I was introduced to real historical research and set loose on primary sources, I ate it up. That part of the gig is a lot of fun.* Being in college in Boston, revolution-era stuff was everywhere. I began reading a lot of writings from the founding fathers. A lot. I've read the collected writings of most everyone who gets more than a mention in your junior high civics book - private papers and published work.
As I began this process, though, I had a rather unsettling discovery. A lot of those quotes David Barton used to prove his points, the ones that he put on the personalized checks you could buy and posters for hanging on your wall, a lot of those quotes were taken way, way out of context. Some of them were even mis-attributed - words that, say, a biographer had written about one of the founders. I had been told, by Barton, that all but two of the singers of Declaration of Independence were Christians, which is mostly true - but the implication was that they were Christians the way an evangelical Christian is a Christian in modern times. It was like a whole room full of Billy Graham's creating this country. I found in actually checking up on this historian, that he was doing pretty much everything wrong.
Then I started checking up on Barton. Turns out he's not even a historian at all. In fact he's got less training in history than I did after my first semester of college. He's written a lot of best-selling books on "history," but in 2012 (long after I'd peeked behind the curtain), his book on Thomas Jefferson had to be removed from publication - a number of Conservative Christian historians examined his claims and found them outright false. He continues to tour and speak and spread what are actual lies about the founding of the country for the purpose of equating US Patriotism with evangelical faith.
That revelation was a little bit shocking.
So I went back to square one. I started reading the primary sources for myself, asking just what does Christian faith and the US government have to do with one another. It turns out, most of the founders were indeed Christians - but sort of in the same way Ted Cruz is Canadian. Outside perhaps the Quakers, there was no equivalent to modern evangelicalism in that time (at least not on any scale in the US). These guys went to services most Sundays because that's what prominent citizens did. George Washington bought the best pew in his local parish (because you bought pews back then, rather than just claiming them like we do now), but refused to receive communion or bow his head in prayer.**
These guys were men of the times - a time when science was explaining so much that was previously chalked up to the supernatural. There was an unprecedented human confidence that we could figure out and master the world. Combined with the cultural acceptance of rich white men doing pretty much whatever they wanted in private, there was very little impetus for faith to impact life - that sort of thing was for monks in cloisters and the odd fringe group, like the Amish.
The history of Christian intersection with government has been one of convenience on both sides. Constantine got unity for the empire and Christians stopped getting killed. Charlemagne got his rule and conquest legitimized and the Popes got some say in government. The United States drove out the French, then the English, enslaved Africans, and took genocidal sweep at Native Americans under this banner of manifest destiny, that God somehow blessed the country and gifted its leaders with unrivaled primacy in the world - and that was backed with faith. You tell someone God wants to do something great for them and they'll generally believe you - it's how prosperity gospel survives.
It's also the stuff of false prophets. Throughout the Old Testament, the false prophets were those voices in the ears of the kings telling them to keep on, conquer, oppress, God wanted them to be strong and powerful. The prophets recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures were those calling for humility and repentance. In the New Testament the false prophets were those calling the people of God to a way of life contrary to the gospel - those calling for entitlement and self gratification.
I don't think I've used the term for anyone else in my life (maybe those prosperity preachers as a group), but David Barton and his ilk are false prophets. I believe that strongly. The words they say and the message they impart aren't even accurate historically, let alone in line with the life of a homeless, wandering rabbi. Our nation's leaders cloak their words and actions in Christian language precisely for same way politicians have done so for 1700 years: it works to motivate the people. You're never going to die so the rich guy can get richer, but you're probably going to sign up if it's a call from God to defend your faith and way of life.
That's not really the story of our history and it's certainly not the story of our faith.
So if I go a little overboard on Facebook or speak too cringe-worthily in my critiques sometimes, just know this is pretty personal for me. Much of my life has been shaped by this false battle raging in my country, and in my faith. The God of scripture is never on the side of the politicians and the power - whether they be Hebrew kings in the Old Testament or Pharisees and Romans in the New... or even Popes and Presidents in the historical age that followed. God is always on the side of the poor, the broken, the outcast, the forgotten. If our political efforts are not on their behalf, then while they may be "American" to the core, they're not of Christ.
Every nation on Earth has, at one time or another, believed God chose their nation... and they've all been wrong. God does not choose nations; God chooses people - we need to live like it.
*I had much less fun in the "writing about what you learn" phase of history, which is also the phase that earns you a living: thus I am not a professional historian today.
**This is awkward news for the cottage industry that exists depicting Washington kneeling next to his horse in full uniform on coffee mugs and paintings and commemorative plates.
***Just sort of an extra credit history lesson for those brave souls who made it all the way down here - Washington was never against oligarchy and rule by the rich and powerful (Adams and some of the New England guys were, but they got overruled in the Constitution, which is why it took 100 years for direct election of Senators). Washington was opposed to that oligarchy being hereditary. He wanted people to be able to earn their way into the elite, which sounds sort of American on the cover, but ultimately is very elitist - the rich prosper and poor melt away. I'm generally a fan of Libertarian ideas, but not the social darwinism aspect of it. Those who "win" have an obligation to those who don't. There's no indication George Washington much believed this.****
****Now the caveat being, there was little evidence in their world, or history at the time, that this was possible. The idea that the poor could be given some semblance of basic human rights was still 150 years away - so there is some excuse built in for these guys - just not any excuse for the rest of us, especially Christians.
I had a struggle in freshman year of college, I went into a class and was told something that bothered me to my core and changed my perception of the world and my place in it. It was Introduction to History and my professor told me: "History has only been around since the 1700's."
What he meant was simply that the study of history as the pursuit of factual knowledge of the past is a relatively modern concept - when, in the modern era, we began to attempt to separate what happened from the biases of those witnesses who recorded it.
Prior to that (including the world view of everyone who wrote scripture and the first 1000+ years of interpreters) people were working with an entirely different definition of "facts" and "history." "Histories" were written not to recount an event, but to provide some lesson from such events; they were written not to serve the past but to serve the present.
In that light, we look to scripture for what it intends to do: namely to provide a trustworthy foundation for creation's relationship to its creator. Our faith does not rest on the trustworthiness of the scripture, but on the trustworthiness of the one to whom our scripture testifies.
I take the Bible literally. I have no problem saying so. To take the Bible literally, it requires an ongoing process of discovery, learning about the people and cultures who shaped the narrative, the languages and processes through which we see and understand what is written.
The inspiration of scripture is far broader than the men who put ink to parchment, it encompasses the oral tradition that preceded them, the editors and compilers who brought the texts to their present form, the councils and elders who debated the canon, the readers and scholars who study the text, those who preach, teach, and proclaim it, as well as each and every one of us who hears and receives this marvelous testament to almighty God.
For me, this is exactly what the text means when it says the word of God is living and active - it is not simply words on a page, but a relationship that extends across all time. For us to think we can nail down exactly what it says misses the whole point.
The Bible is not fiction and it is not non-fiction; it is scripture and it is true. We can't simply reduce it to logical categories (and that goes just as much for the "liberals" and the "conservatives" - both equally upset me in their casual superiority), because the thing itself, by its very nature, prevents it.
We can and should certainly discuss the various ways in which we read and understand this scripture, we should challenge and be challenged in love and good faith, to examine ourselves in light of what we read not to read in light of what we know (or think we know). To me, this is what it means to have a high view of scripture.
Think of it this way: I can't even type n----r on the internet without getting onto some terrorist watch list, let alone emblazon it on the premier sports franchise in our nation's capital. The same is simply not true for Native Americans.
Yes, yes, I know some native people aren't offended by the name and are proud to have their legacy and tradition remembered in Washington (although I thought that was what the beautiful and profoundly moving National Museum of the American Indian was all about). But seriously, when do we let democracy (or even a small minority) dictate the words we consider appropriate or polite?
Yes, that previously mentioned n-word fell out of favor largely through public pressure. It turns out when segregation ended and lots of people were regularly having conversations and relationships with angry black people, it was more difficult to use insulting, offensive names for them. Go figure.
I suppose a similar campaign would have worked for Native Americans, except while we were busy raising the percentage of Americans who were black from zero to fifteen percent, we were also making the native population 99% smaller. Most of us don't know any Native Americans because we've largely confined them to small tracts of otherwise useless land, which we proceed to ignore, allowing the reservations to languish in poverty and substance abuse in out of the way places we'll never have to go. And this is the best our relationship with Native Americans has ever been. Let me repeat:
And this is the best our relationship with Native Americans has ever been!
I'm young enough to have lived through a relatively fair portrayal of the native place in US history throughout my education (which includes a top-notch undergraduate degree - in history, no less - from a great institute of higher learning). Thing were not whitewashed.
Still, when reading the under-appreciated classic, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, I was faced with a more intimate and detailed portrayal of this sad relationship. It should probably be required reading for Americans at some point in our public education (it's at least as important as Romeo and Juliet, which I had to read three times in school). This episode in US history recounts only the third generation of engagements between white settlers and Native peoples (the first two were, in order, virtual extermination and a series of forced death marches).
I'm not sure what spurred my desire to write a lengthy post about our forgotten national embarrassment - probably guilt - I mean, I feel so woefully incapable of even beginning to figure out how to address such injustice and perhaps telling others about it helps in some strange (largely selfish) way.
We lost Richard Twiss last year - a great Christian leader and advocate for Native American reconciliation - when I was only beginning to discover his wisdom and hope. I have at least one friend working on initiatives with and among native peoples - but it really isn't like we can just walk down the street and volunteer. It's one of those problems that deserves more attention than it gets, but is also so incredibly wrong that hope seems distant if it exists at all.
We live in a world where reparations for slavery are largely dismissed as fantasy; just imagine similar compensation for Native Americans? We might as well just hand over all the shares of the Fortune 500.
At the very least, it seems like we could put the most visible symptom of this ongoing tragedy in better perspective. It's great that a few writers and broadcasters will try hard not to say the nickname of Washington's professional football team on the air. It really is. But, honestly, given the history (and I mean the full history, not the history which only goes back to the team's founding - I think we can all agree the name was far more culturally appropriate then than now), couldn't we hold ourselves to a slightly higher standard? The vigor of the owner's intransigence is really more Donald Sterling than crazy uncle. Shouldn't this be more of a thing?
Think about it this way: if Uncle Ben can get a makeover, if Aunt Jemima can go from this
to this,
then surely we can do better than Chief Wahoo.
(Who is, somehow, impossibly, MORE racist than the original.)
I think about the historical example of medieval China. The Chinese had a bigger, stronger, more capable fleet of sailing ships than anything in Europe. They regularly traded as far as the eastern coast of Africa before Columbus was even born. At some point, though, Chinese leadership decided it was better to focus domestically and gave up sailing the seas with the same intensity.
If things had gone differently - if China had continued to expand its empire - likely it would have been Chinese vessels rounding the Cape of Good Hope rather than Vasco Da Gama coming the other way. The Chinese might have established trading hubs in Lisbon or Portsmouth rather than the Portuguese and British in Macao and Hong Kong. History would have been quite different.
Empire is not strictly about size, but the way in which we leverage that size or even the pursuit of size (and accompanying power) itself.
While reading Van Steenwyk's book, I couldn't help but think of the evangelical church of the past thirty years. My tribe, specifically, was caught up in what's known as the Church Growth Movement, in fact, for a while our motto was, "Our Church Can Be Your Home." We had incentive to bring in as many people as possible - and pretty free rein to do it in any way that produced results.
This lead to worship services as entertainment, professional staff pastors catering to different interest groups and filling the social calendar. It led to a more passive membership (nothing too serious, then people might leave). It also led to huge attendance increases and greater influence.
It really is the Spirit of Empire. Bigger is better. More people, more attention, more influence. What's the harm when we're influencing for good?
What we didn't learn too well in the 70's is that the medium is the message - the way we bring people in is the ethic to which we're converting them. Church Growth strategies worked really well because they tapped into the natural inclination of American culture - a culture already steeped in Empire.
The US has been essentially running the world since the 1940's. Our empire isn't geographic like the British Empire of yore, but it's political and economic. Our size produced influence, expansion, growth. Our consumerism feeds the beast, as it were, pushing the notion of empire.
Our congregations played right into this. The political power of the Religious Right gave voice to people who always thought themselves a silent majority. TV brought exposure for preachers with charisma and media savvy. Sunday worship became a competition for the eyes and ears of people. It was only natural.
That doesn't make it good.
Our desire to conquer is a cultural desire, it's bred into us from the moment we're born. We need to recognize it, name it, and renounce it. As Christ's people, we're not conquerors - at least not in the way of Empire. On the cross, Jesus conquered by losing, by confusion, by demanding so much of his followers they all ran away.
Every opportunity Jesus had to take hold of power or force, he ran from. Empire is not the way of the Kingdom. There's nothing wrong with a large congregation, but beware our attempts to become one.
China never ceased to be influential. They lost the power of position they might otherwise have held. Those nations which embraced the Spirit of Empire came and conquered, carrying off riches and knowledge that China might otherwise have capitalized on. Choosing against Empire was a choice away from self-determination (whether they knew it or not).
Empire is a great way to retain control. Of course, human control of anything has never really worked out well; it's certainly never been part of God's ideal plan for life on this planet. Superintendency, service, yes - God gave us a lead role to play - but always one in service of the other.
Empire is a spirit of self-promotion. We often fool ourselves into thinking our aims are pure - freedom, justice, democracy, evangelism, morality - but in the end, what speaks louder than our motives are our actions.
The medium is the message. Not great size and strength, but humility and service.
So, it sort of bugs me when our culture in general, and our news media in particular, seem to be blind to even relatively recent history in covering major narratives around the world.
I can't tell you how many "rise of China" stories I've seen where casual lip service is given to the potential of the Chinese economy, military, society, etc, but ultimately conclude that it is so inefficient and developmentally lagging to pose any real or immediate threat to the rest of the world. Yeah, there are some aggressive skirmishes over land rights and economic interests, and they seem to be taking a more active role in influencing nearby governments, but on the whole, they're just not set up to be a superpower, at least not any time soon.
The history student in me hears all of this and there are immediate warning sirens and flashing emergency lights in my mind. No, I'm not scared of China and I don't think anyone else should be either, but I do think we're fooling ourselves if we don't recognize that all of those same descriptions were used for the US in the early part of the 20th century.
At that point, we were still viewed as Britain's backward cousin, with our frontier lifestyle, endless open lands, and continued struggles to deal with racial and regional internal strife. Our economy had great potential, but little of it was realized. We fought over some small pieces of land and influence in the oft forgotten "wars" with Spain and Mexico, and we meddled quite heavily in the equally unimportant governments of Latin America - but no one of any importance gave much thought to the US being a world power. And this was just 100 years ago!
Things change quickly. Whatever indication the world had of our potential after a very late entry into WWI was forgotten by the depth of the depression - just another nation who can't handle it's own business. But we figured out a way to beat economic doldrums - ramping up for war.
The US economy took off at a rapid pace, shooting us to the top of the pile, internationally (leaving the only legitimate competitors, Europe, in literal heaps of rubble didn't hurt either), and has been there ever since.
I'm not saying the past is predictive. China may never decide to ramp up for war, but it's foolish (and probably arrogant) for us to continue to beat the drum of their irrelevance.
Again, this is not about fear-mongering. I think the world is probably better off without one dominant superpower; I don't think things would get worse if China were stronger or even if they overtook the US as primary influencer in the world. Life would go on. Differently, sure, but assuming the future will be like the present is always a fantasy.
In the meantime, if you're into that stuff, you might want to check out the boring section of your US history textbook between the end of the Civil War and the start of WWI. There may actually be relevant information there you'll find interesting - or at least pertinent.
It used to be relatively petty things, like types of music and appropriate dress, etc. Then we went to slightly more important things - ecclesiology (the goals of our congregations), and leadership training, etc. Now we've moved a bit further afield and we're creating a pretty large divide in things like theology, the content of worship (not just the structure), and even ethics.*
They're not such easy things to overlook or let pass.
There seems to be a typical disconnect, though, in the positions. It is still very much a traditional vs progressive vibe. Some people want to maintain the history - the things that have worked over time and proven true - while others want to move forward into creative and, at times, uncharted waters.
These are the classic definitions of liberal and conservative, even if they tend to be unrecognizable, given our other cultural uses of those terms. Ultimately, though, from each perspective, the divide is about trust. Traditionalists don't trust something untested, something that might potentially reform and remake faith as they know it. Sensible mistrust. Progressives don't trust that historical faith and practice can provide substance for a changing future world.
Like most disagreements, both are likely right and both are likely wrong. If it were any other way, things would get solved much more quickly.
What's so ironic about these positions in evangelicalism is how similar they are to one another. It's essentially the same argument separated by a generation or two.
Those people we call traditional evangelicals today are the descendants of what were once liberal Christian radicals. Evangelicalism arose out of the social, holiness, and revival movements of the 1800's, where people felt the traditional Christian hierarchy (both Catholic and Protestant) were too staid, intellectual, formal, unmoving. People encountered God in unique, transformational ways that were not explained or expressed well by the Church as they knew it. In many cases, this tradition was written out entirely. A lot of the sects that have become evangelical mainstream today don't recognize any real Church tradition between the New Testament and their own founding.
Over time, these traditions also became organized and solidified and institutionalized. Thus, those we tend to call "traditional" are really just the descendants of evangelical radicals. And those progressives (usually their kids or grandkids) are, at once, both the next generation of their own belief system and also the previous generation.
It's a lack of historical perspective that inadvertently supports the main gospel address of such problems: "Stop fighting! We're all in this together. Both of you, act like it!"
These arguments over tradition and innovation are, in actuality, simply not broad enough in perspective.
What evangelicals missed out on the first time around is the foundation of 1800 years of Church history and experience. All of that was rejected because of how it was being portrayed and played out in a specific, limited, context. But there is a treasure trove of history to mine for spirit-filled, gospel-infused lessons, learned and refined over the course of centuries of faithful life and worship.
And yes, some of the "traditions" of evangelicalism need to be thrown out simply because they were formed without the proper historical context. It's sort of the way I have to laugh when people describe hymns from the early 1900s as "old hymns of the Church," as if there wasn't important, powerful musical expression before that time.
And yes, there are things about evangelicalism that need to change going forward, but doing so by throwing out the history and tradition of the Church is only going to repeat the mistakes of the past. A solely progressive future will inevitably end in a rootless, confusing faith the next generation will ultimately reject - and subsequently move the whole tradition farther from the Church as a whole. A solely traditionalist future will be one of slow death and disappearance - without a new generation to carry on the lessons of the past, if they are told to conform or get out, well that's no future at all.
The answer is not in the present or the past - it's in whatever we call the pre-past. For evangelicals, it's looking beyond simply the generation that brought disconnect from the Church. It's a rediscovery of God's lessons learned through ages of experience.
Traditional (the "old school") and progressive evangelicals need each other. We need progressives to question and point out places where the evangelical tradition is blind or missed the mark; and we need traditionalists to hold fast to historical inquiry and the importance of foundation. But we also need both groups to work together to find our place in the larger Christian story - for it is in our story, from the moment of creation through the present day, that we find the context by which we properly engage the world.
We are our parents, and our kids are us. Until we comes to grips with that reality, we're just going to be lost in a sea of disagreement.
We're all in this together. We might as well try to get along.
*Phyllis Tickle presents a really simple and profound explanation of this organizational and sociological struggle for faith movements in her book, The Great Emergence - which I reviewed a while back.
The slogging comes from the first couple hundred pages or so. It's a little rough and I could see why people might abandon the effort. There's an in depth look at the life histories of three or four generations of Beatles ancestors, recounting the family narrative into which each is born. You get specific dates and duration for each of Ringo's childhood hospitalizations (did you even know he was a sickly child?), but around page 350 or so, it really gets humming. When it does, it's tough to put down.
The book ends at the end of 1962, right before "Please, Please Me" comes out and they rocket to stardom. Yeah, you don't even get the payoff you've been looking for - but I loved it anyway.
Before this book, I knew the names Brian Epstein and George Martin were somehow connected to the Beatles. I knew Pete Best and Stu Sutcliffe had been former members (although I thought them both prior drummers). I knew the Beatles played in Germany (and I learned more about this through Malcolm Gladwell's book - I think it was Outliers). I'd heard most of the hits and once owned the Beatles 1 album.
I didn't consider this a huge wealth of knowledge, especially with how many superfans exist in the world; still it was likely more than 99% of the population knows about the Beatles.
I now know much more.
Highly recommended for any really, really serious music fans or, like me, those people with a pathological need for mundane and trivial information of any kind. The original publication schedule for the volumes was supposed to be 2008, 2012, 2016. Assuming Lewisohn planned four years for each volume and the first actually took nine, it could be a long wait for volume two. The good news? If you start now, you might be done with the first by the time it comes out.
Aslan comes from a family of Iranian-Americans who fled after the overthrow of the Shah. His family blamed Islam for the ruin of their country; he does not come from an antagonistic perspective. In fact, he was converted to evangelical Christianity as a teenager and only slowly moved away from this tradition in his further studies. The book's stated aim is to recast Jesus, though intense cultural and historical study, from Jesus the Christ, the ethereal, disconnected savior Aslan encountered in evangelical Christianity, to Jesus of Nazareth, a radical Jewish revolutionary.
Zealot argues that Jesus is not divine, mostly because it's highly unlikely. Obviously, those who disagree do so by faith, and Aslan readily admits there is no argument for or against - it is simply a matter of faith, mostly centered around the fact or fiction of resurrection. This is an assumption underlying the book, but not an essential part of his attempts to understand Jesus.
Something I'd never considered before was the likely fiction of the birth narratives. With the gospels having been written so long after the life of Christ, the details therein are theological in nature and not necessarily historical (or even real in some cases). It's a disconcerting thought, especially this time of year, but his arguments make a lot of sense; I don't find them particular helpful or harmful to an understanding of Jesus.
Aslan's notation system is more narrative than technical, lacking footnotes, but including a lengthy section for each chapter, which helps communicate his frame of reference. There is a strong attempt to be inclusionary of diverse opinions there, even if not in the prose itself. At the same time, "I agree with Richard Horsley" is an oft used phrase and it's clear many of his more controversial conclusions rely on the work of one man (albeit a strong scholar).
The book provides powerful, vivid descriptions of life in 1st century Palestine, along with an important summary of intertestamental history and a gripping narrative of the Jewish revolt and subsequent annihilation of Jerusalem in AD 70. I can't recall any element of his historical and cultural research that I questioned to any great degree. Zealot can be an important resource for anyone, Christian or otherwise, to better understand the context of Jesus' life and ministry.
The main problem, however, is the more we uncover the more difficult it is to define and understand both Jesus himself and the faith his life spawned. Aslan does indeed poke holes in the colloquial understanding of Jesus' life, something relatively easy to do now that the Church doesn't have a monopoly on information and authority. At the same time, he resides in an almost extreme opposite position, giving almost no credence to any element of the traditional Christian narrative that might speak to reality.
This is no more clear than in Aslan's characterization of Jesus' aims and intentions. Jesus of Nazareth is rightly placed into the mold of messiah, a common Jewish archetype of the period, usually a radical revolutionary bent on overthrowing the spiritual monopoly of the temple or the political domination of Rome (or both). Aslan lumps Jesus wholesale into the tradition, including its dedication to violence almost entirely on the authority of one verse - "I come not to bring peace, but a sword." For someone so willing to take liberties with the text, to parse them for redaction, sarcasm, and the like, he takes this one verse, upon which a main tenet of his argument hangs, with no critical engagement. The idea is to challenge the notion that Jesus' Kingdom was intended to be celestial. I personally have no problem challenging that notion; I do think there is plenty of room to affirm Jesus as a political and religious revolutionary bent on establishing an earthly Kingdom, I just suspect there's more nuance and possibility than Aslan ever seems willing to entertain.
More difficult, but important is Aslan's narrative of how the life of Jesus was communicated to subsequent generations. He sees the church quickly devolving into two competing bodies - a Jewish core, made up of the Apostles and Jesus' brother James, centered in Jerusalem, adhering to Jewish law and customs, and committed to the notion of Christ's immanent return and the arrival of the promised Kingdom. The other group, comprised of wealthy, educated Hellenized Jews - those who traveled from the farther reaches of the Empire for Passover, those more inclined to disconnect this new faith from its Jewish roots, the group led by Paul.
It is really Paul who becomes the villain of Aslan's story, a power-hungry egotist who hijacks the story of Jesus, transforms him into the literal Son of God, rejects the Torah, and makes the faith acceptable to the Roman world.
These claims are not entirely far-fetched, even within the corpus of scripture itself. Certainly there is a measure of real tension between the message of James' epistle and most of Paul's teaching. While some might consider these two important streams of Christianity necessarily held in tension, Aslan considers one valid and other false, despite Paul's clear victory in the long run.
There are a number of dichotomies that Aslan highlights in Zealot. He tends to make them either/or decisions, which is perfectly in line with traditional Christianity, which does the same thing from the opposite side of each debate. I am not convinced that any one "side" is going to (or needs to) "win." This book brings to light important realities and troubling contentions that are easier for the Church to simply forget, ignore or deny. We do ourselves a disservice to give in to those temptations.
There are a lot of doctrines the official "orthodox" church has established in stone that have always seemed less than crystal clear to me. Aslan succeeds in highlighting many of them - the largest being how Jesus relates to God. Many traditions, some existing through to the present day, refuse to affirm the absolute equality of Jesus with Yahweh. While I have no problem affirming the divinity of Christ, I suspect we do ourselves and the mystery of God a disservice to exclude those traditions outright. Ultimately, I don't see the Nicene Creed as the unifying faith statement of Christianity, but the early and simple declaration that "Jesus Christ is Lord." That can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people, but I believe our gracious willingness to work those out together is the best possible testament to the truth of our faith.
Zealot is not an easy read - and certainly has the potential to be earth-shattering for the unprepared. I'd love to have more time to investigate many of the sources he cites and the history he so deftly wields. There are some clear theological holes in his argument, but none of them strong enough to justify entirely writing off Aslan or his position.
Aslan ends the book with an interesting conclusion:
Two thousand years later, the Christ of Paul's creation has utterly subsumed the Jesus of history. The memory of the revolutionary zealot who walked across Galilee gathering an army of disciples with the goal of establishing the Kingdom of God on earth, the magnetic preacher who defied the authority of the Temple priesthood in Jerusalem, the radical Jewish nationalist who challenged the Roman occupation and lost, has been almost completely lost to history. That is a shame. Because the one thing any comprehensive study of the historical Jesus should hopefully reveal in that Jesus of Nazareth - Jesus the man - is every bit as compelling, charismatic, and praiseworthy as Jesus the Christ. He is, in short, someone worth believing in.
I don't believe we need to choose between Jesus the man and Jesus the Christ. I agree that there is a narrative of Jesus in the Christian tradition that fails to take into account the reality of Jesus' life and times. I think we too often fall back on traditional interpretations, failing to analyze the gospel as a theological document from a specific period in history. There are a lot of challenges to faith inherent in the rediscovery of Jesus the man. At the same time, I see this rediscovery happening with great strength inside the Church. My seminary experience was filled with a rooted foundation of Jesus in Judaism, both culturally and religiously. It has made a profound impact on my faith - and quite honestly, if I had to make the choice between Jesus the Christ and Jesus the man as Aslan describes them, I'd make the same choice he does. I just don't think it's an either or.
The radical, revolutionary Jesus is a great critique of the traditional, ethereal, heavenly Christ narrative which has formed the backbone of much of Christianity, I just don't think one should, or can, ever subsume the other.
*This is not one of the books I've reviewed as part of the Booksneeze project. I chose this one myself and got it from the library. I'll probably have another one of those later in the week.
In the wake of the George Zimmerman trial, a lot of jurors have been saying a lot of things. One thing I hear most of them saying is that they wanted to convict Zimmerman of something, but the law wouldn't allow it. That's got me thinking a bit about law.
I'll likely never make it onto a jury - mostly because I won't lie about the things you'll read here. I've also got a lot of lawyer friends (this is what happens when you're a history major) who have been drilled repeatedly in the importance of the rule of law. To them, I apologize. Sorta.
Rule of Law has been held up as the foundation of democracy. It makes sense, for the most part. We see it with the problems emerging in new-ish democracies around the world. Things don't work unless people trust the process, unless everyone is playing by the same rules.
President Morsi, of Egypt, was deposed by the military, supposedly because the populace was clamoring for his impeachment. I've been told that Egypt doesn't have a legal or legislative process of recall. If you want the President out between elections, this is pretty much the only way. That somewhat shaped how I've viewed the situation. Somewhat.
We, in the United States, don't often appreciate what Rule of Law means for us. If the President were impeached by the House of Representatives, tried in the Senate and found guilty, he would likely, angrily, step down, leave office, and move on early to a lucrative career speaking to corporate boards in exchange for duffle bags full of cash.
Conversely, if the President were impeached by the House of Representatives and the charges dismissed in the Senate for lack of standing (you can't just get voted out for unpopularity in the US - you need to have done something unbecoming your office), opponents would likely, angrily, concede defeat and continue grumbling to themselves in their cable news ghetto (whichever ghetto that happens to be).
There would likely be no armed conflict, no protracted process (the actual process is protracted enough), mostly because people in the United States respect the Rule of Law. No matter how clear the Constitution seems to however many of us may agree, the only authoritative voice on the matter is the collective voice of nine old people in stuffy black robes.
As a society, for the most part, we respect that.
It's quite unbelievable in the grand scheme of things. And it's no wonder we fight tooth and nail between our different interests and ideologies for control of the process. As convoluted as it is, this legislative process is the only means by which we can change, alter, or amend this Rule of Law that so thoroughly governs our lives.
What's even more amazing is that this system, which is supposed to be "blind justice" - that is, blind to special interests for the sake of justice, is often "justice blind" - that is, blind to justice for the sake of law.
It's not just about Trayvon Martin - it's also about Citizen's United and the Affordable Care Act and the fact that no one of any consequence at any major financial institution has faced any charges related to the massive lapses in judgment of recent years.
The United States was founded as a protest to the Rule of Law. Our revolutionary fore-fathers didn't like their lot in the system (mostly because they had very little say in the system) and they opted out.
There was a Rule of Law in 18th century Britain, it's just that a King had undue influence over its practice. Historically speaking, that King had less influence over the Rule of Law than any other monarch had ever had over any other nation in the history of the world.
Some are offended I'd even call 18th century Britain a "Rule of Law," since one person had such an out-sized impact. Law is supposed to be an inclusive process of reasoning together, where majority rule is tempered by tolerance for minorities.
It's a great idea. I much more appreciate living in the 21st Century United States than under the rule of mad King George and I'm more grateful to live here than in Egypt right now. (Although we do need to admit that this "Rule of Law" has been passed on to any number of other nations - including jolly old Britain - and we may no longer be the best at implementing it.) The concept of Rule of Law, as practices in modern western society, is far superior to any other form of government that's ever existed. I'm not even sure one could govern an involuntary society any other way.
That being said, I am part of a voluntary society that operates differently. As much as we allow the principles of the Rule of Law to creep in from time to time, the Kingdom of God operates on the Rule of Love.
This Rule of Love is much messier than the Rule of Law. There are no clean lines, delineation, or definitions. There are no winners and losers. A humble spirit and a commitment to self-sacrifice will get you farther than a strong argument and an air-tight case.
The Rule of Law means winning the battle of ideas, logically proving one's point and setting the course for the future. It also means someone coming up short. It means, while the value of the losing side may be recognized, it is not respected; and while the problems of the winning side may be recognized, they are not addressed. To do so would confuse the law.
We do so because the ends, the quiet society where everyone ultimately respects the Rule of Law (except for those odd many few we keep locked up for everyone's protection), justify the means, the ambiguity of right and wrong.
The Rule of Love means recognizing the failure and value of every party and attempting a solution that brings reconciliation without removing consequences. The Rule of Love means walking with, and perhaps suffering with, both those who suffer needlessly and those who deserve their suffering. The Rule of Love means refusing to name winners and losers unless it's corporately - that we are all losers in situations of unresolved conflict and that conflict can be resolved with no losers.
I'm not sure the Rule of Law can accommodate the Rule of Love. It leaves too much in the hands of too few. How can a jury or a judge be counted on to represent all of society without a strict rubric of accountability? In the age of hubris, ego, and bribery, subjectivity is a luxury we can ill afford.*
For many that means separating the Rule of Law from the Rule of Love. When dealing with the courts or the public, we accept the Rule of Law and when living our personal lives or perhaps when engaged in matters of faith and the faith community, we accept the Rule of Love.
Of course both Rules depend on people buying into the system. If an impeached President raises an army to retain power, a war ensues, a victor is proclaimed, and the Rule of Law resets, often with entirely different parameters. You can't force someone to participate in the Rule of Love. Of course, that's obvious. But what we often fail to recognize is that you can't force someone to participate in the Rule of Law, either. You can force them into non-participation through incarceration or execution or expulsion, but participation can't be compelled.
Neither system works the way we hope it will - the way we often pretend it will.
In the end, it comes down to persuasion. How do the Rules persuade those skeptical of participation to fall in line? The Rule of Law does so through force. It is, without question, the most efficient way. The Rule of Love does so through, well, love. It is, without question, a messy, inefficient, often unsuccessful way of doing life.
The Rule of Law has proven effective in the short term (even a "short" term of several hundred years); it's never been effective in the long term (but I guess there's something honorable about the notion that "this time we'll get it right"). The Rule of Love is horribly ineffective in the short term (at least on a large scale), but I have great hope it will be wonderfully successful in the long run.
As much respect as I have for the Rule of Law, it just doesn't possess qualities to which I'm willing to give my life. I'm going to choose the Rule of Love, come what may, it just seems so much more worth dying for - and at least I'd be in good company.
*I am sympathetic to the notion of universal health care, even if I'm skeptical of the current attempts to deliver it in the US, but even I was/am leery of the methods employed to fit this scheme into the Rule of Law.
Despite its complexity, a complexity that requires years of study to begin to understand, a complexity that has inspired months and weeks of intense debate, the US Constitution has some very simple functions. I have great respect for it in that way. Government, a complex institution, is boiled down some bare principles. The best is that it set itself up in such a way that the answer to any complex Constitutional question is simply the opinion of the majority of the Justices of the Supreme Court.
They rule; it stands. The same people so vindicated by Citizens United last year are up in arms over the recent ruling on the Affordable Care Act. Sometimes you hate the decision and sometimes you love it, but there's no recourse of disagreeing; the decision becomes definitive. I love that kind of forethought.
The other simple solution I love about the US Constitution is its basis on principle. Written and framed by a bunch of wealthy landowners, the principles of hard work, self-reliance, and individual liberty are squarely ingrained therein. These were guys who could take care of themselves and didn't want anybody telling them what to do. That's why they excluded most US residents from the voting process and completely distrusted the common man. We're a Republic, not a Democracy because the US Constitution was designed to benefit capable people over the less capable.
That's music to the ears of some today, who maintain such a legacy and insist the Constitution should continue to work under those principles. For others, it sounds terse and unfeeling, almost tyrannical in it's ironic attempt to escape tyranny. Here again, there is much room for debate, but the genius of the US Constitution is that the intent or principles of the founders don't matter to the function of government. They created a system whereby the government reflects the desires and convictions of the people. If those convictions become something other than the ones under which the Constitution was formed, it will cease to work as well. In other words: we get what we deserve as a people.
When society decried the greed, cowardice, irresponsibility, and downright contemptuous nature of our government, we are really heaping coals on ourselves. The people we elect reflect who we are and what we value. It's the way the system was set up. Again, I can't explain how genius this is. Truly a representative form of government.
Most of the political battles these days boil down to ideology. One side wanting to return to the ideals of founders and the other seeking to move forward towards progress and a new vision. Frankly, these are both far too grandiose of notions to ever be realistic.
The gradual progress of civilizations has improved some things for some people - that's true. The upward trend in history really just increase the distance between benefit and devastation. There is just as much sorrow as ever; we're just better at telling the story. In the same way, the founders of the US Constitution aren't all that enviable. Selfish, rabble-rousers mostly - certainly with a flair for the idealistic and an uncanny ability to motivate. History's demi-gods have always been that way.
What makes the most sense to me, in light of our genius Constitution, is a focus on the principles that actually work to produce a decent society. In this sense, neither side of the ideological divide is bereft of contributions. There is something to be said for responsibility and hard work, of course; there is also something to be said for compassion, empathy, and community.
I have no doubt that everyone engaged in US politics wants nothing more than to shape society towards a better set of values (in the hopes that those values would, in turn, shape a better government). The problem is that most people seem to think that values are instilled through education, logic, guilt, or force - that people adopt a new perspective because of something that clicks inside their head.
I just don't believe that. I believe people are transformed by experience. People are shaped to be responsible by being valued for who they are. I believe people begin to care about others when they've discovered human dignity in themselves. Despite our best efforts to instill our ideological convictions within us, I don't believe the path between our heads and our hearts is all that easy to navigate.
I don't spend a lot of time worrying about government or the future of our country. If they ask my opinion about something, I'm happy to give it - but ultimately what they do matters little to life, certainly less than our media and power obsessed culture wants us to believe. The government we have and the society in which we live is entirely shaped by the people of which they are comprised.
I know it's a novel concept and likely a fools errand, but my politics involves a real attempt to love, honor, and respect the people around me, even at the cost of my own comfort. I believe it is the only hope for a world worth living in.
