Rights and Religion

I continue to be fascinated with the intermingling of nationalism and Christianity; I suspect it's the number one issue at play in society for people of faith. In a nation that's more and more a religion unto itself (often with a Christian label), the way we navigate the waters of citizenship in two different Kingdoms is important and fraught.

I don't watch TV news - neither the six o'clock (do they still have that?) nor the twenty-four-hour varieties. I do occasionally catch a headline on one of the TVs at the gym, where FauxNews and CNN are right next to each other in my peripheral vision. Apparently two years ago there was a big kerfuffle about an Air Force veteran who was forcibly removed from a flag-folding ceremony, which was part of the retirement celebration for a friend, when he used a religiously-tinged and unapproved script. Apparently the guy had a history of inflammatory incidents and had been told he couldn't speak at the event, however the guest of honor insisted he go on. When asked to leave, the guy refused and continued to shout his words as he was forcibly removed from the proceedings. Basically everyone looked bad all around, the Air Force changed their policy and the guy's now suing (conveniently, I believe, right before the statute of limitations runs out).

This is a talking-head special if there ever was one. How do I know? Well, the only place you can get any coverage of this event or the lawsuit is on fringe (both right and left) and military-specific websites. I'm linking to the AirForceTimes which, amazingly, seems the least partisan. As you might expect, this has become a virtual hand-grenade where people are lobbing different notions of religious freedom/persecution at each other without really saying anything.

I'm all for peaceful protest, even vociferous and disruptive protest, should the situation call for it. Clearly the guy retiring wanted to make a statement by asking his friend to use a non-standard script. They were warned and continued and they should be free to do so. The Air Force is also free to remove the guy from the ceremony, as they did, and he's free to keep shouting as he's removed, which is what happened. I wouldn't say there was physical resistance, but everybody was sticking to their line pretty firmly.

What I don't get, though, is this lawsuit. The guy and his lawyer are all over the television demanding I'm not sure what - money, I guess - but the Air Force already changed the policy as a result of this incident. It seems like, if the guy was really standing up for his religious rights, that the battle was won.

That troubles me a bit, as a Christian, because it's downright offensive to the gospel to associate it with any nation or military, but that ship has sailed long ago, I'm afraid. Not only has Americanism become our default religion; it's getting labeled as Christianity. The use of power and force are antithetical to the message of Jesus Christ and we have another exhibit of that in this situation.

The purpose of the lawsuit is to get a court to admit the Air Force violated this man's rights. It's a move for dominance. Regardless of whether or not I agree with his actions (and I don't, although there are plenty of other times I do, and it still rubs me the wrong way), Christians can't demand "rights." We gave up the right to our "rights" when we accepted the way of the cross. In the way Jesus refused to argue for himself during his many trials, we're called to live out our understanding of right action and accept whatever response we receive.

It feels like this guy should be overjoyed that his actions produced change in the direction he wanted. To me, that's the ultimate victory. I don't understand how one could make a Christian argument to then essentially humiliate your opponent. Paul, on several occasions, used his Roman citizenship to call officials to follow their own laws; he didn't then return to rub it in their faces or embarrass them to their superiors. In the end, he took whatever judgment the law required and did so willingly, following the example of his savior.

This is why Christians can't hold a cross in one hand and a flag in the other; the two are diametrically opposed, not necessarily in the game of ideas, but in lifestyle and action. Too much of "religious" dialogue these days is an attempt to browbeat people into assenting to ideas we call Christian. It's about winning the intellectual assent of others, or at least their grudging tolerance. The gospel, though, is not really about theology, but about the lifestyle inspired by our understanding of God. If we do not act in accordance with our beliefs, we don't believe at all.

The national religion of the US tends to work backwards - seeking the best course of action (best defined as most beneficial to me and mine) and then inventing a theology to support it. This is the path of least resistance and people stumble into bad theology this way all the time (its not just the purview of nationalism or convenience). In the end, the gospel is absurd from the perspective of practicality. It's predicated on truth and reality not being readily apparent. The idea that weakness is strength and love leads to truth just doesn't fit with how we've constructed our world to work.

If you're pushing your own agenda through force or persuasion, you're not representing the gospel. The way you present your ideas is far more important than those ideas themselves. For Christians, winning society's games necessarily means losing your faith. It's great to stand up, with your body, and live your beliefs in the public square - I applaud those who do, even if I disagree with them; it's quite another to expect the public square to celebrate you. That's a game you can't win and shouldn't play.

Rights and Freedom

So there are some basic human rights - things I believe philosophically and theologically and existentially are owed to every human being by virtue of being alive. I've stated them here before, but simply, people deserve: nutritious food, a safe place to lay their head, education, basic health care, a meaningful day's work, and a loving community.

I believe a society (however one defines such a thing) is obligated to provide these things to everyone within the society or sacrifice mightily in the effort. That doesn't necessarily mean a government is obligated to provide such rights, especially if society has other means of doing so. However, governments, in a modern sense, are all-encompassing; they claim sovereignty over borders and all (human or otherwise) that lies within. To me, and I understand where some might disagree, this obligates them to be rights-provider of last resort.

Hear me: I don't think a government has to be all-encompassing. In fact, on the political spectrum, I'm much closer to a true anarchist than anything else. However, where a government makes such a claim without any major resistance (such as in the US), certain responsibilities come with such claims.

That's sort of the round about way to get to where I'm trying to go today - how I've come to, shorthand, claim that people living within the US deserve certain things - not because citizenship or residency automatically earns such things, but because their humanity demands them and their government, in a roundabout way, inherits the responsibility for ensuring they're provided.

I'd be all for society structuring itself in ways that provide for basic human rights without the need for heavy-handed top-down intervention. But until we have those systems working consistently and near-universally, responsibility remains. If you want the power, it comes with (Spiderman-like) responsibility.

Problems come when we focus our society around freedom. Yes, we like the wind-in-our-hair vitality of choosing our own destiny; and we love to have that coupled with the security of a nanny state. Make all your free-spirited decisions and trust that the social safety net will be there to catch you. It's the glory of celebrated self-sufficiency. Freedom is only real if we're capable of being self-sustaining individuals of true independence. I'm just not sure how anyone can believe that's the real state of humanity. It's wonderful wishful thinking and it might make for top-notch idealism, but a great ideal is not something you can eat for dinner.

I like the classic philosophical argument for the existence of God that says God is that of which nothing greater can be conceived. It's beautiful in its simplicity - the point being that while we can imagine the most gracious, benevolent, loving cosmic being, a real one is infinitely greater than the one in our head. That assumes, of course, limitless possibilities. It fails to take into account the very real world in which we live.

I have always considered myself an idealist. Those who (appropriately) nicknamed me Debbie Downer might disagree. However, I like to say I work my idealism within the parameters of reality. I believe the world contains greater things, profounder possibilities, and more infinite beauty than our senses can currently conceive - but that doesn't make the world completely open, because it still contains us and all our feeble human frailties.

We have and need rights precisely because we cannot achieve our aims, wants, and desires by ourselves. Self determination most certainly exists, but freedom does not. Our self-determination always comes with a cost and is contingent on our willingness to pay. That's precisely why we must secure, confirm, and provide these basic human rights to one another: because we can't supply them for ourselves.

We want to conflate rights and freedom, but really they're at the opposite end of the same spectrum. One is all about individualism, while the other is communal. As much as it would be nice (speaking as an introvert) to be able to wall ourselves off and survive, reality is as reality does, which means we're stuck with each other - for better or worse.

I choose better.