The website address for discussion groups:
https://zoom.us/j/5955701807
Thursday, December 3
I'd like to know your opinion on this question: The only people concerned about keeping their location data private are people who have something to hide.
This was the primary question raised in an interesting article from the Wall Street Journal; who, incidentally, has been following how the U.S. government tracks our activities through our cell phones and has written a number of articles on it over the years.
This is our discussion topic this week for a number of reasons. First, I think it's good that you know what your phone is collecting and sending. Second, I'd really like to know your thoughts on the topic of privacy and commercial use - say, for instance, that because you bought a Toyota, does that allow the company to track where, and how fast, you drive the vehicle. Third, I'd like to know if you think the government should be involved in this... which relates to the opening question.
In addition to the article, I'd suggest you watch this video on YouTube. It is from the WSJ so I am assuming it is factually based.
https://youtu.be/SXAShotdFZo
Lastly, if you are wondering what the Bible might have to say about something so modern, you might be surprised. Tune in and find out!
God's peace to you,
- Dave
Most Americans Object to Government Tracking of Their Cellphones
Byron Tau, WSJ 11.25.20
A new survey found widespread concern among Americans about government tracking of their whereabouts through their digital devices, with an overwhelming majority saying that a warrant should be required to obtain such data.
A new Harris Poll survey indicated that 55% of American adults are worried that government agencies are tracking them through location data generated from their cellphones and other digital devices. The poll also found that 77% of Americans believe the government should get a warrant to buy the kind of detailed location information that is frequently purchased and sold on the commercial market by data brokers.
The Wall Street Journal has reported that several U.S. law-enforcement agencies are buying geolocation data from brokers for criminal-law enforcement and border-security purposes without any court oversight.
Federal agencies have concluded that they don’t require a warrant because the location data is available for purchase on the open market. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that a warrant is required to compel cellphone carriers to turn over location data to law enforcement, but it hasn’t addressed whether consumers have any expectation of privacy or due process in data generated from apps rather than carriers.
Modern mobile-phone applications like weather forecasts, maps, games and social networks often ask consumers permission to record the phone’s location. That data is then packaged and resold by brokers. Computers, tablets, cars, wearable fitness tech and many other internet-enabled devices also have the potential to generate location information that is collected by companies.
The buying and selling of the location data drawn from modern technology have become a multibillion-dollar business—frequently used by corporations for targeted advertising, personalized marketing and behavioral profiling. Wall Street firms, real-estate developers and many other corporations use such information to guide decisions on investments, developments and planning.
Law enforcement, intelligence agencies, the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. military have also begun buying from the same pool of data for espionage, intelligence, criminal-law enforcement and border security. The Journal reported earlier this year that several agencies of the Department of Homeland Security were buying the mobile-phone location data on Americans through a specialized broker.
The survey by Harris, an American market research and global consulting firm, found that some Americans said they would take steps to avoid such tracking. Forty percent of respondents said they would block such tracking on their phones with software, while 26% said they would change their habits and routines to be less predictable. Another 23% said they would leave their phone at home more, while 32% said they wouldn’t do anything different.
The survey also inquired about views toward location privacy in general. A majority of respondents disagreed with the statement, “The only people concerned about keeping their location data private are people who have something to hide.” The poll found 60% of Americans somewhat or strongly disagreed with that statement, while 39% strongly or somewhat agreed.
Older Americans were less concerned about government surveillance than younger Americans. Of those surveyed between 18 and 34, 65% said they were worried about government location tracking. For respondents 65 and older, only 39% were concerned.
Nonwhite Americans were more likely to be concerned than white Americans about location data surveillance by government agencies. The poll found 65% of Black respondents, 65% of Hispanic respondents and 54% of Asian Americans surveyed said they were somewhat or very concerned, compared with 51% of white respondents.
The poll, which Harris conducted online between Nov. 19 and Nov. 21, surveyed 2,000 American adults. Harris doesn’t provide a margin of error because of its online methodology and weighting. A poll of that sample size typically carries a margin of error of about plus or minus 3%.
Write to Byron Tau at byron.tau@wsj.com
This was the primary question raised in an interesting article from the Wall Street Journal; who, incidentally, has been following how the U.S. government tracks our activities through our cell phones and has written a number of articles on it over the years.
This is our discussion topic this week for a number of reasons. First, I think it's good that you know what your phone is collecting and sending. Second, I'd really like to know your thoughts on the topic of privacy and commercial use - say, for instance, that because you bought a Toyota, does that allow the company to track where, and how fast, you drive the vehicle. Third, I'd like to know if you think the government should be involved in this... which relates to the opening question.
In addition to the article, I'd suggest you watch this video on YouTube. It is from the WSJ so I am assuming it is factually based.
https://youtu.be/SXAShotdFZo
Lastly, if you are wondering what the Bible might have to say about something so modern, you might be surprised. Tune in and find out!
God's peace to you,
- Dave
Most Americans Object to Government Tracking of Their Cellphones
Byron Tau, WSJ 11.25.20
A new survey found widespread concern among Americans about government tracking of their whereabouts through their digital devices, with an overwhelming majority saying that a warrant should be required to obtain such data.
A new Harris Poll survey indicated that 55% of American adults are worried that government agencies are tracking them through location data generated from their cellphones and other digital devices. The poll also found that 77% of Americans believe the government should get a warrant to buy the kind of detailed location information that is frequently purchased and sold on the commercial market by data brokers.
The Wall Street Journal has reported that several U.S. law-enforcement agencies are buying geolocation data from brokers for criminal-law enforcement and border-security purposes without any court oversight.
Federal agencies have concluded that they don’t require a warrant because the location data is available for purchase on the open market. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that a warrant is required to compel cellphone carriers to turn over location data to law enforcement, but it hasn’t addressed whether consumers have any expectation of privacy or due process in data generated from apps rather than carriers.
Modern mobile-phone applications like weather forecasts, maps, games and social networks often ask consumers permission to record the phone’s location. That data is then packaged and resold by brokers. Computers, tablets, cars, wearable fitness tech and many other internet-enabled devices also have the potential to generate location information that is collected by companies.
The buying and selling of the location data drawn from modern technology have become a multibillion-dollar business—frequently used by corporations for targeted advertising, personalized marketing and behavioral profiling. Wall Street firms, real-estate developers and many other corporations use such information to guide decisions on investments, developments and planning.
Law enforcement, intelligence agencies, the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. military have also begun buying from the same pool of data for espionage, intelligence, criminal-law enforcement and border security. The Journal reported earlier this year that several agencies of the Department of Homeland Security were buying the mobile-phone location data on Americans through a specialized broker.
The survey by Harris, an American market research and global consulting firm, found that some Americans said they would take steps to avoid such tracking. Forty percent of respondents said they would block such tracking on their phones with software, while 26% said they would change their habits and routines to be less predictable. Another 23% said they would leave their phone at home more, while 32% said they wouldn’t do anything different.
The survey also inquired about views toward location privacy in general. A majority of respondents disagreed with the statement, “The only people concerned about keeping their location data private are people who have something to hide.” The poll found 60% of Americans somewhat or strongly disagreed with that statement, while 39% strongly or somewhat agreed.
Older Americans were less concerned about government surveillance than younger Americans. Of those surveyed between 18 and 34, 65% said they were worried about government location tracking. For respondents 65 and older, only 39% were concerned.
Nonwhite Americans were more likely to be concerned than white Americans about location data surveillance by government agencies. The poll found 65% of Black respondents, 65% of Hispanic respondents and 54% of Asian Americans surveyed said they were somewhat or very concerned, compared with 51% of white respondents.
The poll, which Harris conducted online between Nov. 19 and Nov. 21, surveyed 2,000 American adults. Harris doesn’t provide a margin of error because of its online methodology and weighting. A poll of that sample size typically carries a margin of error of about plus or minus 3%.
Write to Byron Tau at byron.tau@wsj.com
Thursday, November 19
Hello, thank you for an interesting discussion about homelessness and the hopelessness we can all feel when trying to address their plight. The good news is that there are people making a difference.
For this week, we will talk about an upcoming Supreme Court case involving what many are calling religious liberties. Attached is an article about it from NBC News.
The church at All Angels fared the hurricane very well, thanks be to God. May God bless you and especially those whose lives have been changed because of hurricanes.
- Dave
Supreme Court Takes Up Religious Freedom
Pete Williams, NBC News, November 3, 2020
A legal battle over the reach of religious freedom returns to the Supreme Court on Wednesday, requiring the justices to consider whether the Constitution allows a religious freedom exception to anti-discrimination laws.
The dispute, between the city of Philadelphia and a Catholic charity that refuses to place children in foster care with same sex-couples, is the first of this term's blockbuster cases to be heard with Justice Amy Coney Barrett on the court.
The decision is likely to have a nationwide impact. Since the Supreme Court struck down laws against gay marriage in 2015, lawsuits have sprung up around the nation brought by bakers, florists, photographers and others who say their religious beliefs will not allow them to provide services for same-sex weddings.
In the background is the court's 1990 decision that said religious groups are not exempt from general local, state and federal laws, including those banning discrimination. A decision to overturn that ruling would make it easier for businesses to claim a religious exemption from antidiscrimination laws that cover sexual orientation. But civil liberties groups say it would blunt efforts to fight discrimination.
Two years ago, the court confronted but failed to decide a similar issue in the case of a Colorado man who said baking cakes for same-sex weddings would violate his religious freedom and right of free expression, even though a state law banned discrimination based on sexual orientation.
The current case is an appeal brought by Catholic Social Services, one of about 30 agencies that contract with Philadelphia to find homes for abused and neglected children. After learning in 2018 that the charity would not consider same-sex couples as potential parents for foster children, the city insisted that all its contractors agree not to discriminate.
In its lawsuit, Catholic Social Services said endorsing same-sex couples as foster parents would violate its religious teachings about marriage. Mark Rienzi, the lawyer for the charity, said Philadelphia is demanding that a religious agency act according to the city's beliefs.
"If you don't speak the government's preferred message on marriage, you are excluded from providing foster care," he said.
In response, the city said the charity is free to express and practice its religious views but not to dictate the terms of municipal contracts. Neal Katyal, who represents the city in the case, said the Constitution does not entitle Catholic Social Services to perform child care services "on the city's behalf, with city funds, pursuant to a city contract, in a manner that the city has determined would be harmful to its residents and the thousands of children it has a duty to protect."
Whatever the charity's rights when it is regulated by the government, Katyal said, "it is not entitled to perform services for the government however it sees fit."
The city also said the charity is not being punished for its religious views, noting that it still has city contracts, worth millions of dollars a year, to perform other services for children in foster care.
Lower federal courts said the city acted properly to enforce its nondiscrimination laws. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that "religious belief will not excuse compliance with general civil rights laws."
Paul Smith, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who has argued gay rights cases in the past, said the justices will likely be looking for a way "to create more space for religious liberty claims." He said last term's ruling that LGBTQ people are covered under existing civil rights laws could make the court more willing to accommodate religious objections.
"I'd be surprised if five justices couldn't find a way to do a narrow-gauge ruling in favor of Catholic Social Services," he said.
The court will hear the case in a telephone conference call and issue a decision by early next summer.
For this week, we will talk about an upcoming Supreme Court case involving what many are calling religious liberties. Attached is an article about it from NBC News.
The church at All Angels fared the hurricane very well, thanks be to God. May God bless you and especially those whose lives have been changed because of hurricanes.
- Dave
Supreme Court Takes Up Religious Freedom
Pete Williams, NBC News, November 3, 2020
A legal battle over the reach of religious freedom returns to the Supreme Court on Wednesday, requiring the justices to consider whether the Constitution allows a religious freedom exception to anti-discrimination laws.
The dispute, between the city of Philadelphia and a Catholic charity that refuses to place children in foster care with same sex-couples, is the first of this term's blockbuster cases to be heard with Justice Amy Coney Barrett on the court.
The decision is likely to have a nationwide impact. Since the Supreme Court struck down laws against gay marriage in 2015, lawsuits have sprung up around the nation brought by bakers, florists, photographers and others who say their religious beliefs will not allow them to provide services for same-sex weddings.
In the background is the court's 1990 decision that said religious groups are not exempt from general local, state and federal laws, including those banning discrimination. A decision to overturn that ruling would make it easier for businesses to claim a religious exemption from antidiscrimination laws that cover sexual orientation. But civil liberties groups say it would blunt efforts to fight discrimination.
Two years ago, the court confronted but failed to decide a similar issue in the case of a Colorado man who said baking cakes for same-sex weddings would violate his religious freedom and right of free expression, even though a state law banned discrimination based on sexual orientation.
The current case is an appeal brought by Catholic Social Services, one of about 30 agencies that contract with Philadelphia to find homes for abused and neglected children. After learning in 2018 that the charity would not consider same-sex couples as potential parents for foster children, the city insisted that all its contractors agree not to discriminate.
In its lawsuit, Catholic Social Services said endorsing same-sex couples as foster parents would violate its religious teachings about marriage. Mark Rienzi, the lawyer for the charity, said Philadelphia is demanding that a religious agency act according to the city's beliefs.
"If you don't speak the government's preferred message on marriage, you are excluded from providing foster care," he said.
In response, the city said the charity is free to express and practice its religious views but not to dictate the terms of municipal contracts. Neal Katyal, who represents the city in the case, said the Constitution does not entitle Catholic Social Services to perform child care services "on the city's behalf, with city funds, pursuant to a city contract, in a manner that the city has determined would be harmful to its residents and the thousands of children it has a duty to protect."
Whatever the charity's rights when it is regulated by the government, Katyal said, "it is not entitled to perform services for the government however it sees fit."
The city also said the charity is not being punished for its religious views, noting that it still has city contracts, worth millions of dollars a year, to perform other services for children in foster care.
Lower federal courts said the city acted properly to enforce its nondiscrimination laws. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that "religious belief will not excuse compliance with general civil rights laws."
Paul Smith, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who has argued gay rights cases in the past, said the justices will likely be looking for a way "to create more space for religious liberty claims." He said last term's ruling that LGBTQ people are covered under existing civil rights laws could make the court more willing to accommodate religious objections.
"I'd be surprised if five justices couldn't find a way to do a narrow-gauge ruling in favor of Catholic Social Services," he said.
The court will hear the case in a telephone conference call and issue a decision by early next summer.
Thursday, November 12
Can you believe it, a group in British Columbia, Canada gave a lump sum cash payment of $7,500 to homeless people to see what impact it would have on their lives. If you would like to see how it turned out, feel free to read the attached article. If you are interested in talking about it, how this experiment could affect how Sarasota handles its homeless, and even how All Angels could impact the lives of homeless people, you are invited to attend our discussion group this week.
God's peace to you and to our nation,
- Dave
A Canadian study gave $7,500 to homeless people
Sigal Samuel, Vox, October 27, 2020
Ray is a 55-year-old man in Vancouver, Canada. He used to live in an emergency homeless shelter. But over the past year, he’s been able to pay for a place to live and courses to prepare him for his dream job — in part because he participated in a study called the New Leaf Project. The study, conducted by the charity Foundations for Social Change in partnership with the University of British Columbia, was fairly simple. It identified 50 people in the Vancouver area who had become homeless in the past two years. In spring 2018, it gave them each one lump sum of $7,500. And it told them to do whatever they wanted with the cash.
“At first, I thought it was a little far-fetched — too good to be true,” Ray said. “I went with one of the program representatives to a bank and we opened up a bank account for me. Even after the money was there, it took me a week for it to sink in.”
Over the next year, the study followed up with the recipients periodically, asking how they were spending the money and what was happening in their lives. Because they were participating in a randomized controlled trial, their outcomes were compared to those of a control group: 65 homeless people who didn’t receive any cash. Both cash recipients and people in the control group got access to workshops and coaching focused on developing life skills and plans.
The results? The people who received cash transfers moved into stable housing faster and saved enough money to maintain financial security over the year of follow-up. They decreased spending on drugs, tobacco, and alcohol by 39 percent on average, and increased spending on food, clothes, and rent, according to self-reports. “Counter to really harmful stereotypes, we saw that people made wise financial choices,” Claire Williams, the CEO of Foundations for Social Change, told me.
The study, though small, offers a counter to the myths that people who become poor get that way because they’re bad at rational decision-making and self-control, and are thus intrinsically to blame for their situation, and that people getting free money will blow it on frivolous things or addictive substances. Studies have consistently shown that cash transfers don’t increase the consumption of “temptation goods”; they either decrease it or have no effect on it.
“I have been working with people experiencing homelessness as a family physician for 16 years and I am in no way surprised that the people who received this cash used it wisely,” Gary Bloch, a Canadian doctor who prescribes money to low-income patients, told me. “It should be fairly self-evident by now that providing cash to people who are very low-income will have a positive effect,” he added. “We have seen that in other work (conditional cash transfer programs in Latin America, guaranteed annual income studies in Manitoba), and I would expect a similar outcome here.”
What’s more, according to Foundations for Social Change, giving out the cash transfers in the Vancouver area actually saved the broader society money. Enabling 50 people to move into housing faster saved the shelter system $8,100 per person over the year, for a total savings of $405,000. That’s more than the value of the cash transfers, which means the transfers pay for themselves.
“People think that the status quo is cheap, but it’s actually incredibly expensive,” Williams said. “So why don’t we just give people the cash they need to transform their lives?”
Williams developed the idea for the New Leaf Project when her co-founder sent her a link to a 2014 TED talk by the historian Rutger Bregman titled “Why we should give everyone a basic income.” It argued that the most effective way to help people is to simply give them cash.
The general idea behind basic income — that the government should give every citizen a monthly infusion of free money with no strings attached — has gained momentum in the past few years, with several countries running pilot programs to test it.
And the evidence so far shows that getting a basic income tends to boost happiness, health, school attendance, and trust in social institutions, while reducing crime. Recipients generally spend the money on necessities like food, clothes, and utility bills.
But Williams and her collaborators decided that rather than give people monthly payments, they’d give one big lump sum. “The research shows that if you give people a larger sum of cash up front, it triggers long-term thinking,” as opposed to just keeping people in survival mode, Williams explained. “You can’t think about maybe registering for a course to advance your life when you don’t have enough money to put food on the table. The big lump sum at the front end gives people a lot more agency.”
That’s what it did for Ray. In addition to getting housing, he used the cash transfer to take the courses he needed to become a front-line worker serving people with addictions. “Now I can work in any of the shelters and community centers in the area,” he told me, adding that receiving a cash transfer had felt like a vote of confidence. “It gives the person their own self-esteem, that they were trusted.”
Not everyone was eligible for a cash transfer, however. The study only enrolled participants who’d been homeless for under two years, with the idea that early intervention most effectively reduces the risk of people incurring trauma as a result of living without a home. And people with severe mental health or substance use issues were screened out of the initiative. Williams said this was not out of a belief that there are “deserving poor” and “undeserving poor” — a woefully persistent frame on poverty — but out of a desire to avoid creating a risk of harm and to ensure the highest likelihood of success.
“If there was null effect from people receiving the cash, from an investor perspective it could be seen as a ‘waste of money’ because it didn’t actually demonstrate impact in somebody’s life,” Williams said. “We just wanted to start small, and the idea is that with subsequent iterations we’ll start relaxing those parameters.”
She also said it was a difficult decision to include a control group of people who wouldn’t receive any cash, but ultimately, the control group was deemed necessary to prove impact. “We knew that we needed the rigor, because people would be skeptical about giving people cash. We wanted that evidence base that can assuage some of people’s concerns when they want to see the hard facts,” she told me.
Going forward, Foundations for Social Change is trying to raise $10 million to scale up its cash transfer approach to multiple cities across Canada. It plans to give out 200 cash transfers in the next iteration, which will also be run as a randomized controlled trial. Based on feedback from study participants and a Lived Experience Advisory Panel — a group of people who’ve experienced homelessness — the charity will offer a new array of non-cash supports to both the cash recipients and the control group, including a free smartphone.
The charity also hopes to work with other populations, like people exiting prison and people exiting sex work. To Williams, the time feels ripe. “I think the pandemic has really softened people’s attitudes to the need for an emergency cash payment when people fall upon hard times,” she said.
God's peace to you and to our nation,
- Dave
A Canadian study gave $7,500 to homeless people
Sigal Samuel, Vox, October 27, 2020
Ray is a 55-year-old man in Vancouver, Canada. He used to live in an emergency homeless shelter. But over the past year, he’s been able to pay for a place to live and courses to prepare him for his dream job — in part because he participated in a study called the New Leaf Project. The study, conducted by the charity Foundations for Social Change in partnership with the University of British Columbia, was fairly simple. It identified 50 people in the Vancouver area who had become homeless in the past two years. In spring 2018, it gave them each one lump sum of $7,500. And it told them to do whatever they wanted with the cash.
“At first, I thought it was a little far-fetched — too good to be true,” Ray said. “I went with one of the program representatives to a bank and we opened up a bank account for me. Even after the money was there, it took me a week for it to sink in.”
Over the next year, the study followed up with the recipients periodically, asking how they were spending the money and what was happening in their lives. Because they were participating in a randomized controlled trial, their outcomes were compared to those of a control group: 65 homeless people who didn’t receive any cash. Both cash recipients and people in the control group got access to workshops and coaching focused on developing life skills and plans.
The results? The people who received cash transfers moved into stable housing faster and saved enough money to maintain financial security over the year of follow-up. They decreased spending on drugs, tobacco, and alcohol by 39 percent on average, and increased spending on food, clothes, and rent, according to self-reports. “Counter to really harmful stereotypes, we saw that people made wise financial choices,” Claire Williams, the CEO of Foundations for Social Change, told me.
The study, though small, offers a counter to the myths that people who become poor get that way because they’re bad at rational decision-making and self-control, and are thus intrinsically to blame for their situation, and that people getting free money will blow it on frivolous things or addictive substances. Studies have consistently shown that cash transfers don’t increase the consumption of “temptation goods”; they either decrease it or have no effect on it.
“I have been working with people experiencing homelessness as a family physician for 16 years and I am in no way surprised that the people who received this cash used it wisely,” Gary Bloch, a Canadian doctor who prescribes money to low-income patients, told me. “It should be fairly self-evident by now that providing cash to people who are very low-income will have a positive effect,” he added. “We have seen that in other work (conditional cash transfer programs in Latin America, guaranteed annual income studies in Manitoba), and I would expect a similar outcome here.”
What’s more, according to Foundations for Social Change, giving out the cash transfers in the Vancouver area actually saved the broader society money. Enabling 50 people to move into housing faster saved the shelter system $8,100 per person over the year, for a total savings of $405,000. That’s more than the value of the cash transfers, which means the transfers pay for themselves.
“People think that the status quo is cheap, but it’s actually incredibly expensive,” Williams said. “So why don’t we just give people the cash they need to transform their lives?”
Williams developed the idea for the New Leaf Project when her co-founder sent her a link to a 2014 TED talk by the historian Rutger Bregman titled “Why we should give everyone a basic income.” It argued that the most effective way to help people is to simply give them cash.
The general idea behind basic income — that the government should give every citizen a monthly infusion of free money with no strings attached — has gained momentum in the past few years, with several countries running pilot programs to test it.
And the evidence so far shows that getting a basic income tends to boost happiness, health, school attendance, and trust in social institutions, while reducing crime. Recipients generally spend the money on necessities like food, clothes, and utility bills.
But Williams and her collaborators decided that rather than give people monthly payments, they’d give one big lump sum. “The research shows that if you give people a larger sum of cash up front, it triggers long-term thinking,” as opposed to just keeping people in survival mode, Williams explained. “You can’t think about maybe registering for a course to advance your life when you don’t have enough money to put food on the table. The big lump sum at the front end gives people a lot more agency.”
That’s what it did for Ray. In addition to getting housing, he used the cash transfer to take the courses he needed to become a front-line worker serving people with addictions. “Now I can work in any of the shelters and community centers in the area,” he told me, adding that receiving a cash transfer had felt like a vote of confidence. “It gives the person their own self-esteem, that they were trusted.”
Not everyone was eligible for a cash transfer, however. The study only enrolled participants who’d been homeless for under two years, with the idea that early intervention most effectively reduces the risk of people incurring trauma as a result of living without a home. And people with severe mental health or substance use issues were screened out of the initiative. Williams said this was not out of a belief that there are “deserving poor” and “undeserving poor” — a woefully persistent frame on poverty — but out of a desire to avoid creating a risk of harm and to ensure the highest likelihood of success.
“If there was null effect from people receiving the cash, from an investor perspective it could be seen as a ‘waste of money’ because it didn’t actually demonstrate impact in somebody’s life,” Williams said. “We just wanted to start small, and the idea is that with subsequent iterations we’ll start relaxing those parameters.”
She also said it was a difficult decision to include a control group of people who wouldn’t receive any cash, but ultimately, the control group was deemed necessary to prove impact. “We knew that we needed the rigor, because people would be skeptical about giving people cash. We wanted that evidence base that can assuage some of people’s concerns when they want to see the hard facts,” she told me.
Going forward, Foundations for Social Change is trying to raise $10 million to scale up its cash transfer approach to multiple cities across Canada. It plans to give out 200 cash transfers in the next iteration, which will also be run as a randomized controlled trial. Based on feedback from study participants and a Lived Experience Advisory Panel — a group of people who’ve experienced homelessness — the charity will offer a new array of non-cash supports to both the cash recipients and the control group, including a free smartphone.
The charity also hopes to work with other populations, like people exiting prison and people exiting sex work. To Williams, the time feels ripe. “I think the pandemic has really softened people’s attitudes to the need for an emergency cash payment when people fall upon hard times,” she said.
Thursday, November 5
Finding Hope When Everything Feels Hopeless
Elizabeth Bernstein, The Wall Street Journal, October 27, 2020
I’ve got the perfect four-letter word for the moment: Hope.
Yes, it feels increasingly elusive—seven months into a pandemic, during an emotionally exhausting election cycle, as winter bears down. Yet hope is the very best reaction for the moment, psychologists say. It’s crucial to our physical and mental health. It guards against anxiety and despair. And it protects us from stress: Research shows that people with higher levels of hope have better coping skills and bounce back from setbacks faster. They’re better at problem-solving and have lower levels of burnout. They have stronger relationships, because they communicate better and are more trusting. And they’re less-stressed parents— more able to teach their children to set goals and solve problems.
“You can think of hope as a PPE—a Personal Protective Emotion,” says Anthony Scioli, a professor of psychology at Keene State College in Keene, N.H., and coauthor of “Hope in the Age of Anxiety” and “The Power of Hope.”
Most psychologists define hope as a yearning for something possible but not certain—such as a better future—and a belief that you have some power to make it happen. And they believe it has two crucial components: Agency, or the motivation, to achieve the desired goal. And a strategy, or pathway, to do that. This is how it differs from optimism, which is the belief the future will work out no matter what you do.
Think of it like this: If you want to lose 10 pounds, you need a plan—a healthy diet or an exercise program—and the willpower to follow it. Without this, you’ve got no real hope for a fitter body. Just wishful thinking.
The good news: Hope is malleable. You can boost it.
Some people are more hopeful than others, thanks to a combination of nature and nurture. Dr. Scioli believes these people draw on four main resources: Attachment is a sense of continued trust and connection to another person. Mastery, or empowerment, is a feeling of being strong and capable—and of having people you admire and people who validate your strengths. Survival has two features—a belief that you aren’t trapped in a bad situation, and an ability to hold on to positive thoughts and feelings even while processing something negative. Spirituality is a belief in something larger than yourself.
The good news: Hope is malleable. You can boost it. Scientists say it’s important that the area of the brain that activates when we feel hopeful—the rostral anterior cingulate cortex—sits at the intersection of the limbic system, which governs our emotions, and the prefrontal cortex, where thoughts and actions are initiated. This shows we have some influence over feelings of hope (or hopelessness). “Hope is a choice,” says Rick Miller, clinical director of the Center for the Advanced Study and Practice of Hope at Arizona State University.
Of course, it seems harder to choose hope at the moment, when the world seems so bleak and our brains are on high alert, constantly scanning for threat. “Hope is competing with all our other thoughts and emotions for attention right now,” says Mr. Miller, author of “The Soul, Science and Culture of Hope.” “It has to struggle to find its place in our mind.”
Here’s some advice for everyone whose hope could use a boost right now.
Measure it
To increase hope, it helps to know your baseline or starting point—and which areas you need to improve.
In the early 1990s, a psychologist named C.R. Snyder created the Adult Trait Hope Scale, a list of 12 questions that test whether a person has both the agency and the pathway-thinking necessary for hope. And Dr. Scioli has a longer online quiz that explores the four areas he believes hopeful people draw on: attachment, mastery, survival and spirituality. It can measure both your current level of hope and your long-term capacity for it.
Read history
Since the pandemic began, I’ve read books on the Black Death, the Civil War, Winston Churchill’s inner circle during the London Blitz and Miami in 1980 (it was a very bad year). Each one cheered me up. They helped me put 2020 in perspective. They reminded me that bad times do end. And they gave me an intimate peek at how people have held onto hope in the darkest times.
“If you look at how surprising events often come about in unpredictable ways, it can get you out of a fatalist way of thinking,” says Michael Milona, an assistant professor of philosophy at Ryerson University in Toronto and author of a just-published white paper on hope and optimism commissioned by the John Templeton Foundation, a philanthropic institution that funds scientific research. Dr. Milona suggests focusing on the ways history has moved forward positively, such as the fall of the Berlin Wall or Nelson Mandela’s journey from prison to president of South Africa.
Future cast
Imagine yourself happy when life returns to normal. Arizona State’s Mr. Miller recommends visualizing four areas of your life—home and family, career, community and recreation—and to ask yourself how you would like them to look in the future. Picture them in great detail. (Who are you with? What are you doing? How do you look?) Those are your goals. Next, think about what you need to do now to make that vision happen. Now you’ve got agency.
Take a small step
Often, when we’re stressed, we become overwhelmed. Setting one goal for the week—and identifying the steps we need to take to reach it—can give us a sense of control. “Once we begin to experience the success in those steps, we start to see more clearly that the future is possible and we have the power to pursue that goal,” says Chan Hellman, executive director of the Hope Research Center at the University of Oklahoma-Tulsa and co-author of “Hope Rising: How the Science of Hope Can Change Your Life.”
Watch your words
When we despair, we tend to speak in absolutes: “I’ll never catch a break.” “Things will always be like this.” “I’m overwhelmed.” “We’re doomed.” These are hope killers.
Many years ago I interviewed Elie Wiesel, the Nobel laureate, author and Holocaust survivor. Mr. Wiesel told me something I have never forgotten: “Every word we speak or write matters.”
Heed Mr. Wiesel’s advice. Think carefully about your words. Use hopeful language: “I can.” “We will.” “It’s possible.”
Spread hope
Emotions are contagious. And everyone is searching for hope right now. So model it for others. Explain what makes you hopeful. Share your goals. And describe how you plan to reach them. You may garner support. You’ll inspire others, showing what is possible.
Remember: Hope begets hope. “When people around you are energized, that can energize you, as well,” says Dr. Milona.
Elizabeth Bernstein, The Wall Street Journal, October 27, 2020
I’ve got the perfect four-letter word for the moment: Hope.
Yes, it feels increasingly elusive—seven months into a pandemic, during an emotionally exhausting election cycle, as winter bears down. Yet hope is the very best reaction for the moment, psychologists say. It’s crucial to our physical and mental health. It guards against anxiety and despair. And it protects us from stress: Research shows that people with higher levels of hope have better coping skills and bounce back from setbacks faster. They’re better at problem-solving and have lower levels of burnout. They have stronger relationships, because they communicate better and are more trusting. And they’re less-stressed parents— more able to teach their children to set goals and solve problems.
“You can think of hope as a PPE—a Personal Protective Emotion,” says Anthony Scioli, a professor of psychology at Keene State College in Keene, N.H., and coauthor of “Hope in the Age of Anxiety” and “The Power of Hope.”
Most psychologists define hope as a yearning for something possible but not certain—such as a better future—and a belief that you have some power to make it happen. And they believe it has two crucial components: Agency, or the motivation, to achieve the desired goal. And a strategy, or pathway, to do that. This is how it differs from optimism, which is the belief the future will work out no matter what you do.
Think of it like this: If you want to lose 10 pounds, you need a plan—a healthy diet or an exercise program—and the willpower to follow it. Without this, you’ve got no real hope for a fitter body. Just wishful thinking.
The good news: Hope is malleable. You can boost it.
Some people are more hopeful than others, thanks to a combination of nature and nurture. Dr. Scioli believes these people draw on four main resources: Attachment is a sense of continued trust and connection to another person. Mastery, or empowerment, is a feeling of being strong and capable—and of having people you admire and people who validate your strengths. Survival has two features—a belief that you aren’t trapped in a bad situation, and an ability to hold on to positive thoughts and feelings even while processing something negative. Spirituality is a belief in something larger than yourself.
The good news: Hope is malleable. You can boost it. Scientists say it’s important that the area of the brain that activates when we feel hopeful—the rostral anterior cingulate cortex—sits at the intersection of the limbic system, which governs our emotions, and the prefrontal cortex, where thoughts and actions are initiated. This shows we have some influence over feelings of hope (or hopelessness). “Hope is a choice,” says Rick Miller, clinical director of the Center for the Advanced Study and Practice of Hope at Arizona State University.
Of course, it seems harder to choose hope at the moment, when the world seems so bleak and our brains are on high alert, constantly scanning for threat. “Hope is competing with all our other thoughts and emotions for attention right now,” says Mr. Miller, author of “The Soul, Science and Culture of Hope.” “It has to struggle to find its place in our mind.”
Here’s some advice for everyone whose hope could use a boost right now.
Measure it
To increase hope, it helps to know your baseline or starting point—and which areas you need to improve.
In the early 1990s, a psychologist named C.R. Snyder created the Adult Trait Hope Scale, a list of 12 questions that test whether a person has both the agency and the pathway-thinking necessary for hope. And Dr. Scioli has a longer online quiz that explores the four areas he believes hopeful people draw on: attachment, mastery, survival and spirituality. It can measure both your current level of hope and your long-term capacity for it.
Read history
Since the pandemic began, I’ve read books on the Black Death, the Civil War, Winston Churchill’s inner circle during the London Blitz and Miami in 1980 (it was a very bad year). Each one cheered me up. They helped me put 2020 in perspective. They reminded me that bad times do end. And they gave me an intimate peek at how people have held onto hope in the darkest times.
“If you look at how surprising events often come about in unpredictable ways, it can get you out of a fatalist way of thinking,” says Michael Milona, an assistant professor of philosophy at Ryerson University in Toronto and author of a just-published white paper on hope and optimism commissioned by the John Templeton Foundation, a philanthropic institution that funds scientific research. Dr. Milona suggests focusing on the ways history has moved forward positively, such as the fall of the Berlin Wall or Nelson Mandela’s journey from prison to president of South Africa.
Future cast
Imagine yourself happy when life returns to normal. Arizona State’s Mr. Miller recommends visualizing four areas of your life—home and family, career, community and recreation—and to ask yourself how you would like them to look in the future. Picture them in great detail. (Who are you with? What are you doing? How do you look?) Those are your goals. Next, think about what you need to do now to make that vision happen. Now you’ve got agency.
Take a small step
Often, when we’re stressed, we become overwhelmed. Setting one goal for the week—and identifying the steps we need to take to reach it—can give us a sense of control. “Once we begin to experience the success in those steps, we start to see more clearly that the future is possible and we have the power to pursue that goal,” says Chan Hellman, executive director of the Hope Research Center at the University of Oklahoma-Tulsa and co-author of “Hope Rising: How the Science of Hope Can Change Your Life.”
Watch your words
When we despair, we tend to speak in absolutes: “I’ll never catch a break.” “Things will always be like this.” “I’m overwhelmed.” “We’re doomed.” These are hope killers.
Many years ago I interviewed Elie Wiesel, the Nobel laureate, author and Holocaust survivor. Mr. Wiesel told me something I have never forgotten: “Every word we speak or write matters.”
Heed Mr. Wiesel’s advice. Think carefully about your words. Use hopeful language: “I can.” “We will.” “It’s possible.”
Spread hope
Emotions are contagious. And everyone is searching for hope right now. So model it for others. Explain what makes you hopeful. Share your goals. And describe how you plan to reach them. You may garner support. You’ll inspire others, showing what is possible.
Remember: Hope begets hope. “When people around you are energized, that can energize you, as well,” says Dr. Milona.
Thursday, October 29
Hello! Thanks for an interesting week of discussions about altruism and effectiveness. Part of what makes people happy is giving and helping others. But, what about the other side - buying things to make ourselves feel happy. The article for this week says that we can't buy things to make us happy, nor can we elect someone to make us happy, nor can we create a governmental or free market society that will then create happiness. Nope. You'll have to read it to find out where happiness is. One line, however, that I really appreciated is this:
"The world encourages us to love things and use people. But that’s backwards. Put this on your fridge and try to live by it:
Love people; use things."
May God bless you and everyone that you love,
- Dave
Are We Trading Our Happiness for Modern Comforts?
Arthur C. Brooks, The Atlantic, 10.22.20
One of the greatest paradoxes in American life is that while, on average, existence has gotten more comfortable over time, happiness has fallen. According to the United States Census Bureau, average household income in the U.S., adjusted for inflation, was higher in 2019 than has ever been recorded for every income quintile. And although income inequality has risen, this has not been mirrored by inequality in the consumption of goods and services. For example, from 2008 to 2019, households in the lowest income quintile increased spending on eating out by an average of about 22 percent; the top quintile increased spending on eating out by an average of just under 8 percent. Meanwhile, domestic government services have increased significantly: For example, federal spending on education, training, employment, and social services increased from 2000 to 2019 by about 30 percent in inflation-adjusted terms.
New American homes in 2016 were 1,000 square feet larger than in 1973 and living space per person, on average, has nearly doubled. The number of Americans who use the internet increased from 52 to 90 percent from 2000 to 2019. The percentage who use social media grew from 5 to 72 percent from 2005 to 2019.
But amid these advances in quality of life across the income scale, average happiness is decreasing in the U.S. The General Social Survey, which has been measuring social trends among Americans every one or two years since 1972, shows a long-term, gradual decline in happiness—and rise in unhappiness—from 1988 to the present.
There are several possible explanations for this paradox: It could be that people are uninformed about all of this amazing progress, that we can’t perceive progress very well when it occurs over decades, or that we are measuring the wrong indicators of “quality of life.” I suspect the answer is all three. The last idea, however, is especially important to understand in order to improve our own happiness.
There’s nothing new about the idea that consumption doesn’t lead to happiness—that concept is a mainstay of just about every religion,
and many philosophical traditions as well. Arguably, Karl Marx’s greatest insight came from his theory of alienation, in part defined as a sense of estrangement from the self that comes from being part of a materialistic society in which we are cogs in an enormous market-based machine.
But you don’t have to be religious (or a Marxist) to see how absurd some of the claims that come out of our hyper-consumerist society are. We are promised happiness with the next pay raise, the next new gadget—even the next sip of soda. The Swedish business professor Carl Cederström argues persuasively in his book The Happiness Fantasy that corporations and advertisers have promised satisfaction, but have led people instead into a rat race of joyless production and consumption. Though the material comforts of life in the U.S. have increased for many of its citizens, those things don’t give life meaning.
The answer, as Marx and his modern followers today would have it, is to adopt a different system of economic governance, specifically scientific socialism, which leaves people less exposed to the power of markets. But it’s not at all clear that this is the road to greater well-being. Indeed, many have observed that socialism’s focus on who gets what is every bit as materialistic as a market-based society.
Though government intervention can certainly help meet basic needs—food on the table, money when people are unemployed, health care that doesn’t break the bank—interacting with the government is not a joyful process. Even in our mixed economy, people get caught up in the net of bureaucracy. Scientific socialism—or at least, scientific public administration—reduces citizenship to a series of cold transactions with the government. Empty consumerism and soulless government are the traditional two explanations for our modern alienation. These days, there is a brand-new one: tech. The tech revolution promised us our heart’s desires: everything you want to know at the click of a mouse; the ability to become famous to strangers; anything you want to buy, delivered to your door in days without you having to leave home.
But our happiness has not increased as a result—on the contrary. Mounting evidence shows that media and technology use predict deleterious psychological and physiological outcomes, especially among young people. This is particularly true in the case of social-media use. The psychologist Jean M. Twenge has shown that social media increases depression, especially among girls and young women.
We don’t get happier as our society gets richer, because we chase the wrong things. Consumerocracy, bureaucracy, and technocracy promise us greater satisfaction, but don’t deliver. Consumer purchases promise to make us more attractive and entertained; the government promises protection from life’s vicissitudes; social media promises to keep us connected; but none of these provide the love and purpose that bring deep and enduring satisfaction to life.
This is not an indictment of capitalism, government, or technology. They never satisfy—not because they are malevolent, but rather because they cannot. This poses a real dilemma, not just for society, but for each of us as individuals. But properly informed, we are far from defenseless. Here are three principles to help us keep the forces of modern life from ruining our happiness.
1. DON’T BUY THAT THING. A group of my colleagues at Harvard show in their research that to get happier as we prosper, we need to change the choices we make with our financial resources. In an extensive review of the literature, they analyze the happiness benefits of at least four uses of income: buying consumer items, buying time to pay for help (by, say, hiring people to do tasks you don’t enjoy), buying accompanied experiences (for example, going on vacation with a loved one), and donating charitably or giving to friends and family. The evidence is clear that, although people tend toward the first, much greater happiness comes from the other three.
2. DON’T PUT YOUR FAITH IN PRINCES (OR POLITICIANS). If I complain that government is soulless or that a politician is making me unhappy—which I personally have done many times—I am saying that I think government should have a soul or that politicians can and should bring me happiness. This is naïve at best.
Some of history’s greatest tyrants have promised that a government or political leader could bring joy to life. In 1949, the Soviet government promoted the slogan “Beloved Stalin is the people’s happiness.” Few leaders have delivered more misery and death than Stalin—but looking at this slogan makes me think twice about my own expectations of governments and politicians.
3. DON’T TRADE LOVE FOR ANYTHING. I have referenced in this column before a famous study that followed hundreds of men who graduated from Harvard from 1939 to 1944 throughout their lives, into their 90s. The researchers wanted to know who flourished, who didn’t, and the decisions they had made that contributed to that well-being. The lead scholar on the study for many years was the Harvard psychiatrist George Vaillant, who summarized the results in his book Triumphs of Experience. Here is his summary, in its entirety: “Happiness is love. Full stop.”
What this means is that anything that substitutes for close human relationships in your life is a bad trade. But the point goes much deeper. You will sacrifice happiness if you crowd out relationships with work, drugs, politics, or social media. The world encourages us to love things and use people. But that’s backwards. Put this on your fridge and try to live by it: Love people; use things.
I realize that one could easily read this column as a jeremiad against modern life. That isn’t my intention. (Indeed, I am a very public proponent of democratic capitalism with a modern welfare state.) Rather, I mean to appeal to all of us to remember that material prosperity has both benefits and costs. The costs come when we allow our hunger for the fruits of prosperity to blind us to the timeless sources of true human happiness: faith, family, friendship, and work in which we earn our success and serve others. Regardless of how the world might change, those have always been, and will always be, the things that deliver the satisfaction we crave.
ARTHUR C. BROOKS is a contributing writer at The Atlantic, a professor of the practice of public leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School, a senior fellow at the Harvard Business School, an
"The world encourages us to love things and use people. But that’s backwards. Put this on your fridge and try to live by it:
Love people; use things."
May God bless you and everyone that you love,
- Dave
Are We Trading Our Happiness for Modern Comforts?
Arthur C. Brooks, The Atlantic, 10.22.20
One of the greatest paradoxes in American life is that while, on average, existence has gotten more comfortable over time, happiness has fallen. According to the United States Census Bureau, average household income in the U.S., adjusted for inflation, was higher in 2019 than has ever been recorded for every income quintile. And although income inequality has risen, this has not been mirrored by inequality in the consumption of goods and services. For example, from 2008 to 2019, households in the lowest income quintile increased spending on eating out by an average of about 22 percent; the top quintile increased spending on eating out by an average of just under 8 percent. Meanwhile, domestic government services have increased significantly: For example, federal spending on education, training, employment, and social services increased from 2000 to 2019 by about 30 percent in inflation-adjusted terms.
New American homes in 2016 were 1,000 square feet larger than in 1973 and living space per person, on average, has nearly doubled. The number of Americans who use the internet increased from 52 to 90 percent from 2000 to 2019. The percentage who use social media grew from 5 to 72 percent from 2005 to 2019.
But amid these advances in quality of life across the income scale, average happiness is decreasing in the U.S. The General Social Survey, which has been measuring social trends among Americans every one or two years since 1972, shows a long-term, gradual decline in happiness—and rise in unhappiness—from 1988 to the present.
There are several possible explanations for this paradox: It could be that people are uninformed about all of this amazing progress, that we can’t perceive progress very well when it occurs over decades, or that we are measuring the wrong indicators of “quality of life.” I suspect the answer is all three. The last idea, however, is especially important to understand in order to improve our own happiness.
There’s nothing new about the idea that consumption doesn’t lead to happiness—that concept is a mainstay of just about every religion,
and many philosophical traditions as well. Arguably, Karl Marx’s greatest insight came from his theory of alienation, in part defined as a sense of estrangement from the self that comes from being part of a materialistic society in which we are cogs in an enormous market-based machine.
But you don’t have to be religious (or a Marxist) to see how absurd some of the claims that come out of our hyper-consumerist society are. We are promised happiness with the next pay raise, the next new gadget—even the next sip of soda. The Swedish business professor Carl Cederström argues persuasively in his book The Happiness Fantasy that corporations and advertisers have promised satisfaction, but have led people instead into a rat race of joyless production and consumption. Though the material comforts of life in the U.S. have increased for many of its citizens, those things don’t give life meaning.
The answer, as Marx and his modern followers today would have it, is to adopt a different system of economic governance, specifically scientific socialism, which leaves people less exposed to the power of markets. But it’s not at all clear that this is the road to greater well-being. Indeed, many have observed that socialism’s focus on who gets what is every bit as materialistic as a market-based society.
Though government intervention can certainly help meet basic needs—food on the table, money when people are unemployed, health care that doesn’t break the bank—interacting with the government is not a joyful process. Even in our mixed economy, people get caught up in the net of bureaucracy. Scientific socialism—or at least, scientific public administration—reduces citizenship to a series of cold transactions with the government. Empty consumerism and soulless government are the traditional two explanations for our modern alienation. These days, there is a brand-new one: tech. The tech revolution promised us our heart’s desires: everything you want to know at the click of a mouse; the ability to become famous to strangers; anything you want to buy, delivered to your door in days without you having to leave home.
But our happiness has not increased as a result—on the contrary. Mounting evidence shows that media and technology use predict deleterious psychological and physiological outcomes, especially among young people. This is particularly true in the case of social-media use. The psychologist Jean M. Twenge has shown that social media increases depression, especially among girls and young women.
We don’t get happier as our society gets richer, because we chase the wrong things. Consumerocracy, bureaucracy, and technocracy promise us greater satisfaction, but don’t deliver. Consumer purchases promise to make us more attractive and entertained; the government promises protection from life’s vicissitudes; social media promises to keep us connected; but none of these provide the love and purpose that bring deep and enduring satisfaction to life.
This is not an indictment of capitalism, government, or technology. They never satisfy—not because they are malevolent, but rather because they cannot. This poses a real dilemma, not just for society, but for each of us as individuals. But properly informed, we are far from defenseless. Here are three principles to help us keep the forces of modern life from ruining our happiness.
1. DON’T BUY THAT THING. A group of my colleagues at Harvard show in their research that to get happier as we prosper, we need to change the choices we make with our financial resources. In an extensive review of the literature, they analyze the happiness benefits of at least four uses of income: buying consumer items, buying time to pay for help (by, say, hiring people to do tasks you don’t enjoy), buying accompanied experiences (for example, going on vacation with a loved one), and donating charitably or giving to friends and family. The evidence is clear that, although people tend toward the first, much greater happiness comes from the other three.
2. DON’T PUT YOUR FAITH IN PRINCES (OR POLITICIANS). If I complain that government is soulless or that a politician is making me unhappy—which I personally have done many times—I am saying that I think government should have a soul or that politicians can and should bring me happiness. This is naïve at best.
Some of history’s greatest tyrants have promised that a government or political leader could bring joy to life. In 1949, the Soviet government promoted the slogan “Beloved Stalin is the people’s happiness.” Few leaders have delivered more misery and death than Stalin—but looking at this slogan makes me think twice about my own expectations of governments and politicians.
3. DON’T TRADE LOVE FOR ANYTHING. I have referenced in this column before a famous study that followed hundreds of men who graduated from Harvard from 1939 to 1944 throughout their lives, into their 90s. The researchers wanted to know who flourished, who didn’t, and the decisions they had made that contributed to that well-being. The lead scholar on the study for many years was the Harvard psychiatrist George Vaillant, who summarized the results in his book Triumphs of Experience. Here is his summary, in its entirety: “Happiness is love. Full stop.”
What this means is that anything that substitutes for close human relationships in your life is a bad trade. But the point goes much deeper. You will sacrifice happiness if you crowd out relationships with work, drugs, politics, or social media. The world encourages us to love things and use people. But that’s backwards. Put this on your fridge and try to live by it: Love people; use things.
I realize that one could easily read this column as a jeremiad against modern life. That isn’t my intention. (Indeed, I am a very public proponent of democratic capitalism with a modern welfare state.) Rather, I mean to appeal to all of us to remember that material prosperity has both benefits and costs. The costs come when we allow our hunger for the fruits of prosperity to blind us to the timeless sources of true human happiness: faith, family, friendship, and work in which we earn our success and serve others. Regardless of how the world might change, those have always been, and will always be, the things that deliver the satisfaction we crave.
ARTHUR C. BROOKS is a contributing writer at The Atlantic, a professor of the practice of public leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School, a senior fellow at the Harvard Business School, an
Thursday, October 22
This was certainly an interesting week of discussions. One thread that came up in each group, including the book study, was altruism. Can one give without getting back? Although there is no clear answer to that, I have an interesting article about effective altruism. It is written in a way that will both inspire and irritate the reader. I'm not sure if that is a good thing, but, it should make for an interesting discussion.
Blessings to you,
- Dave
The Rise of the Rational Do-Gooders
Zachary Pincus-Roth, Washington Post 9.23.20
Brian Ottens wished he could buy his 8-year-old daughter a better iPad. The first-generation one she’d inherited from her great-grandmother didn’t support the game she wanted to play. But Ottens has different priorities. “We just explain it to her: iPads are expensive, and this several hundreds of dollars could go toward helping a lot of animals,” he says. When her school went online during the covid-19 pandemic, Ottens was forced to give in and buy a low-end Chromebook. Still, he says, “if it never showed up, I think she would have continued feeling the same way. I understand why.” Every year, Ottens and his wife donate a large amount to charities, mainly ones that advocate for animals. In 2018, they gave $49,000, which was 27 percent of their combined salary. This year they plan to give $60,000. They vary the amount to maximize their tax benefits, so that they can give more in the long run.
Ottens, 43, is an engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., working on devices that look for signs of life on places like Mars and Saturn’s moon Titan. It’s a stressful job: He needs to keep his team on a strict timetable, and there’s unexpected weekend work. But he seeks out the stress. The more stress he has, the more animals will live. “Once I discovered this access I had for reducing suffering, it motivated me to compete for the highest-stress job I could withstand,” he says, “and it usually came along with higher pay, and that higher pay has meant I could donate a lot more.” His wife is on board with his giving. The couple don’t own a fancy car or take expensive vacations. When planning their finances for the year, nixing donations is just not on the table.
Ottens’s choices are unimaginable for many, but they’re typical of effective altruism, a movement devoted to improving the world in the most logical, evidence-based way possible. Oxford professor William MacAskill, who helped found the movement, estimates that if you’re a one-person U.S. household earning more than $58,000, you’re in the top 1 percent in the world, even accounting for global cost differences. Since a dollar means far more to the less fortunate than to those living in such comfort, effective altruists donate a large percentage of their income. And to further harness that dollar, they seek out causes that most efficiently save lives. They land on ones that many of us haven’t considered before, especially since those lives tend to be on the other side of the world, or nonhuman — or yet to be lived.
It’s no coincidence that the effective altruism movement came about when evidence-based practices — using science and data to make decisions, rather than conventions and intuition — were on the rise in areas such as government and health care; however, EA hasn’t yet gone mainstream.
One question about EA is whether the “E” is harder than the “A.” One EA group ragged on New York Times columnist David Brooks, who in 2013 had written a critique of earning money at a hedge fund in order to donate it to far-away recipients. (“You might become one of those people who loves humanity in general but not the particular humans immediately around.”)
Motivation is a hole in effective altruism’s armor. Isn’t it better if an art-loving rich person gives to a local museum rather than buying a yacht? But an EA might argue that society is paying for that contribution, in the form of a tax deduction. And can’t wealthy nonprofits find other means of making up the difference — like a museum selling a lesser-known work that it doesn’t display anyway? The arguments can go on and on.
Jason Dykstra is a radiologist in Holland, Mich. His family of four lives on around $48,000 annually and has given away about 75 percent of their take-home income for the past seven years. Dykstra often gets pushback from his peers. “To be able to convince them that someone halfway around the world is just as important as their kid or their grandkid or favorite church buddy, that’s the challenge I’ve run into,” he says. He thinks the pandemic could help EA, as it has awakened Americans to the horrors of infectious diseases and economic instability. “It’s helped them to empathize better with problems that the rest of the world faces all the time,” he says.
Think about the moral issues your friends and family have argued about over the past few years. Donald Trump. Race relations. The 2020 campaign. Immigration. Abortion. Trump. Trump. Trump. Effective altruists might personally care about these things, but they are not the causes the movement tends to focus on. “Anything that involves party politics ... EA tries to stay out of those things because it’s so unlikely that we’d be able to make a difference,” says Julia Wise, 35, community liaison at the Center for Effective Altruism. Issues in the news may be galvanizing. But, Wise says, “we’ve been looking for problems that are boring.”
Dylan Matthews, a former Washington Post reporter, is the head writer of Future Perfect, a section of Vox that’s funded by private donors and explores how to do the most good. Matthews identifies as an effective altruist himself; he once donated a kidney to a stranger. At Vox, he grapples with how to communicate the movement’s ideas convincingly. One colleague joked that he should write an article saying that instead of sending toothbrushes to children detained at the Mexico border, people should be spending that money on malaria. But he wouldn’t write something like that, he says, because he wouldn’t want to dismiss anyone’s pain. “EA is not an oppression Olympics,” he says, “and if it becomes an oppression Olympics, a lot of good and smart people will be turned off.”
But as EA has become more flexible, it still faces a daunting force: the human brain. Even for Geistwhite, 33, who hosted the D.C. gathering and works as a statistician for the U.S. Agency for International Development, it’s been a long road to shifting his intuitions. He grew up
in the town of Farmington, N.M., in a conservative family, inheriting a “Fox News perspective,” as he puts it over dinner at NuVegan Cafe
in Northwest Washington. He would volunteer for the Salvation Army, occasionally on programs that gave gifts to kids. But when they
opened their gifts, he recalls, they just seemed confused. He heard about GiveWell while in college at Princeton and eventually started coming around to EA beliefs.
Geistwhite once worked for nine months at a health clinic in Sierra Leone and now keeps a photo of his co-workers there at his desk. One had difficulty concentrating in the afternoon because he would pass up the $1.50 daily lunch to save money to support his family. The photo is a reminder of who needs help. “It’s the suffering that’s important,” Geistwhite says. “It’s not how I feel about it.”
Blessings to you,
- Dave
The Rise of the Rational Do-Gooders
Zachary Pincus-Roth, Washington Post 9.23.20
Brian Ottens wished he could buy his 8-year-old daughter a better iPad. The first-generation one she’d inherited from her great-grandmother didn’t support the game she wanted to play. But Ottens has different priorities. “We just explain it to her: iPads are expensive, and this several hundreds of dollars could go toward helping a lot of animals,” he says. When her school went online during the covid-19 pandemic, Ottens was forced to give in and buy a low-end Chromebook. Still, he says, “if it never showed up, I think she would have continued feeling the same way. I understand why.” Every year, Ottens and his wife donate a large amount to charities, mainly ones that advocate for animals. In 2018, they gave $49,000, which was 27 percent of their combined salary. This year they plan to give $60,000. They vary the amount to maximize their tax benefits, so that they can give more in the long run.
Ottens, 43, is an engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., working on devices that look for signs of life on places like Mars and Saturn’s moon Titan. It’s a stressful job: He needs to keep his team on a strict timetable, and there’s unexpected weekend work. But he seeks out the stress. The more stress he has, the more animals will live. “Once I discovered this access I had for reducing suffering, it motivated me to compete for the highest-stress job I could withstand,” he says, “and it usually came along with higher pay, and that higher pay has meant I could donate a lot more.” His wife is on board with his giving. The couple don’t own a fancy car or take expensive vacations. When planning their finances for the year, nixing donations is just not on the table.
Ottens’s choices are unimaginable for many, but they’re typical of effective altruism, a movement devoted to improving the world in the most logical, evidence-based way possible. Oxford professor William MacAskill, who helped found the movement, estimates that if you’re a one-person U.S. household earning more than $58,000, you’re in the top 1 percent in the world, even accounting for global cost differences. Since a dollar means far more to the less fortunate than to those living in such comfort, effective altruists donate a large percentage of their income. And to further harness that dollar, they seek out causes that most efficiently save lives. They land on ones that many of us haven’t considered before, especially since those lives tend to be on the other side of the world, or nonhuman — or yet to be lived.
It’s no coincidence that the effective altruism movement came about when evidence-based practices — using science and data to make decisions, rather than conventions and intuition — were on the rise in areas such as government and health care; however, EA hasn’t yet gone mainstream.
One question about EA is whether the “E” is harder than the “A.” One EA group ragged on New York Times columnist David Brooks, who in 2013 had written a critique of earning money at a hedge fund in order to donate it to far-away recipients. (“You might become one of those people who loves humanity in general but not the particular humans immediately around.”)
Motivation is a hole in effective altruism’s armor. Isn’t it better if an art-loving rich person gives to a local museum rather than buying a yacht? But an EA might argue that society is paying for that contribution, in the form of a tax deduction. And can’t wealthy nonprofits find other means of making up the difference — like a museum selling a lesser-known work that it doesn’t display anyway? The arguments can go on and on.
Jason Dykstra is a radiologist in Holland, Mich. His family of four lives on around $48,000 annually and has given away about 75 percent of their take-home income for the past seven years. Dykstra often gets pushback from his peers. “To be able to convince them that someone halfway around the world is just as important as their kid or their grandkid or favorite church buddy, that’s the challenge I’ve run into,” he says. He thinks the pandemic could help EA, as it has awakened Americans to the horrors of infectious diseases and economic instability. “It’s helped them to empathize better with problems that the rest of the world faces all the time,” he says.
Think about the moral issues your friends and family have argued about over the past few years. Donald Trump. Race relations. The 2020 campaign. Immigration. Abortion. Trump. Trump. Trump. Effective altruists might personally care about these things, but they are not the causes the movement tends to focus on. “Anything that involves party politics ... EA tries to stay out of those things because it’s so unlikely that we’d be able to make a difference,” says Julia Wise, 35, community liaison at the Center for Effective Altruism. Issues in the news may be galvanizing. But, Wise says, “we’ve been looking for problems that are boring.”
Dylan Matthews, a former Washington Post reporter, is the head writer of Future Perfect, a section of Vox that’s funded by private donors and explores how to do the most good. Matthews identifies as an effective altruist himself; he once donated a kidney to a stranger. At Vox, he grapples with how to communicate the movement’s ideas convincingly. One colleague joked that he should write an article saying that instead of sending toothbrushes to children detained at the Mexico border, people should be spending that money on malaria. But he wouldn’t write something like that, he says, because he wouldn’t want to dismiss anyone’s pain. “EA is not an oppression Olympics,” he says, “and if it becomes an oppression Olympics, a lot of good and smart people will be turned off.”
But as EA has become more flexible, it still faces a daunting force: the human brain. Even for Geistwhite, 33, who hosted the D.C. gathering and works as a statistician for the U.S. Agency for International Development, it’s been a long road to shifting his intuitions. He grew up
in the town of Farmington, N.M., in a conservative family, inheriting a “Fox News perspective,” as he puts it over dinner at NuVegan Cafe
in Northwest Washington. He would volunteer for the Salvation Army, occasionally on programs that gave gifts to kids. But when they
opened their gifts, he recalls, they just seemed confused. He heard about GiveWell while in college at Princeton and eventually started coming around to EA beliefs.
Geistwhite once worked for nine months at a health clinic in Sierra Leone and now keeps a photo of his co-workers there at his desk. One had difficulty concentrating in the afternoon because he would pass up the $1.50 daily lunch to save money to support his family. The photo is a reminder of who needs help. “It’s the suffering that’s important,” Geistwhite says. “It’s not how I feel about it.”
Thursday, October 15
We are going to talk about the science, or lack-thereof, of near-death experiences. Here are two articles talking about the subject. The primary text, Understanding Near-Death Experiences, gets into the neurology behind the phenomenon and brings up the subject in saying it can be simulated, perhaps, by a particular drug. The other article, which is not required reading, is from an MD who had her own experience and believes it is beyond scientific understanding.
There are many more articles about this so, if you are so inclined, feel free to do your own reading and let the group know what you found.
Many blessings to you this week,
- Dave
Near-Death Experiences Are Real, Doctor Says
David Oliver, US News, 10.17.17
In 1987, Barbara Bartolome says she died. And 30 years later, she continues to tell her story. The Santa Barbara, California-based retiree says she went into cardiac arrest after an X-Ray technician tipped an exam table the incorrect way during a Myelogram test, accidentally lowering her head instead of raising it. The test involves injecting an iodine dye into a person's spinal cord to help spot damage to discs. But Bartolome says when the table tipped, the dye injected at the base of her skull flowed into her brain instead of the spinal cord.
"I've been told that the change in pressure there would have caused my brain to malfunction," she says. This "very quickly resulted in confusion, hyperventilation and then cardiac arrest," Bartolome says, but what happened next is something more difficult to explain. Bartolome says she had a near-death experience, a phenomenon in which people report conscious events around them even though they may be clinically dead. Such experiences still have their skeptics, but Bartolome – the founder and director of International Association for Near-Death Studies, Santa Barbara – is certainly not alone.
Near-death experiences are real, "without a doubt," according to Houma, Louisiana-based Dr. Jeffrey Long. He runs the Near Death Experience Research Foundation and has studied more than 4,000 such experiences, in addition to working full-time in radiation oncology. People like Bartolome submit experiences to his foundation and are required to answer a more than 140-question survey to help verify their claims. To vet these people, many of these questions are the same, just asked in a slightly different way to make sure everything adds up.
Long isn't the only one doing research on the subject. Dr. Sam Parnia, an associate professor of medicine at New York University Langone Medical Center, launched a comprehensive study of near-death experiences in 2008. He published research involving 2,060 cardiac arrest patients, called AWARE, in 2014 in Resuscitation. That said, Parnia doesn't think the term "near-death experience" is the one people should be using, since it's "very poorly defined and it's what's led to a lot of controversy and debate," he says.
Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine, questioned the claims of Eben Alexander's book "Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife," which details a near-death experience while he underwent a meningitis-induced coma. "The fact that mind and
consciousness are not fully explained by natural forces, however, is not proof of the supernatural," Shermer writes. "In any case, there is a reason they are called near-death experiences: the people who have them are not actually dead."
Parnia says the people studied are those who have objectively died and come back. Biologically, that's referred to as cardiac arrest, where doctors try to intervene after someone's heart stops beating. And Long also has a message for the inevitable skeptics: You can't explain away the consistent lucidity of near-death experiences.
When Bartolome went into cardiac arrest, she says she suddenly found herself up on the ceiling looking down very calmly and peacefully at the scene below her. "If I'm up here and my body's down there and he's calling code blue, I think I might've just died," she remembers thinking. She noticed a presence up there – who she later referred to as a "being" – and told the being she wanted to go back into her life. She was stuck in a difficult marriage, and the being knew that. It asked her, "But if you go back, you'll still be in your marriage. What will you do?" She told the being that she would get strong enough to leave her husband.
Down below, doctors had been trying to figure out what to do to save her life, she says. They ended up performing two precordial thumps (i.e. pounding the center of her chest), the second of which brought her back to life.
After she woke up, she told the staff she was watching their every move from above, leaving them stunned with what she was able to recall.
That's where Parnia comes in: His research focuses on resuscitated people's mental and cognitive experience at that specific moment when they have gone through death. He calls it an actual death experience.
The brain shuts down within two to 20 seconds after the heart stops, Parnia says, so even when doctors try to revive patients, they don't usually get enough blood into brain to get it functioning again. And that's what made the AWARE study turn heads: 39 percent of patients who lived after cardiac arrest could describe a perception of awareness even if they couldn't recall specific memories. These people didn't have an explicit memory of these events, though more granular research in further interviews revealed 9 percent of people who reported this perception of awareness went through what's commonly referred to as a near-death experience, and 2 percent had an "out-of-body experience" – meaning they could hear and see events. In one substantiated case from the AWARE study, "consciousness and awareness appeared to occur during a three minute period when there was no heartbeat."
Parnia is in the midst of working on a follow-up study, called AWARE II, with a public announcement likely in the next six months. It will try to answer questions the first study raised.
For example, is it true that up to 40 percent of people have awareness but just don't recall it?
Parnia says his team has built in tests for visual and auditory awareness for specific moments
during cardiac arrest and CPR where they can test for implicit learning if people can't explicitly
recall memories.
"For instance, in some cases people who appear unconscious are given names of cities and objects," he says. "When they have recovered they have been asked to recall any memories. Even though they have no recall, when asked to 'randomly' think of cities, those who had been exposed to the stimuli are statistically more likely to choose the same cities compared to control subjects. Thus indicating they had heard it."
New Clues Found in Understanding Near-Death Experiences
Robert Martone, Scientific American, 9.10.19
Imagine a dream in which you sense an intense feeling of presence, the truest, most real experience in your life, as you float away from your body and look at your own face. You have a twinge of fear as memories of your life flash by, but then you pass a transcendent threshold and are overcome by a feeling of bliss. Although contemplating death elicits fear for many people, these positive features are reported in some of the near-death experiences (NDEs) undergone by those who reached the brink of death only to recover.
Accounts of NDEs are remarkably consistent in character and content. They include intensely vivid memories involving bodily sensations that give a strong impression of being real, more real even than memories of true events. The content of those experiences famously includes memories of one’s life “flashing before the eyes,” and also the sensation of leaving the body, often seeing one’s own face and body, blissfully traveling through a tunnel toward a light and feeling “at one” with something universal.
Not surprisingly, many have seized on NDEs as evidence of life after death, heaven and the existence of God. The descriptions of leaving the body and blissful unity with the universal seem almost scripted from religious beliefs about souls leaving the body at death and ascending toward heavenly bliss. But these experiences are shared across a broad range of cultures and religions so it’s not likely that they are all reflections of specific religious expectations. Instead, that commonality suggests that NDEs might arise from something more fundamental than religious or cultural expectations. Perhaps NDEs reflect changes in how the brain functions as we approach death.
Many cultures employ drugs as part of religious practice to induce feelings of transcendence that have similarities to near-death experiences. If NDEs are based in brain biology, perhaps the action of those drugs that causes NDE-like experiences can teach us something about the NDE state. Of course, studying NDEs has significant technical hurdles. There is no way of examining the experience in animals, and rescuing a patient at death’s door is far more important than interviewing them about their NDE. Moreover, many of the drugs used to induce religious states are illicit, which would complicate any efforts to study their effects.
Although it’s impossible to directly examine what happens to the brain during NDEs, the stories collected from them provide a rich resource for linguistic analysis. In a fascinating new study, NDE stories were compared linguistically with anecdotes of drug experience in order to identify a drug that causes an experience most like a near-death experience. What is remarkable is how precise a tool this turned out to be. Even though the stories were open-ended subjective accounts often given many years after the fact, the linguistic analysis focused down not only to a specific class of drugs, but also to a specific drug as causing experiences very similar to NDEs.
This new study compared the stories of 625 individuals who reported NDEs with the stories of more than 15,000 individuals who had taken one of 165 different psychoactive drugs. When those stories were linguistically analyzed, similarities were found between recollections of near-death and drug experiences for those who had taken a specific class of drug. One drug in particular, ketamine, led to experiences very similar to NDE. This may mean that the near-death experience may reflect changes in the same chemical system in the brain that is targeted by drugs like ketamine.
The researchers drew on a large collection of NDE stories they had collected over many years. To compare NDEs with drug experiences, the researchers took advantage of a large collection of drug experience anecdotes found in the Erowid Experience Vaults, an open-source collection of accounts describing firsthand experiences with drugs and various substances.
In this study, the recollections of those who experienced NDEs and those who took drugs were compared linguistically. Their stories were broken down into individual words, and the words were sorted according to their meaning and counted. In this way, researchers were able to compare the number of times words having the same meaning were used in each story. They used this numerical analysis of story content to compare the content of drug-related and near-death experiences.
Each of the drugs included in these comparisons could be categorized by their ability to interact with a specific neurochemical system in the brain, and each drug fell into a specific category (antipsychotic, stimulant, psychedelic, depressant or sedative, deliriant, or hallucinogen). Few similarities were found when the accounts of one stimulant drug were compared with another within the same stimulant drug class, and few if any similarities were found between accounts of stimulant drug experience and NDEs. The same was true for depressants. The stories associated with hallucinogens, however, were very similar to one another, as were stories linked to antipsychotics and deliriants. When recollections of drug effects were compared with NDEs, stories about hallucinogens and psychedelics had the greatest similarities to NDEs, and the drug that scored the highest similarity to NDEs was the hallucinogen ketamine. The word most strongly represented in descriptions of both NDEs and ketamine experiences was “reality,” highlighting the sense of presence that accompanies NDEs. High among the list of words common to both experiences were those related to perception (saw, color, voice, vision), the body (face, arm, foot), emotion (fear) and transcendence (universe, understand, consciousness).
The researchers then sorted words into five large principal groups according to their common meaning. Those principal components dealt with perception and consciousness, drug dependency, negative sensations, drug preparation, and also a group that included disease state, religion and ceremony. NDEs reflected three of these components related to perception and consciousness, religion and ceremony, disease state, and drug preparation. The component related to perception and consciousness was labeled “Look/Self” and included terms such as color, vision, pattern, reality and face. The component “Disease/Religion” contained elements such as anxiety, ceremony, consciousness and self, whereas the component related to preparation “Make/Stuff” contained elements such as prepare, boil, smell and ceremony. Again, ketamine had the greatest overlap with NDEs in this type of analysis.
Other drugs that cause similar experiences to NDEs include LSD and N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT). The famous hallucinogen LSD was as similar as ketamine to NDEs when the near-death event was caused by cardiac arrest. DMT is a hallucinogen found in South American plants and used in shamanistic rituals. It caused experiences like NDEs and is also made in the brain, leading to speculation that endogenous DMT may explain NDEs. It is not known, however, whether levels of DMT change in a meaningful way in the human brain near death, so its role in the phenomenon remain controversial.
This study has significant weaknesses because it is based on purely subjective reports—some taken decades after the event. Similarly, there is no way to substantiate the accounts in the Erowid collection as there is no way to prove that any individual took the drug they claimed or believed they were taking. This makes it all the more remarkable that a linguistic analysis of stories derived in this manner could discriminate among different drug classes in their similarities to NDEs.
Linking near-death experiences and the experience of taking ketamine is provocative yet it is far from conclusive that both are because of the same chemical events in the brain. The types of studies needed to demonstrate this hypothesis, such as measuring neurochemical changes in the critically ill, would be both technically and ethically challenging. The authors propose, however, a practical application of this relation. Because near-death experiences (NDEs) can be transformational and have profound and lasting effects on those who experience them, including a sense of fearlessness about death, the authors propose that ketamine could be used therapeutically to induce an NDE-like state in terminally ill patients as a “preview” of what they might experience, so as to relieve their anxieties about death. Those benefits need to be weighed against the risks of potential ketamine side effects, which include feelings of panic or extreme anxiety, effects that could defeat the purpose of the intervention.
More important, this study helps describe the psychological manifestations of dying. That knowledge may ultimately contribute more to alleviating fear of this inevitable transition than a dose of any drug.
Robert Martone is a research scientist with expertise in neurodegeneration. He spends his free time kayaking and translating Renaissance Italian literature.
There are many more articles about this so, if you are so inclined, feel free to do your own reading and let the group know what you found.
Many blessings to you this week,
- Dave
Near-Death Experiences Are Real, Doctor Says
David Oliver, US News, 10.17.17
In 1987, Barbara Bartolome says she died. And 30 years later, she continues to tell her story. The Santa Barbara, California-based retiree says she went into cardiac arrest after an X-Ray technician tipped an exam table the incorrect way during a Myelogram test, accidentally lowering her head instead of raising it. The test involves injecting an iodine dye into a person's spinal cord to help spot damage to discs. But Bartolome says when the table tipped, the dye injected at the base of her skull flowed into her brain instead of the spinal cord.
"I've been told that the change in pressure there would have caused my brain to malfunction," she says. This "very quickly resulted in confusion, hyperventilation and then cardiac arrest," Bartolome says, but what happened next is something more difficult to explain. Bartolome says she had a near-death experience, a phenomenon in which people report conscious events around them even though they may be clinically dead. Such experiences still have their skeptics, but Bartolome – the founder and director of International Association for Near-Death Studies, Santa Barbara – is certainly not alone.
Near-death experiences are real, "without a doubt," according to Houma, Louisiana-based Dr. Jeffrey Long. He runs the Near Death Experience Research Foundation and has studied more than 4,000 such experiences, in addition to working full-time in radiation oncology. People like Bartolome submit experiences to his foundation and are required to answer a more than 140-question survey to help verify their claims. To vet these people, many of these questions are the same, just asked in a slightly different way to make sure everything adds up.
Long isn't the only one doing research on the subject. Dr. Sam Parnia, an associate professor of medicine at New York University Langone Medical Center, launched a comprehensive study of near-death experiences in 2008. He published research involving 2,060 cardiac arrest patients, called AWARE, in 2014 in Resuscitation. That said, Parnia doesn't think the term "near-death experience" is the one people should be using, since it's "very poorly defined and it's what's led to a lot of controversy and debate," he says.
Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine, questioned the claims of Eben Alexander's book "Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife," which details a near-death experience while he underwent a meningitis-induced coma. "The fact that mind and
consciousness are not fully explained by natural forces, however, is not proof of the supernatural," Shermer writes. "In any case, there is a reason they are called near-death experiences: the people who have them are not actually dead."
Parnia says the people studied are those who have objectively died and come back. Biologically, that's referred to as cardiac arrest, where doctors try to intervene after someone's heart stops beating. And Long also has a message for the inevitable skeptics: You can't explain away the consistent lucidity of near-death experiences.
When Bartolome went into cardiac arrest, she says she suddenly found herself up on the ceiling looking down very calmly and peacefully at the scene below her. "If I'm up here and my body's down there and he's calling code blue, I think I might've just died," she remembers thinking. She noticed a presence up there – who she later referred to as a "being" – and told the being she wanted to go back into her life. She was stuck in a difficult marriage, and the being knew that. It asked her, "But if you go back, you'll still be in your marriage. What will you do?" She told the being that she would get strong enough to leave her husband.
Down below, doctors had been trying to figure out what to do to save her life, she says. They ended up performing two precordial thumps (i.e. pounding the center of her chest), the second of which brought her back to life.
After she woke up, she told the staff she was watching their every move from above, leaving them stunned with what she was able to recall.
That's where Parnia comes in: His research focuses on resuscitated people's mental and cognitive experience at that specific moment when they have gone through death. He calls it an actual death experience.
The brain shuts down within two to 20 seconds after the heart stops, Parnia says, so even when doctors try to revive patients, they don't usually get enough blood into brain to get it functioning again. And that's what made the AWARE study turn heads: 39 percent of patients who lived after cardiac arrest could describe a perception of awareness even if they couldn't recall specific memories. These people didn't have an explicit memory of these events, though more granular research in further interviews revealed 9 percent of people who reported this perception of awareness went through what's commonly referred to as a near-death experience, and 2 percent had an "out-of-body experience" – meaning they could hear and see events. In one substantiated case from the AWARE study, "consciousness and awareness appeared to occur during a three minute period when there was no heartbeat."
Parnia is in the midst of working on a follow-up study, called AWARE II, with a public announcement likely in the next six months. It will try to answer questions the first study raised.
For example, is it true that up to 40 percent of people have awareness but just don't recall it?
Parnia says his team has built in tests for visual and auditory awareness for specific moments
during cardiac arrest and CPR where they can test for implicit learning if people can't explicitly
recall memories.
"For instance, in some cases people who appear unconscious are given names of cities and objects," he says. "When they have recovered they have been asked to recall any memories. Even though they have no recall, when asked to 'randomly' think of cities, those who had been exposed to the stimuli are statistically more likely to choose the same cities compared to control subjects. Thus indicating they had heard it."
New Clues Found in Understanding Near-Death Experiences
Robert Martone, Scientific American, 9.10.19
Imagine a dream in which you sense an intense feeling of presence, the truest, most real experience in your life, as you float away from your body and look at your own face. You have a twinge of fear as memories of your life flash by, but then you pass a transcendent threshold and are overcome by a feeling of bliss. Although contemplating death elicits fear for many people, these positive features are reported in some of the near-death experiences (NDEs) undergone by those who reached the brink of death only to recover.
Accounts of NDEs are remarkably consistent in character and content. They include intensely vivid memories involving bodily sensations that give a strong impression of being real, more real even than memories of true events. The content of those experiences famously includes memories of one’s life “flashing before the eyes,” and also the sensation of leaving the body, often seeing one’s own face and body, blissfully traveling through a tunnel toward a light and feeling “at one” with something universal.
Not surprisingly, many have seized on NDEs as evidence of life after death, heaven and the existence of God. The descriptions of leaving the body and blissful unity with the universal seem almost scripted from religious beliefs about souls leaving the body at death and ascending toward heavenly bliss. But these experiences are shared across a broad range of cultures and religions so it’s not likely that they are all reflections of specific religious expectations. Instead, that commonality suggests that NDEs might arise from something more fundamental than religious or cultural expectations. Perhaps NDEs reflect changes in how the brain functions as we approach death.
Many cultures employ drugs as part of religious practice to induce feelings of transcendence that have similarities to near-death experiences. If NDEs are based in brain biology, perhaps the action of those drugs that causes NDE-like experiences can teach us something about the NDE state. Of course, studying NDEs has significant technical hurdles. There is no way of examining the experience in animals, and rescuing a patient at death’s door is far more important than interviewing them about their NDE. Moreover, many of the drugs used to induce religious states are illicit, which would complicate any efforts to study their effects.
Although it’s impossible to directly examine what happens to the brain during NDEs, the stories collected from them provide a rich resource for linguistic analysis. In a fascinating new study, NDE stories were compared linguistically with anecdotes of drug experience in order to identify a drug that causes an experience most like a near-death experience. What is remarkable is how precise a tool this turned out to be. Even though the stories were open-ended subjective accounts often given many years after the fact, the linguistic analysis focused down not only to a specific class of drugs, but also to a specific drug as causing experiences very similar to NDEs.
This new study compared the stories of 625 individuals who reported NDEs with the stories of more than 15,000 individuals who had taken one of 165 different psychoactive drugs. When those stories were linguistically analyzed, similarities were found between recollections of near-death and drug experiences for those who had taken a specific class of drug. One drug in particular, ketamine, led to experiences very similar to NDE. This may mean that the near-death experience may reflect changes in the same chemical system in the brain that is targeted by drugs like ketamine.
The researchers drew on a large collection of NDE stories they had collected over many years. To compare NDEs with drug experiences, the researchers took advantage of a large collection of drug experience anecdotes found in the Erowid Experience Vaults, an open-source collection of accounts describing firsthand experiences with drugs and various substances.
In this study, the recollections of those who experienced NDEs and those who took drugs were compared linguistically. Their stories were broken down into individual words, and the words were sorted according to their meaning and counted. In this way, researchers were able to compare the number of times words having the same meaning were used in each story. They used this numerical analysis of story content to compare the content of drug-related and near-death experiences.
Each of the drugs included in these comparisons could be categorized by their ability to interact with a specific neurochemical system in the brain, and each drug fell into a specific category (antipsychotic, stimulant, psychedelic, depressant or sedative, deliriant, or hallucinogen). Few similarities were found when the accounts of one stimulant drug were compared with another within the same stimulant drug class, and few if any similarities were found between accounts of stimulant drug experience and NDEs. The same was true for depressants. The stories associated with hallucinogens, however, were very similar to one another, as were stories linked to antipsychotics and deliriants. When recollections of drug effects were compared with NDEs, stories about hallucinogens and psychedelics had the greatest similarities to NDEs, and the drug that scored the highest similarity to NDEs was the hallucinogen ketamine. The word most strongly represented in descriptions of both NDEs and ketamine experiences was “reality,” highlighting the sense of presence that accompanies NDEs. High among the list of words common to both experiences were those related to perception (saw, color, voice, vision), the body (face, arm, foot), emotion (fear) and transcendence (universe, understand, consciousness).
The researchers then sorted words into five large principal groups according to their common meaning. Those principal components dealt with perception and consciousness, drug dependency, negative sensations, drug preparation, and also a group that included disease state, religion and ceremony. NDEs reflected three of these components related to perception and consciousness, religion and ceremony, disease state, and drug preparation. The component related to perception and consciousness was labeled “Look/Self” and included terms such as color, vision, pattern, reality and face. The component “Disease/Religion” contained elements such as anxiety, ceremony, consciousness and self, whereas the component related to preparation “Make/Stuff” contained elements such as prepare, boil, smell and ceremony. Again, ketamine had the greatest overlap with NDEs in this type of analysis.
Other drugs that cause similar experiences to NDEs include LSD and N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT). The famous hallucinogen LSD was as similar as ketamine to NDEs when the near-death event was caused by cardiac arrest. DMT is a hallucinogen found in South American plants and used in shamanistic rituals. It caused experiences like NDEs and is also made in the brain, leading to speculation that endogenous DMT may explain NDEs. It is not known, however, whether levels of DMT change in a meaningful way in the human brain near death, so its role in the phenomenon remain controversial.
This study has significant weaknesses because it is based on purely subjective reports—some taken decades after the event. Similarly, there is no way to substantiate the accounts in the Erowid collection as there is no way to prove that any individual took the drug they claimed or believed they were taking. This makes it all the more remarkable that a linguistic analysis of stories derived in this manner could discriminate among different drug classes in their similarities to NDEs.
Linking near-death experiences and the experience of taking ketamine is provocative yet it is far from conclusive that both are because of the same chemical events in the brain. The types of studies needed to demonstrate this hypothesis, such as measuring neurochemical changes in the critically ill, would be both technically and ethically challenging. The authors propose, however, a practical application of this relation. Because near-death experiences (NDEs) can be transformational and have profound and lasting effects on those who experience them, including a sense of fearlessness about death, the authors propose that ketamine could be used therapeutically to induce an NDE-like state in terminally ill patients as a “preview” of what they might experience, so as to relieve their anxieties about death. Those benefits need to be weighed against the risks of potential ketamine side effects, which include feelings of panic or extreme anxiety, effects that could defeat the purpose of the intervention.
More important, this study helps describe the psychological manifestations of dying. That knowledge may ultimately contribute more to alleviating fear of this inevitable transition than a dose of any drug.
Robert Martone is a research scientist with expertise in neurodegeneration. He spends his free time kayaking and translating Renaissance Italian literature.
Thursday, October 8
The topic for next week is out of this world - should we go to Mars? It's not if we can but should we? How about the Moon? Should we go there or focus our attention with NASA on our climate and low orbit exercisions?
The decade of space travel starting with John F. Kennedy was also a very tumultuous decade for the United States. The author of this article, Marina Koren, brings up the parallels and the budget tensions that naturally arise when we look to the skies. Similar questions arise - should the U.S. go it alone or should we have a multinational group go; like with the International Space Station.
I look forward to talking with you about this, and, whatever else comes up between now and then.
God's peace to you,
- Dave
Can We Still Go to Mars?
Marina Koren, 10.1.20, The Atlantic
Elsewhere in the solar system, a NASA rover is on its way to Mars. It carries, among other things, several pieces of spacesuit material. Designers want to see how the samples fare in the planet’s dusty, radiation-laden environment—the sturdy fabrics of the suit’s exterior, the cut-resistant fibers of its gloves, the shatterproof plastic of the bubble helmet that might someday reflect the soft light of a Martian sunset. When future astronauts arrive on the surface, the spacesuit designers back on Earth must be sure that they’re appropriately dressed for the occasion. The rover lands in February. Those future Mars explorers—who knows?
Men managed to make it to the moon 50 years ago, and for years now, setting foot on the red planet has felt like the clearest next step. Someday, an astronaut might be hunched over a desk, a wastebasket full of crumpled paper nearby, trying to come up with the right words—something as good as Neil Armstrong’s famous line—before her spaceship lands on Mars. That landing, NASA has said, would come in 2033. An Armstrong moment on Mars has always been far from guaranteed, but now, in this particular year of American history, that future feels further away than ever. The coronavirus pandemic has diminished all sorts of human endeavors, including space exploration, one of our dreamiest ambitions. “No virus is stronger than the human desire to explore,” the NASA administrator declared in April, when coronavirus cases were rising fast and the country’s response was already stumbling. Even in times like these, the leader of the only organization to send humans to another world has to believe that’s still possible, and on some level, he’s right; COVID-19 will not, in the end, stop humankind from someday reaching Mars. On the timelines required for space travel, a year, or more, of slowed activity counts as a small setback. But the exigencies of the pandemic still could influence America’s ambitions in the cosmos: The national impulse to reach for other worlds might be eroding.
Like many workplaces this spring, NASA sent its most of its employees home and hunkered down. While the agency put some projects on hold, it pressed ahead with others. A pair of NASA astronauts flew to the International Space Station and back in a SpaceX capsule. The Mars rover Perseverance launched on its months-long journey into deep space. These efforts, years in the making, were nearing their finish lines as the coronavirus spread across the country, and NASA deemed them “mission essential.”
Both launches, especially the historic flight of Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken—whom NASA affectionately advertised as “space dads”—for a moment drew Americans’ attention from a seemingly ceaseless current of tragedies, including stories of infected Americans dying in ambulances and footage of Black Americans dying at the hands of white police officers. Some people were delighted, grateful for a spot of good news. Others were surprised, even aghast, at the timing. You’re doing this now? Really?
The critique echoed the feelings of many Americans during NASA’s most famous era: the race to the moon. In the late 1960s, the Apollo program unfolded against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, civil-rights demonstrations, and political assassinations. Polling from that time shows that the majority of Americans didn’t think the Apollo program was worth the cost. The exception was a survey conducted on the day of the moon landing, when the mood around the world was euphoric. Even in that moment, though, the problems of our planet firmly grounded the minds of some Americans.
Still, space historians told me, in those halcyon days of human spaceflight, even with all its turmoil, the country functioned on a basic level. In the late 1960s, a different virus known as the “Hong Kong flu” killed roughly 100,000 Americans, but did not destabilize the country the way COVID-19 has. Throughout the decade, the national economy was thriving, and an American passport meant something. Though the Vietnam War roiled American politics, the active front was in a distant country. The war’s toll was heavy—an estimated 47,434 Americans died in battle between 1964 and 1975—but in six months, COVID-19 deaths in the United States outnumbered American casualties in the past five wars combined.
Even before the pandemic paralyzed the country, the prospect of Americans making it to Mars in the 2030s was far-fetched. In February 2019, a year before the first American died from COVID19, an independent research group published a report about NASA’s Mars dreams. At Congress’s request, NASA had asked the group to evaluate whether the agency could launch astronauts to the red planet in 2033, not to land, but to loop around and come back, as the early Apollo missions did. The conclusion was bleak; given NASA’s current plans, an orbital mission would be “infeasible under all budget scenarios and technology development and testing schedules.” The researchers found that astronauts might be able to launch in 2037, without any schedule delays or budget shortfalls, but believed 2039 would be more realistic, which would push a landing to the 2040s.
NASA is not humankind’s only ticket to other worlds. Private companies are developing their own dreams, and their own rockets. As the pandemic set in, NASA paused some work on a rocket designed to send astronauts to the moon, but Elon Musk’s SpaceX continued testing prototypes for its Mars spaceship. SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin have received sizable contracts from NASA to do their work, and Musk often says that SpaceX wouldn’t be what it is today without NASA’s support, financial and otherwise. But his private company could end up leapfrogging the storied space agency on infrastructure that could send people to Mars. (Musk said recently he believes SpaceX could deliver people to the red planet in the 2020s, but the billionaire entrepreneur is, famously and by his own admission, overly optimistic about schedules, so take that with a grain of Mars dust.) SpaceX might not go it alone in the end, deciding to join forces with NASA, but the world’s top space agency would not be at the controls.
In the business of spaceflight, delays are virtually unavoidable, even under the best of circumstances. A pandemic, then, might slow down NASA’s long-term plans—but something would have, no matter what. Donald Rapp, who worked on Mars programs as a chief technologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory before he retired, doesn’t think the effects of the pandemic today will be disruptive enough to scuttle any future mission to Mars. The 2030s, in his view, is an overly optimistic goal, and he doesn’t expect astronauts to reach the red planet until potentially the 2060s.
But the work for a Mars journey in the 2030s must be done in this decade, and for NASA, such an ambitious mission might be a tougher sell now, both to the American public and to lawmakers. Months before the virus struck, the Trump administration was already struggling to persuade Congress to fund its top priority—sending Americans back to the moon in the next four years, with an eye toward Mars after that. To reach that goal, NASA must either make cuts to existing programs or receive billions of dollars in additional funding. “If you try to sell ‘humans to Mars’ this year, next year, or even the next year, I think you’ve got a tough road to travel,” Rapp told me.
But how might the public react to enthusiastic rhetoric about other worlds in 2021, when, for many of us, this world still clearly demands extra attention? If the national unity of the Apollo era is mostly a myth, at some point NASA might have to face down the reality that Americans aren’t so space-happy. The agency runs extensive and often brilliant public-relations campaigns for its missions: recruiting schoolchildren to name space rovers, imbuing spacecraft with lovable personalities, and pitching its astronauts—both space dads and others—as talented yet relatable figures. Even so, Logsdon, the space historian, already sees the national impulse that fueled Apollo, that believed in the idea of America reaching deeper into the cosmos, weakening. “That impulse is certainly less widespread than it was 50 years ago,” he said.
As government agencies go, NASA is looked upon fondly. Although some Americans blanch at spending more than $20 billion on NASA each year, a 2019 poll found that a plurality of participants, when told that the agency’s annual funding accounts for half a percent of the national budget, say that they'd prefer the government spend a greater portion of its resources on NASA. But just 18 percent think going to Mars should be a top priority, the survey found, and even fewer think NASA should focus on sending astronauts back to the moon. Instead, survey participants thought NASA should focus more on climate-change research and the study of asteroids that could strike Earth, two areas that receive far less funding than human spaceflight. “If it was up to the public to set space priorities, the NASA budget would be flipped,” Teasel Muir-Harmony, a historian and a curator of Apollo artifacts at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, told me.
The agency will have a chance to see, in February, how eager Americans are to think about a place that’s not this one. Perseverance will land on Mars and start to dig for evidence of fossilized alien life. Perhaps people will latch on to this distant robot as a distraction from the strain of the pandemic; perhaps the concerns of Mars will seem extra hard to care about. What might the country look like then? How many more Americans will have died?
The swatches of spacesuit material that Perseverance carries are, in a way, an emblem of American optimism. They posit that one day these fabrics might be wrapped around the bodies of astronauts, sheltering them from an environment they weren’t made to survive. These Armstrongs and Aldrins might walk up to Perseverance, its batteries long dead, and see, next to one of its wheels, beneath a blanket of rust-colored dust, a plaque of a snake coiled around a rod. A symbol of medicine, added as a tribute to the brave people who tended to others during the 2020 pandemic, years before—in this future, a di
The decade of space travel starting with John F. Kennedy was also a very tumultuous decade for the United States. The author of this article, Marina Koren, brings up the parallels and the budget tensions that naturally arise when we look to the skies. Similar questions arise - should the U.S. go it alone or should we have a multinational group go; like with the International Space Station.
I look forward to talking with you about this, and, whatever else comes up between now and then.
God's peace to you,
- Dave
Can We Still Go to Mars?
Marina Koren, 10.1.20, The Atlantic
Elsewhere in the solar system, a NASA rover is on its way to Mars. It carries, among other things, several pieces of spacesuit material. Designers want to see how the samples fare in the planet’s dusty, radiation-laden environment—the sturdy fabrics of the suit’s exterior, the cut-resistant fibers of its gloves, the shatterproof plastic of the bubble helmet that might someday reflect the soft light of a Martian sunset. When future astronauts arrive on the surface, the spacesuit designers back on Earth must be sure that they’re appropriately dressed for the occasion. The rover lands in February. Those future Mars explorers—who knows?
Men managed to make it to the moon 50 years ago, and for years now, setting foot on the red planet has felt like the clearest next step. Someday, an astronaut might be hunched over a desk, a wastebasket full of crumpled paper nearby, trying to come up with the right words—something as good as Neil Armstrong’s famous line—before her spaceship lands on Mars. That landing, NASA has said, would come in 2033. An Armstrong moment on Mars has always been far from guaranteed, but now, in this particular year of American history, that future feels further away than ever. The coronavirus pandemic has diminished all sorts of human endeavors, including space exploration, one of our dreamiest ambitions. “No virus is stronger than the human desire to explore,” the NASA administrator declared in April, when coronavirus cases were rising fast and the country’s response was already stumbling. Even in times like these, the leader of the only organization to send humans to another world has to believe that’s still possible, and on some level, he’s right; COVID-19 will not, in the end, stop humankind from someday reaching Mars. On the timelines required for space travel, a year, or more, of slowed activity counts as a small setback. But the exigencies of the pandemic still could influence America’s ambitions in the cosmos: The national impulse to reach for other worlds might be eroding.
Like many workplaces this spring, NASA sent its most of its employees home and hunkered down. While the agency put some projects on hold, it pressed ahead with others. A pair of NASA astronauts flew to the International Space Station and back in a SpaceX capsule. The Mars rover Perseverance launched on its months-long journey into deep space. These efforts, years in the making, were nearing their finish lines as the coronavirus spread across the country, and NASA deemed them “mission essential.”
Both launches, especially the historic flight of Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken—whom NASA affectionately advertised as “space dads”—for a moment drew Americans’ attention from a seemingly ceaseless current of tragedies, including stories of infected Americans dying in ambulances and footage of Black Americans dying at the hands of white police officers. Some people were delighted, grateful for a spot of good news. Others were surprised, even aghast, at the timing. You’re doing this now? Really?
The critique echoed the feelings of many Americans during NASA’s most famous era: the race to the moon. In the late 1960s, the Apollo program unfolded against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, civil-rights demonstrations, and political assassinations. Polling from that time shows that the majority of Americans didn’t think the Apollo program was worth the cost. The exception was a survey conducted on the day of the moon landing, when the mood around the world was euphoric. Even in that moment, though, the problems of our planet firmly grounded the minds of some Americans.
Still, space historians told me, in those halcyon days of human spaceflight, even with all its turmoil, the country functioned on a basic level. In the late 1960s, a different virus known as the “Hong Kong flu” killed roughly 100,000 Americans, but did not destabilize the country the way COVID-19 has. Throughout the decade, the national economy was thriving, and an American passport meant something. Though the Vietnam War roiled American politics, the active front was in a distant country. The war’s toll was heavy—an estimated 47,434 Americans died in battle between 1964 and 1975—but in six months, COVID-19 deaths in the United States outnumbered American casualties in the past five wars combined.
Even before the pandemic paralyzed the country, the prospect of Americans making it to Mars in the 2030s was far-fetched. In February 2019, a year before the first American died from COVID19, an independent research group published a report about NASA’s Mars dreams. At Congress’s request, NASA had asked the group to evaluate whether the agency could launch astronauts to the red planet in 2033, not to land, but to loop around and come back, as the early Apollo missions did. The conclusion was bleak; given NASA’s current plans, an orbital mission would be “infeasible under all budget scenarios and technology development and testing schedules.” The researchers found that astronauts might be able to launch in 2037, without any schedule delays or budget shortfalls, but believed 2039 would be more realistic, which would push a landing to the 2040s.
NASA is not humankind’s only ticket to other worlds. Private companies are developing their own dreams, and their own rockets. As the pandemic set in, NASA paused some work on a rocket designed to send astronauts to the moon, but Elon Musk’s SpaceX continued testing prototypes for its Mars spaceship. SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin have received sizable contracts from NASA to do their work, and Musk often says that SpaceX wouldn’t be what it is today without NASA’s support, financial and otherwise. But his private company could end up leapfrogging the storied space agency on infrastructure that could send people to Mars. (Musk said recently he believes SpaceX could deliver people to the red planet in the 2020s, but the billionaire entrepreneur is, famously and by his own admission, overly optimistic about schedules, so take that with a grain of Mars dust.) SpaceX might not go it alone in the end, deciding to join forces with NASA, but the world’s top space agency would not be at the controls.
In the business of spaceflight, delays are virtually unavoidable, even under the best of circumstances. A pandemic, then, might slow down NASA’s long-term plans—but something would have, no matter what. Donald Rapp, who worked on Mars programs as a chief technologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory before he retired, doesn’t think the effects of the pandemic today will be disruptive enough to scuttle any future mission to Mars. The 2030s, in his view, is an overly optimistic goal, and he doesn’t expect astronauts to reach the red planet until potentially the 2060s.
But the work for a Mars journey in the 2030s must be done in this decade, and for NASA, such an ambitious mission might be a tougher sell now, both to the American public and to lawmakers. Months before the virus struck, the Trump administration was already struggling to persuade Congress to fund its top priority—sending Americans back to the moon in the next four years, with an eye toward Mars after that. To reach that goal, NASA must either make cuts to existing programs or receive billions of dollars in additional funding. “If you try to sell ‘humans to Mars’ this year, next year, or even the next year, I think you’ve got a tough road to travel,” Rapp told me.
But how might the public react to enthusiastic rhetoric about other worlds in 2021, when, for many of us, this world still clearly demands extra attention? If the national unity of the Apollo era is mostly a myth, at some point NASA might have to face down the reality that Americans aren’t so space-happy. The agency runs extensive and often brilliant public-relations campaigns for its missions: recruiting schoolchildren to name space rovers, imbuing spacecraft with lovable personalities, and pitching its astronauts—both space dads and others—as talented yet relatable figures. Even so, Logsdon, the space historian, already sees the national impulse that fueled Apollo, that believed in the idea of America reaching deeper into the cosmos, weakening. “That impulse is certainly less widespread than it was 50 years ago,” he said.
As government agencies go, NASA is looked upon fondly. Although some Americans blanch at spending more than $20 billion on NASA each year, a 2019 poll found that a plurality of participants, when told that the agency’s annual funding accounts for half a percent of the national budget, say that they'd prefer the government spend a greater portion of its resources on NASA. But just 18 percent think going to Mars should be a top priority, the survey found, and even fewer think NASA should focus on sending astronauts back to the moon. Instead, survey participants thought NASA should focus more on climate-change research and the study of asteroids that could strike Earth, two areas that receive far less funding than human spaceflight. “If it was up to the public to set space priorities, the NASA budget would be flipped,” Teasel Muir-Harmony, a historian and a curator of Apollo artifacts at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, told me.
The agency will have a chance to see, in February, how eager Americans are to think about a place that’s not this one. Perseverance will land on Mars and start to dig for evidence of fossilized alien life. Perhaps people will latch on to this distant robot as a distraction from the strain of the pandemic; perhaps the concerns of Mars will seem extra hard to care about. What might the country look like then? How many more Americans will have died?
The swatches of spacesuit material that Perseverance carries are, in a way, an emblem of American optimism. They posit that one day these fabrics might be wrapped around the bodies of astronauts, sheltering them from an environment they weren’t made to survive. These Armstrongs and Aldrins might walk up to Perseverance, its batteries long dead, and see, next to one of its wheels, beneath a blanket of rust-colored dust, a plaque of a snake coiled around a rod. A symbol of medicine, added as a tribute to the brave people who tended to others during the 2020 pandemic, years before—in this future, a di
Thursday, October 1
In today's news there are protests in the street - in fact, I received a text from Bradenton Christian School that they are rerouting school busses to avoid a protest in downtown Bradenton that may affect the bridges - the pandemic has taken over 200,000 lives, there is talk of a potential unpeaceful transfer of power, Supreme Court nominees, voter fraud, corporate espionage; so much to talk about.
But, I'd like us to go into a different direction that may change the way we see higher education. Maybe it's a way of diverting our minds, or it'll give us a break from what we are reading, but I think it will prompt good discussions. One question is how does the potential shift in higher education change the way nonprofits are run?
May the peace of God rest on our hearts and in our communities,
- Dave
Here is the website address for the discussion group:
https://zoom.us/j/5955701807
Free Market Can Deliver Free College
By Daniel Pianko
Wall Street Journal, Sept. 21, 2020
The Covid-19 pandemic forced colleges to shift to online learning, often with disastrous results. Students are no fools and many of them are suing for a discount. They have realized what higher education is loath to admit: Instruction is not what they, their parents and the American taxpayer are paying full price for.
The most common discount on offer appears to be a 10% tuition reduction, but some students are pushing for far more. They claim that nonacademic activities, from school plays and concerts to networking and parties, represent a lot more than 10% of the price tag of college. Such discounts imply that students are still getting 90% of the value of higher education (about $45,000 worth, on average) from their Zoom lectures, but much of the educational content has become widely available for free. Students and parents can’t be faulted for suspecting that an online education should cost next to nothing.
At some institutions, it already does. Primarily online Southern New Hampshire University recently announced a free first year for incoming students in light of the pandemic. California-based National University—which offers an array of online classes—cut tuition by up to 25% for
full-time students and says that new scholarships will make enrollment nearly free for Pell Grant-eligible students.
Can the pandemic finally bring the traditional college pricing model to its knees? Or will these examples remain outliers?
Insight into the future of higher education may come from an unlikely source: the brokerage industry. Like higher ed, stock trading is a highly regulated field with massive barriers to change. Recall the stereotypical stockbrokers of the 1980s: Tom Wolfe’s “Masters of the Universe” or
Merrill Lynch’s “Thundering Herd.” For years, the traditional brokerage industry was considered too difficult to replicate with technology. How could the internet replace a white-shoe adviser who not only took trade orders but also answered the phone, offered personal advice and took part in estate planning and other higher-order wealth-management tasks?
The mighty were felled quicker than expected. Over 30 years, technology reduced the cost of trading a stock from hundreds of dollars to virtually zero.
In 1988, a ragtag group working far from Wall Street began disrupting the brokerage business. It was led by Joe Ricketts, the larger-than-life founder of Ameritrade, who was the first to enable stock trading by touch-tone phone. Ameritrade introduced online stock trading only seven years later.
My first client as a junior investment banker out of college was Ameritrade, and much of my job involved carrying bags for Mr. Ricketts on roadshows. In 1998, when most other firms charged $199 a trade, he revolutionized the brokerage industry by offering to trade unlimited shares for $8 a trade. After days on the road together, I finally worked up the courage to ask him: “How much lower than $8 a trade can stock trading go?”
With a twinkle in his eye, Mr. Ricketts responded, “One day, Ameritrade will pay you to trade.” I thought he had lost his business sense, if not his mind. Who gives away a product that everyone else is charging $200 for?
Yet Mr. Ricketts saw the future: Today, almost no large brokerage firm is charging for stock trades. Firms make money from new revenue sources, like selling order flow to market makers. It’s not unlike the way Gmail is free for users, whose data then helps Google sell targeted
advertising. In the first quarter of 2020, fintech unicorn Robinhood raked in $100 million in order-flow sales alone. Ameritrade’s successor was sold last November for around $26 billion.
Higher ed is where the brokerage business was in the late 1990s: poised for transformation. Even before the pandemic, momentum was building in the education market away from high-cost operators and toward low-cost ones. Southern New Hampshire University and Western
Governors University, nonprofits that charge less than $10,000 a year in tuition, have already become some of the largest and fastest-growing institutions in the country. They each serve more than 100,000 students by using online delivery and competency-based instruction to drive down costs dramatically without sacrificing quality.
These mega-universities will leverage technology to drive tuition revenue to zero over time. Some are already on the way, and the pandemic may accelerate the shift for many others. Rather than collecting tens of thousands of dollars from students up front, colleges might make money by forming partnerships with employers, by charging students a percentage of their post-graduation income, or via government-issued social-impact bonds tied to successful outcomes like graduation rates.
Mr. Ricketts’s lesson should be clear to every college president in America: Technological change affects industries in deep, novel ways that established players ignore at their own peril. New education models are already driving tuition down, but there’s still room for massive, structural price-driven disruption in this industry. In the wake of the pandemic, the winner will be the institution that takes the cost of online learning down to free.
Just as no one 30 years ago could have foreseen what would befall brokerage fees, few now can imagine what will befall colleges in a world without tuition revenue. But that world may be coming. If it is, the debate over free college will become an anachronism. Will you greet it with
disbelief or a twinkle in your eye?
But, I'd like us to go into a different direction that may change the way we see higher education. Maybe it's a way of diverting our minds, or it'll give us a break from what we are reading, but I think it will prompt good discussions. One question is how does the potential shift in higher education change the way nonprofits are run?
May the peace of God rest on our hearts and in our communities,
- Dave
Here is the website address for the discussion group:
https://zoom.us/j/5955701807
Free Market Can Deliver Free College
By Daniel Pianko
Wall Street Journal, Sept. 21, 2020
The Covid-19 pandemic forced colleges to shift to online learning, often with disastrous results. Students are no fools and many of them are suing for a discount. They have realized what higher education is loath to admit: Instruction is not what they, their parents and the American taxpayer are paying full price for.
The most common discount on offer appears to be a 10% tuition reduction, but some students are pushing for far more. They claim that nonacademic activities, from school plays and concerts to networking and parties, represent a lot more than 10% of the price tag of college. Such discounts imply that students are still getting 90% of the value of higher education (about $45,000 worth, on average) from their Zoom lectures, but much of the educational content has become widely available for free. Students and parents can’t be faulted for suspecting that an online education should cost next to nothing.
At some institutions, it already does. Primarily online Southern New Hampshire University recently announced a free first year for incoming students in light of the pandemic. California-based National University—which offers an array of online classes—cut tuition by up to 25% for
full-time students and says that new scholarships will make enrollment nearly free for Pell Grant-eligible students.
Can the pandemic finally bring the traditional college pricing model to its knees? Or will these examples remain outliers?
Insight into the future of higher education may come from an unlikely source: the brokerage industry. Like higher ed, stock trading is a highly regulated field with massive barriers to change. Recall the stereotypical stockbrokers of the 1980s: Tom Wolfe’s “Masters of the Universe” or
Merrill Lynch’s “Thundering Herd.” For years, the traditional brokerage industry was considered too difficult to replicate with technology. How could the internet replace a white-shoe adviser who not only took trade orders but also answered the phone, offered personal advice and took part in estate planning and other higher-order wealth-management tasks?
The mighty were felled quicker than expected. Over 30 years, technology reduced the cost of trading a stock from hundreds of dollars to virtually zero.
In 1988, a ragtag group working far from Wall Street began disrupting the brokerage business. It was led by Joe Ricketts, the larger-than-life founder of Ameritrade, who was the first to enable stock trading by touch-tone phone. Ameritrade introduced online stock trading only seven years later.
My first client as a junior investment banker out of college was Ameritrade, and much of my job involved carrying bags for Mr. Ricketts on roadshows. In 1998, when most other firms charged $199 a trade, he revolutionized the brokerage industry by offering to trade unlimited shares for $8 a trade. After days on the road together, I finally worked up the courage to ask him: “How much lower than $8 a trade can stock trading go?”
With a twinkle in his eye, Mr. Ricketts responded, “One day, Ameritrade will pay you to trade.” I thought he had lost his business sense, if not his mind. Who gives away a product that everyone else is charging $200 for?
Yet Mr. Ricketts saw the future: Today, almost no large brokerage firm is charging for stock trades. Firms make money from new revenue sources, like selling order flow to market makers. It’s not unlike the way Gmail is free for users, whose data then helps Google sell targeted
advertising. In the first quarter of 2020, fintech unicorn Robinhood raked in $100 million in order-flow sales alone. Ameritrade’s successor was sold last November for around $26 billion.
Higher ed is where the brokerage business was in the late 1990s: poised for transformation. Even before the pandemic, momentum was building in the education market away from high-cost operators and toward low-cost ones. Southern New Hampshire University and Western
Governors University, nonprofits that charge less than $10,000 a year in tuition, have already become some of the largest and fastest-growing institutions in the country. They each serve more than 100,000 students by using online delivery and competency-based instruction to drive down costs dramatically without sacrificing quality.
These mega-universities will leverage technology to drive tuition revenue to zero over time. Some are already on the way, and the pandemic may accelerate the shift for many others. Rather than collecting tens of thousands of dollars from students up front, colleges might make money by forming partnerships with employers, by charging students a percentage of their post-graduation income, or via government-issued social-impact bonds tied to successful outcomes like graduation rates.
Mr. Ricketts’s lesson should be clear to every college president in America: Technological change affects industries in deep, novel ways that established players ignore at their own peril. New education models are already driving tuition down, but there’s still room for massive, structural price-driven disruption in this industry. In the wake of the pandemic, the winner will be the institution that takes the cost of online learning down to free.
Just as no one 30 years ago could have foreseen what would befall brokerage fees, few now can imagine what will befall colleges in a world without tuition revenue. But that world may be coming. If it is, the debate over free college will become an anachronism. Will you greet it with
disbelief or a twinkle in your eye?
Thursday, September 24
I am on Barna Research Group's Pastor's Panel. They sent me an article titled, White Christians Have Become Even Less Motivated to Address Racial Injustice. This is not an opinion piece, they are basing it on research. I think it will provide for an interesting discussion.
The article is currently web based so it did not print well. For the easier to read copy, click on this link. https://www.barna.com/research/american-christians-race-problem/
May the peace of the Lord be with you,
- Dave
Here is the website address for the discussion group:
https://zoom.us/j/5955701807
White Christians Have Become Even Less Motivated to Address Racial Injustice -
September 15, 2020
This article is an excerpt from Race Today, a Barna briefing available exclusively on Barna Access.
This year, the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor and the shooting of Jacob Blake have sparked a nationwide conversation about racial justice. Some of the more prominent responses include a series of marches with historic attendance, a players’ strike in the NBA and WNBA and new policies concerning issues such as Confederate symbols on flags and reparations for Black residents. Social media has swirled with resources and hashtags, books on anti-racism have risen to top of the best-seller lists, and leaders in government, business and religious institutions have invited deep and at times public examination of their actions and influence. One might assume that the events of 2020 have increased awareness of racial injustice in the United States and motivation to address it. But the story isn’t so straightforward, new Barna research (conducted in partnership with Dynata) suggests. Yes, there are signs the past year has clarified how Americans think about racial injustice—but that doesn’t mean they see the issue, or their role within it, with greater urgency. In the Church especially, there is a sense that people are doubling down on divides.
Christians Increasingly Acknowledge Past Racial Oppression—But Not Present Problems
As Barna previously reported, data from the summer of 2019 show 46 percent of practicing Christians say the country “definitely” has a race problem, just behind the 51 percent of all U.S. adults who feel this way. Have recent events, including several months of widely covered protests and demonstrations, changed perceptions at all? As of the July 2020 survey, practicing Christians—self-identified Christians who say their faith is very important in their lives and have attended a worship service within the past month—are no more likely to acknowledge racial injustice (43% “definitely”) than they were the previous summer. There is actually a significant increase in the percentage of practicing Christians who say race is “not at all” a problem in the U.S. (19%, up from 11% in 2019). Among self-identified Christians alone, a similar significant increase occurs (10% in 2019, 16% in 2020). Like in 2019, Black adults remain much more likely than their white peers to say the country has a race problem, and this sentiment is even stronger among self-identified Christians (81% vs. 76% of all Black U.S. adults). To best look at the intersection of faith and race / ethnicity, this release will report most on self-identified Christians among a nationally representative sample. Barna is unable to report on Asian Christians due to low sample size. There is, however, a boost in Christians’ willingness to strongly agree that, historically, the U.S. has oppressed minorities—from 19 percent in the 2019 survey to 26 percent in the summer of 2020 (for both self-identified and practicing Christians, respectively). As this increased acknowledgment of past injustice does not correspond with increased acknowledgment of present injustice, it might indicate that either more people are beginning to gain education and understanding of U.S. racial history, or that more people are beginning to regard racial oppression as an issue we’ve moved beyond.
Motivation to Address Racial Injustice Has Declined in the Past Year
When Barna asks “How motivated are you to address racial injustice in our society?”, we see numbers moving out from the middle—toward being less motivated. In 2019, one in five U.S. adults was “unmotivated” (11%) or “not at all motivated” (9%); just a year later, in the summer of 2020, that percentage has increased to 28 percent (12% unmotivated, 16% not at all motivated). Meanwhile, the number of those who are “somewhat motivated” has shrunk and the number of those who are motivated has held fairly steady over the past year, indicating some of those who might have previously been on the fence about addressing racial injustice have become more firmly opposed to engaging. The unmotivated segment has seen growth among both practicing and self-identified Christians. Among self-identified Christians, the unmotivated group has shifted from 19 percent in 2019 (10% unmotivated, 9% not at all motivated) to 30 percent (12% unmotivated, 18% not at all motivated) in 2020. For practicing Christians, those who were unmotivated in 2019 (9% unmotivated, 8% not at all motivated) have also increased to 30 percent (12% unmotivated, 18% not at all motivated) in 2020. In one year, that’s more than a 11 percentage point increase overall in Christians who are uninspired to address racial injustice, including a doubling of those who say they are “not at all motivated” in both the practicing and self-identified groups. Some Christians are willing to admit uncertainty on the topic; one in five is “unsure” about whether they are motivated to address racial injustice (10% in 2019, 9% in 2020). Some minority groups are, naturally, highly motivated to address the racial injustices that may affect them. Among self-identified Christians, Black adults in particular (46% “very motivated”), followed by Hispanic adults (23% “very motivated”), are eager to be involved—something few white self-identified Christians express (10% “very motivated”).
The research for this study surveyed 1,525 U.S. adults online between June 18 and July 6 2020 via a national consumer panel. The survey over-sampled African American, Asians, and Hispanics. Statistical weighting has been applied in order to maximize representation by age, gender, ethnicity, education, and region. The margin of error is plus or minus 1.8 at a 95% confidence interval. Due to low sample size when segmenting practicing Christians by race / ethnicity in the 2020 study, Barna instead chose to report on self-identified Christians—a nationally representative sample—throughout the briefing. Barna is also unable to report on Asian self-identified Christians or U.S. Elders due to low sample size. 2019 Survey Conducted in Partnership with Racial Justice and Unity Center (Michael Emerson, Glenn Bracey, Chad Brennan) The research for this study surveyed 2,889 U.S. adults online between July 19 and August 5, 2019 via a national consumer panel. The survey over-sampled Practicing Christians, African American, Asians, and Hispanics. Statistical weighting has been applied in order to maximize representation by age, gender, ethnicity, education, and region. The margin of error is plus or minus 1.89 at a 95% confidence interval.
The article is currently web based so it did not print well. For the easier to read copy, click on this link. https://www.barna.com/research/american-christians-race-problem/
May the peace of the Lord be with you,
- Dave
Here is the website address for the discussion group:
https://zoom.us/j/5955701807
White Christians Have Become Even Less Motivated to Address Racial Injustice -
September 15, 2020
This article is an excerpt from Race Today, a Barna briefing available exclusively on Barna Access.
This year, the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor and the shooting of Jacob Blake have sparked a nationwide conversation about racial justice. Some of the more prominent responses include a series of marches with historic attendance, a players’ strike in the NBA and WNBA and new policies concerning issues such as Confederate symbols on flags and reparations for Black residents. Social media has swirled with resources and hashtags, books on anti-racism have risen to top of the best-seller lists, and leaders in government, business and religious institutions have invited deep and at times public examination of their actions and influence. One might assume that the events of 2020 have increased awareness of racial injustice in the United States and motivation to address it. But the story isn’t so straightforward, new Barna research (conducted in partnership with Dynata) suggests. Yes, there are signs the past year has clarified how Americans think about racial injustice—but that doesn’t mean they see the issue, or their role within it, with greater urgency. In the Church especially, there is a sense that people are doubling down on divides.
Christians Increasingly Acknowledge Past Racial Oppression—But Not Present Problems
As Barna previously reported, data from the summer of 2019 show 46 percent of practicing Christians say the country “definitely” has a race problem, just behind the 51 percent of all U.S. adults who feel this way. Have recent events, including several months of widely covered protests and demonstrations, changed perceptions at all? As of the July 2020 survey, practicing Christians—self-identified Christians who say their faith is very important in their lives and have attended a worship service within the past month—are no more likely to acknowledge racial injustice (43% “definitely”) than they were the previous summer. There is actually a significant increase in the percentage of practicing Christians who say race is “not at all” a problem in the U.S. (19%, up from 11% in 2019). Among self-identified Christians alone, a similar significant increase occurs (10% in 2019, 16% in 2020). Like in 2019, Black adults remain much more likely than their white peers to say the country has a race problem, and this sentiment is even stronger among self-identified Christians (81% vs. 76% of all Black U.S. adults). To best look at the intersection of faith and race / ethnicity, this release will report most on self-identified Christians among a nationally representative sample. Barna is unable to report on Asian Christians due to low sample size. There is, however, a boost in Christians’ willingness to strongly agree that, historically, the U.S. has oppressed minorities—from 19 percent in the 2019 survey to 26 percent in the summer of 2020 (for both self-identified and practicing Christians, respectively). As this increased acknowledgment of past injustice does not correspond with increased acknowledgment of present injustice, it might indicate that either more people are beginning to gain education and understanding of U.S. racial history, or that more people are beginning to regard racial oppression as an issue we’ve moved beyond.
Motivation to Address Racial Injustice Has Declined in the Past Year
When Barna asks “How motivated are you to address racial injustice in our society?”, we see numbers moving out from the middle—toward being less motivated. In 2019, one in five U.S. adults was “unmotivated” (11%) or “not at all motivated” (9%); just a year later, in the summer of 2020, that percentage has increased to 28 percent (12% unmotivated, 16% not at all motivated). Meanwhile, the number of those who are “somewhat motivated” has shrunk and the number of those who are motivated has held fairly steady over the past year, indicating some of those who might have previously been on the fence about addressing racial injustice have become more firmly opposed to engaging. The unmotivated segment has seen growth among both practicing and self-identified Christians. Among self-identified Christians, the unmotivated group has shifted from 19 percent in 2019 (10% unmotivated, 9% not at all motivated) to 30 percent (12% unmotivated, 18% not at all motivated) in 2020. For practicing Christians, those who were unmotivated in 2019 (9% unmotivated, 8% not at all motivated) have also increased to 30 percent (12% unmotivated, 18% not at all motivated) in 2020. In one year, that’s more than a 11 percentage point increase overall in Christians who are uninspired to address racial injustice, including a doubling of those who say they are “not at all motivated” in both the practicing and self-identified groups. Some Christians are willing to admit uncertainty on the topic; one in five is “unsure” about whether they are motivated to address racial injustice (10% in 2019, 9% in 2020). Some minority groups are, naturally, highly motivated to address the racial injustices that may affect them. Among self-identified Christians, Black adults in particular (46% “very motivated”), followed by Hispanic adults (23% “very motivated”), are eager to be involved—something few white self-identified Christians express (10% “very motivated”).
The research for this study surveyed 1,525 U.S. adults online between June 18 and July 6 2020 via a national consumer panel. The survey over-sampled African American, Asians, and Hispanics. Statistical weighting has been applied in order to maximize representation by age, gender, ethnicity, education, and region. The margin of error is plus or minus 1.8 at a 95% confidence interval. Due to low sample size when segmenting practicing Christians by race / ethnicity in the 2020 study, Barna instead chose to report on self-identified Christians—a nationally representative sample—throughout the briefing. Barna is also unable to report on Asian self-identified Christians or U.S. Elders due to low sample size. 2019 Survey Conducted in Partnership with Racial Justice and Unity Center (Michael Emerson, Glenn Bracey, Chad Brennan) The research for this study surveyed 2,889 U.S. adults online between July 19 and August 5, 2019 via a national consumer panel. The survey over-sampled Practicing Christians, African American, Asians, and Hispanics. Statistical weighting has been applied in order to maximize representation by age, gender, ethnicity, education, and region. The margin of error is plus or minus 1.89 at a 95% confidence interval.
Thursday, September 17
Say what you want about our time, at least we are thinking about our constitution. One of the best documents written in the past 1,000 years,
I think it would be interesting to have a discussion group about it. Attached is an article written by Danielle Allen, a political philosopher and professor at Harvard, which can be found in the upcoming October edition of the Atlantic.
I have edited the article for our group; if you'd like the full edition, I'd be happy to send it to you.
Natural law and God's law were defining elements in the constitution. Professor Allen examines it through the lens of slavery, the 3/5th rule, and the inevitably of freedom for all.
God's peace to you and to our nation,
- Dave
The Flawed Genius of the Constitution
Danielle Allen, The Atlantic, October 2020
The best that can be said about the compromises regarding slavery that also helped the Constitutional Convention achieve unanimity is this: Those who knew enslavement was wrong but nonetheless accepted the compromises believed they were choosing a path that would lead
inexorably, if incrementally, to freedom for all.
We cannot, however, assume with James Wilson and Benjamin Franklin and others like them that incrementalism was the only available path to freedom for all. It is also not clear that the Constitution’s compromises even accelerated the march of freedom, whether for enslaved people
or for people more generally. The U.S. gave the vote to all male citizens regardless of skin color or former condition of servitude only with the Fifteenth Amendment, in 1870. Until that point, African Americans as well as some white men in states that made tax payment a prerequisite had been denied the right to vote. These changes required a bloody civil war, and even they were still partial. Pennsylvania and Rhode Island maintained tax-paying qualifications into the 20th century; women and Native Americans did not yet have suffrage. In both Britain and the United States, true universal suffrage was not adopted until well into the 20th century, and fights for voting rights persist.
In other words, the Constitution did not earn an earlier release from bondage or promote universal suffrage for men much faster than was accomplished under Britain’s constitutional monarchy. Nor much faster than was achieved in Canada, a country we can look to for an answer
to the question of what might have happened had the North American colonies that came to form the United States failed in their bid for freedom.
What did accelerate the march of freedom for all was abolitionism, a social movement that crystallized in both the United States and the United Kingdom in the years immediately following the revolutionary break between the two. Moral leadership made this difference.
Freedom flows from the tireless efforts of those who proclaim and pursue protection of the equal human dignity of all.
So why, then, do I love the Constitution? I love it for its practical leadership. I love it because it is the world’s greatest teaching document for one part of the story of freedom: the question of how free and equal citizens check and channel power both to protect themselves from
domination by one another and to secure their mutual protection from external forces that might seek their domination.
Why do we have three distinct aspects of power—legislative, executive, and judicial—and why is it best to keep them separate and yet intermingled? A typical civics lesson skates over the deep philosophical basis for what we glibly call “separation of powers” and “checks and balances.” Those concepts rest on a profound reckoning with the nature of power.
The exercise of power originates with the expression of a will or an intention. The legislature, the first branch, expresses the will of the people. Only after the will is expressed can there be execution of the desired action. The executive branch, the second branch, is responsible for this.
The judiciary comes third as a necessary mediator for addressing conflicts between the first and second branches. The three elements of power—will, execution, and adjudication—are separated to improve accountability. It is easier to hold officials accountable if they are limited in what they are permitted to do. In addition, the separation of powers provides a mechanism by which those who are responsible for using power are also always engaged in holding one another accountable.
James Madison, in The Federalist Papers, a series of newspaper opinion pieces written by Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay in 1787 and 1788 in support of the proposed Constitution, put it this way:
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first
enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is no doubt the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.
To ensure that power could be held accountable, the designers of the Constitution broke power into its component parts. They assigned one power to each of three branches. Then they developed rules and procedures that would make it possible for officers in each branch to not
only exercise their own powers but also, to some extent, check and counterbalance the use of power by others. The point of giving each branch ways of slowing down the other branches was to ensure that no branch would be able to dominate and consolidate complete power.
The rules and procedures they devised can also be called “mechanisms”—procedures that in themselves organize incentives and requirements for officeholders so that power flows in good and fair ways.
The U.S. Constitution is full of mechanisms like this to structure the incentives of officeholders to make sure power operates in fair ways. Here is a smattering of my favorite examples, courtesy of the identification in The Federalist Papers of the highest and best features of the Constitution:
Each branch should have as little agency as possible in the appointment of the members of the other, which means no branch can surreptitiously come to control another by populating its personnel and staff. Each branch should be as little dependent as possible on the others for emoluments annexed to their offices, which means no branch falls under the sway of another by virtue of hoping for a raise.
No double-office holding is permitted, which means that trying to play a role in more than one branch at the same time is strictly off-limits. The executive has a veto over legislation, but it can be overruled by a two-thirds vote of the Senate, which means that an executive decision (on
legislation) emanating from support of a bare majority of the people cannot overrule a view emanating from a supermajority of the country.
The executive can propose the draft of treaties, but ratification requires senatorial advice and consent, which prevents treaties from being struck as personal deals with benefits to the executive and thereby hinders corruption. The Senate must approve Supreme Court appointments made by the president, but the Court has the power of review over laws passed by Congress, which means Congress can be overruled by justices to whose appointment the legislative branch has itself consented.
The Constitution is the law of the land and establishes powers of enforcement, but it can be changed through a carefully articulated amendment process, by the people’s standing legislative representatives or by representatives to conventions especially elected for the purpose—which means the final power always rests with the people.
I delight in the cleverness of these mechanisms. There are many more. Instituting a bicameral legislature—having a Senate and a House of Representatives—is itself a check on monolithic legislative power. I marvel at the Constitution’s insight into the operations of power. I respect the ambition of the people who sought to design institutions and organize the government with the goal of ensuring the safety and happiness of the people. I see its limits, but I love its avowal—by stipulating the process for amendment, to date exercised 27 times—of its own mutability.
Remarkably, the Constitution’s slow, steady change has regularly been in the direction of moral improvement. In that regard, it has served well as a device for securing and stabilizing genuine human progress not only in politics but also in moral understanding. This is what figures like
Franklin and Wilson anticipated (or at least hoped for).
The Constitution is a work of practical genius. It is morally flawed. The story of the expansion of human freedom is one of shining moral ideals besmirched by the ordure of ongoing domination. I muck the stalls. I find a diamond. I clean it off and keep it. I do not abandon it because of
where I found it. Instead, I own it. Because of its mutability and the changes made from generation to generation, none but the living can own the Constitution. Those who wrote the version ratified centuries ago do not own the version we live by today. We do. It’s ours, an adaptable instrument used to define self-government among free and equal citizens—and to secure our ongoing moral education about that most important human endeavor. We are all responsible for our Constitution, and that fact is empowering. That hard-won empowerment is why I love the Constitution. And it shapes my native land, which I love also simply because it is my home. The second love is instinctual. The first comes with open eyes.
This article appears in the October 2020 print edition with the headline “The Constitution Counted My Great-Great-Grandfather as Three-Fifths of a Free Person.”
DANIELLE ALLEN is a political philosopher and the James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard. She is the author of Talking to Strangers, Our Declaration, and Cuz
I think it would be interesting to have a discussion group about it. Attached is an article written by Danielle Allen, a political philosopher and professor at Harvard, which can be found in the upcoming October edition of the Atlantic.
I have edited the article for our group; if you'd like the full edition, I'd be happy to send it to you.
Natural law and God's law were defining elements in the constitution. Professor Allen examines it through the lens of slavery, the 3/5th rule, and the inevitably of freedom for all.
God's peace to you and to our nation,
- Dave
The Flawed Genius of the Constitution
Danielle Allen, The Atlantic, October 2020
The best that can be said about the compromises regarding slavery that also helped the Constitutional Convention achieve unanimity is this: Those who knew enslavement was wrong but nonetheless accepted the compromises believed they were choosing a path that would lead
inexorably, if incrementally, to freedom for all.
We cannot, however, assume with James Wilson and Benjamin Franklin and others like them that incrementalism was the only available path to freedom for all. It is also not clear that the Constitution’s compromises even accelerated the march of freedom, whether for enslaved people
or for people more generally. The U.S. gave the vote to all male citizens regardless of skin color or former condition of servitude only with the Fifteenth Amendment, in 1870. Until that point, African Americans as well as some white men in states that made tax payment a prerequisite had been denied the right to vote. These changes required a bloody civil war, and even they were still partial. Pennsylvania and Rhode Island maintained tax-paying qualifications into the 20th century; women and Native Americans did not yet have suffrage. In both Britain and the United States, true universal suffrage was not adopted until well into the 20th century, and fights for voting rights persist.
In other words, the Constitution did not earn an earlier release from bondage or promote universal suffrage for men much faster than was accomplished under Britain’s constitutional monarchy. Nor much faster than was achieved in Canada, a country we can look to for an answer
to the question of what might have happened had the North American colonies that came to form the United States failed in their bid for freedom.
What did accelerate the march of freedom for all was abolitionism, a social movement that crystallized in both the United States and the United Kingdom in the years immediately following the revolutionary break between the two. Moral leadership made this difference.
Freedom flows from the tireless efforts of those who proclaim and pursue protection of the equal human dignity of all.
So why, then, do I love the Constitution? I love it for its practical leadership. I love it because it is the world’s greatest teaching document for one part of the story of freedom: the question of how free and equal citizens check and channel power both to protect themselves from
domination by one another and to secure their mutual protection from external forces that might seek their domination.
Why do we have three distinct aspects of power—legislative, executive, and judicial—and why is it best to keep them separate and yet intermingled? A typical civics lesson skates over the deep philosophical basis for what we glibly call “separation of powers” and “checks and balances.” Those concepts rest on a profound reckoning with the nature of power.
The exercise of power originates with the expression of a will or an intention. The legislature, the first branch, expresses the will of the people. Only after the will is expressed can there be execution of the desired action. The executive branch, the second branch, is responsible for this.
The judiciary comes third as a necessary mediator for addressing conflicts between the first and second branches. The three elements of power—will, execution, and adjudication—are separated to improve accountability. It is easier to hold officials accountable if they are limited in what they are permitted to do. In addition, the separation of powers provides a mechanism by which those who are responsible for using power are also always engaged in holding one another accountable.
James Madison, in The Federalist Papers, a series of newspaper opinion pieces written by Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay in 1787 and 1788 in support of the proposed Constitution, put it this way:
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first
enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is no doubt the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.
To ensure that power could be held accountable, the designers of the Constitution broke power into its component parts. They assigned one power to each of three branches. Then they developed rules and procedures that would make it possible for officers in each branch to not
only exercise their own powers but also, to some extent, check and counterbalance the use of power by others. The point of giving each branch ways of slowing down the other branches was to ensure that no branch would be able to dominate and consolidate complete power.
The rules and procedures they devised can also be called “mechanisms”—procedures that in themselves organize incentives and requirements for officeholders so that power flows in good and fair ways.
The U.S. Constitution is full of mechanisms like this to structure the incentives of officeholders to make sure power operates in fair ways. Here is a smattering of my favorite examples, courtesy of the identification in The Federalist Papers of the highest and best features of the Constitution:
Each branch should have as little agency as possible in the appointment of the members of the other, which means no branch can surreptitiously come to control another by populating its personnel and staff. Each branch should be as little dependent as possible on the others for emoluments annexed to their offices, which means no branch falls under the sway of another by virtue of hoping for a raise.
No double-office holding is permitted, which means that trying to play a role in more than one branch at the same time is strictly off-limits. The executive has a veto over legislation, but it can be overruled by a two-thirds vote of the Senate, which means that an executive decision (on
legislation) emanating from support of a bare majority of the people cannot overrule a view emanating from a supermajority of the country.
The executive can propose the draft of treaties, but ratification requires senatorial advice and consent, which prevents treaties from being struck as personal deals with benefits to the executive and thereby hinders corruption. The Senate must approve Supreme Court appointments made by the president, but the Court has the power of review over laws passed by Congress, which means Congress can be overruled by justices to whose appointment the legislative branch has itself consented.
The Constitution is the law of the land and establishes powers of enforcement, but it can be changed through a carefully articulated amendment process, by the people’s standing legislative representatives or by representatives to conventions especially elected for the purpose—which means the final power always rests with the people.
I delight in the cleverness of these mechanisms. There are many more. Instituting a bicameral legislature—having a Senate and a House of Representatives—is itself a check on monolithic legislative power. I marvel at the Constitution’s insight into the operations of power. I respect the ambition of the people who sought to design institutions and organize the government with the goal of ensuring the safety and happiness of the people. I see its limits, but I love its avowal—by stipulating the process for amendment, to date exercised 27 times—of its own mutability.
Remarkably, the Constitution’s slow, steady change has regularly been in the direction of moral improvement. In that regard, it has served well as a device for securing and stabilizing genuine human progress not only in politics but also in moral understanding. This is what figures like
Franklin and Wilson anticipated (or at least hoped for).
The Constitution is a work of practical genius. It is morally flawed. The story of the expansion of human freedom is one of shining moral ideals besmirched by the ordure of ongoing domination. I muck the stalls. I find a diamond. I clean it off and keep it. I do not abandon it because of
where I found it. Instead, I own it. Because of its mutability and the changes made from generation to generation, none but the living can own the Constitution. Those who wrote the version ratified centuries ago do not own the version we live by today. We do. It’s ours, an adaptable instrument used to define self-government among free and equal citizens—and to secure our ongoing moral education about that most important human endeavor. We are all responsible for our Constitution, and that fact is empowering. That hard-won empowerment is why I love the Constitution. And it shapes my native land, which I love also simply because it is my home. The second love is instinctual. The first comes with open eyes.
This article appears in the October 2020 print edition with the headline “The Constitution Counted My Great-Great-Grandfather as Three-Fifths of a Free Person.”
DANIELLE ALLEN is a political philosopher and the James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard. She is the author of Talking to Strangers, Our Declaration, and Cuz
Thursday, September 10
One thing we can say about the pandemic is that it is making us reimagine life. Many are seeking what is beneficial and important instead of material gains or societal status. This article from the Wall Street Journal asks the question, what makes for a good life? The editor asked subscribers what does a good life mean to them. It has been an interesting read to hear what others think. Both the article and the responses are included here.
If you are unable to be a part of the discussion this week, I'd like to hear from you. What makes a "good life" to you? Let me know if it is okay to share your response.
May God bless you and our nation,
- Dave
A Good Life Doesn’t Mean an Easy One
For many, ‘psychological richness’ is more valuable than simple happiness
Alison Gopnik, Wall Street Journal Aug. 28, 2020
What makes a good life? Philosophers have offered two classic answers to the question, captured by different Greek words for happiness, hedonia and eudaimonia. A hedonic life is free from pain and full of everyday pleasure—calm, safe and serene. A eudaemonic life is a virtuous and purposeful one, full of meaning.
But in a new study, philosopher Lorraine Besser of Middlebury College and psychologist Shigehiro Oishi of the University of Virginia argue that there is a third important element of a good life, which they call “psychological richness.” And they show that ordinary people around the world think so, too.
According to this view, a good life is one that is interesting, varied and surprising—even if some of those surprises aren’t necessarily pleasant ones. In fact, the things that make a life psychologically rich may actually make it less happy in the ordinary sense.
After all, to put it bluntly, a happy life can also be boring. Adventures, explorations and crises may be painful, but at least they’re interesting. A psychologically rich life may be less eudaemonic, too. Those unexpected turns may lead you to stray from your original purpose and act in ways that are less than virtuous.
Profs. Besser and Oishi make the case for a psychologically rich life in a paper that has just appeared in the journal Philosophical Psychology. But is this a life that most people would actually want, or is it just for the sort of people who write philosophy articles?
To find out, the authors and their colleagues did an extensive study involving more than 3,000 people in nine countries, recently published in the Journal of Affective Science. The researchers gave participants a list of 15 descriptive words such as “pleasant,” “meaningful” and “interesting,” and asked which best described a good life.
When they analyzed the responses, Profs. Besser and Oishi found that people do indeed think that a happy and meaningful life is a good life. But they also think a psychologically rich life is important. In fact, across different cultures, about 10-15% of people said that if they were forced to choose, they would go for a psychologically rich life over a happy or meaningful one.
In a second experiment the researchers posed the question a different way. Instead of asking people what kind of life they would choose, they asked what people regretted about the life they had actually led. Did they regret decisions that made their lives less happy or less meaningful? Or did they regret passing up a chance for interesting and surprising experiences? If they could undo one decision, what would it be? When people thought about their regrets they were even more likely to value psychological richness—about 30% of people, for example, in both the U.S. and South Korea.
The desire for a psychologically rich life may go beyond just avoiding boredom. After all, the unexpected, even the tragic, can have a transformative power that goes beyond the hedonic or eudaemonic. As a great Leonard Cohen song says, it’s the cracks that let the light come in.
In response to our question about what makes a “good life”:
Al Romig, Texas
A spiritual belief. Loving and being loved. Good enough health to enjoy it. A sense of purpose. Continuous learning.
Nancy Irving, Ohio
Here are some key attributes for my husband and me: health, freedom, “enough,” serving others, sharing our blessings.
Barry Zalma, California
A wife who loves me after 52 years of marriage, children who grow into successful adults, and loving grandchildren. Everything else is meaningless.
Stephen RS Martin, Arizona
The first sine qua non to a good life is absolute financial security, which includes the complete absence of debt. True happiness and peace of mind are impossible without it.
Samuel Zimmer, Austria A reasonable proximity to bodies of water, fulfilling pursuits, frequent reading, and bountiful Weißbier [wheat beer] upon the clock’s 5 p.m. strike.
Michele McGovern, Pennsylvania
When I was a kid, I always thought the people in the neighborhood who had a second refrigerator in the garage—affectionately known as the “beer fridge”—had “made it.” They were living the good life. Now that I’m an adult, I think I might have had it right as a kid. The good life—just enough money to buy a second fridge and beverages to put in it, enough friends and family members to join in that you need the fridge, and enough time and inclination to enjoy it with them.
Unknown
A good life is knowing that, despite your parenting, your children have turned out to be good people.
If you are unable to be a part of the discussion this week, I'd like to hear from you. What makes a "good life" to you? Let me know if it is okay to share your response.
May God bless you and our nation,
- Dave
A Good Life Doesn’t Mean an Easy One
For many, ‘psychological richness’ is more valuable than simple happiness
Alison Gopnik, Wall Street Journal Aug. 28, 2020
What makes a good life? Philosophers have offered two classic answers to the question, captured by different Greek words for happiness, hedonia and eudaimonia. A hedonic life is free from pain and full of everyday pleasure—calm, safe and serene. A eudaemonic life is a virtuous and purposeful one, full of meaning.
But in a new study, philosopher Lorraine Besser of Middlebury College and psychologist Shigehiro Oishi of the University of Virginia argue that there is a third important element of a good life, which they call “psychological richness.” And they show that ordinary people around the world think so, too.
According to this view, a good life is one that is interesting, varied and surprising—even if some of those surprises aren’t necessarily pleasant ones. In fact, the things that make a life psychologically rich may actually make it less happy in the ordinary sense.
After all, to put it bluntly, a happy life can also be boring. Adventures, explorations and crises may be painful, but at least they’re interesting. A psychologically rich life may be less eudaemonic, too. Those unexpected turns may lead you to stray from your original purpose and act in ways that are less than virtuous.
Profs. Besser and Oishi make the case for a psychologically rich life in a paper that has just appeared in the journal Philosophical Psychology. But is this a life that most people would actually want, or is it just for the sort of people who write philosophy articles?
To find out, the authors and their colleagues did an extensive study involving more than 3,000 people in nine countries, recently published in the Journal of Affective Science. The researchers gave participants a list of 15 descriptive words such as “pleasant,” “meaningful” and “interesting,” and asked which best described a good life.
When they analyzed the responses, Profs. Besser and Oishi found that people do indeed think that a happy and meaningful life is a good life. But they also think a psychologically rich life is important. In fact, across different cultures, about 10-15% of people said that if they were forced to choose, they would go for a psychologically rich life over a happy or meaningful one.
In a second experiment the researchers posed the question a different way. Instead of asking people what kind of life they would choose, they asked what people regretted about the life they had actually led. Did they regret decisions that made their lives less happy or less meaningful? Or did they regret passing up a chance for interesting and surprising experiences? If they could undo one decision, what would it be? When people thought about their regrets they were even more likely to value psychological richness—about 30% of people, for example, in both the U.S. and South Korea.
The desire for a psychologically rich life may go beyond just avoiding boredom. After all, the unexpected, even the tragic, can have a transformative power that goes beyond the hedonic or eudaemonic. As a great Leonard Cohen song says, it’s the cracks that let the light come in.
In response to our question about what makes a “good life”:
Al Romig, Texas
A spiritual belief. Loving and being loved. Good enough health to enjoy it. A sense of purpose. Continuous learning.
Nancy Irving, Ohio
Here are some key attributes for my husband and me: health, freedom, “enough,” serving others, sharing our blessings.
Barry Zalma, California
A wife who loves me after 52 years of marriage, children who grow into successful adults, and loving grandchildren. Everything else is meaningless.
Stephen RS Martin, Arizona
The first sine qua non to a good life is absolute financial security, which includes the complete absence of debt. True happiness and peace of mind are impossible without it.
Samuel Zimmer, Austria A reasonable proximity to bodies of water, fulfilling pursuits, frequent reading, and bountiful Weißbier [wheat beer] upon the clock’s 5 p.m. strike.
Michele McGovern, Pennsylvania
When I was a kid, I always thought the people in the neighborhood who had a second refrigerator in the garage—affectionately known as the “beer fridge”—had “made it.” They were living the good life. Now that I’m an adult, I think I might have had it right as a kid. The good life—just enough money to buy a second fridge and beverages to put in it, enough friends and family members to join in that you need the fridge, and enough time and inclination to enjoy it with them.
Unknown
A good life is knowing that, despite your parenting, your children have turned out to be good people.
Thursday, September 3
Preparing Your Mind for Uncertain Times
Eric Weiner, The Atlantic August 25, 2020
This is a time of questions without answers. Will I get infected? When will there be a vaccine? Is my job/retirement secure? When will life be normal again? The experts may have guesses, or estimates, for some of these quandaries but there is no certainty, and this drives us nuts. Humans abhor uncertainty, and will do just about anything to avoid it, even choosing a known bad outcome over an unknown but possibly good one. In one British study participants experienced greater stress when they had a 50 percent chance of receiving an electric shock than when they had a 100 percent chance. Intolerance for uncertainty puts people at greater risk for ailments such as depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
We take it as a given that uncertainty is always bad and, conversely, that certitude is always good. Yet ancient philosophy, as well as a growing body of scientific evidence, suggests otherwise. Uncertainty need not hobble us, and “in the right form and in the right amount, it’s actually a great pleasure,” says Daniel Gilbert, a psychology professor at Harvard.
We engage in certain activities—such as watching thrillers or reading mysteries—precisely because the outcome is uncertain. Or, say you receive a note from a secret admirer. The mystery of who sent it, Gilbert says, yields “the kind of uncertainty you would find delicious and delightful.” Yet we remain largely oblivious to our own love of pleasant—call it benign— uncertainty. Gilbert and his colleagues have found that even though uncertainty about a positive event prolongs people’s pleasure, we’re generally convinced that we’ll be happiest when all uncertainty is eliminated.
What about the darker kind of uncertainty, the kind many of us are facing now? Not only the immediate suffering of illness and job loss caused by the pandemic, but its open-ended nature. We don’t know when it will end. You might have noticed that this kind of uncertainty—let’s call it malign uncertainty—tends to make bad moods worse. But, again, this is only a tendency, not a foregone conclusion. We are not fated to suffer when faced with malign uncertainty. We have a choice.
In my experience, there are two ways to solve the “problem” of the unknown: by decreasing the amount of perceived risk or by increasing our tolerance for uncertainty. Most of us focus almost exclusively on the former. Many philosophers think this is a mistake. Philosophers have wrestled with uncertainty and impermanence since at least the time of the ancient Greeks. Stoicism, a philosophy that flourished in the third century B.C. in Athens, is especially well suited for helping people cope with uncertainty. And for good reason: The Stoics lived during particularly unsettled times. Athens had lost much of its independence as a city-state, and the death of Alexander the Great several years earlier had left a power vacuum in the region. The old order had collapsed and a new one had yet to take its place.
Much of life lies beyond our control, Stoics believe, but we do control what matters most: our opinions, impulses, desires, and aversions. Our mental and emotional states. “Change what you can, accept what you cannot” sums up the Stoic creed. Master this skill, they say, and you will be “invincible.” This isn’t easy, the Stoics concede, but it is possible. Accepting the uncertainty inherent in life—particularly pandemic life—is better than fighting a constant battle against it, one we are bound to lose, the Stoics would say.
There’s a scene in the movie Lawrence of Arabia where Lawrence, played by Peter O’Toole, calmly extinguishes a match between his thumb and his forefinger. A fellow officer tries it himself, and squeals in pain. “Oh! It damn well hurts,” he says. “Certainly it hurts,” Lawrence replies. “Well, what’s the trick, then?” “The trick,” Lawrence says, “is not minding that it hurts.”
Lawrence’s response is pure Stoic. Sure, he felt the pain, yet it remained a sensation, a reflex. It never metastasized into panic. Lawrence didn’t mind the pain, in the literal sense of the word: He didn’t allow his mind to dwell on, and amplify, what his body had felt. Likewise, the pandemic has hijacked the circumstances of our lives—that’s the reality we can’t avoid. But our minds and our reactions are still our own.
To show the power of mindset, Stoics use the metaphor of a cylinder rolling down a hill. Gravity ensures the cylinder will start rolling, but its shape determines how smoothly and quickly it rolls. We can’t control the hill, or gravity, but we can control the shape of our cylinder, the state of our minds.
For instance, let’s say you find yourself, like many parents, working from home while caring for a young child. Those facts represent the hill; they are immovable. What you can move is your attitude. It needn’t be a momentous shift either—we can’t all be Mother Teresa—but a subtle realignment from resistance to, if not total acceptance, at least tolerance.
The ability to tolerate uncertainty can bring great rewards. Uncertainty, after all, drives the quest for knowledge. The best scientists know this intuitively, and are willing to live with unknowns as they explore new frontiers. “I don’t have to know an answer,” the theoretical physicist Richard Feynman said. “I don’t feel frightened not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose.” Tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity are also linked with greater creative thinking, as several studies have found. The English Romantic poet John Keats introduced the term negative capability to describe a similar phenomenon. Writing to his brothers in 1817, he posited that writers are at their most creative when “capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.”
Japanese philosophers go a step further. Don’t merely tolerate uncertainty and its close cousin impermanence, they counsel; celebrate it. “The most precious thing in life is its uncertainty,” wrote Yoshida Kenkō, a 14th-century Buddhist monk.
Consider the sakura, or cherry blossom. The trees are famously fleeting. They bloom for only a week or two, and then the petals are gone. Other flowers—plum blossoms, for instance—last considerably longer. Why go to such great lengths to cultivate something as fragile as the cherry blossom?
Because “beauty lies in its own vanishing,” says Donald Richie in his book A Tractate on Japanese Aesthetics. Life is ephemeral. Everything we know and love will one day cease to exist, ourselves included. That is life’s one certainty. The cherry blossom is lovely not despite its transience but because of it. This has always been the case. The pandemic has driven home our own transience. And while it may be too much to ask to celebrate this truth under such dire circumstances, we can learn to tolerate the unknown, and perhaps even catch glimpses of the beauty underlying life’s uncertainties.
Eric Weiner, The Atlantic August 25, 2020
This is a time of questions without answers. Will I get infected? When will there be a vaccine? Is my job/retirement secure? When will life be normal again? The experts may have guesses, or estimates, for some of these quandaries but there is no certainty, and this drives us nuts. Humans abhor uncertainty, and will do just about anything to avoid it, even choosing a known bad outcome over an unknown but possibly good one. In one British study participants experienced greater stress when they had a 50 percent chance of receiving an electric shock than when they had a 100 percent chance. Intolerance for uncertainty puts people at greater risk for ailments such as depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
We take it as a given that uncertainty is always bad and, conversely, that certitude is always good. Yet ancient philosophy, as well as a growing body of scientific evidence, suggests otherwise. Uncertainty need not hobble us, and “in the right form and in the right amount, it’s actually a great pleasure,” says Daniel Gilbert, a psychology professor at Harvard.
We engage in certain activities—such as watching thrillers or reading mysteries—precisely because the outcome is uncertain. Or, say you receive a note from a secret admirer. The mystery of who sent it, Gilbert says, yields “the kind of uncertainty you would find delicious and delightful.” Yet we remain largely oblivious to our own love of pleasant—call it benign— uncertainty. Gilbert and his colleagues have found that even though uncertainty about a positive event prolongs people’s pleasure, we’re generally convinced that we’ll be happiest when all uncertainty is eliminated.
What about the darker kind of uncertainty, the kind many of us are facing now? Not only the immediate suffering of illness and job loss caused by the pandemic, but its open-ended nature. We don’t know when it will end. You might have noticed that this kind of uncertainty—let’s call it malign uncertainty—tends to make bad moods worse. But, again, this is only a tendency, not a foregone conclusion. We are not fated to suffer when faced with malign uncertainty. We have a choice.
In my experience, there are two ways to solve the “problem” of the unknown: by decreasing the amount of perceived risk or by increasing our tolerance for uncertainty. Most of us focus almost exclusively on the former. Many philosophers think this is a mistake. Philosophers have wrestled with uncertainty and impermanence since at least the time of the ancient Greeks. Stoicism, a philosophy that flourished in the third century B.C. in Athens, is especially well suited for helping people cope with uncertainty. And for good reason: The Stoics lived during particularly unsettled times. Athens had lost much of its independence as a city-state, and the death of Alexander the Great several years earlier had left a power vacuum in the region. The old order had collapsed and a new one had yet to take its place.
Much of life lies beyond our control, Stoics believe, but we do control what matters most: our opinions, impulses, desires, and aversions. Our mental and emotional states. “Change what you can, accept what you cannot” sums up the Stoic creed. Master this skill, they say, and you will be “invincible.” This isn’t easy, the Stoics concede, but it is possible. Accepting the uncertainty inherent in life—particularly pandemic life—is better than fighting a constant battle against it, one we are bound to lose, the Stoics would say.
There’s a scene in the movie Lawrence of Arabia where Lawrence, played by Peter O’Toole, calmly extinguishes a match between his thumb and his forefinger. A fellow officer tries it himself, and squeals in pain. “Oh! It damn well hurts,” he says. “Certainly it hurts,” Lawrence replies. “Well, what’s the trick, then?” “The trick,” Lawrence says, “is not minding that it hurts.”
Lawrence’s response is pure Stoic. Sure, he felt the pain, yet it remained a sensation, a reflex. It never metastasized into panic. Lawrence didn’t mind the pain, in the literal sense of the word: He didn’t allow his mind to dwell on, and amplify, what his body had felt. Likewise, the pandemic has hijacked the circumstances of our lives—that’s the reality we can’t avoid. But our minds and our reactions are still our own.
To show the power of mindset, Stoics use the metaphor of a cylinder rolling down a hill. Gravity ensures the cylinder will start rolling, but its shape determines how smoothly and quickly it rolls. We can’t control the hill, or gravity, but we can control the shape of our cylinder, the state of our minds.
For instance, let’s say you find yourself, like many parents, working from home while caring for a young child. Those facts represent the hill; they are immovable. What you can move is your attitude. It needn’t be a momentous shift either—we can’t all be Mother Teresa—but a subtle realignment from resistance to, if not total acceptance, at least tolerance.
The ability to tolerate uncertainty can bring great rewards. Uncertainty, after all, drives the quest for knowledge. The best scientists know this intuitively, and are willing to live with unknowns as they explore new frontiers. “I don’t have to know an answer,” the theoretical physicist Richard Feynman said. “I don’t feel frightened not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose.” Tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity are also linked with greater creative thinking, as several studies have found. The English Romantic poet John Keats introduced the term negative capability to describe a similar phenomenon. Writing to his brothers in 1817, he posited that writers are at their most creative when “capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.”
Japanese philosophers go a step further. Don’t merely tolerate uncertainty and its close cousin impermanence, they counsel; celebrate it. “The most precious thing in life is its uncertainty,” wrote Yoshida Kenkō, a 14th-century Buddhist monk.
Consider the sakura, or cherry blossom. The trees are famously fleeting. They bloom for only a week or two, and then the petals are gone. Other flowers—plum blossoms, for instance—last considerably longer. Why go to such great lengths to cultivate something as fragile as the cherry blossom?
Because “beauty lies in its own vanishing,” says Donald Richie in his book A Tractate on Japanese Aesthetics. Life is ephemeral. Everything we know and love will one day cease to exist, ourselves included. That is life’s one certainty. The cherry blossom is lovely not despite its transience but because of it. This has always been the case. The pandemic has driven home our own transience. And while it may be too much to ask to celebrate this truth under such dire circumstances, we can learn to tolerate the unknown, and perhaps even catch glimpses of the beauty underlying life’s uncertainties.
Thursday, August 27
How exciting - the Marshalls might experience their first tropical storm on Tuesday. Depending on the cone of uncertainty, we will have our Men's Group on Tuesday and Women's Discussion Group on Thursday.
One common thread that is coming up in our discussions is that things are a little tense in our communities; tempers seem to be shorter and it seems easier to offend others.
The Wall Street Journal published an article titled, How to Handle a Jerk. As a companion piece to it, I have included an article from Christianity Today that gives a different perspective, To Intervene or Not to Intervene. And, as you can imagine, Jesus gives us a way to handle jerks too. I look forward to talking with you about this next week.
God's peace to you, to our communities, and to our nation.
- Dave
Here is the website address for the discussion group:
https://zoom.us/j/5955701807
How to Handle a Jerk
Elizabeth Bernstein Wall Street Journal, 8.18.20
Dear Bonds,
How do you deal with a jerk? It seems like there are so many out there right now— male and female—whether it’s at the grocery store or online or just walking around the neighborhood. Everyone seems irritated and out for themselves. Today I went to Home Depot to buy some weed killer and some guy blatantly cut in line and then had the nerve to start berating me for calling him out. I’ve had it! —Fed Up
Dear Fed Up,
I agree, lots of people are falling short of their best behavior at the moment. Some days it feels like everyone’s gone nuts. It helps to remember that people are stressed and more than a little freaked out. Errands—and everything else—feel more dangerous, and folks are in a hurry to get back to their own bubbles, where life feels safer. Of course, some people are just plain rude, no matter what’s going on.
I recently wrote about bullies; these are people who use their strength or power to intimidate or harm someone they see as vulnerable. A bully could certainly be described as a jerk. But not all jerks are bullies. Some jerks are just obnoxious, self-absorbed or inconsiderate. Dealing with an everyday jerk is a two-part process. Part one: Do not engage. Once the jerkiness comes out—in your example, when the guy began berating you for pointing out his error—separate yourself from the encounter. Remember: You’re extremely unlikely to change someone else’s bad behavior. And the more you call that person out, the more likely he or she is going to get defensive and double down on it.
Keep calm and remain polite. Remove yourself physically if possible. Take some comfort in the fact that unless the person is a straight-up sociopath, he or she probably feels some sense of shame when left alone acting like an idiot.
(A caveat: This advice is meant for quick encounters with strangers. If you feel unsafe, or if you are under regular attack from someone you know, you need to call an authority, such as the police.)
Now for part two: Be thankful! This keeps you from spiraling into negativity. You can be grateful you’re not a jerk. And you can be thankful that successfully handling the encounter—without acting nastily yourself—makes you stronger. Dealing with someone who is acting poorly in a positive way gives you a chance to affirm your values, to model good behavior for everyone else, and to protect the world from getting uglier.
I know it’s not easy to stay positive when someone’s being nasty. I suggest coming up with a mantra that you can pull up quickly in the moment. Mantras create new neural pathways in your brain and condition you to be calmer and happier. They remind you who you want to be. And they can be just one word: “Peace.” Or a short phrase: “Never be dragged down” or “this too shall pass. (The one I use for jerks is “Just breathe.”)
Feel better? Now go forth and be strong.
To Intervene or Not to Intervene
Marshall Shelley, Christianity Today
A pastor encountered one of life's little dramas playing itself out as he entered the YMCA: A toddler wearing a wet bathing suit was coming out the door from the swimming pool area, and her mother was saying, "You are such a coward!"
The child was shivering, and her cheeks were wet-from tears or the pool? The pastor couldn't tell. She simply stood there shaking as her mother continued, "It's the same every week. You always make your daddy and me ashamed. Sometimes I can't believe you're my daughter." The pastor found himself thinking, I wonder what the penalty is for hitting a woman? "What she was doing was more hurtful, more brutal than a beating," he reflected. "It was emotional child abuse, and if it continues, that toddler will grow up feeling worthless, which will lead to all kinds of destructive behavior."
Most people feel the urge to do something, either immediately or eventually, to help the mother realize what's at stake, to help her be a better parent. Even if she isn't asking for help. When is intervention appropriate? How do you enter a situation uninvited? It's not an easy decision.
Tips for Interveners
Confront with tears.
In any confrontation, the tendency is for the person being confronted to say, "You don't understand. You don't know what I've gone through." Graciousness, tenderness, and empathy are important even when you have to be firm.
A psychologist told me a long time ago, 'When you have to confront, be sure to share how you feel — not just with your words but with your body language, your facial features, your tears. Let them know this isn't easy.' It was good advice. People are much more open if they don't feel you enjoy correcting them."
Confront with strength, not authority.
There's a difference between intervening from a position of strength and a position of authority. Authority means coming down with an imposed order and saying, "You need to stop this because the [police, management, the other people around you] disapproves." Intervening from the position of strength is to point out strongly the natural consequences of the present course. "If this keeps up, here's what's going to happen." And perhaps "Some of those things have happened to me, and they hurt like the blazes. Do you really want to do this?" Very few times will a person turn around by being told he is doing something evil or unacceptable. More often change will happen when a person is confronted with what's in his best interest — "Have you considered this consequence?"
Affirming the Importance of Life
Surprisingly, people tend to underestimate the value of their own lives. One of the duties of a pastor, especially when dealing with those destroying themselves but refusing help, is to remind people of the importance of life — their own included.
When it comes to helping those who don't want help, sometimes they, too, need to realize their own significance. God himself is interested in their decisions.
At times this can be done with indirect confrontation; at other times, however, it requires direct intervention.
One common thread that is coming up in our discussions is that things are a little tense in our communities; tempers seem to be shorter and it seems easier to offend others.
The Wall Street Journal published an article titled, How to Handle a Jerk. As a companion piece to it, I have included an article from Christianity Today that gives a different perspective, To Intervene or Not to Intervene. And, as you can imagine, Jesus gives us a way to handle jerks too. I look forward to talking with you about this next week.
God's peace to you, to our communities, and to our nation.
- Dave
Here is the website address for the discussion group:
https://zoom.us/j/5955701807
How to Handle a Jerk
Elizabeth Bernstein Wall Street Journal, 8.18.20
Dear Bonds,
How do you deal with a jerk? It seems like there are so many out there right now— male and female—whether it’s at the grocery store or online or just walking around the neighborhood. Everyone seems irritated and out for themselves. Today I went to Home Depot to buy some weed killer and some guy blatantly cut in line and then had the nerve to start berating me for calling him out. I’ve had it! —Fed Up
Dear Fed Up,
I agree, lots of people are falling short of their best behavior at the moment. Some days it feels like everyone’s gone nuts. It helps to remember that people are stressed and more than a little freaked out. Errands—and everything else—feel more dangerous, and folks are in a hurry to get back to their own bubbles, where life feels safer. Of course, some people are just plain rude, no matter what’s going on.
I recently wrote about bullies; these are people who use their strength or power to intimidate or harm someone they see as vulnerable. A bully could certainly be described as a jerk. But not all jerks are bullies. Some jerks are just obnoxious, self-absorbed or inconsiderate. Dealing with an everyday jerk is a two-part process. Part one: Do not engage. Once the jerkiness comes out—in your example, when the guy began berating you for pointing out his error—separate yourself from the encounter. Remember: You’re extremely unlikely to change someone else’s bad behavior. And the more you call that person out, the more likely he or she is going to get defensive and double down on it.
Keep calm and remain polite. Remove yourself physically if possible. Take some comfort in the fact that unless the person is a straight-up sociopath, he or she probably feels some sense of shame when left alone acting like an idiot.
(A caveat: This advice is meant for quick encounters with strangers. If you feel unsafe, or if you are under regular attack from someone you know, you need to call an authority, such as the police.)
Now for part two: Be thankful! This keeps you from spiraling into negativity. You can be grateful you’re not a jerk. And you can be thankful that successfully handling the encounter—without acting nastily yourself—makes you stronger. Dealing with someone who is acting poorly in a positive way gives you a chance to affirm your values, to model good behavior for everyone else, and to protect the world from getting uglier.
I know it’s not easy to stay positive when someone’s being nasty. I suggest coming up with a mantra that you can pull up quickly in the moment. Mantras create new neural pathways in your brain and condition you to be calmer and happier. They remind you who you want to be. And they can be just one word: “Peace.” Or a short phrase: “Never be dragged down” or “this too shall pass. (The one I use for jerks is “Just breathe.”)
Feel better? Now go forth and be strong.
To Intervene or Not to Intervene
Marshall Shelley, Christianity Today
A pastor encountered one of life's little dramas playing itself out as he entered the YMCA: A toddler wearing a wet bathing suit was coming out the door from the swimming pool area, and her mother was saying, "You are such a coward!"
The child was shivering, and her cheeks were wet-from tears or the pool? The pastor couldn't tell. She simply stood there shaking as her mother continued, "It's the same every week. You always make your daddy and me ashamed. Sometimes I can't believe you're my daughter." The pastor found himself thinking, I wonder what the penalty is for hitting a woman? "What she was doing was more hurtful, more brutal than a beating," he reflected. "It was emotional child abuse, and if it continues, that toddler will grow up feeling worthless, which will lead to all kinds of destructive behavior."
Most people feel the urge to do something, either immediately or eventually, to help the mother realize what's at stake, to help her be a better parent. Even if she isn't asking for help. When is intervention appropriate? How do you enter a situation uninvited? It's not an easy decision.
Tips for Interveners
Confront with tears.
In any confrontation, the tendency is for the person being confronted to say, "You don't understand. You don't know what I've gone through." Graciousness, tenderness, and empathy are important even when you have to be firm.
A psychologist told me a long time ago, 'When you have to confront, be sure to share how you feel — not just with your words but with your body language, your facial features, your tears. Let them know this isn't easy.' It was good advice. People are much more open if they don't feel you enjoy correcting them."
Confront with strength, not authority.
There's a difference between intervening from a position of strength and a position of authority. Authority means coming down with an imposed order and saying, "You need to stop this because the [police, management, the other people around you] disapproves." Intervening from the position of strength is to point out strongly the natural consequences of the present course. "If this keeps up, here's what's going to happen." And perhaps "Some of those things have happened to me, and they hurt like the blazes. Do you really want to do this?" Very few times will a person turn around by being told he is doing something evil or unacceptable. More often change will happen when a person is confronted with what's in his best interest — "Have you considered this consequence?"
Affirming the Importance of Life
Surprisingly, people tend to underestimate the value of their own lives. One of the duties of a pastor, especially when dealing with those destroying themselves but refusing help, is to remind people of the importance of life — their own included.
When it comes to helping those who don't want help, sometimes they, too, need to realize their own significance. God himself is interested in their decisions.
At times this can be done with indirect confrontation; at other times, however, it requires direct intervention.
Thursday, August 20
Let me ask you a question, do you think there are occasions when public-health concerns outweigh the importance of religious freedom? Or, does religious freedom stand above all other concerns? How far should the freedom go when it comes to the health of others - especially non-believers?
These questions have been raised in microclimates around our country as hospitals address the pandemic. I think it would make for an interesting discussion about the intersection of religious freedom and public health.
At the risk of having something big occurring between now and when we will gather, let's discuss this article. I have included some discussion questions at the end of the piece if you'd like to talk it over with someone else.
God's peace to you and to our nation,
- Dave
Here is the website address for the discussion group:
https://zoom.us/j/5955701807
Hospitals’ Covid-19 Policies Face Religious-Rights Checks
Stephanie Armour, Wall Street Journal 8.10.20
The Trump administration has stepped up interventions in complaints by patients and health workers who say they’ve been victims of discrimination under policies that hospitals and other health organizations have adopted to combat the new coronavirus. One of the interventions involved a medical student who objected on religious grounds that he be required to shave his beard so he could wear a protective mask. Another involved a hospital’s refusal under its no-visitors rule during the pandemic to allow a bedside visit by a priest.
As the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights has intervened in the complaints, it has been negotiating settlements and issuing guidance to remind health organizations, states and local governments about their responsibilities under federal law. Some legal experts say the agency is overstepping its statutory authority. Lawyers who advocate for religious rights disagree and say the actions are legally sound.
The office cites laws it says give it authority to intervene in religious-discrimination claims when health organizations get federal money. They also point to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, which essentially prohibits the federal government from substantially burdening a person or institution’s religious exercise. “This is a time when the safeguards are put under stress,” Roger Severino, head of the Office for Civil Rights, said in an interview. In 2018, Roger Severino announced a new HHS division on Conscience and Religious Freedom. Some legal experts and advocates said the office’s actions in religious discrimination claims involving hospitals stand on shaky legal ground, saying its interpretation of the law is overly broad and is risky during a public-health emergency.
“HHS has no statutory authority to be enforcing its policy choices about religion and how to handle religion in health care,” said Richard Katskee, legal director at Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a litigation and advocacy group. Luke Goodrich, vice president and senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that defends religious freedom, said the agency had authority because most large hospitals get federal funding. He added that protecting religious freedoms was critical even during a pandemic—and can be done safely. “You don’t have to put religion and public health against each other,” Mr. Goodrich said.
The Office for Civil Rights intervened after a complaint was filed June 11 on behalf of the medical student who was doing rotations at Staten Island University Hospital, in New York City. The complaint said the hospital required him to shave his beard so that he could wear a protective mask. The student said shaving would violate his religious commitment to not cut his hair. The civil rights office said it communicated with the student and provided technical assistance to the hospital. The office said the hospital then granted the student an accommodation and let him wear an alternative form of protection called a Powered Air Purifying Respirator that he could wear with a beard.
Christian Preston, a hospital spokesman, said, “When he raised concerns over his religious needs, immediate steps were taken to understand and make an accommodation that adhered with his cultural and spiritual beliefs so he could continue his medical studies, safely.” At no point was the student asked to shave his beard, Mr. Preston said, but he was informed about safety guidelines that state a user must be clean shaved to be appropriately fit tested for an N95 mask. He said the student was reassigned to rotations in non-Covid-19 areas until a powered air-purifying respirator could be provided instead of an N95 mask.
In another complaint, Sidney and Susanna Marcus suffered severe injuries in a car accident on Memorial Day and got treatment at Prince George’s Hospital Center, in Maryland. While Mrs. Marcus’s condition improved, her husband’s condition worsened, and he was put on a ventilator because of the accident. Neither of the Marcuses had Covid-19. Mrs. Marcus asked a priest to visit her husband at the hospital to administer the sacrament of anointing the sick, which has been known as last rites. But the hospital system, University of Maryland Medical System, had implemented a policy banning visitors because of the pandemic, according to a June 9 complaint Mrs. Marcus filed with the office. The priest, who had agreed to wear personal protective equipment, wasn’t allowed in, according to the complaint.
“I didn’t know much about his condition, we couldn’t communicate, and I was very fearful for his condition,” Mrs. Marcus said. “We believe in the sacraments, our souls are united in God, and I needed to know he had access to that.”
The Office for Civil Rights provided technical assistance to the hospital, and HHS officials said the hospital system subsequently agreed to change its policy, allowing clergy to see patients. The system didn’t dispute the details of the complaint. Prince George's Hospital Center, where Sidney and Susanna Marcus were both treated following their accident.
“We have since amended our policy, with all individuals visiting a Covid-19 positive patient provided a form acknowledging the risk, and will allow clergy visits with adherence to safety protocols,” said University of Maryland Medical System spokeswoman Jania Matthews.
Legal experts said the agency’s use of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as the basis for its authority is unusual. Robert Tuttle, a research professor of law and religion at George Washington University’s Law School, said championing religious rights during a pandemic risked endangering others. “It risks the health and safety of others,” Mr. Tuttle said. “What’s happening under the current administration, and HHS is the poster child, is a shift to religious freedoms no matter who suffers collateral damages from it.”
The Office of Civil Rights also became involved in the spring in disputes over rationing decisions involving ventilators to ensure they weren’t discriminatory. In July, it issued reminders against discrimination to health-care providers that get federal funding, including hospitals and state agencies. The guidance included instructions to ensure minorities didn’t face longer wait times for care and weren’t denied access to intensive care.
The office has taken a number of steps to champion religious rights, including a rule that enables health-care providers to refuse to perform, accommodate, or assist with certain health-care services on religious or moral grounds. A federal judge in Manhattan blocked the rule in November, saying it exceeded the agency’s authority. HHS is appealing. The agency has also been applauded by disability-rights advocates for getting involved in cases involving health providers’ actions during the pandemic.
A complaint filed in May focused on state guidance in Connecticut on hospital policies restricting visitors during the pandemic. The policies allowed only narrow exceptions for people to support individuals with disabilities who received particular services from the state. The complaint said the policy effectively denied support to people with disabilities who couldn’t understand medical decisions.
According to the complaint, one hospital broke the law when it didn’t make an exception to the visitor restrictions for a 73-year old patient with aphasia and severe short-term memory loss. The woman, who is mostly nonverbal, was denied in-person support to help with her communication and comprehension during care.
After the office became involved, the state issued a new order amending the restrictions so that people with disabilities can have in-person support.
Discussion Questions:
Do you think there are occasions when public-health concerns outweigh the importance of religious freedom?
Should the public health action be upheld by evidence? If so, should the action reflect the evidence or should there be a more or less boiler plate response?
What about religious preference; should it be upheld by spiritual polity and tradition? Who deems a particular religion to be significant or legitimate?
These questions have been raised in microclimates around our country as hospitals address the pandemic. I think it would make for an interesting discussion about the intersection of religious freedom and public health.
At the risk of having something big occurring between now and when we will gather, let's discuss this article. I have included some discussion questions at the end of the piece if you'd like to talk it over with someone else.
God's peace to you and to our nation,
- Dave
Here is the website address for the discussion group:
https://zoom.us/j/5955701807
Hospitals’ Covid-19 Policies Face Religious-Rights Checks
Stephanie Armour, Wall Street Journal 8.10.20
The Trump administration has stepped up interventions in complaints by patients and health workers who say they’ve been victims of discrimination under policies that hospitals and other health organizations have adopted to combat the new coronavirus. One of the interventions involved a medical student who objected on religious grounds that he be required to shave his beard so he could wear a protective mask. Another involved a hospital’s refusal under its no-visitors rule during the pandemic to allow a bedside visit by a priest.
As the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights has intervened in the complaints, it has been negotiating settlements and issuing guidance to remind health organizations, states and local governments about their responsibilities under federal law. Some legal experts say the agency is overstepping its statutory authority. Lawyers who advocate for religious rights disagree and say the actions are legally sound.
The office cites laws it says give it authority to intervene in religious-discrimination claims when health organizations get federal money. They also point to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, which essentially prohibits the federal government from substantially burdening a person or institution’s religious exercise. “This is a time when the safeguards are put under stress,” Roger Severino, head of the Office for Civil Rights, said in an interview. In 2018, Roger Severino announced a new HHS division on Conscience and Religious Freedom. Some legal experts and advocates said the office’s actions in religious discrimination claims involving hospitals stand on shaky legal ground, saying its interpretation of the law is overly broad and is risky during a public-health emergency.
“HHS has no statutory authority to be enforcing its policy choices about religion and how to handle religion in health care,” said Richard Katskee, legal director at Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a litigation and advocacy group. Luke Goodrich, vice president and senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that defends religious freedom, said the agency had authority because most large hospitals get federal funding. He added that protecting religious freedoms was critical even during a pandemic—and can be done safely. “You don’t have to put religion and public health against each other,” Mr. Goodrich said.
The Office for Civil Rights intervened after a complaint was filed June 11 on behalf of the medical student who was doing rotations at Staten Island University Hospital, in New York City. The complaint said the hospital required him to shave his beard so that he could wear a protective mask. The student said shaving would violate his religious commitment to not cut his hair. The civil rights office said it communicated with the student and provided technical assistance to the hospital. The office said the hospital then granted the student an accommodation and let him wear an alternative form of protection called a Powered Air Purifying Respirator that he could wear with a beard.
Christian Preston, a hospital spokesman, said, “When he raised concerns over his religious needs, immediate steps were taken to understand and make an accommodation that adhered with his cultural and spiritual beliefs so he could continue his medical studies, safely.” At no point was the student asked to shave his beard, Mr. Preston said, but he was informed about safety guidelines that state a user must be clean shaved to be appropriately fit tested for an N95 mask. He said the student was reassigned to rotations in non-Covid-19 areas until a powered air-purifying respirator could be provided instead of an N95 mask.
In another complaint, Sidney and Susanna Marcus suffered severe injuries in a car accident on Memorial Day and got treatment at Prince George’s Hospital Center, in Maryland. While Mrs. Marcus’s condition improved, her husband’s condition worsened, and he was put on a ventilator because of the accident. Neither of the Marcuses had Covid-19. Mrs. Marcus asked a priest to visit her husband at the hospital to administer the sacrament of anointing the sick, which has been known as last rites. But the hospital system, University of Maryland Medical System, had implemented a policy banning visitors because of the pandemic, according to a June 9 complaint Mrs. Marcus filed with the office. The priest, who had agreed to wear personal protective equipment, wasn’t allowed in, according to the complaint.
“I didn’t know much about his condition, we couldn’t communicate, and I was very fearful for his condition,” Mrs. Marcus said. “We believe in the sacraments, our souls are united in God, and I needed to know he had access to that.”
The Office for Civil Rights provided technical assistance to the hospital, and HHS officials said the hospital system subsequently agreed to change its policy, allowing clergy to see patients. The system didn’t dispute the details of the complaint. Prince George's Hospital Center, where Sidney and Susanna Marcus were both treated following their accident.
“We have since amended our policy, with all individuals visiting a Covid-19 positive patient provided a form acknowledging the risk, and will allow clergy visits with adherence to safety protocols,” said University of Maryland Medical System spokeswoman Jania Matthews.
Legal experts said the agency’s use of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as the basis for its authority is unusual. Robert Tuttle, a research professor of law and religion at George Washington University’s Law School, said championing religious rights during a pandemic risked endangering others. “It risks the health and safety of others,” Mr. Tuttle said. “What’s happening under the current administration, and HHS is the poster child, is a shift to religious freedoms no matter who suffers collateral damages from it.”
The Office of Civil Rights also became involved in the spring in disputes over rationing decisions involving ventilators to ensure they weren’t discriminatory. In July, it issued reminders against discrimination to health-care providers that get federal funding, including hospitals and state agencies. The guidance included instructions to ensure minorities didn’t face longer wait times for care and weren’t denied access to intensive care.
The office has taken a number of steps to champion religious rights, including a rule that enables health-care providers to refuse to perform, accommodate, or assist with certain health-care services on religious or moral grounds. A federal judge in Manhattan blocked the rule in November, saying it exceeded the agency’s authority. HHS is appealing. The agency has also been applauded by disability-rights advocates for getting involved in cases involving health providers’ actions during the pandemic.
A complaint filed in May focused on state guidance in Connecticut on hospital policies restricting visitors during the pandemic. The policies allowed only narrow exceptions for people to support individuals with disabilities who received particular services from the state. The complaint said the policy effectively denied support to people with disabilities who couldn’t understand medical decisions.
According to the complaint, one hospital broke the law when it didn’t make an exception to the visitor restrictions for a 73-year old patient with aphasia and severe short-term memory loss. The woman, who is mostly nonverbal, was denied in-person support to help with her communication and comprehension during care.
After the office became involved, the state issued a new order amending the restrictions so that people with disabilities can have in-person support.
Discussion Questions:
Do you think there are occasions when public-health concerns outweigh the importance of religious freedom?
Should the public health action be upheld by evidence? If so, should the action reflect the evidence or should there be a more or less boiler plate response?
What about religious preference; should it be upheld by spiritual polity and tradition? Who deems a particular religion to be significant or legitimate?
Thursday, August 6
Hello! I imagine it is needless to say that I am relieved the hurricane/tropical storm stayed in the Atlantic.
I have been interested in questioning the logic behind what is called the "cancel culture" - which is the popular practice of withdrawing support for (canceling) public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive. This article does a good job addressing it; and, logically follows the problem with boycotting everything means the consumer has no energy to do something politically.
I look forward to talking about this in our discussion groups. The link to the Zoom discussion is here https://zoom.us/j/5955701807
- Dave
Boycotts Can’t Be A Test of Moral Purity
Zephyr Teachout, The Atlantic, 8.3.20
For some people, when they hear about some bad corporate practice, their first reaction is to consider cutting ties to the company. So it is not surprising that each time I discuss the democratic dangers of Facebook, Amazon, or Google, people always bring up personal consumer choice. Instead of policy (antitrust, data rules, outlawing arbitration), the conversation veers quickly into pride or guilt. One woman worries she can’t leave Facebook without leaving her social life. One man sheepishly says he quit Facebook for a few weeks and crept back when he missed his friends. At the heart of this conversation is a thesis: Using a service is an endorsement of its business model. Or more pointedly: If someone is not strong enough to boycott, she lacks standing to object to the behavior of lawmakers and petition them for change.
This belief is wrong, bad strategy, and dangerous for democracy. It is based on a confused idea of our obligations as consumers. This belief does not lead to more boycotts, but radically dampens activism: Guilt gets in the way of protest, and complicated chains of self-justification take the place of simple chains of democratic demand. This consumer model is most problematic when it comes to the biggest monopolies. Most people can’t boycott them, precisely because they are governmental and provide infrastructure services. We don’t ask people to boycott libraries in order to change library rules; we don’t ask people to boycott highways to ask for them to be safer; we don’t demand that you buy only bottled water while protesting water-utility governance.
Of course, a strategic, organized, well-thought-through boycott with political goals can be transformational. And there is nothing wrong with people personally quitting products when they can. However, ethical consumerism has taken too central a role in progressive thinking, and we shouldn’t require people to boycott essential communications infrastructure such as Facebook and Google in order to demand that they be broken up. The railroads were regulated by antimonopoly protesters who depended on the railroads, and the same can be true for the next generation of trust-busters. Boycotts can play a crucial role in political change, but not when they serve only as tests of individual integrity.
Boycotts do have widespread appeal. The Vox columnist Matthew Yglesias has taken a look at why, writing, “Consumer brands are a leverage point for progressive politics because there’s no gerrymandering & marketers care more about young people. Consumer marketing is almost the exact opposite of voting and a younger, more urbanized, and more female demographic carries more weight.”
This logic may lead to a short-term sense of empowerment, but to longer-term disempowerment — the more progressives lean into their consumer power as the key point of leverage, the less they focus on exercising their political power, the less long-term collective power they will amass. In other words, boycotts allow people to import virtuousness into their life without the struggle of organizing and building a coalition.
Today, there are hundreds of boycotts every year, and most do not have any appreciable impact. People lose interest, don’t maintain a public presence around a boycott, and the number of people involved is typically too small to make a market difference. What difference is made typically revolves around “the more modest goal of attracting media attention,” not the loss of income, the University of Pennsylvania professor Maurice Schweitzer says.
The Chick-fil-A boycott, one of the largest in recent memory, came about when the Chick-fil-A CEO made anti-gay marriage comments. Organizers staged kiss-ins, and mayors said Chick-filA was not welcome in their towns. But Chick-fil-A ignored the protests, people forgot the comments after a few years, and little changed. As one commentator put it, “It is hard to stay mad at a ubiquitous and powerful brand.” While, in theory, people did commit to stop eating at Chick-fil-A until it changed its posture on marriage equality, the company outlasted the protest; it still rates a zero on the Human Rights Campaign’s Buyers Guide, and LGBTQ people are not included in its nondiscrimination policy.
Ethical consumerism — and its close relatives corporate accountability and corporate social responsibility — is especially poorly suited to monopolized economies, and a tragic misfit for disciplining companies that play a quasi-governmental role. By accepting big corporations as partners, and not challenging their legitimacy as our rulers, the consumer-boycott model allows for short-term victories that appear to be progressive, while the partner corporation is building sufficient power to become boycott-proof.
If Chick-fil-A was hard to boycott, think about what boycotting Google would mean. First, imagine a one-person boycott, someone angry about, say, Google-enabled job discrimination. He would have to get rid of his Android phone and switch from Gmail. He’d have to stop using Google Search and Google Maps. He’d have to refuse to watch anything on YouTube. He’d have to get rid of Nest. If he owned a business, he’d have to avoid Google ads, which he might rely on to reach customers. He’d have to refuse to use municipal Wi-Fi in cities where Google is behind “free” Wi-Fi. If he had children, he would have to tell them to refuse to use the technology required to interact with their teachers.
And even if he succeeds in doing all these things, Google will not boycott him. If he uses the internet, he will necessarily see Google-served ads, and his responses and nonresponses to those ads will feed into Google’s data bank. Google will still collect information about him when he walks by a LinkNYC kiosk. Google will still collect his tax dollars in subsidies.
Now try imagining an effective organized boycott of Google, large enough to actually dent the company’s profits. There are more than 5 billion Google searches a day. Can we really imagine enough people switching to an alternate search engine or going without asking their question? Google will continue collecting information on those people regardless, and Search is just one part of the Google behemoth. As if that weren’t daunting enough, imagine a sector-based boycott of the data-collection practices of all the big tech companies—Facebook, Google, Amazon—for their shared behaviors.
In 2019, the city of Richmond, California, ended its contract with Vigilant Solutions, a dataanalytics company that does business with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The city of Berkeley, following suit, debated boycotting all companies that provided services to ICE and Customs and Border Protection, including Amazon, because these federal agencies rely on Amazon Web Services. The Berkeley city manager, Dee Williams-Ridley, argued against boycotting Amazon, because it “would have a huge negative impact to the citywide operations.” Amazon helps manage city documents, and hosts housing and mental-health programs, and Amazon servers host many other tech companies that provide services to the city. People unwittingly using the thing they are supposedly boycotting to advertise their boycott can seem funny. But the lack of choice facing all boycotters actually represents a serious narrowing of the window of moral political behavior.
The change in effectiveness can be confusing for people who remember the successful boycotts in the 1980s and ’90s of companies such as Nike, which came under fire for using sweatshops. Companies have reorganized their supply chains in a way that insulates them from liability and protest. Garment manufacturers no longer have direct relationships with big companies, who build systems of deliberate ignorance into their purchasing. According to Professor Richard Locke’s research on Nike, workplace conditions in almost 80 percent of its root suppliers remained either the same or worsened between 2001 and 2005, though the company’s records may appear better on paper. Most important, every part of Nike’s supply chain is monopolized, with just a few major players, so boycotters have nowhere else to go. A serious boycott would involve buying no foreign-manufactured garments, rather than targeting particular companies.
Growing consolidation of power interacts with the rise of social media, leading to more boycotts that are less effective and shorter-lasting. As Tufekci has argued, these actions tend to the ephemeral and episodic, instead of the effective and persistent. The result is a combination of hyperactivity online and decreased power.
There are also strong class and social elements to boycotting something like Facebook. It may not be essential for an upper-middle-class man living in New York, with an existing strong network of friends who appreciate his eccentricities, to use Facebook or Instagram. But a young person looking for work, let alone friendship, might find it hard to check out of all Facebook owned properties, because they are so central to social life, and the web of job connections. The human cost of social isolation is enormous, and while some people may have sturdy offline social networks, many people do not. I met one anti-monopoly activist who guiltily confessed that she stayed on Facebook because she wanted to check on her grandmother’s health.
People feel guilty about not boycotting, and that guilt gets in the way of full-throated political protest. In law, there is a doctrine called “exhaustion of remedies.” It prevents a litigant from seeking a remedy in a new court or jurisdiction until all claims or remedies have been pursued as fully as possible—exhausted—in the original one. In politics, consumer supremacy has led to a kind of exhaustion-of-remedies thinking, through which people adopt a hierarchy of modes of resistance, and feel they must first boycott, and only then ask lawmakers for change. It places consumer obligations over civic ones.
We need to change the current habits of protest in a way that places public, electoral politics at the heart of how we interact with corporate monopolies. If your local pizza parlor starts treating workers badly, sure, boycott it. But when a monopolistic drug company hikes up prices, or a social-media goliath promotes political lies to make more money, the right response is not to beg Google or Facebook for scraps, but to march to Congress and demand that the practices be investigated and the power of these companies be broken up. And if your representative fails to act, don’t boycott her. Replace her.
Zephyr Teachout is an associate professor of law at Fordham Law School. She is the author of Break ’Em Up: Recovering Our Freedom From Big Ag, Big Tech, and Big Money
I have been interested in questioning the logic behind what is called the "cancel culture" - which is the popular practice of withdrawing support for (canceling) public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive. This article does a good job addressing it; and, logically follows the problem with boycotting everything means the consumer has no energy to do something politically.
I look forward to talking about this in our discussion groups. The link to the Zoom discussion is here https://zoom.us/j/5955701807
- Dave
Boycotts Can’t Be A Test of Moral Purity
Zephyr Teachout, The Atlantic, 8.3.20
For some people, when they hear about some bad corporate practice, their first reaction is to consider cutting ties to the company. So it is not surprising that each time I discuss the democratic dangers of Facebook, Amazon, or Google, people always bring up personal consumer choice. Instead of policy (antitrust, data rules, outlawing arbitration), the conversation veers quickly into pride or guilt. One woman worries she can’t leave Facebook without leaving her social life. One man sheepishly says he quit Facebook for a few weeks and crept back when he missed his friends. At the heart of this conversation is a thesis: Using a service is an endorsement of its business model. Or more pointedly: If someone is not strong enough to boycott, she lacks standing to object to the behavior of lawmakers and petition them for change.
This belief is wrong, bad strategy, and dangerous for democracy. It is based on a confused idea of our obligations as consumers. This belief does not lead to more boycotts, but radically dampens activism: Guilt gets in the way of protest, and complicated chains of self-justification take the place of simple chains of democratic demand. This consumer model is most problematic when it comes to the biggest monopolies. Most people can’t boycott them, precisely because they are governmental and provide infrastructure services. We don’t ask people to boycott libraries in order to change library rules; we don’t ask people to boycott highways to ask for them to be safer; we don’t demand that you buy only bottled water while protesting water-utility governance.
Of course, a strategic, organized, well-thought-through boycott with political goals can be transformational. And there is nothing wrong with people personally quitting products when they can. However, ethical consumerism has taken too central a role in progressive thinking, and we shouldn’t require people to boycott essential communications infrastructure such as Facebook and Google in order to demand that they be broken up. The railroads were regulated by antimonopoly protesters who depended on the railroads, and the same can be true for the next generation of trust-busters. Boycotts can play a crucial role in political change, but not when they serve only as tests of individual integrity.
Boycotts do have widespread appeal. The Vox columnist Matthew Yglesias has taken a look at why, writing, “Consumer brands are a leverage point for progressive politics because there’s no gerrymandering & marketers care more about young people. Consumer marketing is almost the exact opposite of voting and a younger, more urbanized, and more female demographic carries more weight.”
This logic may lead to a short-term sense of empowerment, but to longer-term disempowerment — the more progressives lean into their consumer power as the key point of leverage, the less they focus on exercising their political power, the less long-term collective power they will amass. In other words, boycotts allow people to import virtuousness into their life without the struggle of organizing and building a coalition.
Today, there are hundreds of boycotts every year, and most do not have any appreciable impact. People lose interest, don’t maintain a public presence around a boycott, and the number of people involved is typically too small to make a market difference. What difference is made typically revolves around “the more modest goal of attracting media attention,” not the loss of income, the University of Pennsylvania professor Maurice Schweitzer says.
The Chick-fil-A boycott, one of the largest in recent memory, came about when the Chick-fil-A CEO made anti-gay marriage comments. Organizers staged kiss-ins, and mayors said Chick-filA was not welcome in their towns. But Chick-fil-A ignored the protests, people forgot the comments after a few years, and little changed. As one commentator put it, “It is hard to stay mad at a ubiquitous and powerful brand.” While, in theory, people did commit to stop eating at Chick-fil-A until it changed its posture on marriage equality, the company outlasted the protest; it still rates a zero on the Human Rights Campaign’s Buyers Guide, and LGBTQ people are not included in its nondiscrimination policy.
Ethical consumerism — and its close relatives corporate accountability and corporate social responsibility — is especially poorly suited to monopolized economies, and a tragic misfit for disciplining companies that play a quasi-governmental role. By accepting big corporations as partners, and not challenging their legitimacy as our rulers, the consumer-boycott model allows for short-term victories that appear to be progressive, while the partner corporation is building sufficient power to become boycott-proof.
If Chick-fil-A was hard to boycott, think about what boycotting Google would mean. First, imagine a one-person boycott, someone angry about, say, Google-enabled job discrimination. He would have to get rid of his Android phone and switch from Gmail. He’d have to stop using Google Search and Google Maps. He’d have to refuse to watch anything on YouTube. He’d have to get rid of Nest. If he owned a business, he’d have to avoid Google ads, which he might rely on to reach customers. He’d have to refuse to use municipal Wi-Fi in cities where Google is behind “free” Wi-Fi. If he had children, he would have to tell them to refuse to use the technology required to interact with their teachers.
And even if he succeeds in doing all these things, Google will not boycott him. If he uses the internet, he will necessarily see Google-served ads, and his responses and nonresponses to those ads will feed into Google’s data bank. Google will still collect information about him when he walks by a LinkNYC kiosk. Google will still collect his tax dollars in subsidies.
Now try imagining an effective organized boycott of Google, large enough to actually dent the company’s profits. There are more than 5 billion Google searches a day. Can we really imagine enough people switching to an alternate search engine or going without asking their question? Google will continue collecting information on those people regardless, and Search is just one part of the Google behemoth. As if that weren’t daunting enough, imagine a sector-based boycott of the data-collection practices of all the big tech companies—Facebook, Google, Amazon—for their shared behaviors.
In 2019, the city of Richmond, California, ended its contract with Vigilant Solutions, a dataanalytics company that does business with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The city of Berkeley, following suit, debated boycotting all companies that provided services to ICE and Customs and Border Protection, including Amazon, because these federal agencies rely on Amazon Web Services. The Berkeley city manager, Dee Williams-Ridley, argued against boycotting Amazon, because it “would have a huge negative impact to the citywide operations.” Amazon helps manage city documents, and hosts housing and mental-health programs, and Amazon servers host many other tech companies that provide services to the city. People unwittingly using the thing they are supposedly boycotting to advertise their boycott can seem funny. But the lack of choice facing all boycotters actually represents a serious narrowing of the window of moral political behavior.
The change in effectiveness can be confusing for people who remember the successful boycotts in the 1980s and ’90s of companies such as Nike, which came under fire for using sweatshops. Companies have reorganized their supply chains in a way that insulates them from liability and protest. Garment manufacturers no longer have direct relationships with big companies, who build systems of deliberate ignorance into their purchasing. According to Professor Richard Locke’s research on Nike, workplace conditions in almost 80 percent of its root suppliers remained either the same or worsened between 2001 and 2005, though the company’s records may appear better on paper. Most important, every part of Nike’s supply chain is monopolized, with just a few major players, so boycotters have nowhere else to go. A serious boycott would involve buying no foreign-manufactured garments, rather than targeting particular companies.
Growing consolidation of power interacts with the rise of social media, leading to more boycotts that are less effective and shorter-lasting. As Tufekci has argued, these actions tend to the ephemeral and episodic, instead of the effective and persistent. The result is a combination of hyperactivity online and decreased power.
There are also strong class and social elements to boycotting something like Facebook. It may not be essential for an upper-middle-class man living in New York, with an existing strong network of friends who appreciate his eccentricities, to use Facebook or Instagram. But a young person looking for work, let alone friendship, might find it hard to check out of all Facebook owned properties, because they are so central to social life, and the web of job connections. The human cost of social isolation is enormous, and while some people may have sturdy offline social networks, many people do not. I met one anti-monopoly activist who guiltily confessed that she stayed on Facebook because she wanted to check on her grandmother’s health.
People feel guilty about not boycotting, and that guilt gets in the way of full-throated political protest. In law, there is a doctrine called “exhaustion of remedies.” It prevents a litigant from seeking a remedy in a new court or jurisdiction until all claims or remedies have been pursued as fully as possible—exhausted—in the original one. In politics, consumer supremacy has led to a kind of exhaustion-of-remedies thinking, through which people adopt a hierarchy of modes of resistance, and feel they must first boycott, and only then ask lawmakers for change. It places consumer obligations over civic ones.
We need to change the current habits of protest in a way that places public, electoral politics at the heart of how we interact with corporate monopolies. If your local pizza parlor starts treating workers badly, sure, boycott it. But when a monopolistic drug company hikes up prices, or a social-media goliath promotes political lies to make more money, the right response is not to beg Google or Facebook for scraps, but to march to Congress and demand that the practices be investigated and the power of these companies be broken up. And if your representative fails to act, don’t boycott her. Replace her.
Zephyr Teachout is an associate professor of law at Fordham Law School. She is the author of Break ’Em Up: Recovering Our Freedom From Big Ag, Big Tech, and Big Money
Thursday, July 30
We are going to take on a rather heavy topic this week - capital punishment. There was an opinion piece in the New York Times, by Jeffrey Rosen, Deputy US Attorney General, outlining his views on justice being served through carrying out the death penalty. The Episcopal Church, since 1958, has stood against capital punishment and reaffirmed that theological belief exactly one year ago. Deputy AG Rosen's piece and the ECUSA statement on Federal executions are attached.
There are more than just these two opinions about the matter but I found them to be rather opposed to each other and thus a good conversation starter.
Here is the link https://zoom.us/j/5955701807
It is a troubling topic in a troubling time; may God's peace be with you, your family, and our nation.
- Dave
Justice is Being Done
Jeffrey A. Rosen, Deputy Attorney General New York Times, July 27, 2020
A top Justice Department official says for many Americans the death penalty is a difficult issue on moral, religious and policy grounds. But as a legal issue, it is straightforward. This month, for the first time in 17 years, the United States resumed carrying out death sentences for federal crimes. On July 14, Daniel Lewis Lee was executed for the 1996 murder of a family to fund a white-supremacist organization. On July 16, Wesley Purkey was executed for the 1998 murder of a teenage girl. The next day, Dustin Honken was executed for five murders committed in 1993. The death penalty is a difficult issue for many Americans on moral, religious and policy grounds. But as a legal issue, it is straightforward. The United States Constitution expressly contemplates “capital” crimes, and Congress has authorized the death penalty for serious federal offenses since President George Washington signed the Crimes Act of 1790. The American people have repeatedly ratified that decision, including through the Federal Death Penalty Act of 1994 signed by President Bill Clinton, the federal execution of Timothy McVeigh under President George W. Bush and the decision by President Barack Obama’s Justice Department to seek the death penalty against the Boston Marathon bomber and Dylann Roof. The recent executions reflect that consensus, as the Justice Department has an obligation to implement the law. The decision to seek the death penalty against Mr. Lee was made by Attorney General Janet Reno (who said she personally opposed the death penalty but was bound by the law) and reaffirmed by then-Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder. Mr. Purkey was prosecuted during the George W. Bush administration, and his conviction and sentence were vigorously defended throughout the Obama administration. The former judge who imposed the death sentence on Mr. Honken, Mark Bennett, said that while he generally opposed the death penalty, he would not lose any sleep over Mr. Honken’s execution. In a New York Times op-ed published on July 17, two of Mr. Lee’s lawyers criticized the execution of their client, which they contend was carried out in a “shameful rush.” That objection overlooks that Mr. Lee was sentenced more than 20 years ago, and his appeals and other permissible challenges failed, up to and including the day of his execution. Mr. Lee’s lawyers seem to endorse a system of endless delays that prevent a death sentence from ever becoming real. But his execution date was announced almost a year ago, and was initially set for last December. After a series of delays, in the final minutes before the execution was to occur, Mr. Lee’s lawyers claimed the execution could not proceed because Mr. Lee still had time to seek further review of an appellate court decision six weeks earlier lifting a prior stay of execution. The Justice Department decided to pause the execution for several hours while the appellate court considered and promptly rejected Mr. Lee’s request. That cautious step, taken to ensure undoubted compliance with court orders, is irreconcilable with the suggestion that the department “rushed” the execution or disregarded any law. Mr. Lee’s lawyers also disregarded the cost to victims’ families of continued delay. Although they note that some members of Mr. Lee’s victims’ families opposed his execution, others did not. Mr. Lee’s lawyers and other death penalty opponents are entitled to disagree with that sentiment. But if the United States is going to allow capital punishment, a white-supremacist triple murderer would seem the textbook example of a justified case. And if death sentences are going to be imposed, they cannot just be hypothetical; they eventually have to be carried out, or the punishment will lose its deterrent and retributive effects. Rather than forthrightly opposing the death penalty and attempting to change the law through democratic means, however, Mr. Lee’s lawyers and others have chosen the legal and public-relations equivalent of guerrilla war. They sought to obstruct by any means the administration of sentences that Congress permitted, juries supported and the Supreme Court approved. And when those tactics failed, they accused the Justice Department of “a grave threat to the rule of law,” even though it operated entirely within the law enacted by Congress and approved by the Supreme Court. The American people can decide for themselves which aspects of that process should be considered “shameful.”
Jeffrey A. Rosen is the deputy attorney general.
Episcopal Church Statement on Federal Executions July 26, 2019
“Jesus told us that the greatest gift we could give is to lay down our own lives for another. Conversely, the taking of another life must be viewed as the greatest sacrilege.” The Most Reverend Edmond L. Browning, XXIV Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church “If it is not about love, it is not about God” The Most Reverend Michael B. Curry, XXVII and Current Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church On July 25th [2019], the Attorney General announced the Trump Administration’s intention to begin carrying out federal executions for the first time since 2003. Since 1958, The Episcopal Church has taught that the sacredness of life requires that no individual or group of individuals have the right to unnecessarily take the life of another person. The taking of a human life can be necessary in self-defense and war, but as retribution for even the most heinous crimes it is not justified. In ages past, prior to the development of modern prison systems, execution was a method to protect the community from future crimes. St. Paul recognized the reality of this necessity to use force to restrain greater evil. Even in this scenario, execution was not the right or prerogative of the state, but a necessity for communal safety that no longer exists. Even if our justice system never wrongly convicted, condemned, and killed an innocent person, even if our justice system was equitable in sentencing, capital punishment would not be justified. The death penalty is not theologically justifiable, in part because it is not necessary for the protection of innocent people and the state cannot morally justify killing for the sake of vengeance. In the Old Testament, animal and human sacrifice was used to reestablish the moral balance that sin destroyed by making an offering of those animals and people to God. Christ’s death atoned for all human sin, past, present, and future, thus reestablishing moral balance for all time. The premeditated and unnecessary killing of a person is unchristian and beyond the legitimate powers of the state. Therefore, The Episcopal Church condemns the decision by the Administration to execute prisoners. We call on the President to reverse this decision and utilize his Constitutional power to commute the sentences of all those condemned to death to life in prison without parole.
There are more than just these two opinions about the matter but I found them to be rather opposed to each other and thus a good conversation starter.
Here is the link https://zoom.us/j/5955701807
It is a troubling topic in a troubling time; may God's peace be with you, your family, and our nation.
- Dave
Justice is Being Done
Jeffrey A. Rosen, Deputy Attorney General New York Times, July 27, 2020
A top Justice Department official says for many Americans the death penalty is a difficult issue on moral, religious and policy grounds. But as a legal issue, it is straightforward. This month, for the first time in 17 years, the United States resumed carrying out death sentences for federal crimes. On July 14, Daniel Lewis Lee was executed for the 1996 murder of a family to fund a white-supremacist organization. On July 16, Wesley Purkey was executed for the 1998 murder of a teenage girl. The next day, Dustin Honken was executed for five murders committed in 1993. The death penalty is a difficult issue for many Americans on moral, religious and policy grounds. But as a legal issue, it is straightforward. The United States Constitution expressly contemplates “capital” crimes, and Congress has authorized the death penalty for serious federal offenses since President George Washington signed the Crimes Act of 1790. The American people have repeatedly ratified that decision, including through the Federal Death Penalty Act of 1994 signed by President Bill Clinton, the federal execution of Timothy McVeigh under President George W. Bush and the decision by President Barack Obama’s Justice Department to seek the death penalty against the Boston Marathon bomber and Dylann Roof. The recent executions reflect that consensus, as the Justice Department has an obligation to implement the law. The decision to seek the death penalty against Mr. Lee was made by Attorney General Janet Reno (who said she personally opposed the death penalty but was bound by the law) and reaffirmed by then-Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder. Mr. Purkey was prosecuted during the George W. Bush administration, and his conviction and sentence were vigorously defended throughout the Obama administration. The former judge who imposed the death sentence on Mr. Honken, Mark Bennett, said that while he generally opposed the death penalty, he would not lose any sleep over Mr. Honken’s execution. In a New York Times op-ed published on July 17, two of Mr. Lee’s lawyers criticized the execution of their client, which they contend was carried out in a “shameful rush.” That objection overlooks that Mr. Lee was sentenced more than 20 years ago, and his appeals and other permissible challenges failed, up to and including the day of his execution. Mr. Lee’s lawyers seem to endorse a system of endless delays that prevent a death sentence from ever becoming real. But his execution date was announced almost a year ago, and was initially set for last December. After a series of delays, in the final minutes before the execution was to occur, Mr. Lee’s lawyers claimed the execution could not proceed because Mr. Lee still had time to seek further review of an appellate court decision six weeks earlier lifting a prior stay of execution. The Justice Department decided to pause the execution for several hours while the appellate court considered and promptly rejected Mr. Lee’s request. That cautious step, taken to ensure undoubted compliance with court orders, is irreconcilable with the suggestion that the department “rushed” the execution or disregarded any law. Mr. Lee’s lawyers also disregarded the cost to victims’ families of continued delay. Although they note that some members of Mr. Lee’s victims’ families opposed his execution, others did not. Mr. Lee’s lawyers and other death penalty opponents are entitled to disagree with that sentiment. But if the United States is going to allow capital punishment, a white-supremacist triple murderer would seem the textbook example of a justified case. And if death sentences are going to be imposed, they cannot just be hypothetical; they eventually have to be carried out, or the punishment will lose its deterrent and retributive effects. Rather than forthrightly opposing the death penalty and attempting to change the law through democratic means, however, Mr. Lee’s lawyers and others have chosen the legal and public-relations equivalent of guerrilla war. They sought to obstruct by any means the administration of sentences that Congress permitted, juries supported and the Supreme Court approved. And when those tactics failed, they accused the Justice Department of “a grave threat to the rule of law,” even though it operated entirely within the law enacted by Congress and approved by the Supreme Court. The American people can decide for themselves which aspects of that process should be considered “shameful.”
Jeffrey A. Rosen is the deputy attorney general.
Episcopal Church Statement on Federal Executions July 26, 2019
“Jesus told us that the greatest gift we could give is to lay down our own lives for another. Conversely, the taking of another life must be viewed as the greatest sacrilege.” The Most Reverend Edmond L. Browning, XXIV Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church “If it is not about love, it is not about God” The Most Reverend Michael B. Curry, XXVII and Current Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church On July 25th [2019], the Attorney General announced the Trump Administration’s intention to begin carrying out federal executions for the first time since 2003. Since 1958, The Episcopal Church has taught that the sacredness of life requires that no individual or group of individuals have the right to unnecessarily take the life of another person. The taking of a human life can be necessary in self-defense and war, but as retribution for even the most heinous crimes it is not justified. In ages past, prior to the development of modern prison systems, execution was a method to protect the community from future crimes. St. Paul recognized the reality of this necessity to use force to restrain greater evil. Even in this scenario, execution was not the right or prerogative of the state, but a necessity for communal safety that no longer exists. Even if our justice system never wrongly convicted, condemned, and killed an innocent person, even if our justice system was equitable in sentencing, capital punishment would not be justified. The death penalty is not theologically justifiable, in part because it is not necessary for the protection of innocent people and the state cannot morally justify killing for the sake of vengeance. In the Old Testament, animal and human sacrifice was used to reestablish the moral balance that sin destroyed by making an offering of those animals and people to God. Christ’s death atoned for all human sin, past, present, and future, thus reestablishing moral balance for all time. The premeditated and unnecessary killing of a person is unchristian and beyond the legitimate powers of the state. Therefore, The Episcopal Church condemns the decision by the Administration to execute prisoners. We call on the President to reverse this decision and utilize his Constitutional power to commute the sentences of all those condemned to death to life in prison without parole.
Thursday, July 23
Hello! If you have ever wanted to read an article that blended spiritual practices with neuroscience, here it is! The article is a book review in Christianity Today that I think you may find interesting. The author of the article asks Why do some people benefit from spiritual disciplines while others seem to flounder? Why do some people embrace them wholeheartedly while others just shrug them off? And why, after these disciplines help us grow for a time, does the fruit sometimes begin to fade? Believe it or not, neuroscience may have something to say about it. I am looking forward to the discussion.
Here is the Zoom link https://zoom.us/j/5955701807
God's peace to you,
- Dave
Stuck in a Spiritual Rut? Neuroscience Might Have the Answer.
Geoff Holsclaw, Christianity Today, book review. July 17, 2020
Read your Bible. Pray. Go to church—twice on Sundays. And don’t sin. Be sure not to sin. This was the extent of my spiritual formation.
Of course, no one talked about spiritual formation when I was growing up. Reading the Bible, fasting, and prayer were part of my devotions, not part of a package of historic “spiritual disciplines.” These were just the things we did to grow our faith—to become holy, as God is holy. And the simplicity of these activities served me well. Until—while in college—they didn’t.
That’s when I encountered various devotional books that led me down God’s ancient paths of transformation. As for so many, discovering this wider tradition of spiritual disciplines—which included practices like meditation, fasting, and Sabbath rest—was a revelation and a relief. I no longer had to cut my own path with God, each day, alone. Now an ancient way stretched before me that I could walk with others.
Jim Wilder’s new book, Renovated: God, Dallas Willard and the Church That Transforms, integrates these ancient pathways with findings from brain science about our neural pathways. Wilder shows how contemporary neuroscience transforms our understanding of spiritual formation. After a couple of years spent zealously practicing spiritual disciplines, two realizations emerged. First, it seemed many of my friends either resisted them or could not engage with them. They were not experiencing transformation like I had. Second, these practices didn’t fix everything in my own life. I still struggled with sin.
I would often go through the motions. And I fell into a new legalism just as my spiritual maturity plateaued. I wondered why my growth had stalled out. I soon found that other church leaders were wondering the same things. Why do some people benefit from spiritual disciplines while others seem to flounder? Why do some people embrace them wholeheartedly while others just shrug them off? And why, after these disciplines help us grow for a time, does the fruit sometimes begin to fade?
Renovated speaks to these very questions. Wilder’s book is for those feeling stuck in a spiritual-formation rut, for those longing to see others grow spiritually, and for those interested in how brain science transforms our understanding of spiritual growth.
Wilder’s book recommends a shift from thinking about God to thinking with God. The author, leaning on what we know about the brain, argues that thinking about God is too slow of a mental process to actively transform our lives. He calls it a “slow-track” mental process that can only focus on one thing at a time. Thoughts that develop on this slower track appear in our minds too late to inform actions in real time.
This slow-track process is great when there is time to pause and reflect on complex problems. It’s less helpful, however, amid the stress, fear, and disappointment of everyday life. As Wilder observes, our slow-track thinking focuses “our attention just in time to see our sinful reactions,” but not in time to follow Jesus at the speed of life. A better alternative, Wilder argues, is thinking with God, which utilizes “fast-track” mental processes that can focus on (and react to) multiple things at once.
Have you ever reacted to a dangerous situation without thinking? Have you ever responded to someone in a way you regret? This is your fast-track brain at work. Wilder explains that our fast-track brain “produces a reaction to our circumstances before we have a chance to consider how we would rather react.” A fast-track mind trained according to God’s will is able to think with God in the midst of real-time interactions. Thinking with God is like how a sports team wordlessly works together to achieve its goal. Or how a jazz band spontaneously flows together. When a team or a band practices together—stopping and starting over again until everything is flowing smoothly—this is like thinking about God (slow-track). The game or the performance is like thinking with God (fast-track).
Another shift Wilder describes is from a form of discipleship that goes from me to we. From our first cries to our final breaths, the necessity of being attached to someone—first to our parents and then to a larger group—means that my sense of “me” is always built upon an established sense of “we.” Our semi-automatic reactions to life are marked indelibly by the people we spend the most time with, the group we identify with. At the most basic level of our brains, we become like the ones we love.
Growing up, we all receive a fast-track pattern (or a “program file,” as Wilder calls it) that tells us how “my people” act in a given situation. And because this program file is buried in our fast-track brain, it is incredibly hard to override when we are tired, stressed, afraid, or angry. Because of this, Wilder argues that true transformation comes through changing our understanding of who “my people” are and how they act. As he writes, transforming our character “depends on becoming attached by love, joy, and peace to a new people.” And this is why discipleship is fundamentally a we, rather than me, activity.
By ourselves, it is nearly impossible to change the assumptions of our fast-track brain and the actions that flow out of them. Instead, our character changes in and through community as a process of trial and error, which involves learning how the people of God act in various situations. We first see how more mature disciples behave in the crucibles of everyday life. Then we imitate their reactions as best we can. And eventually we spontaneously act in a way that witnesses to our identification with a new people—the people of God.
The goal of all spiritual formation is being conformed to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:29), who was fully human as well as fully divine. So it only makes sense that a deep understanding of our humanity—including our brains—should inform that process. Renovated is a gift to the church, to all who long to understand the impact of neuroscience on spiritual maturity, and to all who were blessed by the work of Dallas Willard.
Geoff Holsclaw is a pastor at Vineyard North church in Grand Rapids, Michigan and an affiliate professor of theology at Northern Seminary. He and his wife Cyd are co-authors of Does God Really Like Me?: Discovering the God Who Wants to Be With Us (InterVarsity Press).
Here is the Zoom link https://zoom.us/j/5955701807
God's peace to you,
- Dave
Stuck in a Spiritual Rut? Neuroscience Might Have the Answer.
Geoff Holsclaw, Christianity Today, book review. July 17, 2020
Read your Bible. Pray. Go to church—twice on Sundays. And don’t sin. Be sure not to sin. This was the extent of my spiritual formation.
Of course, no one talked about spiritual formation when I was growing up. Reading the Bible, fasting, and prayer were part of my devotions, not part of a package of historic “spiritual disciplines.” These were just the things we did to grow our faith—to become holy, as God is holy. And the simplicity of these activities served me well. Until—while in college—they didn’t.
That’s when I encountered various devotional books that led me down God’s ancient paths of transformation. As for so many, discovering this wider tradition of spiritual disciplines—which included practices like meditation, fasting, and Sabbath rest—was a revelation and a relief. I no longer had to cut my own path with God, each day, alone. Now an ancient way stretched before me that I could walk with others.
Jim Wilder’s new book, Renovated: God, Dallas Willard and the Church That Transforms, integrates these ancient pathways with findings from brain science about our neural pathways. Wilder shows how contemporary neuroscience transforms our understanding of spiritual formation. After a couple of years spent zealously practicing spiritual disciplines, two realizations emerged. First, it seemed many of my friends either resisted them or could not engage with them. They were not experiencing transformation like I had. Second, these practices didn’t fix everything in my own life. I still struggled with sin.
I would often go through the motions. And I fell into a new legalism just as my spiritual maturity plateaued. I wondered why my growth had stalled out. I soon found that other church leaders were wondering the same things. Why do some people benefit from spiritual disciplines while others seem to flounder? Why do some people embrace them wholeheartedly while others just shrug them off? And why, after these disciplines help us grow for a time, does the fruit sometimes begin to fade?
Renovated speaks to these very questions. Wilder’s book is for those feeling stuck in a spiritual-formation rut, for those longing to see others grow spiritually, and for those interested in how brain science transforms our understanding of spiritual growth.
Wilder’s book recommends a shift from thinking about God to thinking with God. The author, leaning on what we know about the brain, argues that thinking about God is too slow of a mental process to actively transform our lives. He calls it a “slow-track” mental process that can only focus on one thing at a time. Thoughts that develop on this slower track appear in our minds too late to inform actions in real time.
This slow-track process is great when there is time to pause and reflect on complex problems. It’s less helpful, however, amid the stress, fear, and disappointment of everyday life. As Wilder observes, our slow-track thinking focuses “our attention just in time to see our sinful reactions,” but not in time to follow Jesus at the speed of life. A better alternative, Wilder argues, is thinking with God, which utilizes “fast-track” mental processes that can focus on (and react to) multiple things at once.
Have you ever reacted to a dangerous situation without thinking? Have you ever responded to someone in a way you regret? This is your fast-track brain at work. Wilder explains that our fast-track brain “produces a reaction to our circumstances before we have a chance to consider how we would rather react.” A fast-track mind trained according to God’s will is able to think with God in the midst of real-time interactions. Thinking with God is like how a sports team wordlessly works together to achieve its goal. Or how a jazz band spontaneously flows together. When a team or a band practices together—stopping and starting over again until everything is flowing smoothly—this is like thinking about God (slow-track). The game or the performance is like thinking with God (fast-track).
Another shift Wilder describes is from a form of discipleship that goes from me to we. From our first cries to our final breaths, the necessity of being attached to someone—first to our parents and then to a larger group—means that my sense of “me” is always built upon an established sense of “we.” Our semi-automatic reactions to life are marked indelibly by the people we spend the most time with, the group we identify with. At the most basic level of our brains, we become like the ones we love.
Growing up, we all receive a fast-track pattern (or a “program file,” as Wilder calls it) that tells us how “my people” act in a given situation. And because this program file is buried in our fast-track brain, it is incredibly hard to override when we are tired, stressed, afraid, or angry. Because of this, Wilder argues that true transformation comes through changing our understanding of who “my people” are and how they act. As he writes, transforming our character “depends on becoming attached by love, joy, and peace to a new people.” And this is why discipleship is fundamentally a we, rather than me, activity.
By ourselves, it is nearly impossible to change the assumptions of our fast-track brain and the actions that flow out of them. Instead, our character changes in and through community as a process of trial and error, which involves learning how the people of God act in various situations. We first see how more mature disciples behave in the crucibles of everyday life. Then we imitate their reactions as best we can. And eventually we spontaneously act in a way that witnesses to our identification with a new people—the people of God.
The goal of all spiritual formation is being conformed to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:29), who was fully human as well as fully divine. So it only makes sense that a deep understanding of our humanity—including our brains—should inform that process. Renovated is a gift to the church, to all who long to understand the impact of neuroscience on spiritual maturity, and to all who were blessed by the work of Dallas Willard.
Geoff Holsclaw is a pastor at Vineyard North church in Grand Rapids, Michigan and an affiliate professor of theology at Northern Seminary. He and his wife Cyd are co-authors of Does God Really Like Me?: Discovering the God Who Wants to Be With Us (InterVarsity Press).
Thursday, July 16
This week our reading comes from the LA Times. It is a good publication and has a California vibe to it - they cover in depth stories about ecology, technology and entertainment. So, get some guacamole and chips and take a read.
I don't quite understand how limiting posts on social media sites actually encourages free speech, but at least we can have a good conversation about it. That being said, I am encouraged by the actions YouTube has taken to remove incendiary speech from their site. As a church, we publish our services on YouTube and not Facebook. I am disappointed with FB for many reasons, in particular their laissez faire approach to how their site has been used for bullying and misinformation. Am I concerned about the slippery slope and that someday YouTube will remove my channel because they want to stop all references to God? No, but, that may be a part of the discussion too.
God's peace to you, to our cities, and our nation,
- Dave
Kicking Racists Off Social Media Protects Free Speech
Los Angeles Times, Mary McNamara July 7, 2020
For years, people have claimed that the taming of the Internet was nigh. Whether cause for lamentation or celebration, the Wild West of content that stretched, unhampered by natural boundaries of river, mountain or sea, would be increasingly carved up and tied down by capitalism, privacy concerns, and technological reality.
Soon the gold rush of freedom, of instant fame and fortune, would be over — co-opted by corporations, governmental regulation and way too many cosmetic lines.
But not until recently did we consider the basic metaphorical issue. In the last few months, indeed the last few days, the internet has been forced to acknowledge what that “Wild West” label really means: a mythology of individualism, iconoclasm and opportunity that almost always veils — and often encourages — racism, bigotry, deception and abuse.
For many who lived through it, there was nothing romantic about the “taming” of the American West, with its obliteration and “relocation” of Native Americans, its spread of white Christian authority, its reliance on immigrants, including Black Southerners, fleeing oppression only to be met with similar bigotry. The Civil War was fought, in part, to keep Western states from becoming slave states; even so the beauty and possibilities of the “new” land were regularly blighted by the same systems that marred the old. And so it has been with the internet, as a flurry of corrective actions have shown.
In the last week alone:
Individually, each action could be construed as an inevitable, and even in some cases conservative, response to the Black Lives Matter movement which, after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, sent millions protesting across every state of the union and around the world.
Indeed, the most shocking part of the announcement that professional racists like Duke and Spencer were being kicked off YouTube was the revelation that they were still on YouTube — the platform had vowed to ban white supremacists and practitioners of hate speech last June.
But taken as a pattern, it seems the barons of the internet are finally acknowledging that they do not exist in an alternate universe, outside standard rules and regulations.
In many ways, Shane Dawson’s removal and ban may turn out to be the biggest news, with a much broader impact on the YouTube and influencer communities and their young audiences. As Dawson said in his apology, his racism was even more toxic because it was not couched in white supremacy but in humor and drama aimed at young people looking for an alternative to legacy media. Dawson’s use of blackface and racist humor also was, by his own admission, too frequent to be considered “a mistake,” especially to a world grown weary of similar apologies.
And he is not the only one being re-evaluated through the lens of current events. David Dobrik, Liza Koshy and other YouTubers have also recently apologized for racist humor or insensitivity.
Social media has, for many, become a replacement for traditional media, news and entertainment, in part because platforms like Twitter were seen as democratic; accessible by all and gate-kept by none, they were the ultimate expression of free speech.
Indeed, the protests over George Floyd’s death might not have expanded so widely if not for social media, which allowed the video of his terrible final minutes to circulate to millions. Social media has become a very effective tool of social policing, especially of the police. It’s our smartphones that give citizens the capability of documenting everything from Costco Karen to police firing tear gas at clearly peaceful protesters. It’s social media that allows those videos to go viral.
But as the Mueller report revealed, the lack of even basic gate-keeping can backfire and cause serious personal and societal damage. Whatever you believe about the president’s involvement, there is incontrovertible evidence that Russian operatives used Facebook and Twitter in an attempt to manipulate the 2016 election.
Last month, Twitter, bowing to pressure over the spread of misinformation and hate speech, began adding labels to tweets it considered inaccurate or particularly incendiary, including several issued by the president. In response, many Trump supporters are turning to a new platform, Parler, which has no such labels.
Facebook has refused to initiate any similar labels, though it does have a 27-page “community standards” guideline that prohibits the use of hate speech, incitement to violence and the spread of misinformation (although staff members recently protested CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s seeming refusal to apply these to President Trump).
In response to the advertising boycott, the site says many accounts breaking that policy have already been shut down. Zuckerberg has said he will meet with Stop Hate for Profit leaders, but that his opposition to tightening restrictions remains: The advertisers will be back, he has said, and the site will not change because it is not Facebook’s business to fact-check or police its patrons.
It is true that under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, made law 25 years ago, no social media platforms can be held liable for any statements made on the platform, or any subsequent actions taken because of those statements. But the law also allows those platforms to institute their own set of rules.
Social media platforms are all businesses, owned and operated by people who often make quite a bit of money doing so. “Freedom” is something these companies sell; free speech is a guaranteed constitutional right, but Facebook, like Costco, is private property — you can be told to take your speech elsewhere at any time.
And slowly, finally, that is what is beginning to happen. Kicking a few people off YouTube is not going to end racism any more than toppling a few statues will. But re-examining this country’s mythologies, around the Founding Fathers, the Confederacy or the “settling of the West” just might — and applying universal social standards to the social media posts and videos that make many people a great deal of money certainly will.
Free speech only works if everyone is actually free.
Mary McNamara is a culture columnist and critic for the Los Angeles Times. Previously she was assistant managing editor for arts and entertainment following a 12-year stint as television critic and senior culture editor. A Pulitzer Prize winner in 2015 and finalist for criticism in 2013 and 2014, she has won various awards for criticism and feature writing. She is the author of the Hollywood mysteries “Oscar Season” and “The Starlet.” She lives in La Crescenta with her husband, three children and two dogs.
I don't quite understand how limiting posts on social media sites actually encourages free speech, but at least we can have a good conversation about it. That being said, I am encouraged by the actions YouTube has taken to remove incendiary speech from their site. As a church, we publish our services on YouTube and not Facebook. I am disappointed with FB for many reasons, in particular their laissez faire approach to how their site has been used for bullying and misinformation. Am I concerned about the slippery slope and that someday YouTube will remove my channel because they want to stop all references to God? No, but, that may be a part of the discussion too.
God's peace to you, to our cities, and our nation,
- Dave
Kicking Racists Off Social Media Protects Free Speech
Los Angeles Times, Mary McNamara July 7, 2020
For years, people have claimed that the taming of the Internet was nigh. Whether cause for lamentation or celebration, the Wild West of content that stretched, unhampered by natural boundaries of river, mountain or sea, would be increasingly carved up and tied down by capitalism, privacy concerns, and technological reality.
Soon the gold rush of freedom, of instant fame and fortune, would be over — co-opted by corporations, governmental regulation and way too many cosmetic lines.
But not until recently did we consider the basic metaphorical issue. In the last few months, indeed the last few days, the internet has been forced to acknowledge what that “Wild West” label really means: a mythology of individualism, iconoclasm and opportunity that almost always veils — and often encourages — racism, bigotry, deception and abuse.
For many who lived through it, there was nothing romantic about the “taming” of the American West, with its obliteration and “relocation” of Native Americans, its spread of white Christian authority, its reliance on immigrants, including Black Southerners, fleeing oppression only to be met with similar bigotry. The Civil War was fought, in part, to keep Western states from becoming slave states; even so the beauty and possibilities of the “new” land were regularly blighted by the same systems that marred the old. And so it has been with the internet, as a flurry of corrective actions have shown.
In the last week alone:
- The Google-owned platform YouTube finally banned six white supremacist channels, including those belonging to former KKK leader David Duke and Richard Spencer, and demonetized longtime platform star Shane Dawson after he acknowledged that he had often used blackface, racist humor and inappropriate commentary.
- Reddit, which is owned by Condé Nast’s parent company, Advance Publications, banned thousands of communities that violated the company’s hate speech policies, including “The Donald,” a sub-reddit devoted to boosting support for President Trump through a panoply of racism, sexism, manipulated news and conspiracy theories.
- More than 500 companies, including Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Hershey, Adidas, Clorox and Ford, pulled their advertising from Facebook and Instagram as part of the Stop Hate for Profit initiative, demanding that the platforms tighten restrictions on misinformation and bigotry.
Individually, each action could be construed as an inevitable, and even in some cases conservative, response to the Black Lives Matter movement which, after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, sent millions protesting across every state of the union and around the world.
Indeed, the most shocking part of the announcement that professional racists like Duke and Spencer were being kicked off YouTube was the revelation that they were still on YouTube — the platform had vowed to ban white supremacists and practitioners of hate speech last June.
But taken as a pattern, it seems the barons of the internet are finally acknowledging that they do not exist in an alternate universe, outside standard rules and regulations.
In many ways, Shane Dawson’s removal and ban may turn out to be the biggest news, with a much broader impact on the YouTube and influencer communities and their young audiences. As Dawson said in his apology, his racism was even more toxic because it was not couched in white supremacy but in humor and drama aimed at young people looking for an alternative to legacy media. Dawson’s use of blackface and racist humor also was, by his own admission, too frequent to be considered “a mistake,” especially to a world grown weary of similar apologies.
And he is not the only one being re-evaluated through the lens of current events. David Dobrik, Liza Koshy and other YouTubers have also recently apologized for racist humor or insensitivity.
Social media has, for many, become a replacement for traditional media, news and entertainment, in part because platforms like Twitter were seen as democratic; accessible by all and gate-kept by none, they were the ultimate expression of free speech.
Indeed, the protests over George Floyd’s death might not have expanded so widely if not for social media, which allowed the video of his terrible final minutes to circulate to millions. Social media has become a very effective tool of social policing, especially of the police. It’s our smartphones that give citizens the capability of documenting everything from Costco Karen to police firing tear gas at clearly peaceful protesters. It’s social media that allows those videos to go viral.
But as the Mueller report revealed, the lack of even basic gate-keeping can backfire and cause serious personal and societal damage. Whatever you believe about the president’s involvement, there is incontrovertible evidence that Russian operatives used Facebook and Twitter in an attempt to manipulate the 2016 election.
Last month, Twitter, bowing to pressure over the spread of misinformation and hate speech, began adding labels to tweets it considered inaccurate or particularly incendiary, including several issued by the president. In response, many Trump supporters are turning to a new platform, Parler, which has no such labels.
Facebook has refused to initiate any similar labels, though it does have a 27-page “community standards” guideline that prohibits the use of hate speech, incitement to violence and the spread of misinformation (although staff members recently protested CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s seeming refusal to apply these to President Trump).
In response to the advertising boycott, the site says many accounts breaking that policy have already been shut down. Zuckerberg has said he will meet with Stop Hate for Profit leaders, but that his opposition to tightening restrictions remains: The advertisers will be back, he has said, and the site will not change because it is not Facebook’s business to fact-check or police its patrons.
It is true that under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, made law 25 years ago, no social media platforms can be held liable for any statements made on the platform, or any subsequent actions taken because of those statements. But the law also allows those platforms to institute their own set of rules.
Social media platforms are all businesses, owned and operated by people who often make quite a bit of money doing so. “Freedom” is something these companies sell; free speech is a guaranteed constitutional right, but Facebook, like Costco, is private property — you can be told to take your speech elsewhere at any time.
And slowly, finally, that is what is beginning to happen. Kicking a few people off YouTube is not going to end racism any more than toppling a few statues will. But re-examining this country’s mythologies, around the Founding Fathers, the Confederacy or the “settling of the West” just might — and applying universal social standards to the social media posts and videos that make many people a great deal of money certainly will.
Free speech only works if everyone is actually free.
Mary McNamara is a culture columnist and critic for the Los Angeles Times. Previously she was assistant managing editor for arts and entertainment following a 12-year stint as television critic and senior culture editor. A Pulitzer Prize winner in 2015 and finalist for criticism in 2013 and 2014, she has won various awards for criticism and feature writing. She is the author of the Hollywood mysteries “Oscar Season” and “The Starlet.” She lives in La Crescenta with her husband, three children and two dogs.
Thursday, July 2
Of all the evils that exist in society, racism is one of the most intractable,
because it is so difficult to name and so easy to deny. – James Cone
I heard this on a morning television news show: "If you need a cup of coffee and something to talk about today, I can help you with one of those." These articles won't help you get any coffee, but they will give you something to talk about.
The topic this week is too important to contain in just one article. And, as said by Professor Cone above, it is so difficult to name, I had to send you three pieces to read. If you only have time to read two pages, please read the Guardian interview of Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the last section of Dr. Cone's piece about what gives him hope.
To be a part of the discussion, click on this link https://zoom.us/j/5955701807
Men's Group - Tuesday at 10 am. The Women's Group - Thursday at 9 am.
And, if you really need some coffee, I'll do my best to help you with that too.
-Dave
Church of England Should Rethink Portrayal of a White Jesus 6.26.20
The Guardian
The Anglican church should reconsider the way statues and other representations of Jesus portray him as white in the light of the Black Lives Matter protests, the archbishop of Canterbury has said.
Justin Welby also said that the church must look very carefully to see if they should all be there.
In an interview on Friday, the head of the Church of England said the west in general needed to question the prevailing mindset that depicted Christ as a white man in traditional Christian imagery.
Asked if there had to be rethink on the white image of Jesus, Welby said: “Yes of course it does, this sense that God was white … You go into churches [around the world] and you don’t see a white Jesus.
“You see a black Jesus, a Chinese Jesus, a Middle-Eastern Jesus – which is of course the most accurate – you see a Fijian Jesus.”
Welby told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Jesus is portrayed in as many ways as there are cultures, languages and understandings. And I don’t think that throwing out everything we’ve got in the past is the way to do it but I do think saying: ‘That’s not the Jesus who exists, that’s not who we worship,’ it is a reminder of the universality of the God who became fully human.”
He said that statues in Canterbury Cathedral would be under review on the back of the worldwide Black Lives Matter campaign to bring down monuments to controversial figures such as those engaged in the slave trade.
On the recent calls for statue removals, the archbishop said people should forgive the “trespasses” of people immortalised in the form of statues, rather than tearing them down.
Welby said: “Some names will have to change. I mean, the church, goodness me, you know, you just go around Canterbury Cathedral, there’s monuments everywhere, or Westminster Abbey, and we’re looking at all that, and some will have to come down. But yes, there can be forgiveness, I hope and pray as we come together, but only if there’s justice.”
But challenged if this meant some statues would be taken down from inside Canterbury Cathedral, he said: “No, I didn’t say that. I very carefully didn’t say that.”
He added that it was not his decision, and told the Today programme: “We’re going to be looking very carefully and putting them in context and seeing if they all should be there … The question arises. Of course it does.”
Theologians and White Supremacy: An interview with James H. Cone
America Magazine, 11.20.06
Are American theologians saying enough about racism?
No, they are not. Both Catholic and Protestant theologians do theology as if they do not have to engage with the problem of white supremacy and racism. Not all of them ignore it completely, but some write as if slavery, colonialism and segregation never existed. In fact, white supremacy is more deeply entrenched now than it was in the 1960’s and early 1970’s, because back then, the country acknowledged its racial problems more directly. The civil rights and black power movements forced the nation—through Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and a host of other courageous people—to confront racism as a cancer in the body politic. The churches did too, both Catholic and Protestant. Fighting for racial justice in the 1960’s was the churches’ finest hour.
But now, having confronted it years ago, they think they have made the racial situation better, whereas in some ways it is worse. It is like a new form of racism, in that it accepts the tokenism of a few blacks in churches, educational institutions and government in order to make people think everything is fine on the racial front. But just look at the statistics about the African-American community with regard to imprisonment, health care, education and employment. We are worse off today in areas like these. So I want to challenge white theologians and their churches to speak out in a sustained and prophetic way about racial injustice.
Why are white theologians so silent?
I think their silence stems partly from a distorted understanding of what the Gospel means in a racially broken world. White theologians have not succeeded in making an empathetic bond with the pains and hurts of people of color. If theologians perceived their own sons and daughters and parents as being discriminated against, they would not only write passionately against it but would make their rejection of injustice an essential part of their reflection on the Gospel. Just as Ralph Ellison wrote in the 1950’s about black invisibility in The Invisible Man, black suffering today still remains invisible to many whites. We bond with like-minded people of the same racial group, which is natural because we may live in the same apartment buildings, go to the same schools and churches and have similar values and histories. It is easy to make that kind of social and political bond. But when people look different, it is harder to make. But that is what the Gospel of Jesus is all about - making a human bond with the least of these.
Please say more on what the cross symbolizes for African-Americans.
The cross stands at the center of the Christian faith of African-Americans because Jesus’ suffering was similar to their American experience. Just as Jesus Christ was crucified, so were blacks lynched. In the American experience, the cross is the lynching tree. The crucifixion of Jesus was a first-century lynching. If American Christians want to understand the meaning of the cross, they have to view it through the image of the lynching tree on which approximately 5,000 mostly (but not exclusively) black people were killed.
What is most revealing, though, is not the large number of black lives lost, but the violence and the torture of the lynching and the horror it created in the African-American community. Whites would often leave a black body hanging on a tree or lamppost for several days just to terrorize the community, to let them know that this is a white man’s country, and if you don’t stay in your assigned place, the same fate can happen to you. Whites who did the lynching were respectable members of Christian churches and saw no contradiction between murdering black people and the Gospel of Jesus.
Whites did not see this contradiction partly because white theologians failed to point it out with sustained conviction and passion. They interpreted Jesus’ cross without any reference to the suffering blacks in their midst. It is amazing to me that few theologians have even mentioned lynching in connection with the cross or said a public word against it when it was so widespread. During the peak of the so-called lynching bees, between 1880 and 1930, there was no public opposition in the writings of prominent Protestant and Catholic theologians.
For example, the prominent social gospel theologian Walter Rauschenbusch said nothing, and neither did Reinhold Niebuhr. I have no doubt that they and others were against the lynching of African-Americans, but they did not say so publicly in their writings. Had blacks been lynching whites, they would surely have spoken out loud and clear. So I hold them accountable for their silence on black suffering. Silence in the face of innocent suffering is complicity in the act itself. While white theologians failed to see the connection between Jesus’ suffering and the African-American experience, blacks did not miss it. When they initially heard from white missionaries and preachers the story of Jesus, they saw a mirror of themselves in his suffering.
Recently, the U.S. Senate approved a resolution for failing to enact federal anti-lynching legislation decades ago, marking the first time the body has apologized for America’s treatment of black people. I contend that white Catholic and Protestant theologians should make a similar apology to African-Americans for their own silence. Perhaps if they could acknowledge their past failures, they could see the need to speak out against racial injustice today.
You mentioned criminal justice. Please expand on that.
The criminal justice system in the United States can be said to be doing much of the lynching today, in a new form. In the 1930’s, the American government decided to clamp down on public lynchings as being outside the law. When law enforcement officers had to confront an angry crowd that wanted to lynch a black person, they would tell the crowd not to lynch the prisoner directly. Instead, they told them to take him to court and lynch him there, using the death penalty. In the courtroom, the judges and juries were white. Blacks were excluded from juries and had few resources to defend themselves against either white mob violence or the violence of the criminal justice system. Whites could disregard the black insistence on equal justice because it was their court, and there would be a quick trial that would end in execution. Many scholars call that legal lynching.
Today, the number of incarcerated black people is far out of proportion to their numbers in the population as a whole. Then there are the drug penalties like the mandatory minimum drug laws created, in my opinion, especially for blacks, with harsher penalties for those convicted of crack cocaine sale or possession than for powdered cocaine, which is preferred by white addicts. There can be no equal justice until a black life is worth the same as a white life.
What are your hopes for a deeper understanding of the Gospel as transcending racial bonding?
Because of my faith in God and humanity, I have hope that together we can create a society and world not defined by white supremacy. I still believe that we can do what the Gospel demands— make a new world safe for all. Martin Luther King Jr. called it the beloved community. Even during the last year of his life, when all seemed lost, with blacks rejecting nonviolence and whites rejecting genuine racial justice, King did not lose hope that God could make a way out of no way, that there is a divine power of justice at work in the struggles of the poor that cannot be destroyed. It was truly amazing how Martin could sustain his hope for a beloved community at a time when nobody, black or white, seemed to believe in it or even care.
I speak out against white supremacy not because I have lost hope, but rather because I too have found it. Hope, for me, is found where two or three small groups of people—blacks, whites and other people of color who believe in Martin’s vision of the beloved community—become willing to bear witness to the Gospel’s transcending racial bonding and move toward human bonding. We need some signs of that transcending. Where will they come from if not from the church? And how will these signs be expressed, except by preachers and priests and rabbis?
James H. Cone is the Briggs Distinguished Professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He is the author of many books and articles on issues of race, including Martin and Malcolm & America, and Liberation: A Black Theology of Liberation. The interviewer is George M. Anderson, S.J., an associate editor of America, who met with Professor Cone at the seminary.
How An Iconic Painting of Jesus as a White Man Became So Widely Distributed Emily McFarlan,
The Washington Post 6.25.20
The painting, which has been reproduced a billion times, came to define what the central figure of Christianity looked like for generations of Christians in the United States — and beyond. For years, Sallman’s Jesus “represented the image of God,” said Carr, the director of ministry and administrative support staff at First Baptist Church of Glenarden in Maryland. When she grew up and began to study the Bible on her own, she started to wonder about that painting and the message it sent. “It didn’t make sense that this picture was of this white guy,” she said.
Carr isn’t the first to question Sallman’s image of Jesus and the impact it’s had not only on theology but also on the wider culture. As protesters around the United States tear down statues of Confederate heroes and demand an accounting for the country’s long legacy of racism, some in the church are asking whether the time has come to cancel what is called white Jesus — including Sallman’s famed painting.
The “Head of Christ” has been called the “best-known American artwork of the 20th century.” The New York Times once labeled Sallman the “best-known artist” of the 20th century, although that few recognized his name. “Sallman, who died in 1968, was a religious painter and illustrator whose most popular picture, ‘Head of Christ,’ achieved a mass popularity that makes Warhol’s soup can seem positively obscure,” William Grimes of the Times wrote in 1994.
The famed image began as a charcoal sketch for the first issue of the Covenant Companion, a youth magazine for a denomination known as the Swedish Evangelical Mission Covenant. Sallman, wanting to appeal to young adults, he gave his Jesus a “very similar feeling to an image of a school or professional photo of the time making it more accessible and familiar to the audience,” said Tai Lipan, gallery director at Indiana’s Anderson University, which has housed the Warner Sallman Collection since the 1980s. His approach worked.
The image was so popular that the 1940 graduating class of North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago commissioned Sallman to create a painting based on his drawing as their class gift to the school, according to the Evangelical Covenant Church’s official magazine. Sallman painted a copy for the school but sold the original “Head of Christ” to the religious publisher Kriebel and Bates, and what Lipan calls a “Protestant icon” was born. “This particular image of Jesus met the dawn of the ‘Mad Men,’ of the marketing agency,” said Matthew Anderson, an affiliate professor of theological studies at Concordia University in Montreal.
The image quickly spread, printed on prayer cards and circulated by organizations, missionaries and a wide range of churches: Catholic and Protestant, evangelical and mainline, white and black. Copies accompanied soldiers into battle during World War II, handed out by the Salvation Army and YMCA through the USO. Millions of cards produced in a project called “Christ in Every Purse” that was endorsed by then-President Dwight Eisenhower were distributed all around the world. The image appeared on pencils, bookmarks, lamps and clocks and was hung in courtrooms, police stations, libraries and schools. It became what the scholar David Morgan has heard called a “photograph of Jesus.” Along the way, Sallman’s image crowded out other depictions of Jesus. Some of the earliest images of Jesus showed him “with very dark skin and possibly African,” he said. Sallman wasn’t the first to depict Jesus as white, Morgan said. The Chicagoan had been inspired by a long tradition of European artists, most notable among them the Frenchman Leon-Augustin Lhermitte. But against the backdrop of U.S. history, of European Christians colonizing indigenous lands with the blessing of the Doctrine of Discovery and enslaving African people, Morgan said, a universal image of a white Jesus became problematic. “You simply can’t ignore very Nordic Jesus,” he said.
The backlash to Sallman’s work began during the civil rights movement, when his depiction of a Scandinavian savior was criticized for enshrining the image of a white Jesus for generations of Americans. That criticism has been renewed recently amid the current national reckoning over racism sparked by the May 25 death of George Floyd, a black man killed in an encounter with police in Minneapolis. This week, the activist Shaun King called for statues depicting Jesus as European to come down alongside Confederate monuments, calling the depiction a “form of white supremacy.”
Anthea Butler, an associate professor of religious studies and Africana studies at the University of Pennsylvania, has also warned of the damaging impact of depictions of white Jesus. “Every time you see white Jesus, you see white supremacy,” she said recently on the Religion News Service video series. Sallman’s Jesus was “the Jesus you saw in all the black Baptist churches.” But Sallman’s Jesus did not look like black Christians, according to the scholar. Instead, she said, that Jesus looked “like the people who were beating you up in the streets or setting dogs on you.” That Jesus sent a message, Butler said. “If Jesus is white and God is white,” she said, “then authority is white.”
Edward J. Blum, who co-wrote the 2014 book “The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America,” said many Christians remain hesitant to give up the image of white Jesus. He believes the continued popularity of white depictions of Jesus are “an example of how far in some respects the United States has not moved.” A decade after Sallman painted his “Head of Christ,” the Korean artist Kim Ki-chang created a picture cycle of the life of Christ in traditional Korean clothing and settings, featuring figures from Korean folk religion. “If white Jesus can’t be put to death, how could it possibly be the case that systemic racism is done?” Blum said. “Because this is one that just seems obvious. This one seems easy to give up."
More recently, Sofia Minson, a New Zealand artist who is of Ngāti Porou Māori, English, Swedish and Irish heritage, reimagined Sallman’s Jesus as an indigenous Māori man with a traditional face tattoo. And there are numerous popular depictions of Jesus as black. Vincent Barzoni’s “His Voyage: Life of Jesus,” depicts Jesus with dark skin and dreadlocks, his wrists bound, while the Franciscan friar Robert Lentz’s “Jesus Christ Liberator” depicts Jesus as a black man in the style of a Greek icon. Janet McKenzie’s “Jesus of the People,” modeled on a black woman, was chosen as the winner of the National Catholic Reporter’s 1999 competition to answer the question, “What would Jesus Christ look like in the year 2000?”
because it is so difficult to name and so easy to deny. – James Cone
I heard this on a morning television news show: "If you need a cup of coffee and something to talk about today, I can help you with one of those." These articles won't help you get any coffee, but they will give you something to talk about.
The topic this week is too important to contain in just one article. And, as said by Professor Cone above, it is so difficult to name, I had to send you three pieces to read. If you only have time to read two pages, please read the Guardian interview of Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the last section of Dr. Cone's piece about what gives him hope.
To be a part of the discussion, click on this link https://zoom.us/j/5955701807
Men's Group - Tuesday at 10 am. The Women's Group - Thursday at 9 am.
And, if you really need some coffee, I'll do my best to help you with that too.
-Dave
Church of England Should Rethink Portrayal of a White Jesus 6.26.20
The Guardian
The Anglican church should reconsider the way statues and other representations of Jesus portray him as white in the light of the Black Lives Matter protests, the archbishop of Canterbury has said.
Justin Welby also said that the church must look very carefully to see if they should all be there.
In an interview on Friday, the head of the Church of England said the west in general needed to question the prevailing mindset that depicted Christ as a white man in traditional Christian imagery.
Asked if there had to be rethink on the white image of Jesus, Welby said: “Yes of course it does, this sense that God was white … You go into churches [around the world] and you don’t see a white Jesus.
“You see a black Jesus, a Chinese Jesus, a Middle-Eastern Jesus – which is of course the most accurate – you see a Fijian Jesus.”
Welby told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Jesus is portrayed in as many ways as there are cultures, languages and understandings. And I don’t think that throwing out everything we’ve got in the past is the way to do it but I do think saying: ‘That’s not the Jesus who exists, that’s not who we worship,’ it is a reminder of the universality of the God who became fully human.”
He said that statues in Canterbury Cathedral would be under review on the back of the worldwide Black Lives Matter campaign to bring down monuments to controversial figures such as those engaged in the slave trade.
On the recent calls for statue removals, the archbishop said people should forgive the “trespasses” of people immortalised in the form of statues, rather than tearing them down.
Welby said: “Some names will have to change. I mean, the church, goodness me, you know, you just go around Canterbury Cathedral, there’s monuments everywhere, or Westminster Abbey, and we’re looking at all that, and some will have to come down. But yes, there can be forgiveness, I hope and pray as we come together, but only if there’s justice.”
But challenged if this meant some statues would be taken down from inside Canterbury Cathedral, he said: “No, I didn’t say that. I very carefully didn’t say that.”
He added that it was not his decision, and told the Today programme: “We’re going to be looking very carefully and putting them in context and seeing if they all should be there … The question arises. Of course it does.”
Theologians and White Supremacy: An interview with James H. Cone
America Magazine, 11.20.06
Are American theologians saying enough about racism?
No, they are not. Both Catholic and Protestant theologians do theology as if they do not have to engage with the problem of white supremacy and racism. Not all of them ignore it completely, but some write as if slavery, colonialism and segregation never existed. In fact, white supremacy is more deeply entrenched now than it was in the 1960’s and early 1970’s, because back then, the country acknowledged its racial problems more directly. The civil rights and black power movements forced the nation—through Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and a host of other courageous people—to confront racism as a cancer in the body politic. The churches did too, both Catholic and Protestant. Fighting for racial justice in the 1960’s was the churches’ finest hour.
But now, having confronted it years ago, they think they have made the racial situation better, whereas in some ways it is worse. It is like a new form of racism, in that it accepts the tokenism of a few blacks in churches, educational institutions and government in order to make people think everything is fine on the racial front. But just look at the statistics about the African-American community with regard to imprisonment, health care, education and employment. We are worse off today in areas like these. So I want to challenge white theologians and their churches to speak out in a sustained and prophetic way about racial injustice.
Why are white theologians so silent?
I think their silence stems partly from a distorted understanding of what the Gospel means in a racially broken world. White theologians have not succeeded in making an empathetic bond with the pains and hurts of people of color. If theologians perceived their own sons and daughters and parents as being discriminated against, they would not only write passionately against it but would make their rejection of injustice an essential part of their reflection on the Gospel. Just as Ralph Ellison wrote in the 1950’s about black invisibility in The Invisible Man, black suffering today still remains invisible to many whites. We bond with like-minded people of the same racial group, which is natural because we may live in the same apartment buildings, go to the same schools and churches and have similar values and histories. It is easy to make that kind of social and political bond. But when people look different, it is harder to make. But that is what the Gospel of Jesus is all about - making a human bond with the least of these.
Please say more on what the cross symbolizes for African-Americans.
The cross stands at the center of the Christian faith of African-Americans because Jesus’ suffering was similar to their American experience. Just as Jesus Christ was crucified, so were blacks lynched. In the American experience, the cross is the lynching tree. The crucifixion of Jesus was a first-century lynching. If American Christians want to understand the meaning of the cross, they have to view it through the image of the lynching tree on which approximately 5,000 mostly (but not exclusively) black people were killed.
What is most revealing, though, is not the large number of black lives lost, but the violence and the torture of the lynching and the horror it created in the African-American community. Whites would often leave a black body hanging on a tree or lamppost for several days just to terrorize the community, to let them know that this is a white man’s country, and if you don’t stay in your assigned place, the same fate can happen to you. Whites who did the lynching were respectable members of Christian churches and saw no contradiction between murdering black people and the Gospel of Jesus.
Whites did not see this contradiction partly because white theologians failed to point it out with sustained conviction and passion. They interpreted Jesus’ cross without any reference to the suffering blacks in their midst. It is amazing to me that few theologians have even mentioned lynching in connection with the cross or said a public word against it when it was so widespread. During the peak of the so-called lynching bees, between 1880 and 1930, there was no public opposition in the writings of prominent Protestant and Catholic theologians.
For example, the prominent social gospel theologian Walter Rauschenbusch said nothing, and neither did Reinhold Niebuhr. I have no doubt that they and others were against the lynching of African-Americans, but they did not say so publicly in their writings. Had blacks been lynching whites, they would surely have spoken out loud and clear. So I hold them accountable for their silence on black suffering. Silence in the face of innocent suffering is complicity in the act itself. While white theologians failed to see the connection between Jesus’ suffering and the African-American experience, blacks did not miss it. When they initially heard from white missionaries and preachers the story of Jesus, they saw a mirror of themselves in his suffering.
Recently, the U.S. Senate approved a resolution for failing to enact federal anti-lynching legislation decades ago, marking the first time the body has apologized for America’s treatment of black people. I contend that white Catholic and Protestant theologians should make a similar apology to African-Americans for their own silence. Perhaps if they could acknowledge their past failures, they could see the need to speak out against racial injustice today.
You mentioned criminal justice. Please expand on that.
The criminal justice system in the United States can be said to be doing much of the lynching today, in a new form. In the 1930’s, the American government decided to clamp down on public lynchings as being outside the law. When law enforcement officers had to confront an angry crowd that wanted to lynch a black person, they would tell the crowd not to lynch the prisoner directly. Instead, they told them to take him to court and lynch him there, using the death penalty. In the courtroom, the judges and juries were white. Blacks were excluded from juries and had few resources to defend themselves against either white mob violence or the violence of the criminal justice system. Whites could disregard the black insistence on equal justice because it was their court, and there would be a quick trial that would end in execution. Many scholars call that legal lynching.
Today, the number of incarcerated black people is far out of proportion to their numbers in the population as a whole. Then there are the drug penalties like the mandatory minimum drug laws created, in my opinion, especially for blacks, with harsher penalties for those convicted of crack cocaine sale or possession than for powdered cocaine, which is preferred by white addicts. There can be no equal justice until a black life is worth the same as a white life.
What are your hopes for a deeper understanding of the Gospel as transcending racial bonding?
Because of my faith in God and humanity, I have hope that together we can create a society and world not defined by white supremacy. I still believe that we can do what the Gospel demands— make a new world safe for all. Martin Luther King Jr. called it the beloved community. Even during the last year of his life, when all seemed lost, with blacks rejecting nonviolence and whites rejecting genuine racial justice, King did not lose hope that God could make a way out of no way, that there is a divine power of justice at work in the struggles of the poor that cannot be destroyed. It was truly amazing how Martin could sustain his hope for a beloved community at a time when nobody, black or white, seemed to believe in it or even care.
I speak out against white supremacy not because I have lost hope, but rather because I too have found it. Hope, for me, is found where two or three small groups of people—blacks, whites and other people of color who believe in Martin’s vision of the beloved community—become willing to bear witness to the Gospel’s transcending racial bonding and move toward human bonding. We need some signs of that transcending. Where will they come from if not from the church? And how will these signs be expressed, except by preachers and priests and rabbis?
James H. Cone is the Briggs Distinguished Professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He is the author of many books and articles on issues of race, including Martin and Malcolm & America, and Liberation: A Black Theology of Liberation. The interviewer is George M. Anderson, S.J., an associate editor of America, who met with Professor Cone at the seminary.
How An Iconic Painting of Jesus as a White Man Became So Widely Distributed Emily McFarlan,
The Washington Post 6.25.20
The painting, which has been reproduced a billion times, came to define what the central figure of Christianity looked like for generations of Christians in the United States — and beyond. For years, Sallman’s Jesus “represented the image of God,” said Carr, the director of ministry and administrative support staff at First Baptist Church of Glenarden in Maryland. When she grew up and began to study the Bible on her own, she started to wonder about that painting and the message it sent. “It didn’t make sense that this picture was of this white guy,” she said.
Carr isn’t the first to question Sallman’s image of Jesus and the impact it’s had not only on theology but also on the wider culture. As protesters around the United States tear down statues of Confederate heroes and demand an accounting for the country’s long legacy of racism, some in the church are asking whether the time has come to cancel what is called white Jesus — including Sallman’s famed painting.
The “Head of Christ” has been called the “best-known American artwork of the 20th century.” The New York Times once labeled Sallman the “best-known artist” of the 20th century, although that few recognized his name. “Sallman, who died in 1968, was a religious painter and illustrator whose most popular picture, ‘Head of Christ,’ achieved a mass popularity that makes Warhol’s soup can seem positively obscure,” William Grimes of the Times wrote in 1994.
The famed image began as a charcoal sketch for the first issue of the Covenant Companion, a youth magazine for a denomination known as the Swedish Evangelical Mission Covenant. Sallman, wanting to appeal to young adults, he gave his Jesus a “very similar feeling to an image of a school or professional photo of the time making it more accessible and familiar to the audience,” said Tai Lipan, gallery director at Indiana’s Anderson University, which has housed the Warner Sallman Collection since the 1980s. His approach worked.
The image was so popular that the 1940 graduating class of North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago commissioned Sallman to create a painting based on his drawing as their class gift to the school, according to the Evangelical Covenant Church’s official magazine. Sallman painted a copy for the school but sold the original “Head of Christ” to the religious publisher Kriebel and Bates, and what Lipan calls a “Protestant icon” was born. “This particular image of Jesus met the dawn of the ‘Mad Men,’ of the marketing agency,” said Matthew Anderson, an affiliate professor of theological studies at Concordia University in Montreal.
The image quickly spread, printed on prayer cards and circulated by organizations, missionaries and a wide range of churches: Catholic and Protestant, evangelical and mainline, white and black. Copies accompanied soldiers into battle during World War II, handed out by the Salvation Army and YMCA through the USO. Millions of cards produced in a project called “Christ in Every Purse” that was endorsed by then-President Dwight Eisenhower were distributed all around the world. The image appeared on pencils, bookmarks, lamps and clocks and was hung in courtrooms, police stations, libraries and schools. It became what the scholar David Morgan has heard called a “photograph of Jesus.” Along the way, Sallman’s image crowded out other depictions of Jesus. Some of the earliest images of Jesus showed him “with very dark skin and possibly African,” he said. Sallman wasn’t the first to depict Jesus as white, Morgan said. The Chicagoan had been inspired by a long tradition of European artists, most notable among them the Frenchman Leon-Augustin Lhermitte. But against the backdrop of U.S. history, of European Christians colonizing indigenous lands with the blessing of the Doctrine of Discovery and enslaving African people, Morgan said, a universal image of a white Jesus became problematic. “You simply can’t ignore very Nordic Jesus,” he said.
The backlash to Sallman’s work began during the civil rights movement, when his depiction of a Scandinavian savior was criticized for enshrining the image of a white Jesus for generations of Americans. That criticism has been renewed recently amid the current national reckoning over racism sparked by the May 25 death of George Floyd, a black man killed in an encounter with police in Minneapolis. This week, the activist Shaun King called for statues depicting Jesus as European to come down alongside Confederate monuments, calling the depiction a “form of white supremacy.”
Anthea Butler, an associate professor of religious studies and Africana studies at the University of Pennsylvania, has also warned of the damaging impact of depictions of white Jesus. “Every time you see white Jesus, you see white supremacy,” she said recently on the Religion News Service video series. Sallman’s Jesus was “the Jesus you saw in all the black Baptist churches.” But Sallman’s Jesus did not look like black Christians, according to the scholar. Instead, she said, that Jesus looked “like the people who were beating you up in the streets or setting dogs on you.” That Jesus sent a message, Butler said. “If Jesus is white and God is white,” she said, “then authority is white.”
Edward J. Blum, who co-wrote the 2014 book “The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America,” said many Christians remain hesitant to give up the image of white Jesus. He believes the continued popularity of white depictions of Jesus are “an example of how far in some respects the United States has not moved.” A decade after Sallman painted his “Head of Christ,” the Korean artist Kim Ki-chang created a picture cycle of the life of Christ in traditional Korean clothing and settings, featuring figures from Korean folk religion. “If white Jesus can’t be put to death, how could it possibly be the case that systemic racism is done?” Blum said. “Because this is one that just seems obvious. This one seems easy to give up."
More recently, Sofia Minson, a New Zealand artist who is of Ngāti Porou Māori, English, Swedish and Irish heritage, reimagined Sallman’s Jesus as an indigenous Māori man with a traditional face tattoo. And there are numerous popular depictions of Jesus as black. Vincent Barzoni’s “His Voyage: Life of Jesus,” depicts Jesus with dark skin and dreadlocks, his wrists bound, while the Franciscan friar Robert Lentz’s “Jesus Christ Liberator” depicts Jesus as a black man in the style of a Greek icon. Janet McKenzie’s “Jesus of the People,” modeled on a black woman, was chosen as the winner of the National Catholic Reporter’s 1999 competition to answer the question, “What would Jesus Christ look like in the year 2000?”
Thursday, June 25
I am intrigued with the attached article about rage, the Bible, and the reason for protests in our country. More about the author, the Rev. Dr. Esau McCaulley, can be found here https://www.wheaton.edu/academics/faculty/esau-mccaulley/ In particular, he studied under one of my favorite theologians, NT Wright; which makes me rather envious. He raises several important questions in this piece, like this one: Do we risk the criticism commonly levied at Christians that we move too quickly to hope because faith pacifies? This question, along with others, I look forward to discussing with you.
What the Bible Says About Rage
By The Rev. Dr. Esau McCaulley, NY Times June 15, 2020
There are videos of Eric Garner and George Floyd being choked to death by police officers while pleading for their lives. There is a video of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old boy who was shot to death while playing with a toy gun. There is a video of Ahmaud Arbery, who was hunted and killed while out on a run. There is a video of a police officer mounting and handcuffing Dajerria Becton, 15 years old at the time, at a pool party.
Visible evidence of black suffering is not new. We have photographs of black lynchings. The videos are a reminder that the issue was never about a lack of evidence. They reveal the lengths to which those in power will go to avoid facing the truth. What is happening in those videos is a manifestation of systemic racism — and to acknowledge that would call into question the system that benefits the powerful.
When these videos stack one upon another and are added to our personal slights, a deep unsettling anger rises in the soul of a disinherited and beleaguered people. James Baldwin said, “To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.”
What is the focus of our rage? Are we upset with the police officer who placed his knee on the neck of a man pleading for his life for nearly nine minutes while three fellow officers looked on? Are we mad at the vigilantes who got in a pickup truck to hunt down an unarmed black man? Are we enraged by the white woman who tried to weaponize the police by claiming that a black man who requested that she leash her dog in Central Park was threatening her life? Are we frustrated by the laws and customs that cast a pall over the black experience? Are we wearied with the apathy of so many?
The Bible is not silent about the rage of the oppressed. One of the most startlingly violent passages in the Bible comes from the lips of the disinherited. In Psalm 137 the psalmist says, “Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is the one who repays you according to what you have done to us. Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.”
How can wishing such an atrocity be in any sense a religious text? Psalm 137 is a psalm of the traumatized. It depicts the aftermath of the destruction of Jerusalem, the sack of the city, sexual assault and brutalization of the innocent. What kind of song do you write if you are forced to watch the murder of your wife, your child, your neighbor?
Psalm 137 is trauma literature, the rage of those who lived. The question isn’t why the Psalmist wrote this. The question is what kind of song would the families of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and Eric Garner be tempted to write after watching the video of their deaths? It would be raw and unfiltered. But more than an expression of rage, this psalm is a written record in time. It is a call to remember. This psalm, and the other psalms of rage, require us to remember the trauma that led to their composition.
The miracle of the Bible is not that it records the rage of the oppressed. The miracle is that it has more to say. The same texts that include a call for vengeance upon Israel’s enemies look to the salvation of its oppressors. Isaiah 49 says, “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”
For Christians, rage (Psalm 137) must eventually give way to hope (Isaiah 49). And we find the spiritual resources to make this transition at the cross. Jesus could have called down the psalms of rage upon his enemies and shouted a final word of defiance before he breathed his last. Instead he called for forgiveness: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing,” he says in Luke 23.
It was not a false reconciliation: Jesus experienced the reality of state-sponsored terror. That is why the black Christian has always felt a particular kinship with this crucified king from an oppressed ethnic group. The cross helps us make sense of the lynching tree.
And Jesus’ resurrection three days after his crucifixion shows that neither the lynching tree nor the cross have the final say about those whom God values. The state thought that violence could stop God’s purposes. For the Christian, the resurrection makes clear the futility of the attempt. Further, Jesus’ profound act of forgiving his opponents provides me with the theological resources to hope.
Dare we speak of hope when chants of “I can’t breathe” echo in the streets? Do we risk the criticism commonly levied at Christians that we move too quickly to hope because faith pacifies? Resurrection hope doesn’t remove the Christian from the struggle for justice. It empties the state’s greatest weapon — the fear of death — of its power.
Hope is possible if we recognize that it does not rule out justice. It is what separates justice from vengeance. Howard Thurman wrote in his classic work “Jesus and the Disinherited” about how rage, once unleashed, tends to spill out beyond its intended target and consume everything. The hatred of our enemy that we take to the streets returns with us to our friendships, marriages and communities. It damages our own souls.
Christians contend for justice because we care about black lives, families and communities. We contend for reconciliation after the establishment of justice because there must be a future that is more than mutual contempt and suspicion. But justice and reconciliation cannot come at the cost of black lives. The only peaceful future is a just future. And because Christians should be a people for peace, we must be a people for justice even when it seems ever to elude us. Too many black lives have been lost to accept anything else.
Esau McCaulley is an assistant professor of New Testament at Wheaton College and a priest in the Anglican Church in North America, where he serves as the director of the Next Generation Leadership Initiative.
What the Bible Says About Rage
By The Rev. Dr. Esau McCaulley, NY Times June 15, 2020
There are videos of Eric Garner and George Floyd being choked to death by police officers while pleading for their lives. There is a video of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old boy who was shot to death while playing with a toy gun. There is a video of Ahmaud Arbery, who was hunted and killed while out on a run. There is a video of a police officer mounting and handcuffing Dajerria Becton, 15 years old at the time, at a pool party.
Visible evidence of black suffering is not new. We have photographs of black lynchings. The videos are a reminder that the issue was never about a lack of evidence. They reveal the lengths to which those in power will go to avoid facing the truth. What is happening in those videos is a manifestation of systemic racism — and to acknowledge that would call into question the system that benefits the powerful.
When these videos stack one upon another and are added to our personal slights, a deep unsettling anger rises in the soul of a disinherited and beleaguered people. James Baldwin said, “To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.”
What is the focus of our rage? Are we upset with the police officer who placed his knee on the neck of a man pleading for his life for nearly nine minutes while three fellow officers looked on? Are we mad at the vigilantes who got in a pickup truck to hunt down an unarmed black man? Are we enraged by the white woman who tried to weaponize the police by claiming that a black man who requested that she leash her dog in Central Park was threatening her life? Are we frustrated by the laws and customs that cast a pall over the black experience? Are we wearied with the apathy of so many?
The Bible is not silent about the rage of the oppressed. One of the most startlingly violent passages in the Bible comes from the lips of the disinherited. In Psalm 137 the psalmist says, “Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is the one who repays you according to what you have done to us. Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.”
How can wishing such an atrocity be in any sense a religious text? Psalm 137 is a psalm of the traumatized. It depicts the aftermath of the destruction of Jerusalem, the sack of the city, sexual assault and brutalization of the innocent. What kind of song do you write if you are forced to watch the murder of your wife, your child, your neighbor?
Psalm 137 is trauma literature, the rage of those who lived. The question isn’t why the Psalmist wrote this. The question is what kind of song would the families of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and Eric Garner be tempted to write after watching the video of their deaths? It would be raw and unfiltered. But more than an expression of rage, this psalm is a written record in time. It is a call to remember. This psalm, and the other psalms of rage, require us to remember the trauma that led to their composition.
The miracle of the Bible is not that it records the rage of the oppressed. The miracle is that it has more to say. The same texts that include a call for vengeance upon Israel’s enemies look to the salvation of its oppressors. Isaiah 49 says, “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”
For Christians, rage (Psalm 137) must eventually give way to hope (Isaiah 49). And we find the spiritual resources to make this transition at the cross. Jesus could have called down the psalms of rage upon his enemies and shouted a final word of defiance before he breathed his last. Instead he called for forgiveness: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing,” he says in Luke 23.
It was not a false reconciliation: Jesus experienced the reality of state-sponsored terror. That is why the black Christian has always felt a particular kinship with this crucified king from an oppressed ethnic group. The cross helps us make sense of the lynching tree.
And Jesus’ resurrection three days after his crucifixion shows that neither the lynching tree nor the cross have the final say about those whom God values. The state thought that violence could stop God’s purposes. For the Christian, the resurrection makes clear the futility of the attempt. Further, Jesus’ profound act of forgiving his opponents provides me with the theological resources to hope.
Dare we speak of hope when chants of “I can’t breathe” echo in the streets? Do we risk the criticism commonly levied at Christians that we move too quickly to hope because faith pacifies? Resurrection hope doesn’t remove the Christian from the struggle for justice. It empties the state’s greatest weapon — the fear of death — of its power.
Hope is possible if we recognize that it does not rule out justice. It is what separates justice from vengeance. Howard Thurman wrote in his classic work “Jesus and the Disinherited” about how rage, once unleashed, tends to spill out beyond its intended target and consume everything. The hatred of our enemy that we take to the streets returns with us to our friendships, marriages and communities. It damages our own souls.
Christians contend for justice because we care about black lives, families and communities. We contend for reconciliation after the establishment of justice because there must be a future that is more than mutual contempt and suspicion. But justice and reconciliation cannot come at the cost of black lives. The only peaceful future is a just future. And because Christians should be a people for peace, we must be a people for justice even when it seems ever to elude us. Too many black lives have been lost to accept anything else.
Esau McCaulley is an assistant professor of New Testament at Wheaton College and a priest in the Anglican Church in North America, where he serves as the director of the Next Generation Leadership Initiative.
Thursday, June 18
In the wake of profound news of our time, there is a story that is not getting much traction - the challenge of church and state. Just for background information, this article has to do with the Payroll Protection Program which is designed to keep employers from laying off employees. All Angels looked into the PPP but found we do not qualify; not based on separation of church and state but because we were not going to lay off employees.
My undergraduate degree is in Political Science from a Benedictine University. My Roman Catholic academic advisor talked at length about the importance of the separation of church and state as it pertains to the autonomy of churches. Dr. Snyder would say that everything the State does has strings attached - not as an I-owe-you but rather as a marionette to its master so as to influence behavior and receive a desired outcome. As such, I found this article interesting.
Here is the Zoom link. https://zoom.us/j/5955701807
On a different topic, many folks have asked about the story of the Choctaw Indians and their relationship with Ireland from the sermon on Sunday. Here is one of the articles I read to prepare for the message.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/world/coronavirus-ireland-native-american-tribes.html
May God bless you and watch over you and may the peace of God rest upon our nation,
- Dave
The Quiet Demise of the Separation of Church and State
Nelson Tebbe, Micah Schwartzman and Richard Schragger New York Times, June 8, 2020
The First Amendment’s Establishment Clause prohibits the government from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion.” This has long been thought to prohibit direct government support for religion. The contours of that idea have been contested, and they have contracted over time. But the commitment to some form of separation of church and state has endured.
Yet in response to the coronavirus pandemic, Congress has approved a huge payout to small businesses and nonprofits that allows funding for clergy salaries — a direct payment of tax dollars for a core religious use that would have been unthinkable in previous eras.
Thousands of churches applied for help under the Paycheck Protection Program, and many have had their funding approved. We are witnessing an important moment in the nation’s constitutional history: the quiet demise of the already ailing separation of church and state.
In 1785, James Madison, the chief architect of the Establishment Clause, argued against a Virginia bill that would have paid for clergy salaries with tax dollars, even though it would have supported a relatively wide range of denominations. Madison’s essay making that case was once widely thought to provide the best historical evidence for the meaning of the clause. He believed it was a violation of religious freedom to “force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property” to pay for the salaries of clergy, a mandate he saw as an “establishment” of religion by the government. Thomas Jefferson made much the same point in his religious freedom bill, which became the law in Virginia.
One hundred and sixty-two years later, in 1947, the Supreme Court evoked Madison’s essay in a seminal Establishment Clause decision, asserting that the clause “means at least this:” That “no tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion.”
In that decision, the court in fact upheld a New Jersey program that supported the transportation of students to all schools, including religious schools. But it emphasized that transportation services, like ordinary police and fire protection, were “so separate and so indisputably marked off from the religious function.”
And that was the point: The New Jersey program, unlike the Paycheck Protection Program that helps congregations pay their clergy members, did not directly support a religious mission. It merely provided students attending public and religious schools equal access to affordable transportation.
The Supreme Court reiterated in 2000 that the Establishment Clause prohibits direct funding of religious activities. “Actual diversion” of public support to religious uses “is constitutionally impermissible,” Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote. And concerns are heightened when government aid takes the form of cash payments made directly to religious organizations, she emphasized.
Congress’s Paycheck Protection Program flouts this rule. As applied, the program explicitly extends to nonprofits, including churches — with no restrictions on payment of clergy salaries. Although the aid initially takes the form of a loan, it is largely forgivable if the recipient maintains its payroll size for a sufficient period.
The Small Business Administration waived its normal rules prohibiting aid for religious activities. Remarkably, it relied implicitly but unmistakably on a reading of the First Amendment that not only permits cash aid to houses of worship for core religious activities, but requires the government to pay for those activities.
The Paycheck Protection Program violates the constitutional rule requiring the separation of church and state, and it does so on an enormous scale. Nine thousand Catholic parishes have received loans so far. The Archdiocese of Louisville, for example, was awarded more than $20 million across 84 entities, for an average of $238,000 each. One church, St. James parish and school in Elizabethtown, Ky., received loans totaling $439,800.
Moreover, a national survey found that 40 percent of all Protestant churches had applied for government funds and that 59 percent of those applications were approved. The Jewish Federations of North America reported in late April that 575 organizations had received loans, with a median of $250,000 each and a total of $312 million. Recipients included more than 200 synagogues. With 445 entities awaiting word on their applications, the J.F.N.A. estimated that Jewish nonprofits could receive $500 million from the program.
Of course, the rule laid down by Justice O’Connor 20 years ago is vulnerable to revision by the current court, with its conservative majority. At least five justices have signed opinions indicating a willingness to allow public aid that is administered neutrally with respect to religion and that is secular in content. Later this month, the court is expected to decide a funding case in which it has an opportunity to go further and require religious schools to be included in a school choice program. Almost certainly, the court led by Chief Justice John Roberts will continue its campaign to revolutionize First Amendment law so that it favors religious actors.
What is remarkable is not that the federal government is spending tax dollars for religious uses in a way not seen before, or even that it is doing so on a vast scale. It’s how little pushback this program has elicited. With respect to public funding of religion, the separation of church and state has all but disappeared, without a bang or even a whimper.
More than likely, this tacit acceptance reflects compassion for the small businesses and nonprofits struggling during the pandemic. That concern is entirely understandable, especially given that houses of worship, like many other organizations, have been burdened by state public health restrictions. But as Justice David Souter once observed, “constitutional lines have to be drawn, and on one side of every one of them is an otherwise sympathetic case that provokes impatience with the Constitution and with the line.”
Constitutional interpretations forged during times of crisis tend to persist after the danger has eased. That is especially true in this context, where the separation of church and state had already been under sustained attack, making the foundational doctrine all the more vulnerable. In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled that states could indirectly fund religious schools through a voucher program. More recently, the court held that a state cannot exclude religious schools from a grant program for school playgrounds, even when the schools are owned and operated by churches.
Now the core constitutional rule against using taxpayer dollars to pay clergy is slipping away in face of the coronavirus crisis. That should give us pause. The obliteration by Congress and President Trump of a basic principle of separation is a significant development in American constitutional culture.
We should take a moment to reflect on what has happened and to reckon with a new constitutional structure in which the government supports the central missions of religious organizations on a large scale. The entanglement of church and state will bring predictable conflicts: efforts by religious groups to control government and by the government to control religious groups. The risk of government favoritism for some religions over others, and for religion over nonreligion, will be heightened.
In other words, the new church-state paradigm will raise the very dangers that Madison and Jefferson warned of when they articulated principles of religious freedom for our country.
Nelson Tebbe is a professor at Cornell Law School. Micah Schwartzman and Richard Schragger are professors at the University of Virginia School of Law.
My undergraduate degree is in Political Science from a Benedictine University. My Roman Catholic academic advisor talked at length about the importance of the separation of church and state as it pertains to the autonomy of churches. Dr. Snyder would say that everything the State does has strings attached - not as an I-owe-you but rather as a marionette to its master so as to influence behavior and receive a desired outcome. As such, I found this article interesting.
Here is the Zoom link. https://zoom.us/j/5955701807
On a different topic, many folks have asked about the story of the Choctaw Indians and their relationship with Ireland from the sermon on Sunday. Here is one of the articles I read to prepare for the message.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/world/coronavirus-ireland-native-american-tribes.html
May God bless you and watch over you and may the peace of God rest upon our nation,
- Dave
The Quiet Demise of the Separation of Church and State
Nelson Tebbe, Micah Schwartzman and Richard Schragger New York Times, June 8, 2020
The First Amendment’s Establishment Clause prohibits the government from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion.” This has long been thought to prohibit direct government support for religion. The contours of that idea have been contested, and they have contracted over time. But the commitment to some form of separation of church and state has endured.
Yet in response to the coronavirus pandemic, Congress has approved a huge payout to small businesses and nonprofits that allows funding for clergy salaries — a direct payment of tax dollars for a core religious use that would have been unthinkable in previous eras.
Thousands of churches applied for help under the Paycheck Protection Program, and many have had their funding approved. We are witnessing an important moment in the nation’s constitutional history: the quiet demise of the already ailing separation of church and state.
In 1785, James Madison, the chief architect of the Establishment Clause, argued against a Virginia bill that would have paid for clergy salaries with tax dollars, even though it would have supported a relatively wide range of denominations. Madison’s essay making that case was once widely thought to provide the best historical evidence for the meaning of the clause. He believed it was a violation of religious freedom to “force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property” to pay for the salaries of clergy, a mandate he saw as an “establishment” of religion by the government. Thomas Jefferson made much the same point in his religious freedom bill, which became the law in Virginia.
One hundred and sixty-two years later, in 1947, the Supreme Court evoked Madison’s essay in a seminal Establishment Clause decision, asserting that the clause “means at least this:” That “no tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion.”
In that decision, the court in fact upheld a New Jersey program that supported the transportation of students to all schools, including religious schools. But it emphasized that transportation services, like ordinary police and fire protection, were “so separate and so indisputably marked off from the religious function.”
And that was the point: The New Jersey program, unlike the Paycheck Protection Program that helps congregations pay their clergy members, did not directly support a religious mission. It merely provided students attending public and religious schools equal access to affordable transportation.
The Supreme Court reiterated in 2000 that the Establishment Clause prohibits direct funding of religious activities. “Actual diversion” of public support to religious uses “is constitutionally impermissible,” Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote. And concerns are heightened when government aid takes the form of cash payments made directly to religious organizations, she emphasized.
Congress’s Paycheck Protection Program flouts this rule. As applied, the program explicitly extends to nonprofits, including churches — with no restrictions on payment of clergy salaries. Although the aid initially takes the form of a loan, it is largely forgivable if the recipient maintains its payroll size for a sufficient period.
The Small Business Administration waived its normal rules prohibiting aid for religious activities. Remarkably, it relied implicitly but unmistakably on a reading of the First Amendment that not only permits cash aid to houses of worship for core religious activities, but requires the government to pay for those activities.
The Paycheck Protection Program violates the constitutional rule requiring the separation of church and state, and it does so on an enormous scale. Nine thousand Catholic parishes have received loans so far. The Archdiocese of Louisville, for example, was awarded more than $20 million across 84 entities, for an average of $238,000 each. One church, St. James parish and school in Elizabethtown, Ky., received loans totaling $439,800.
Moreover, a national survey found that 40 percent of all Protestant churches had applied for government funds and that 59 percent of those applications were approved. The Jewish Federations of North America reported in late April that 575 organizations had received loans, with a median of $250,000 each and a total of $312 million. Recipients included more than 200 synagogues. With 445 entities awaiting word on their applications, the J.F.N.A. estimated that Jewish nonprofits could receive $500 million from the program.
Of course, the rule laid down by Justice O’Connor 20 years ago is vulnerable to revision by the current court, with its conservative majority. At least five justices have signed opinions indicating a willingness to allow public aid that is administered neutrally with respect to religion and that is secular in content. Later this month, the court is expected to decide a funding case in which it has an opportunity to go further and require religious schools to be included in a school choice program. Almost certainly, the court led by Chief Justice John Roberts will continue its campaign to revolutionize First Amendment law so that it favors religious actors.
What is remarkable is not that the federal government is spending tax dollars for religious uses in a way not seen before, or even that it is doing so on a vast scale. It’s how little pushback this program has elicited. With respect to public funding of religion, the separation of church and state has all but disappeared, without a bang or even a whimper.
More than likely, this tacit acceptance reflects compassion for the small businesses and nonprofits struggling during the pandemic. That concern is entirely understandable, especially given that houses of worship, like many other organizations, have been burdened by state public health restrictions. But as Justice David Souter once observed, “constitutional lines have to be drawn, and on one side of every one of them is an otherwise sympathetic case that provokes impatience with the Constitution and with the line.”
Constitutional interpretations forged during times of crisis tend to persist after the danger has eased. That is especially true in this context, where the separation of church and state had already been under sustained attack, making the foundational doctrine all the more vulnerable. In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled that states could indirectly fund religious schools through a voucher program. More recently, the court held that a state cannot exclude religious schools from a grant program for school playgrounds, even when the schools are owned and operated by churches.
Now the core constitutional rule against using taxpayer dollars to pay clergy is slipping away in face of the coronavirus crisis. That should give us pause. The obliteration by Congress and President Trump of a basic principle of separation is a significant development in American constitutional culture.
We should take a moment to reflect on what has happened and to reckon with a new constitutional structure in which the government supports the central missions of religious organizations on a large scale. The entanglement of church and state will bring predictable conflicts: efforts by religious groups to control government and by the government to control religious groups. The risk of government favoritism for some religions over others, and for religion over nonreligion, will be heightened.
In other words, the new church-state paradigm will raise the very dangers that Madison and Jefferson warned of when they articulated principles of religious freedom for our country.
Nelson Tebbe is a professor at Cornell Law School. Micah Schwartzman and Richard Schragger are professors at the University of Virginia School of Law.
Thursday, June 11
My subscription to the Wall Street Journal has ended because I have a new credit card. Unfortunately, WSJ's system is down so I can't resubscribe; yet. The story I was going to share this week was an NBC News/WSJ poll that said 80% of Americans feel the U.S. is out of control. God works in mysterious ways. I read this article in the Atlantic and felt much better about the state of our country. Hopefully you will too.
There is a lot to discuss this week. I look forward to chatting with you.
-Dave
Here is the Zoom discussion link.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5955701807
This Upheaval Is How America Gets Better
Kori Schake, The Atlantic 6.8.20
This is an extraordinarily tense moment in the United States. Currently on display are police brutality, racism, a president fanning the flames and threatening to use force against peaceful protesters, and a Defense Department leadership initially complicit in using the military for partisan purposes. The head of the venerable Council on Foreign Relations considers the U.S. a “power in retreat.” Some American commentators compare the protests to uprisings against Middle East dictators, because in both cases, protesters believe that, as the writer Steven A. Cook has put it, “political institutions of the state and the prevailing social orders had combined to rob them of their dignity.” American diplomats are evidently struggling to justify our country as a functioning democracy.
Here’s how diplomats should justify our democracy: by recognizing that we are now seeing America becoming better than it was. This churning, disputatious, and even sometimes violent dynamic is what social change in America looks like. And what it has always looked like.
As the former U.S. poet laureate Robert Pinsky once wrote, “American culture as I have experienced it seems so much in process, so brilliantly and sometimes brutally in motion, that standard models for it fail to apply.” This is what the American public is witnessing. Yes, recent events do bear similarities to when exasperated people in Tunisia and Egypt lashed out at their governments. And it’s scary to be part of. Our politicians are no less venal than politicians elsewhere. But what is different from the sorrowfully unsuccessful efforts to change government behavior elsewhere is the distributed system of political power in these United States, the vibrancy of a civil society that knows its rights, and the willingness of so many Americans to acknowledge the nation’s failings and take responsibility for improving society.
America’s standing in the world was damaged by Jim Crow, a segregated military fighting World War II, resistance to school integrations, the My Lai massacre, and the torture of prisoners after 9/11. Americans are not good at getting things right at the outset; we are good at making things right over time. White Americans are being challenged to accept responsibility for allowing black Americans to live in fear of police brutality. This raising of consciousness will change the U.S. as a country, and well it should.
Police in Buffalo that shoved and injured an elderly man have been suspended. The Army is investigating the aircrew of a helicopter, bearing medical insignia, that hovered dangerously over a crowd in Washington, D.C. The Justice Department is being sued for its decision to aggressively clear peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square, near the White House. The government of the District of Columbia painted Black Lives Matter down the middle of the street leading to the White House. Businesses are falling over themselves to be associated with racialjustice efforts.
Far from being a bludgeon of the state, the U.S. military is reinforcing its fealty to the Constitution rather than the president and modeling how to amplify black voices. The Air Force chief of staff flatly stated, “Every American should be outraged that the conduct exhibited by police in Minneapolis can still happen in 2020.” Months before the protests, the commandant of
the Marine Corps banned any display of Confederate symbols. And since the Lafayette Square disgrace, the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have scrambled to put themselves on the side of restraint in the face of peaceful protests. These developments are a beautiful reminder that the American military is part of a broader civilian society, not a repressive force.
The U.S. isn’t the only country where racism is a persistent problem. It’s not the only country where police have immunity to prey on their fellow citizens. It’s not the only country where the government would expand its powers and evade accountability if it could. Recent protests in Amsterdam, London, and elsewhere show that what happens in America matters for the advance of human rights and civil liberties elsewhere. Even when its citizens struggle and stumble, the U.S. is still the world’s best hope for advancing the truths we hold to be self-evident.
When the governments of Germany, Australia, and—astonishingly—Turkey call on the U.S. to respect press freedom, it is an embarrassment. But many Americans welcome their condemnation to support our common commitment to unfettered freedom of the press. Americans are strong enough to bear the hypocrisy of Turkey’s criticism and honest enough to absorb what Australia and Germany are telling us.
Many authoritarian governments have long tried to deal with dissatisfaction among their own citizens by stoking criticism of their external rivals, and America’s current turmoil provides such an opportunity. But while propagandists in Beijing may revel in decrying racism in America, how many law-enforcement officers in China would join hands and march with protesters, as the police chiefs of San Antonio and other cities have? Who in the Chinese military would kneel in front of protesters to acknowledge the justice of their cause, as members of the National Guard have in the U.S.?
Our struggles are the world’s struggles, because the values that form our republic are universal values. We believe that people have inherent rights and allow governments to curtail them in limited ways only for agreed purposes. What protesters are demanding right now is equal justice before the law, and making that principle a reality for black Americans will be a victory for human rights everywhere.
The Marquis de Lafayette, for whom the square in Washington is named, was a great friend to the U.S. “The welfare of America is bound closely to the welfare of all humanity,” he once wrote to his wife. “She is to become the honored and safe asylum of liberty.” By arguing and protesting and suing the government, Americans are trying to prove Lafayette right. This is American progress in the making.
There is a lot to discuss this week. I look forward to chatting with you.
-Dave
Here is the Zoom discussion link.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5955701807
This Upheaval Is How America Gets Better
Kori Schake, The Atlantic 6.8.20
This is an extraordinarily tense moment in the United States. Currently on display are police brutality, racism, a president fanning the flames and threatening to use force against peaceful protesters, and a Defense Department leadership initially complicit in using the military for partisan purposes. The head of the venerable Council on Foreign Relations considers the U.S. a “power in retreat.” Some American commentators compare the protests to uprisings against Middle East dictators, because in both cases, protesters believe that, as the writer Steven A. Cook has put it, “political institutions of the state and the prevailing social orders had combined to rob them of their dignity.” American diplomats are evidently struggling to justify our country as a functioning democracy.
Here’s how diplomats should justify our democracy: by recognizing that we are now seeing America becoming better than it was. This churning, disputatious, and even sometimes violent dynamic is what social change in America looks like. And what it has always looked like.
As the former U.S. poet laureate Robert Pinsky once wrote, “American culture as I have experienced it seems so much in process, so brilliantly and sometimes brutally in motion, that standard models for it fail to apply.” This is what the American public is witnessing. Yes, recent events do bear similarities to when exasperated people in Tunisia and Egypt lashed out at their governments. And it’s scary to be part of. Our politicians are no less venal than politicians elsewhere. But what is different from the sorrowfully unsuccessful efforts to change government behavior elsewhere is the distributed system of political power in these United States, the vibrancy of a civil society that knows its rights, and the willingness of so many Americans to acknowledge the nation’s failings and take responsibility for improving society.
America’s standing in the world was damaged by Jim Crow, a segregated military fighting World War II, resistance to school integrations, the My Lai massacre, and the torture of prisoners after 9/11. Americans are not good at getting things right at the outset; we are good at making things right over time. White Americans are being challenged to accept responsibility for allowing black Americans to live in fear of police brutality. This raising of consciousness will change the U.S. as a country, and well it should.
Police in Buffalo that shoved and injured an elderly man have been suspended. The Army is investigating the aircrew of a helicopter, bearing medical insignia, that hovered dangerously over a crowd in Washington, D.C. The Justice Department is being sued for its decision to aggressively clear peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square, near the White House. The government of the District of Columbia painted Black Lives Matter down the middle of the street leading to the White House. Businesses are falling over themselves to be associated with racialjustice efforts.
Far from being a bludgeon of the state, the U.S. military is reinforcing its fealty to the Constitution rather than the president and modeling how to amplify black voices. The Air Force chief of staff flatly stated, “Every American should be outraged that the conduct exhibited by police in Minneapolis can still happen in 2020.” Months before the protests, the commandant of
the Marine Corps banned any display of Confederate symbols. And since the Lafayette Square disgrace, the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have scrambled to put themselves on the side of restraint in the face of peaceful protests. These developments are a beautiful reminder that the American military is part of a broader civilian society, not a repressive force.
The U.S. isn’t the only country where racism is a persistent problem. It’s not the only country where police have immunity to prey on their fellow citizens. It’s not the only country where the government would expand its powers and evade accountability if it could. Recent protests in Amsterdam, London, and elsewhere show that what happens in America matters for the advance of human rights and civil liberties elsewhere. Even when its citizens struggle and stumble, the U.S. is still the world’s best hope for advancing the truths we hold to be self-evident.
When the governments of Germany, Australia, and—astonishingly—Turkey call on the U.S. to respect press freedom, it is an embarrassment. But many Americans welcome their condemnation to support our common commitment to unfettered freedom of the press. Americans are strong enough to bear the hypocrisy of Turkey’s criticism and honest enough to absorb what Australia and Germany are telling us.
Many authoritarian governments have long tried to deal with dissatisfaction among their own citizens by stoking criticism of their external rivals, and America’s current turmoil provides such an opportunity. But while propagandists in Beijing may revel in decrying racism in America, how many law-enforcement officers in China would join hands and march with protesters, as the police chiefs of San Antonio and other cities have? Who in the Chinese military would kneel in front of protesters to acknowledge the justice of their cause, as members of the National Guard have in the U.S.?
Our struggles are the world’s struggles, because the values that form our republic are universal values. We believe that people have inherent rights and allow governments to curtail them in limited ways only for agreed purposes. What protesters are demanding right now is equal justice before the law, and making that principle a reality for black Americans will be a victory for human rights everywhere.
The Marquis de Lafayette, for whom the square in Washington is named, was a great friend to the U.S. “The welfare of America is bound closely to the welfare of all humanity,” he once wrote to his wife. “She is to become the honored and safe asylum of liberty.” By arguing and protesting and suing the government, Americans are trying to prove Lafayette right. This is American progress in the making.
Thursday, June 4
If you had told me last Monday that this Monday, June 1st, the top story would not be the pandemic and, in fact, no mention of the Corona Virus would be mentioned in the morning national news until the second hour, I would have figured that either a vaccination was discovered on Tuesday, or, some country invaded us. What a tumultuous week, and weekend, it has been. And, who knows what this week holds.
I think it is time to talk about it. Attached is a Word to the Church - When the Cameras Are Gone, We Will Still Be Here - from our Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry, as well as a card that he mentioned in the piece.
Here is the Zoom discussion link.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5955701807
If you are unable to be a part of the discussion groups - men's discussion Tuesday at 10 am or the women's discussion Thursday at 9 am - but would like to talk with me about it, give me a call, 941-704-2131 or email me, dave@allangelslbk.org.
God's peace to you, to your family, and to our country.
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry’s Word to the Church: When the Cameras are Gone, We Will Still Be Here
May 30, 2020
A word to the Church from Presiding Bishop Michael Curry: “Our long-term commitment to racial justice and reconciliation is embedded in our identity as baptized followers of Jesus. We will still be doing it when the news cameras are long gone.” In the midst of COVID-19 and the pressure cooker of a society in turmoil, a Minnesota man named George Floyd was brutally killed. His basic human dignity was stripped by someone charged to protect our common humanity. Perhaps the deeper pain is the fact that this was not an isolated incident. It happened to Breonna Taylor on March 13 in Kentucky. It happened to Ahmaud Arbery on February 23 in Georgia. Racial terror in this form occurred when I was a teenager growing up black in Buffalo, New York. It extends back to the lynching of Emmett Till in 1955 and well before that. It’s not just our present or our history. It is part of the fabric of American life. But we need not be paralyzed by our past or our present. We are not slaves to fate but people of faith. Our long-term commitment to racial justice and reconciliation is embedded in our identity as baptized followers of Jesus. We will still be doing it when the news cameras are long gone. That work of racial reconciliation and justice – what we know as Becoming Beloved Community – is happening across our Episcopal Church. It is happening in Minnesota and in the Dioceses of Kentucky, Georgia and Atlanta, across America and around the world. That mission matters now more than ever, and it is work that belongs to all of us. It must go on when racist violence and police brutality are no longer front-page news. It must go on when the work is not fashionable, and the way seems hard, and we feel utterly alone. It is the difficult labor of picking up the cross of Jesus like Simon of Cyrene, and carrying it until no one – no matter their color, no matter their class, no matter their caste – until no child of God is degraded and disrespected by anybody. That is God's dream, this is our work, and we shall not cease until God's dream is realized.
Is this hopelessly naïve? No, the vision of God’s dream is no idealistic utopia. It is our only real hope. And, St. Paul says, “hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit” (Romans 5:5). Real love is the dogged commitment to live my life in the most unselfish, even sacrificial ways; to love God, love my neighbor, love the earth and truly love myself. Perhaps most difficult in times like this, it is even love for my enemy. That is why we cannot condone violence. Violence against any person – conducted by some police officers or by some protesters – is violence against a child of God created in God’s image. No, as followers of Christ, we do not condone violence. Neither do we condone our nation’s collective, complicit silence in the face of injustice and violent death. The anger of so many on our streets is born out of the accumulated frustration that so few seem to care when another black, brown or native life is snuffed out. But there is another way. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, a broken man lay on the side of the road. The religious leaders who passed were largely indifferent. Only the Samaritan saw the wounded stranger and acted. He provided medical care and housing. He made provision for this stranger’s well-being. He helped and healed a fellow child of God. Love, as Jesus teaches, is action like this as well as attitude. It seeks the good, the well-being, and the welfare of others as well as one’s self. That way of real love is the only way there is. Accompanying this statement is a card describing ways to practice the Way of Love in the midst of pandemic, uncertainty and loss. In addition, you will find online a set of resources to help Episcopalians to LEARN, PRAY & ACT in response to racist violence and police brutality. That resource set includes faithful tools for listening to and learning from communities too often ignored or suppressed, for incorporating God’s vision of justice into your personal and community prayer life, and for positively and constructively engaging in advocacy and public witness. Opening and changing hearts does not happen overnight. The Christian race is not a sprint; it is a marathon. Our prayers and our work for justice, healing and truthtelling must be unceasing. Let us recommit ourselves to following in the footsteps of Jesus, the way that leads to healing, justice and love.
what_does_love_do_during_a_pandemic.pdf
I think it is time to talk about it. Attached is a Word to the Church - When the Cameras Are Gone, We Will Still Be Here - from our Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry, as well as a card that he mentioned in the piece.
Here is the Zoom discussion link.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5955701807
If you are unable to be a part of the discussion groups - men's discussion Tuesday at 10 am or the women's discussion Thursday at 9 am - but would like to talk with me about it, give me a call, 941-704-2131 or email me, dave@allangelslbk.org.
God's peace to you, to your family, and to our country.
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry’s Word to the Church: When the Cameras are Gone, We Will Still Be Here
May 30, 2020
A word to the Church from Presiding Bishop Michael Curry: “Our long-term commitment to racial justice and reconciliation is embedded in our identity as baptized followers of Jesus. We will still be doing it when the news cameras are long gone.” In the midst of COVID-19 and the pressure cooker of a society in turmoil, a Minnesota man named George Floyd was brutally killed. His basic human dignity was stripped by someone charged to protect our common humanity. Perhaps the deeper pain is the fact that this was not an isolated incident. It happened to Breonna Taylor on March 13 in Kentucky. It happened to Ahmaud Arbery on February 23 in Georgia. Racial terror in this form occurred when I was a teenager growing up black in Buffalo, New York. It extends back to the lynching of Emmett Till in 1955 and well before that. It’s not just our present or our history. It is part of the fabric of American life. But we need not be paralyzed by our past or our present. We are not slaves to fate but people of faith. Our long-term commitment to racial justice and reconciliation is embedded in our identity as baptized followers of Jesus. We will still be doing it when the news cameras are long gone. That work of racial reconciliation and justice – what we know as Becoming Beloved Community – is happening across our Episcopal Church. It is happening in Minnesota and in the Dioceses of Kentucky, Georgia and Atlanta, across America and around the world. That mission matters now more than ever, and it is work that belongs to all of us. It must go on when racist violence and police brutality are no longer front-page news. It must go on when the work is not fashionable, and the way seems hard, and we feel utterly alone. It is the difficult labor of picking up the cross of Jesus like Simon of Cyrene, and carrying it until no one – no matter their color, no matter their class, no matter their caste – until no child of God is degraded and disrespected by anybody. That is God's dream, this is our work, and we shall not cease until God's dream is realized.
Is this hopelessly naïve? No, the vision of God’s dream is no idealistic utopia. It is our only real hope. And, St. Paul says, “hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit” (Romans 5:5). Real love is the dogged commitment to live my life in the most unselfish, even sacrificial ways; to love God, love my neighbor, love the earth and truly love myself. Perhaps most difficult in times like this, it is even love for my enemy. That is why we cannot condone violence. Violence against any person – conducted by some police officers or by some protesters – is violence against a child of God created in God’s image. No, as followers of Christ, we do not condone violence. Neither do we condone our nation’s collective, complicit silence in the face of injustice and violent death. The anger of so many on our streets is born out of the accumulated frustration that so few seem to care when another black, brown or native life is snuffed out. But there is another way. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, a broken man lay on the side of the road. The religious leaders who passed were largely indifferent. Only the Samaritan saw the wounded stranger and acted. He provided medical care and housing. He made provision for this stranger’s well-being. He helped and healed a fellow child of God. Love, as Jesus teaches, is action like this as well as attitude. It seeks the good, the well-being, and the welfare of others as well as one’s self. That way of real love is the only way there is. Accompanying this statement is a card describing ways to practice the Way of Love in the midst of pandemic, uncertainty and loss. In addition, you will find online a set of resources to help Episcopalians to LEARN, PRAY & ACT in response to racist violence and police brutality. That resource set includes faithful tools for listening to and learning from communities too often ignored or suppressed, for incorporating God’s vision of justice into your personal and community prayer life, and for positively and constructively engaging in advocacy and public witness. Opening and changing hearts does not happen overnight. The Christian race is not a sprint; it is a marathon. Our prayers and our work for justice, healing and truthtelling must be unceasing. Let us recommit ourselves to following in the footsteps of Jesus, the way that leads to healing, justice and love.
what_does_love_do_during_a_pandemic.pdf
Thursday, May 28
Hello! Attached are the readings for our discussion groups this week. The topic is about Covid-19 and Church. I have included a number of readings; you are not required to read all of them to participate in the discussion; so that you can see what material is out there to read. The one I'd like to start with is the Roman Catholic Church in Orange County (CA). There is another story from the Washington Post about what happens when churches open "too quickly." There is a very good report from the CDC that goes into depth about what happened at "Church A" when they allowed public services. It is a very long read, and you certainly do not need to read all of it, but at least you'll get to see what I am reading. Lastly, I included my Reflection from last week about Safe Church.
May God bless you and surround you with the peace of Christ.
Men on Tuesday at 10 am and Women at 9 am on Thursday.
Here is the link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5955701807
Looking forward to seeing you on Zoom,
- Dave
Catholic Church Plans to Open in Small Steps on June 14
Alex Wigglesworth, Los Angeles Times
May 23, 2020
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange announced plans for public Masses to resume in phases in Orange County starting June 14. The first phase includes allowing small groups of healthy people to gather for limited Mass, church officials said Friday in a news release. The second phase will allow for larger groups; the third will permit choirs and social gatherings. All phases will require participants to follow strict guidelines for social distancing and disinfection, officials said.
“The pandemic is far from over, so we will begin with small steps,” said Diocese of Orange Bishop Kevin Vann in a statement. “Realizing that reinfection is a concern, as we saw occurred in Texas and elsewhere, I am asking our pastors to prepare their churches to ensure that these guidelines are followed without exception.”
On Saturday, officials announced that Orange County has been approved by the state to mount a more aggressive reopening of local businesses.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has vowed to provide plans on reopening churches Monday, after previously saying such reopenings were just “a few weeks away.” In Orange County, the bishop’s advisors have been working on reopening guidelines for weeks, in consultation with county officials and medical experts, the release said. Those over 65 or who have an underlying health condition will be encouraged not to return when churches initially reopen, as will anyone who is sick or lives with someone who is sick. Holy water fonts will remain empty, hymnals will be removed, and people will be instructed not to touch one another, including during greetings. Church rituals that require touching, like the sign of peace, will be suspended. In most cases, churches will be required to limit their capacity to one-third of normal attendance, officials said. More Masses will be offered than usual, and people will be encouraged to come throughout the week to avoid crowding on Sundays. Vann extended a dispensation from the obligation to attend Mass on Sunday to permit the shift. The bishop also granted a temporary dispensation allowing priests to celebrate Mass outside of church buildings, including in gyms, parish halls and outdoor spaces.
Officials said Catholics should check parish websites for specific instructions on how Masses will be held and when attendance will be allowed.
Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gómez said church service for now remains only via the internet. “I think it’s clear to all of us that it might be possible in the coming future to be able to open physically the churches and receive parishioners to come. It’s not going to be the same in the beginning, because there is the reality of the social distance and also making sure that the churches are sanitized and people are protected when they come to church,” Gomez said in a statement Saturday. “And I insist that that’s the most important thing — that we protect one another. We know that God is with us, but at the same time we have to be careful and make sure that we protect each other in this challenging time," he added. “So, let us keep praying. Let us keep working together."
Two churches reclose after faith leaders and congregants get coronavirus
Lateshia Beachum, Washington Post
May 19, 2020
Churches in states at the forefront of reopening efforts are closing their doors for a second time. Catoosa Baptist Tabernacle in Ringgold, Ga., less than 20 miles away from Chattanooga, Tenn., and Holy Ghost Catholic Church in Houston have indefinitely suspended services after members and leaders tested positive for the coronavirus shortly after reopening. The news of the canceled services comes as a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated that large gatherings pose risk for coronavirus transmission and called on faith-based organizations to work with local health officials about implementing guidelines for modified activities. The report looked at a rural Arkansas church, where a pastor and his wife attended church events in early March. At least 35 of 92 attendees tested positive for the coronavirus, and three people died. An additional 26 cases and a death occurred in the community from contact with the church cases, the report confirmed. The report underscores the difficulty believers and faith leaders face as the need for the comfort of in-person worship grows stronger and lawmakers yield to a public growing tired of physical distancing measures. The First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints released a letter to its general and local leaders on Tuesday that gives a
detailed phased-in approach to worship services. Local Mormon leaders must work the faith’s governing bodies to determine the time and
location of meetings, which can now resume on a limited basis. Church officials will adhere to local government regulations in their phased-in approach to resuming normal activities. Catoosa Baptist Tabernacle picked up its services following its state’s lead. In-person services resumed April 26, just days after Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp allowed fitness centers, bowling alleys and salons to reopen, the Christian Post reported. The day after the church reopened for in-person worship, Kemp allowed private social clubs and restaurants to reopen under certain restrictions. The decision for Catoosa Baptist Tabernacle to shutter its doors again is a result of several families in the congregation testing positive for the virus, despite the church’s caution to space seating six feet apart and to have its doors open to prevent frequent touching of doorknobs.
Around 25 percent of Catoosa Baptist Tabernacle members attended in-person service while the majority remained home and streamed services, according to the outlet. Locking its doors for the second time is an act of “extreme caution,” according to the church. “Our hearts are heavy as some of our families are dealing with the effects of the COVID-19 virus, and we ask for your prayers for each of them as they follow the prescribed protocol and recuperate at home,” the church said in a formal statement, according to the Christian Post. The church did not specify the number of families affected by the virus, according to the outlet.
Holy Ghost parish had suspended services even though Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s stay-at- home order for April 2 to April 30 had exempted places of worship, ABC News reported. The Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston had stopped weekday and Sunday Mass services on
March 18 and only allowed parishes to be open for parishioners seeking prayer, according to the outlet. Holy Ghost parish’s May 2 reopening happened around the time businesses and restaurants unlocked their doors for patrons. The archdiocese permitted its churches to restart services with the expectation that they follow state recommendations for reopening, according to ABC News.
The parish’s 900-seat building downsized the number of churchgoers for Sunday Mass to 179, according to the church in a statement. The May 2 service involved two priests who have since tested positive for the coronavirus. Three members of the church’s Redemptorists religious community were also confirmed to have the virus. “We ask you to please keep everyone impacted by this illness in your prayers,” the church said in a statement. The members who tested positive are asymptomatic and are quarantined, but those who attended the May 2 service are encouraged to monitor their health as a precautionary measure, according to the church. The choice to cease all services for an unspecified amount of time came a day after the Rev. Donnell Kirchner, a priest at the church, died on May 13, of what is believed to be covid-19,
the disease caused by the virus, according to ABC News. Kirchner was diagnosed with pneumonia before dying at the home he shared with others members of the Redemptorists religious order. It is unknown if he was tested for the coronavirus at the urgent care or emergency room he visited before being sent home with medication, according to church officials. Harris County, where the church is located, has the highest number of positive coronavirus cases in the state, ABC News reported.
reflection_safe_church_5.21.20.docx
covid-19_attack_rate_at_church_events.pdf
May God bless you and surround you with the peace of Christ.
Men on Tuesday at 10 am and Women at 9 am on Thursday.
Here is the link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5955701807
Looking forward to seeing you on Zoom,
- Dave
Catholic Church Plans to Open in Small Steps on June 14
Alex Wigglesworth, Los Angeles Times
May 23, 2020
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange announced plans for public Masses to resume in phases in Orange County starting June 14. The first phase includes allowing small groups of healthy people to gather for limited Mass, church officials said Friday in a news release. The second phase will allow for larger groups; the third will permit choirs and social gatherings. All phases will require participants to follow strict guidelines for social distancing and disinfection, officials said.
“The pandemic is far from over, so we will begin with small steps,” said Diocese of Orange Bishop Kevin Vann in a statement. “Realizing that reinfection is a concern, as we saw occurred in Texas and elsewhere, I am asking our pastors to prepare their churches to ensure that these guidelines are followed without exception.”
On Saturday, officials announced that Orange County has been approved by the state to mount a more aggressive reopening of local businesses.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has vowed to provide plans on reopening churches Monday, after previously saying such reopenings were just “a few weeks away.” In Orange County, the bishop’s advisors have been working on reopening guidelines for weeks, in consultation with county officials and medical experts, the release said. Those over 65 or who have an underlying health condition will be encouraged not to return when churches initially reopen, as will anyone who is sick or lives with someone who is sick. Holy water fonts will remain empty, hymnals will be removed, and people will be instructed not to touch one another, including during greetings. Church rituals that require touching, like the sign of peace, will be suspended. In most cases, churches will be required to limit their capacity to one-third of normal attendance, officials said. More Masses will be offered than usual, and people will be encouraged to come throughout the week to avoid crowding on Sundays. Vann extended a dispensation from the obligation to attend Mass on Sunday to permit the shift. The bishop also granted a temporary dispensation allowing priests to celebrate Mass outside of church buildings, including in gyms, parish halls and outdoor spaces.
Officials said Catholics should check parish websites for specific instructions on how Masses will be held and when attendance will be allowed.
Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gómez said church service for now remains only via the internet. “I think it’s clear to all of us that it might be possible in the coming future to be able to open physically the churches and receive parishioners to come. It’s not going to be the same in the beginning, because there is the reality of the social distance and also making sure that the churches are sanitized and people are protected when they come to church,” Gomez said in a statement Saturday. “And I insist that that’s the most important thing — that we protect one another. We know that God is with us, but at the same time we have to be careful and make sure that we protect each other in this challenging time," he added. “So, let us keep praying. Let us keep working together."
Two churches reclose after faith leaders and congregants get coronavirus
Lateshia Beachum, Washington Post
May 19, 2020
Churches in states at the forefront of reopening efforts are closing their doors for a second time. Catoosa Baptist Tabernacle in Ringgold, Ga., less than 20 miles away from Chattanooga, Tenn., and Holy Ghost Catholic Church in Houston have indefinitely suspended services after members and leaders tested positive for the coronavirus shortly after reopening. The news of the canceled services comes as a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated that large gatherings pose risk for coronavirus transmission and called on faith-based organizations to work with local health officials about implementing guidelines for modified activities. The report looked at a rural Arkansas church, where a pastor and his wife attended church events in early March. At least 35 of 92 attendees tested positive for the coronavirus, and three people died. An additional 26 cases and a death occurred in the community from contact with the church cases, the report confirmed. The report underscores the difficulty believers and faith leaders face as the need for the comfort of in-person worship grows stronger and lawmakers yield to a public growing tired of physical distancing measures. The First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints released a letter to its general and local leaders on Tuesday that gives a
detailed phased-in approach to worship services. Local Mormon leaders must work the faith’s governing bodies to determine the time and
location of meetings, which can now resume on a limited basis. Church officials will adhere to local government regulations in their phased-in approach to resuming normal activities. Catoosa Baptist Tabernacle picked up its services following its state’s lead. In-person services resumed April 26, just days after Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp allowed fitness centers, bowling alleys and salons to reopen, the Christian Post reported. The day after the church reopened for in-person worship, Kemp allowed private social clubs and restaurants to reopen under certain restrictions. The decision for Catoosa Baptist Tabernacle to shutter its doors again is a result of several families in the congregation testing positive for the virus, despite the church’s caution to space seating six feet apart and to have its doors open to prevent frequent touching of doorknobs.
Around 25 percent of Catoosa Baptist Tabernacle members attended in-person service while the majority remained home and streamed services, according to the outlet. Locking its doors for the second time is an act of “extreme caution,” according to the church. “Our hearts are heavy as some of our families are dealing with the effects of the COVID-19 virus, and we ask for your prayers for each of them as they follow the prescribed protocol and recuperate at home,” the church said in a formal statement, according to the Christian Post. The church did not specify the number of families affected by the virus, according to the outlet.
Holy Ghost parish had suspended services even though Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s stay-at- home order for April 2 to April 30 had exempted places of worship, ABC News reported. The Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston had stopped weekday and Sunday Mass services on
March 18 and only allowed parishes to be open for parishioners seeking prayer, according to the outlet. Holy Ghost parish’s May 2 reopening happened around the time businesses and restaurants unlocked their doors for patrons. The archdiocese permitted its churches to restart services with the expectation that they follow state recommendations for reopening, according to ABC News.
The parish’s 900-seat building downsized the number of churchgoers for Sunday Mass to 179, according to the church in a statement. The May 2 service involved two priests who have since tested positive for the coronavirus. Three members of the church’s Redemptorists religious community were also confirmed to have the virus. “We ask you to please keep everyone impacted by this illness in your prayers,” the church said in a statement. The members who tested positive are asymptomatic and are quarantined, but those who attended the May 2 service are encouraged to monitor their health as a precautionary measure, according to the church. The choice to cease all services for an unspecified amount of time came a day after the Rev. Donnell Kirchner, a priest at the church, died on May 13, of what is believed to be covid-19,
the disease caused by the virus, according to ABC News. Kirchner was diagnosed with pneumonia before dying at the home he shared with others members of the Redemptorists religious order. It is unknown if he was tested for the coronavirus at the urgent care or emergency room he visited before being sent home with medication, according to church officials. Harris County, where the church is located, has the highest number of positive coronavirus cases in the state, ABC News reported.
reflection_safe_church_5.21.20.docx
covid-19_attack_rate_at_church_events.pdf
Thursday, May 21
There is an argument going on in Christianity - can a loving God send people to hell? This article helps to articulate both sides of the issue. ... and it has nothing to do with the pandemic. Yay!
Looking forward to seeing you on Zoom,
- Dave
Bart Ehrman’s Latest Attack on Christianity The Gospel Coalition April 13, Randy Alcorn
[Bart Ehrman is professor of religious studies at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He also teaches eight of The Great Courses’s widely acclaimed Bible and Christianity classes, and has a part in 78 others. The subtitles of Ehrman’s books, including his five New York Times bestsellers, capture his premises: e.g., Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, How Jesus Became God: the Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee, and Forged: Writing in the Name of God—Why the Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are.]
Whenever I read an Ehrman book, déjà vu kicks in. His core message is always: “Christians are dead wrong; I know because I used to be one before I became enlightened.” Each of Ehrman’s books deals with something else Christians are wrong about; and his newest, Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife, is another volume in his expanding canon of deconversion doctrine.
Ehrman speaks with the authoritative tone of a historian-philosopher, a wise sage, unfolding humanity’s preoccupation with death and the fear of death. Beginning with the Epic of Gilgamesh, he then examines Homer, Virgil, Plato, and other ancients. Along the way he interjects his belief that there’s no need to fear death, since it’s simply ceasing to exist (the very thing many people fear).
Arriving at the Bible, simply one more myth to Ehrman, he presents what he calls the “older Hebrew view” that death is the final end, followed by nonexistence. He then addresses the “later Hebrew position” on resurrection and Judgment Day from the intertestamental era.
While he says little to refute pre-Christian views, once Ehrman gets to the historic Christian view of the afterlife, he conducts an all-out verbal siege. But he doesn’t rant and rave; he calmly presents his assertions, such as that Jesus and Paul disagreed on much, including the way of salvation, but shared a disbelief in an eternal hell. He says both of them, and the author of Revelation (whom he’s certain wasn’t the apostle John), taught annihilationism. He simply ignores or reinterprets passages to the contrary (e.g. Isa. 66:24; Dan. 12:2; Matt. 25:41, 46; Mark 9:43, 48; 2 Thess. 1:9; Jude 7, 13; Rev. 14:9–11; 20:10, 14– 15).
Interestingly, though Ehrman doesn’t believe there is a heaven, he leaves room for its possibility:
I certainly don’t think the notion of a happy afterlife is as irrational as the fires of hell; at least it does not contradict the notion of a benevolent creative force behind the universe. So I’m completely open to the idea and deep down even hopeful about it. But I have to say that at the end of the day I really don’t believe it either. (294)
However, Ehrman is certain he isn’t wrong about hell:
Are we really to think that God is some kind of transcendent sadist intent on torturing people (or at least willing to allow them to be tortured) for all eternity, a divine being infinitely more vengeful than anyone who has ever existed? (293–94)
At the end of the book Ehrman quotes from ex-evangelical Rob Bell:
In [universalism], the love of God knows no bounds and cannot be overcome. . . . In the words of one modern Christian author, once himself a committed evangelical with a passion for the biblical witness, in the end “Love Wins.”
Ehrman seems to offer universalism as a backup position to his naturalistic worldview. He’s saying, “I don’t believe in an afterlife, but if there is one then everyone will be in heaven.”
He goes on to essentially applaud the rise of universalism in Christian churches: “Harkening back to Origen, and Paul before him, these committed believers maintain that in the end no one will be able to resist the love of God. . . . Everyone will be saved.”
Opinion Isn’t Proof
I admire Ehrman’s skill as a persuasive communicator. Were he a lawyer he could take either side in any case and would likely persuade the jury. (Hence the vulnerability of uninformed Christians who read his books.) Yet Ehrman frequently states what he believes as if opinion constitutes proof. For instance, he emphatically says, “There was a time in human history when no one on the planet believed that there would be a judgment day at the end of time” (8). Really? No one? Does he have private access to an ancient poll taken of every living person?
Ehrman, after denying the Old Testament ever speaks of resurrection, explains in a footnote: Some readers may wonder why I am not contrasting this view of Job with the famous passage of Job 19:25–26: “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God” (ESV).
Ehrman negates Job by citing a Jewish scholar who says, “The text has been garbled and we cannot tell exactly what Job intended to say.” This scholar adds, “Job is almost certainly not talking about seeing God in the afterlife.” I consulted 12 major translations by different teams of Hebrew scholars, some of whom don’t hold to biblical inerrancy. Their translations contain only minor differences. All of them suggest Job is indeed speaking of seeing God in the afterlife.
This is just one example of Ehrman’s practice of either: (1) inaccurately conveying what the Bible says; (2) accurately conveying what the Bible says, then declaring it’s wrong; (3) arguing the text really doesn’t say what Christians believe it says (why does that matter if what it really says is also wrong?); and (4) citing Scripture in support of his contentions, even though he regularly dismisses Scripture’s validity.
When researching my book Heaven, I read more than 150 books on the subject, including many I disagreed with. And, in reading Ehrman’s book, I saw no evidence that he had read a single evangelical book on heaven, though he did manage to cite one on hell. While his footnotes reflect extensive research in ancient Greek texts, he seems largely unaware of what the Bible or evangelical Christians claim about heaven—the new earth. He refers to Revelation 21:1, and recognizes the teaching of bodily resurrection, yet doesn’t develop what the Bible teaches about the eternal dwelling place of God’s people.
With a few exceptions when he admits he’s not certain, I’m struck by Ehrman’s usual unswerving confidence that he is 100 percent right. He is, just like evangelicals, relying on an ultimate authority—but instead of the Bible, it’s his own intellect.
As he does in most of his books, Ehrman seeks to build credibility by sharing his testimony of conversion to unbelief. He professed faith at age 15 at Youth for Christ, then attended Moody Bible Institute and Wheaton College. He was a card-carrying evangelical. His exodus from evangelicalism began when he went to Princeton Seminary, where he lost his faith in the Bible and Jesus:
[At Princeton] my scholarship led me to realize that the Bible was a very human book, with human mistakes and biases and culturally conditioned views in it. And realizing that made me begin to wonder if
the beliefs in God and Christ I had held and urged on others were themselves partially biased, culturally conditioned, or even mistaken. These doubts disturbed me not only because I wanted very much to know the Truth but also because I was afraid of the possible eternal consequences of getting it wrong. . . . What if I ended up no longer believing and then realized too late that my unfaithful change of heart had all been a huge blunder?
Ehrman appears to believe his studies at Princeton were guided by objective truth and his rejection of the Christian worldview was a courageous submission to this truth.
He claims, “In this book I will not be urging you either to believe or disbelieve in the existence of heaven and hell.” No reader could imagine Ehrman is urging belief in heaven or hell. But it seems intellectually dishonest to say he isn’t encouraging disbelief in them. Arguably that is a central purpose of the book.
In fact, to understand Heaven and Hell and Ehrman’s other writings, we must grasp that his deconversion redirected, rather than removed, his evangelistic zeal. Many people have quietly lost their faith, but Ehrman didn’t go gently into the night. Instead, he has become an eloquent apostle of deconversion, and his disciples are many.
While critics of the faith come and go, I regard Ehrman as one of the most significant modern opponents to the Christian faith. He’s a secular prophet to certain evangelical and ex-evangelical readers.
I feel sorry for Bart Ehrman, but I’m even more saddened at the harm done to those who embrace his teachings. We who believe the Bible must recognize this is about our adversary, Satan, who comes to destroy and devours people through persuasive arguments, and who when he lies, “speaks his native language” (John 8:44, NIV).
In a time when “everyone has a story,” people listen to stories without discernment. The personal testimony historically has been used by faith-affirmers to reach the lost. Now it has become a tool of faith-deniers to reach the found.
There are still wonderful conversion stories, and we should tell them. But we should also teach our children to cultivate their intellects and equip them to refute falsehood. And we should demonstrate the transcendent vibrancy of a generous, Christ-centered, and people-loving life, enlightened by the authentic God-man Jesus, full of grace and truth.
Finally, as we call on God to do the miraculous work of conversion in people’s lives, we “must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that [we] can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it” (Titus 1:9).
Randy Alcorn is the founder and director of Eternal Perspective Ministries (EPM) and the author of more than 40 books, including Does God Want Us to be Happy?, Heaven, and The Treasure Principle.
Looking forward to seeing you on Zoom,
- Dave
Bart Ehrman’s Latest Attack on Christianity The Gospel Coalition April 13, Randy Alcorn
[Bart Ehrman is professor of religious studies at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He also teaches eight of The Great Courses’s widely acclaimed Bible and Christianity classes, and has a part in 78 others. The subtitles of Ehrman’s books, including his five New York Times bestsellers, capture his premises: e.g., Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, How Jesus Became God: the Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee, and Forged: Writing in the Name of God—Why the Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are.]
Whenever I read an Ehrman book, déjà vu kicks in. His core message is always: “Christians are dead wrong; I know because I used to be one before I became enlightened.” Each of Ehrman’s books deals with something else Christians are wrong about; and his newest, Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife, is another volume in his expanding canon of deconversion doctrine.
Ehrman speaks with the authoritative tone of a historian-philosopher, a wise sage, unfolding humanity’s preoccupation with death and the fear of death. Beginning with the Epic of Gilgamesh, he then examines Homer, Virgil, Plato, and other ancients. Along the way he interjects his belief that there’s no need to fear death, since it’s simply ceasing to exist (the very thing many people fear).
Arriving at the Bible, simply one more myth to Ehrman, he presents what he calls the “older Hebrew view” that death is the final end, followed by nonexistence. He then addresses the “later Hebrew position” on resurrection and Judgment Day from the intertestamental era.
While he says little to refute pre-Christian views, once Ehrman gets to the historic Christian view of the afterlife, he conducts an all-out verbal siege. But he doesn’t rant and rave; he calmly presents his assertions, such as that Jesus and Paul disagreed on much, including the way of salvation, but shared a disbelief in an eternal hell. He says both of them, and the author of Revelation (whom he’s certain wasn’t the apostle John), taught annihilationism. He simply ignores or reinterprets passages to the contrary (e.g. Isa. 66:24; Dan. 12:2; Matt. 25:41, 46; Mark 9:43, 48; 2 Thess. 1:9; Jude 7, 13; Rev. 14:9–11; 20:10, 14– 15).
Interestingly, though Ehrman doesn’t believe there is a heaven, he leaves room for its possibility:
I certainly don’t think the notion of a happy afterlife is as irrational as the fires of hell; at least it does not contradict the notion of a benevolent creative force behind the universe. So I’m completely open to the idea and deep down even hopeful about it. But I have to say that at the end of the day I really don’t believe it either. (294)
However, Ehrman is certain he isn’t wrong about hell:
Are we really to think that God is some kind of transcendent sadist intent on torturing people (or at least willing to allow them to be tortured) for all eternity, a divine being infinitely more vengeful than anyone who has ever existed? (293–94)
At the end of the book Ehrman quotes from ex-evangelical Rob Bell:
In [universalism], the love of God knows no bounds and cannot be overcome. . . . In the words of one modern Christian author, once himself a committed evangelical with a passion for the biblical witness, in the end “Love Wins.”
Ehrman seems to offer universalism as a backup position to his naturalistic worldview. He’s saying, “I don’t believe in an afterlife, but if there is one then everyone will be in heaven.”
He goes on to essentially applaud the rise of universalism in Christian churches: “Harkening back to Origen, and Paul before him, these committed believers maintain that in the end no one will be able to resist the love of God. . . . Everyone will be saved.”
Opinion Isn’t Proof
I admire Ehrman’s skill as a persuasive communicator. Were he a lawyer he could take either side in any case and would likely persuade the jury. (Hence the vulnerability of uninformed Christians who read his books.) Yet Ehrman frequently states what he believes as if opinion constitutes proof. For instance, he emphatically says, “There was a time in human history when no one on the planet believed that there would be a judgment day at the end of time” (8). Really? No one? Does he have private access to an ancient poll taken of every living person?
Ehrman, after denying the Old Testament ever speaks of resurrection, explains in a footnote: Some readers may wonder why I am not contrasting this view of Job with the famous passage of Job 19:25–26: “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God” (ESV).
Ehrman negates Job by citing a Jewish scholar who says, “The text has been garbled and we cannot tell exactly what Job intended to say.” This scholar adds, “Job is almost certainly not talking about seeing God in the afterlife.” I consulted 12 major translations by different teams of Hebrew scholars, some of whom don’t hold to biblical inerrancy. Their translations contain only minor differences. All of them suggest Job is indeed speaking of seeing God in the afterlife.
This is just one example of Ehrman’s practice of either: (1) inaccurately conveying what the Bible says; (2) accurately conveying what the Bible says, then declaring it’s wrong; (3) arguing the text really doesn’t say what Christians believe it says (why does that matter if what it really says is also wrong?); and (4) citing Scripture in support of his contentions, even though he regularly dismisses Scripture’s validity.
When researching my book Heaven, I read more than 150 books on the subject, including many I disagreed with. And, in reading Ehrman’s book, I saw no evidence that he had read a single evangelical book on heaven, though he did manage to cite one on hell. While his footnotes reflect extensive research in ancient Greek texts, he seems largely unaware of what the Bible or evangelical Christians claim about heaven—the new earth. He refers to Revelation 21:1, and recognizes the teaching of bodily resurrection, yet doesn’t develop what the Bible teaches about the eternal dwelling place of God’s people.
With a few exceptions when he admits he’s not certain, I’m struck by Ehrman’s usual unswerving confidence that he is 100 percent right. He is, just like evangelicals, relying on an ultimate authority—but instead of the Bible, it’s his own intellect.
As he does in most of his books, Ehrman seeks to build credibility by sharing his testimony of conversion to unbelief. He professed faith at age 15 at Youth for Christ, then attended Moody Bible Institute and Wheaton College. He was a card-carrying evangelical. His exodus from evangelicalism began when he went to Princeton Seminary, where he lost his faith in the Bible and Jesus:
[At Princeton] my scholarship led me to realize that the Bible was a very human book, with human mistakes and biases and culturally conditioned views in it. And realizing that made me begin to wonder if
the beliefs in God and Christ I had held and urged on others were themselves partially biased, culturally conditioned, or even mistaken. These doubts disturbed me not only because I wanted very much to know the Truth but also because I was afraid of the possible eternal consequences of getting it wrong. . . . What if I ended up no longer believing and then realized too late that my unfaithful change of heart had all been a huge blunder?
Ehrman appears to believe his studies at Princeton were guided by objective truth and his rejection of the Christian worldview was a courageous submission to this truth.
He claims, “In this book I will not be urging you either to believe or disbelieve in the existence of heaven and hell.” No reader could imagine Ehrman is urging belief in heaven or hell. But it seems intellectually dishonest to say he isn’t encouraging disbelief in them. Arguably that is a central purpose of the book.
In fact, to understand Heaven and Hell and Ehrman’s other writings, we must grasp that his deconversion redirected, rather than removed, his evangelistic zeal. Many people have quietly lost their faith, but Ehrman didn’t go gently into the night. Instead, he has become an eloquent apostle of deconversion, and his disciples are many.
While critics of the faith come and go, I regard Ehrman as one of the most significant modern opponents to the Christian faith. He’s a secular prophet to certain evangelical and ex-evangelical readers.
I feel sorry for Bart Ehrman, but I’m even more saddened at the harm done to those who embrace his teachings. We who believe the Bible must recognize this is about our adversary, Satan, who comes to destroy and devours people through persuasive arguments, and who when he lies, “speaks his native language” (John 8:44, NIV).
In a time when “everyone has a story,” people listen to stories without discernment. The personal testimony historically has been used by faith-affirmers to reach the lost. Now it has become a tool of faith-deniers to reach the found.
There are still wonderful conversion stories, and we should tell them. But we should also teach our children to cultivate their intellects and equip them to refute falsehood. And we should demonstrate the transcendent vibrancy of a generous, Christ-centered, and people-loving life, enlightened by the authentic God-man Jesus, full of grace and truth.
Finally, as we call on God to do the miraculous work of conversion in people’s lives, we “must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that [we] can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it” (Titus 1:9).
Randy Alcorn is the founder and director of Eternal Perspective Ministries (EPM) and the author of more than 40 books, including Does God Want Us to be Happy?, Heaven, and The Treasure Principle.
Thursday, May 7
Plate, Essays by Readers The Christian Century April 28, 2020
We gave our readers a one-word writing prompt: “Plate.” We received many compelling reflections. Below is a selection.
I remember sitting parked by the roadside once, terribly depressed and afraid about my daughter’s illness and what was going on in our family, when out of nowhere a car came along down the highway with a license plate that bore on it the one word out of all the words in the dictionary that I needed most to see exactly then. The word was TRUST. What do you call a moment like that? Something to laugh off as the kind of joke life plays on us every once in a while? The word of God? I am willing to believe that maybe it was something of both, but for me it was an epiphany. The owner of the car turned out to be, as I’d suspected, a trust officer in a bank, and not long ago, having read what I wrote of the incident, he found out where I lived and one afternoon brought me the license plate itself, which sits propped up on a bookshelf in my house to this day. It is rusty around the edges and a little battered, and it is also as holy a relic as I have ever seen.
Frederick Buechner Telling Secrets
Five years ago my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and moved in with me. She went from caring for herself to being totally dependent. She looked like my mom, but she no longer took showers or washed her clothes. She could not remember if she had taken her medication. And she was no longer eating. How would I get her to eat?
The doctor suggested medication to activate her appetite. Friends suggested preparing her favorite meals. But she just kept telling me, “I am not hungry. It’s too much.” She would push the plate away.
Out of frustration, I started doing for her what she did for me as a child. I grabbed a small salad plate and put a little food on it. “Just a spoonful,” I said. And she ate—she cleaned her plate. It worked again the next day.
Maybe the medicine was finally kicking in? Maybe I had finally fixed a meal she really liked? Then it hit me: she’d been saying meals were “too much.” Maybe the amount of food that most of us take for granted on a regular dinner plate was just overwhelming for her.
Now when we go out for dinner, I ask for a small plate and then take whatever meal is served and divide it. I re-plate it with just a spoonful of potatoes, a quarter of the piece of chicken, just three or four florets of broccoli. She smiles and begins to eat.
Walking this journey with my mother has been full of trial and error. One important lesson is that I need to listen more and trust that even though she is sick, she is still telling me what she needs. And when life feels like it is just too much, I can’t give up. I just try enjoying the meal in a smaller potion, on a smaller plate.
Donna Oberkreser Clearwater, Florida
When I was the new pastor of a small congregation, I went to visit Audrey, who hadn’t been seen at church in a while. I knocked on the apartment door and was met by the formidable presence of Audrey’s housekeeper, Sarah. She was a no-nonsense person with little patience for such intrusions. Audrey, however, spoke up from the living room to invite me in.
I went in and was warmly welcomed by the white-haired woman seated comfortably in her recliner. We spent the next several minutes talking about the wall of photographs. The conversation shifted to the church, and Audrey walked me through the ins and outs of living in a seaside community. She asked about my family, where I grew up, and what I thought of the congregation and its ministries.
About a half hour into the visit, Audrey asked if I would serve her communion. A flush of panic flooded me: I had no bread, no juice, and nothing to serve them in even if I had them. My portable set was back in the church office, where it wasn’t going to be of much help. Regaining my composure, I asked if there might be some bread and a bottle of grape juice around. Sarah rolled her eyes, but at Audrey’s insistence, she went hunting through the cabinets. After a few moments of searching and a lot of unnecessary noise, she pulled out a package of saltines and a small carton of prune juice. Audrey looked flustered and embarrassed. But we would make do. I asked for a cup and a small plate. Sarah pulled out a chipped, badly stained coffee cup and a plastic dessert plate with a crack running through it. Foolishly, seeking to try to make the moment sacred, I asked, “Do you have something a bit nicer?” “No,” Sarah grumbled, “this will have to do.”
I looked wistfully at the open door of the cabinet, where I could see a lovely small cut glass plate, but I gave in. I put the saltines on the plate and took the cup from Sarah, pouring in the dark brown juice. I asked her if she wanted to receive communion too; she rolled her eyes and said no.
As I proceeded through the short service and shared the plate and cup with Audrey, I knew Sarah was watching my every move. What startled me, however, was that she was also mouthing the responses: she knew the service by heart. I wondered why she chose not to join us at the table, but I accept that her silent responses were sufficient before God.
Ricki Aiello Enfield, Connecticut
We gave our readers a one-word writing prompt: “Plate.” We received many compelling reflections. Below is a selection.
I remember sitting parked by the roadside once, terribly depressed and afraid about my daughter’s illness and what was going on in our family, when out of nowhere a car came along down the highway with a license plate that bore on it the one word out of all the words in the dictionary that I needed most to see exactly then. The word was TRUST. What do you call a moment like that? Something to laugh off as the kind of joke life plays on us every once in a while? The word of God? I am willing to believe that maybe it was something of both, but for me it was an epiphany. The owner of the car turned out to be, as I’d suspected, a trust officer in a bank, and not long ago, having read what I wrote of the incident, he found out where I lived and one afternoon brought me the license plate itself, which sits propped up on a bookshelf in my house to this day. It is rusty around the edges and a little battered, and it is also as holy a relic as I have ever seen.
Frederick Buechner Telling Secrets
Five years ago my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and moved in with me. She went from caring for herself to being totally dependent. She looked like my mom, but she no longer took showers or washed her clothes. She could not remember if she had taken her medication. And she was no longer eating. How would I get her to eat?
The doctor suggested medication to activate her appetite. Friends suggested preparing her favorite meals. But she just kept telling me, “I am not hungry. It’s too much.” She would push the plate away.
Out of frustration, I started doing for her what she did for me as a child. I grabbed a small salad plate and put a little food on it. “Just a spoonful,” I said. And she ate—she cleaned her plate. It worked again the next day.
Maybe the medicine was finally kicking in? Maybe I had finally fixed a meal she really liked? Then it hit me: she’d been saying meals were “too much.” Maybe the amount of food that most of us take for granted on a regular dinner plate was just overwhelming for her.
Now when we go out for dinner, I ask for a small plate and then take whatever meal is served and divide it. I re-plate it with just a spoonful of potatoes, a quarter of the piece of chicken, just three or four florets of broccoli. She smiles and begins to eat.
Walking this journey with my mother has been full of trial and error. One important lesson is that I need to listen more and trust that even though she is sick, she is still telling me what she needs. And when life feels like it is just too much, I can’t give up. I just try enjoying the meal in a smaller potion, on a smaller plate.
Donna Oberkreser Clearwater, Florida
When I was the new pastor of a small congregation, I went to visit Audrey, who hadn’t been seen at church in a while. I knocked on the apartment door and was met by the formidable presence of Audrey’s housekeeper, Sarah. She was a no-nonsense person with little patience for such intrusions. Audrey, however, spoke up from the living room to invite me in.
I went in and was warmly welcomed by the white-haired woman seated comfortably in her recliner. We spent the next several minutes talking about the wall of photographs. The conversation shifted to the church, and Audrey walked me through the ins and outs of living in a seaside community. She asked about my family, where I grew up, and what I thought of the congregation and its ministries.
About a half hour into the visit, Audrey asked if I would serve her communion. A flush of panic flooded me: I had no bread, no juice, and nothing to serve them in even if I had them. My portable set was back in the church office, where it wasn’t going to be of much help. Regaining my composure, I asked if there might be some bread and a bottle of grape juice around. Sarah rolled her eyes, but at Audrey’s insistence, she went hunting through the cabinets. After a few moments of searching and a lot of unnecessary noise, she pulled out a package of saltines and a small carton of prune juice. Audrey looked flustered and embarrassed. But we would make do. I asked for a cup and a small plate. Sarah pulled out a chipped, badly stained coffee cup and a plastic dessert plate with a crack running through it. Foolishly, seeking to try to make the moment sacred, I asked, “Do you have something a bit nicer?” “No,” Sarah grumbled, “this will have to do.”
I looked wistfully at the open door of the cabinet, where I could see a lovely small cut glass plate, but I gave in. I put the saltines on the plate and took the cup from Sarah, pouring in the dark brown juice. I asked her if she wanted to receive communion too; she rolled her eyes and said no.
As I proceeded through the short service and shared the plate and cup with Audrey, I knew Sarah was watching my every move. What startled me, however, was that she was also mouthing the responses: she knew the service by heart. I wondered why she chose not to join us at the table, but I accept that her silent responses were sufficient before God.
Ricki Aiello Enfield, Connecticut
Thursday, April 29
Discussion Group Article
... Surprise, it's a video!
I've been trying to find a compelling article for us to read that has nothing to do with viruses, politics, the role of the 4th Estate, public safety/public rights, blame, anger, bewilderment, etc, etc, etc.
Maybe I just needed a break from the news.
So, here's one of my favorite pastors in America, Rob Bell, in a short video asking some compelling questions. What I'd like us to focus on is not what he says toward the end - Jesus didn't come here to start a religion - but rather, let's focus on the assertion that sometimes what got us to a certain place, understanding, or enlightenment, is now in the way of taking the next step in life. He talks about puberty being important but not wanting to stay in that mode but rather to move through it.
I'm wondering if there is something that got you to where you are that is now in the way? Was it an investment strategy, a bias, a primal instinct, a house, or, perhaps a long-held notion about God; and, does that thing now need to move out of the way to move into the next phase of life? I have some stories to talk about and I think you may as well. Let's spend an hour or so talking about something other than the current situation in front of us.
Or, we could always talk about the idea that Jesus said about Christianity, "You did what??!"
Here's the link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQgHthZ72cU
Looking forward to Zooming with you. Here's the meeting link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5955701807
-Fr. Dave
... Surprise, it's a video!
I've been trying to find a compelling article for us to read that has nothing to do with viruses, politics, the role of the 4th Estate, public safety/public rights, blame, anger, bewilderment, etc, etc, etc.
Maybe I just needed a break from the news.
So, here's one of my favorite pastors in America, Rob Bell, in a short video asking some compelling questions. What I'd like us to focus on is not what he says toward the end - Jesus didn't come here to start a religion - but rather, let's focus on the assertion that sometimes what got us to a certain place, understanding, or enlightenment, is now in the way of taking the next step in life. He talks about puberty being important but not wanting to stay in that mode but rather to move through it.
I'm wondering if there is something that got you to where you are that is now in the way? Was it an investment strategy, a bias, a primal instinct, a house, or, perhaps a long-held notion about God; and, does that thing now need to move out of the way to move into the next phase of life? I have some stories to talk about and I think you may as well. Let's spend an hour or so talking about something other than the current situation in front of us.
Or, we could always talk about the idea that Jesus said about Christianity, "You did what??!"
Here's the link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQgHthZ72cU
Looking forward to Zooming with you. Here's the meeting link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5955701807
-Fr. Dave
Hello!
I've been looking for an article about God in our everyday un-normal life. As it turns out, it is difficult to find an article that is relevant, less than three pages, and understandable; even to the educated and well-read group that we have. Despite this, I have attached an article that may well not be relevant nor understandable, but, at least it's short. ... thanks to some careful editing by yours truly. If you'd like to read the full article, you can find it at the Living Church magazine. But in the unedited version, the author goes into an article he wrote in 1988 about nuclear proliferation that I don't quite understand from a political-philosophical point of view nor do I see the Christian ethic view except for the obvious - God probably doesn't want us to blow each other up. Nevertheless, feel free to look it up.
Instead of thinking about the global God and how such a Creator can allow for this virus, the author invites us to look at the everyday God who is with us for each little decision we make. The ethics of the daily decisions we make may help us focus on the virtue of patience. If so, it truly would be a God-inspired action.
Here is the Zoom link for all Discussion Groups:
https://zoom.us/j/5955701807 Meeting ID: 595 570 1807
I've been looking for an article about God in our everyday un-normal life. As it turns out, it is difficult to find an article that is relevant, less than three pages, and understandable; even to the educated and well-read group that we have. Despite this, I have attached an article that may well not be relevant nor understandable, but, at least it's short. ... thanks to some careful editing by yours truly. If you'd like to read the full article, you can find it at the Living Church magazine. But in the unedited version, the author goes into an article he wrote in 1988 about nuclear proliferation that I don't quite understand from a political-philosophical point of view nor do I see the Christian ethic view except for the obvious - God probably doesn't want us to blow each other up. Nevertheless, feel free to look it up.
Instead of thinking about the global God and how such a Creator can allow for this virus, the author invites us to look at the everyday God who is with us for each little decision we make. The ethics of the daily decisions we make may help us focus on the virtue of patience. If so, it truly would be a God-inspired action.
Here is the Zoom link for all Discussion Groups:
https://zoom.us/j/5955701807 Meeting ID: 595 570 1807
Ethics: The Everyday Matters
Thursday, April 23
Ethics: The Everyday Matters
Living Church, April 14, 2020 By Stanley Hauerwas
The virus has wounded us. Life was pretty good. Most of us knew when and from where our next meal or paycheck was coming. We could plan visits to see children or old friends. Spring training was soon to begin. If you cannot trust spring training you cannot trust anything. And that is exactly where we find ourselves. This damned virus has made us unsure if we can trust anything — and that includes God.
Ethics is often thought to deal with “big questions” and dramatic choices, but in fact the most important and significant aspects of our lives are found in the everyday. The everyday is made the everyday by the promises we make, which may not seem like promises at the time but turn out to make us people that can be trusted. Such trust comes through small acts of tenderness that are as significant as they are unnoticed. It makes a difference that I am told, “I love you” before I leave for the day even though the declaration may seem to be routine. It is often routine and that is why it is so important.
The kind of ethics associated with this way of characterizing the moral life is called an ethic of the virtues. I have recently written a book entitled The Character of Virtue: Letters to a Godson. The book, as the title implies, are letters commending a virtue I assume is relevant to my godson’s age and development. I try to help us see that the virtues are not the result of extraordinary behavior. Instead, they ride on the back of the everyday. Accordingly, the virtues are not the result of my trying hard, for example, to be patient. I become patient by taking the time to learn how to dribble the basketball well. We do discover in times like the present that the moral commitments we had forgotten make us who we are. I am thinking, for example, of the commitment of health care workers who resolve not to abandon the ill even though to remain present may endanger their own lives.
The wound that the virus has inflicted on us is to tempt us to become impatient with ourselves and others in an effort to return to the “normal.” We had not realized how dependent we have become on the everyday habit of going to church and seeing one another on Sundays. We had lost track of the significance of our willingness to touch one another as a sign that we rejoice in their presence. In short, we had lost the significance of the everyday, and we rightly want it back.
But we must be patient. We are an eschatological people. We believe we are agents in a story we did not make up and it is a story that is true. That the story is true makes it possible for us to live truthful lives. Such lives require us to recognize that we are a people who must die. We are not meant to survive this life. That is why we live not to survive but to love God and to have love for our neighbor. We have been wounded by this virus but we have not been morally destroyed. So, let us be patient with one another as God has remained patient with us.
Stanley Hauerwas is Gilbert T. Rowe Professor Emeritus of Divinity and Law at Duke Divinity School and canon theologian of the Diocese of Tennessee.
Living Church, April 14, 2020 By Stanley Hauerwas
The virus has wounded us. Life was pretty good. Most of us knew when and from where our next meal or paycheck was coming. We could plan visits to see children or old friends. Spring training was soon to begin. If you cannot trust spring training you cannot trust anything. And that is exactly where we find ourselves. This damned virus has made us unsure if we can trust anything — and that includes God.
Ethics is often thought to deal with “big questions” and dramatic choices, but in fact the most important and significant aspects of our lives are found in the everyday. The everyday is made the everyday by the promises we make, which may not seem like promises at the time but turn out to make us people that can be trusted. Such trust comes through small acts of tenderness that are as significant as they are unnoticed. It makes a difference that I am told, “I love you” before I leave for the day even though the declaration may seem to be routine. It is often routine and that is why it is so important.
The kind of ethics associated with this way of characterizing the moral life is called an ethic of the virtues. I have recently written a book entitled The Character of Virtue: Letters to a Godson. The book, as the title implies, are letters commending a virtue I assume is relevant to my godson’s age and development. I try to help us see that the virtues are not the result of extraordinary behavior. Instead, they ride on the back of the everyday. Accordingly, the virtues are not the result of my trying hard, for example, to be patient. I become patient by taking the time to learn how to dribble the basketball well. We do discover in times like the present that the moral commitments we had forgotten make us who we are. I am thinking, for example, of the commitment of health care workers who resolve not to abandon the ill even though to remain present may endanger their own lives.
The wound that the virus has inflicted on us is to tempt us to become impatient with ourselves and others in an effort to return to the “normal.” We had not realized how dependent we have become on the everyday habit of going to church and seeing one another on Sundays. We had lost track of the significance of our willingness to touch one another as a sign that we rejoice in their presence. In short, we had lost the significance of the everyday, and we rightly want it back.
But we must be patient. We are an eschatological people. We believe we are agents in a story we did not make up and it is a story that is true. That the story is true makes it possible for us to live truthful lives. Such lives require us to recognize that we are a people who must die. We are not meant to survive this life. That is why we live not to survive but to love God and to have love for our neighbor. We have been wounded by this virus but we have not been morally destroyed. So, let us be patient with one another as God has remained patient with us.
Stanley Hauerwas is Gilbert T. Rowe Professor Emeritus of Divinity and Law at Duke Divinity School and canon theologian of the Diocese of Tennessee.
Who Should You Let Into Your Coronavirus Quarantine Orbit?
By Alina Dizik, April 1, 2020 [Updated April 6], WSJ
As infections spread rapidly, many Americans are creating closed circles of family or select friends to form in-person “safety networks” where everyone sees only the others in the same group, says Benjamin Karney, professor of social psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles. But forming these networks is complicated, since everyone has a different idea of who is trustworthy. Even members of a single household may disagree on who should be part of the closed group. Prof. Karney sees parallels between socializing during today’s pandemic and the assumptions people had to make about sexual partners at the height of the 1980s AIDS crisis. “We don’t know enough to make an informed decision...so people are making their own rules of thumb,” he says. In Seattle, Jill Duffield is getting creative with how to expand her family’s quarantine orbit without bending the strict shelter-in-place rules too much. On a recent afternoon, a neighbor came over to her sloped backyard to play on a different level of the outdoor area with Ms. Duffield’s son, Aaron, who has asthma. The two were far enough away from each other that they could use walkie-talkies to communicate. Ms. Duffield, 45, and her husband “were really struggling with trying to balance what’s important,” she says, even asking a doctor for advice. “We debated for a long time.” Others under lockdown are preparing for the day things ease up by planning in advance. Kimberly Weiss, a 38-year-old attorney from the Chicago suburb of Lake Forest, Ill., and her husband, Michael Weiss, hope to expand their orbit to one family that fits all the demands for a little bit of safe socializing. Ms. Weiss strategically picked neighbors where the children correspond in age to four out of her five children. Online, she watched the wife doing at-home fitness classes and the husband demonstrating his cooking, while her children played online games with the other family’s children. All this behavior made her believe her neighbors when they said the children weren’t leaving the house. She made sure with their mutual housekeeper that the family also temporarily paused their home cleaning. “We really have to be certain,” says Ms. Weiss. When it comes to such high-stakes meetings, the gloves are off. “People are certainly trying to police each other,” says Erin Vogel, a social psychologist at the Stanford Prevention Research Center in California. “It’s tough for people to figure out what the boundaries are with the people in their lives.”
Those boundaries can surprise some people when the fault lines run through their families. When a niece came to drop off some much-needed hand sanitizer outside the home of 65-year-old Adelena Quevedo, she told her aunt that they needed to stay 6 feet away. The niece wore latex gloves and carefully tossed the sanitizer toward the Miami-based interior designer. While thankful, Ms. Quevedo was caught off-guard by the sudden social distancing. “They think we [seniors] should be locked up,” joked the designer, who is no longer leaving her home.
Some Americans think they are playing it safe by socializing only with familiar co-workers. Others, when they dine together, order delivery and opt for disposable silverware.
The issue can be even more complicated for multiple generations living under one roof. With six adults and two young children, everyone has a different idea of the quarantine in her household, says Malerie Holcomb-Botts who lives in Kailua, Hawaii, with her husband, in-laws, brother and another friend. While she is scheduling virtual play dates for her children and virtual hangouts for herself, her elderly mother-in-law has taken a different view. Cheryl Botts, the mother-in-law, says she isn’t changing her habits to live in total isolation. “I’m not a worrying type of person,” says the 74-year-old retired homemaker. She says she invited a friend to the backyard, but the friend declined. For larger families, it is important to establish rules for how the entire family will interact with anyone outside of the household, says Rebecca London, a sociologist
at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Otherwise socializing can breed resentment. Dr. London recently declined a book-club meetup in someone’s driveway because it didn’t align with her own family’s social-distancing policy. In places where socializing is now forbidden, many are caught policing loved ones across state lines. New Yorker Scott Starrett, age 48, was so shocked that his 79-year-old father was still playing tennis in South Carolina, that he called almost daily to plead with him to stop. The composer for television, who isn’t leaving his own apartment, didn’t have to beg for long: “Thank goodness they shut down the league, so now he’s off the hook from me nagging.”
By Alina Dizik, April 1, 2020 [Updated April 6], WSJ
As infections spread rapidly, many Americans are creating closed circles of family or select friends to form in-person “safety networks” where everyone sees only the others in the same group, says Benjamin Karney, professor of social psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles. But forming these networks is complicated, since everyone has a different idea of who is trustworthy. Even members of a single household may disagree on who should be part of the closed group. Prof. Karney sees parallels between socializing during today’s pandemic and the assumptions people had to make about sexual partners at the height of the 1980s AIDS crisis. “We don’t know enough to make an informed decision...so people are making their own rules of thumb,” he says. In Seattle, Jill Duffield is getting creative with how to expand her family’s quarantine orbit without bending the strict shelter-in-place rules too much. On a recent afternoon, a neighbor came over to her sloped backyard to play on a different level of the outdoor area with Ms. Duffield’s son, Aaron, who has asthma. The two were far enough away from each other that they could use walkie-talkies to communicate. Ms. Duffield, 45, and her husband “were really struggling with trying to balance what’s important,” she says, even asking a doctor for advice. “We debated for a long time.” Others under lockdown are preparing for the day things ease up by planning in advance. Kimberly Weiss, a 38-year-old attorney from the Chicago suburb of Lake Forest, Ill., and her husband, Michael Weiss, hope to expand their orbit to one family that fits all the demands for a little bit of safe socializing. Ms. Weiss strategically picked neighbors where the children correspond in age to four out of her five children. Online, she watched the wife doing at-home fitness classes and the husband demonstrating his cooking, while her children played online games with the other family’s children. All this behavior made her believe her neighbors when they said the children weren’t leaving the house. She made sure with their mutual housekeeper that the family also temporarily paused their home cleaning. “We really have to be certain,” says Ms. Weiss. When it comes to such high-stakes meetings, the gloves are off. “People are certainly trying to police each other,” says Erin Vogel, a social psychologist at the Stanford Prevention Research Center in California. “It’s tough for people to figure out what the boundaries are with the people in their lives.”
Those boundaries can surprise some people when the fault lines run through their families. When a niece came to drop off some much-needed hand sanitizer outside the home of 65-year-old Adelena Quevedo, she told her aunt that they needed to stay 6 feet away. The niece wore latex gloves and carefully tossed the sanitizer toward the Miami-based interior designer. While thankful, Ms. Quevedo was caught off-guard by the sudden social distancing. “They think we [seniors] should be locked up,” joked the designer, who is no longer leaving her home.
Some Americans think they are playing it safe by socializing only with familiar co-workers. Others, when they dine together, order delivery and opt for disposable silverware.
The issue can be even more complicated for multiple generations living under one roof. With six adults and two young children, everyone has a different idea of the quarantine in her household, says Malerie Holcomb-Botts who lives in Kailua, Hawaii, with her husband, in-laws, brother and another friend. While she is scheduling virtual play dates for her children and virtual hangouts for herself, her elderly mother-in-law has taken a different view. Cheryl Botts, the mother-in-law, says she isn’t changing her habits to live in total isolation. “I’m not a worrying type of person,” says the 74-year-old retired homemaker. She says she invited a friend to the backyard, but the friend declined. For larger families, it is important to establish rules for how the entire family will interact with anyone outside of the household, says Rebecca London, a sociologist
at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Otherwise socializing can breed resentment. Dr. London recently declined a book-club meetup in someone’s driveway because it didn’t align with her own family’s social-distancing policy. In places where socializing is now forbidden, many are caught policing loved ones across state lines. New Yorker Scott Starrett, age 48, was so shocked that his 79-year-old father was still playing tennis in South Carolina, that he called almost daily to plead with him to stop. The composer for television, who isn’t leaving his own apartment, didn’t have to beg for long: “Thank goodness they shut down the league, so now he’s off the hook from me nagging.”