GUN CONTROL

 February 23, 2013

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I wish I could write something original about gun control. All the cogent arguments are out there. I’ll be content with whatever the President can get through the congress. I’ll have to be. It astonishes me that so many Democrats, including Harry Reid, a good guy, can be staunch believers in gun availability for most people.

I am a moralist enough to hate hunting for sport. Grown men and women loving to kill helpless birds and animals for fun is sickening. Respect for life, all life, is not a bad motto for Christians and also for all human beings. A hunting guide in the TV show Downton Abbey said animals deserve a merciful death. A touch of civility for a professional hunter.

I loved toy guns as a youngster and so did my brother. We played kill the Japanese and Nazis during World War 2. Cap pistols, handguns and pieces of wood sat in for rifles around our toy boxes. Eventually I outgrew them. Dad forbade BB guns, fearing we might shoot someone’s eye out.

The summer I worked a the farm in Oneida, NY, in 1944, I shot a woodchuck and a robin. I was glad I hit the targets, but felt bad afterward. I did like handling the rifle, however. Once in the 1980s I helped clean out a man’s apartment and discovered a small revolver. I took it to a gun store and sold it. I felt creepy just handling it and a bit afraid, too. I might shoot myself or someone else because I was too ignorant of how it really worked.

In high school I thought about going to Annapolis or West Point. I liked the uniforms. Then I found out you needed math and science to prepare for those institutions. I realized that was not for me. I barely passed either subject. It never occurred to me until later that those academies were places where one learned to shoot and kill. Like most kids I idolized the military for its glamour, not seeing deeply that one learned to kill and be killed. I certainly never thought of the pain inflicted or received. The notion of suffering never entered my adolescent mind.

I wobbled between support and opposition during the Korean and Vietnam War. However, during the anti Vietnam war days I realized I could only be a pacifist. I do not want to kill other people. War is madness. The civil rights movement and the writing and speaking of Martin Luther King, Jr. inspired by Gandhi solidified my antiwar convictions. The natural result were my anti-gun sentiments.

As a life long-Episcopalian I heard precious little teaching about the ethics of war and guns. The late Norman Pittenger at The General Theological Seminary did give a powerful talk against hunting. Today the national and diocesan church is silent on gun control. I seldom preached or wrote about gun control. I’ll remedy that. I often preached anti-war sermons.

The Quakers have always seen it as their Christian duty to oppose war. I see it as mine.

I certainly hope churches and seminaries will provide study and sermons dealing with these important issues. Youth groups could expand their programs to include issues of war, guns and alternatives for military careers. Kids can be taught about the joys and perils of being a conscientious objector.

Those of us who follow Jesus as a revolutionary rather than a pale pilgrim, notice his voice rang out for peace, forgiveness and compassion. That plus feeding the hungry and healing the sick were the essence of his words and ministry. We Christians could be leading the way to peace and safety from guns.

LOOK AT OUR STRENGTHS

Look at Our Strengths

Many people are frightened about losing our democracy. I’ll admit there are serious problems with Trumpist Republicans regaining power.

Here are what keeps me hopeful that Democracy will hold.

The Supreme Court is full of Republicans but of varying degrees of conservativism. Chief Justice Roberts has broken with his colleagues in the LGBT issue. These are smart men and women. Voting rights bills take a long time getting to the court. The court will be slow to cut voting restrictions and impede freedom of speech or religion.

The military does not want to go to another war. The Joint Chiefs of staff will not let a nutsy president start another war. Some have already said they will prevent that former president from pushing the red button. They will be slow to have their soldiers and sailors fight other Americans in a civil war.

Black and Hispanic Americans are in large numbers and growing in power. They have everything to lose if Democracy falters. They will unite to resist fascism.

American business wants peace. Business will resist fascism as it will be bad for profits. Free market capitalism needs freedom. It wants freedom from too much government. The munitions business in the Nazi era did well but depended on war needs. 

Labor will resist growing fascism as it threatens their power. In Nazi Germany labor unions were very weak. In the US labor in fact is growing in strength and power. Labor will lose negotiation and strike power if democracy fails.

I will add that much of the fear and worry comes from watching TV news. It is designed to stir emotions, divide opinion and sell soap. Television invades our eyes, ears, emotions, prejudices and our loves, hates and our intellect.

I only read the SF Chronicle, NY Times digit and The New Yorker. I find even in that media a lack of objectivity and tilt to the left, which happens to align with my views.

I do not think we are losing our democracy or that 

facism will prevail. We have too much to lose if we let that happen. Freedom of speech is too precious, for even loudmouth Trumpists, to lose.

rwc

BASIC JESUS

 Basic Jesus

Don’t confuse Christianity with Jesus. Much of Christianity is encumbered with anti-sexual bias, bureaucracy and Biblical literalism. Many of us are followers of Jesus. He focused on feeding the hungry, healing the sick, radical forgiveness and seeking justice for all.

The basic message of Jesus was ignored from early on in controversies. St. Paul asserted that Gentiles did not have too become Jews in order to get baptized. Battles over the nature of Jesus raged for centuries. Was Jesus a man, a spirit, half man half spirit? It was settled that Jesus was truly man and truly God. Jesus was God incarnate.  That did not settle anything giving the church a conundrum instead of clarity. Really, truly God and truly man? Indeed. The basic message of Jesus was ignored except in the local church communities.

Then Emperor Constantine made Christianity a state church in 325 A.D. The church became an arm of the state. The church leaders then followed the orders of the state. The basic teachings of Jesus gave way to struggles for power in the empire. History shows the bishops grew to tremendous political power to where bishops crowned kings. Bishops waged wars, crusades and inquisitions. They fomented anti-Semitism, sold indulgences and made non-Biblical doctrines necessary for salvation, like proper belief in the mass.

The religious orders tried to follow Jesus. The Jesuits, the Franciscans and Dominicans made attempts to care for the poor and the sick and a follow a simple life. They too became caught up in power and wealth in their churches and monasteries. 

The Reformation brought doctrinal changes but also deep church connections to the state. The Calvinists in Switzerland, the Lutherans in Germany, Sweden and Norway became state churches. The emphases of those churches were doctrine and power. The basic teachings of Jesus were ignored but carried out on the local level.

Too much of the church has been consumed in anti-sexual issues. Birth control, abortion and homosexuality (anti-). I have long believed it is a deep fear and ignorance about pleasure. We know it comes from the disconnect between spirit and body. Body bad, spirit good.

I skip to the Episcopal and most churches today I’ll write about the Episcopal Church that I know today. At St. John’s were we attend, where does the money go? We support a part time Vicar who spends the bulk of his time working on Justice issues for immigrants, stopping police from killing youngsters of color. A few neighborhood and church members give food away on Saturday mornings. There is good liturgy for the worship of God. But large amounts of money go for buildings and grounds. A chunk of money goes to the Diocese.

I don’t think most local church do much reflecting the basic message of Jesus. Roman Catholics spend lots of money on education. That helps people rise from poverty, that’s for sure. But a lot of money goes to the education of wealthy families.

I do not despair that the gospel of Jesus will die out. There will always be gatherings for worship, the sacraments but the forms will change and keep changing.

THINKING THEOLOGY

 

Thinking Theology

I do not take the Bible literally. Any book or passage has to bear the scrutiny of the questions of; Who is the author? What is its date?  and What is the purpose? We  bring literary criticism to the entire scripture.  Bible is a rich, artistic, mystical and spiritual library, not a law book. It is a book containing story, history, poetry, biography, prophecy, letters and propaganda. The gospels each were written to convert Jews or Gentiles to Christ. The epistles are the teachings and opinions of the writer, limited by his time and place, and not to be taken as universal laws. Like Paul’s teaching about women or homosexuals. It is a gift of great freedom to interpret for ourselves the meanings of the particular passages.

I am not a Creedal Fundamentalist

I examine the creeds and beliefs of the church with a critical eye. The doctrine of the Trinity was the church’s struggle to define God, one in three persons. How to hold the monotheism of the Jews and still accept other ways that God was perceived, namely son and holy spirit? The complex and ambiguous formula suited the need of he church at a particular time in history.

Then there was the problem of Jesus. Defined as truly God and truly man is a good formula. But it is vague and paradoxical. Our professor of Dogmatic Theology, Julian Victor Langmead Casserly in 1965 said the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation were the beginning of a discussion, not the end. These are not historical events. They are ideas, concepts and notions of men and perhaps women to think about God and Jesus.

(This why I do not like the Creeds in public worship. Newcomers are put off by what seems like what you have to believe to belong. Many don’t want such a demand without thinking first. The Creed are better sung in public worship. The Creed are songs of faith, not  doctrinal demands.)

I worship and thus believe. My beliefs are  caught up in worship. I honor my rational mind and critical thinking and throw myself into the wonders of worship. The Bible, creeds, music, colors, smells, bells, intercessions, readings, confession, processions, vestments, singing, chanting, bowing, genuflecting, making the sign of the cross, listening, good sermons and the community of sinners and winners are the glories of my worship. Rational thinking and fine worship co-exist quite nicely.

RWC

WAR CRIMES

 

The US Government Accuses Russia of Crimes Against Humanity. Let’’get real. Get Real.

Here’re a few of American crimes against humanity

My Lai.  Abu Graib. Hiroshima. Nagasaki. Wounded Knee. Shock and Awe.

Dresden. Hamburg. Tokyo Fire Bombing. Fallujah. 

Guantanamo (Still Happening.) Drone Executions ( Still Happening.)

Let those who are “without sin” cast the first stones. Or is that an obsolete concept?

How many of our own War Crimes Presidents have we sent to jail?