On the Origin and Continuity of Life

Someone compared life to a ride on a commuter train.  From our point of origin to our destination, we interact with people, enjoy the passing landscape, read a newspaper or a few pages of a book, and react to whatever sensory or cognitive events we encounter.  We are not concerned with the design and manufacture of the train, nor are we concerned with the ultimate retirement of the train from age, mechanical malfunction, or any wreckage in which we are not involved.

Life is more complex.  Whether one is a biologist, a philosopher, a person of faith, or all of these, the human curiosity does not tolerate the serenity of incomprehension.  I have recently (and currently) participated in a group discussion exploring the origins of the universe and human life—Evolution, Intelligent Design, Creation Science, and the literal biblical account of the creation.

History and current media coverage has framed the question of origins as a conflict between a literal interpretation of Genesis and a single chapter with a title that would include the word Evolution in a high school textbook.  I came to this discussion group as a person of faith in a fundamentalist church, a philosopher and writer, and someone who spent 24 years on school boards, and a lifetime in the education of children.  I also came as someone with no scientific knowledge beyond basic required college level courses in biological and physical sciences.

I was fortunate to have attracted a diverse group to the group discussion—a person who has done extensive research in writing a book; a person with knowledge in Intelligent Design; people from the medical profession; a newspaper columnist; educators; people who are active in their churches; and people who come from family backgrounds in which they have experienced ideological conflicts between science and religion.

For many, the image of evolution and creation was shaped by the Scopes Trial in Dayton, Tennessee in 1925.  The Butler Act, prohibiting the teaching of evolution, was introduced by a legislator influenced by an itinerant preacher in East Tennessee, and passed by the Tennessee legislature.

Science teachers in public schools teach under some pressure.  Our textbooks are selected by teachers and curriculum specialists in the local school district from several options approved by the State Department of Education.  The introduction of the words Evolution, Darwin, or Darwinism to impressionable young minds has the potential to initiate parental opposition to the textbook and classroom instruction.  Our schools are obligated by law and logic, to neither refute nor affirm any home or church teaching in matters of faith.  The great majority of the teachers I know are people of faith and professionals who come from among our friends and neighbors, but whose views on religious doctrine or ritual may differ from those of some parents.

The fundamentalist assumption that the Bible is the inspired Word of God is the basis of theology in most Christian churches.  Secular academia and many liberal Christian theologians would insist that the Genesis account is non-scientific and was written as a narrative consistent with the comprehension of its time.  Most contemporary people of faith are content to accept the findings of Darwin and the publication of his writing as scientific documentation of biological change without being a challenge to, or denial of, a Divine creative force.  The conflict has come from our divergent views of our image of God.  The story of a God taking a handful of clay and forming a living being, created in His image, is part of religious tradition, but not part of scientific academia.

The concept of Divine creation gave rise to the term Creationism, viewed by many as antithetical to the term Darwinism, which is equally a misnomer.  The courts have ruled in all instances that the introduction of creationism as described in the Bible is religious content.  More recently the introduction of Intelligent Design to the science classroom has also been subjected to judicial scrutiny.  In fairness, I would not attempt to explain the concept of intelligent design nor try to defend the scientific integrity of its content.

The reason for the controversy is in the introduction of the phrase intelligent agent which they say differs from natural law from which people of faith have come to accept the complexity of science within the handiwork God. Proponents of intelligent design assert an informational design without which human life as we know it could not exist.  Advocates of ID reject or refute some parts of textbook evolution.

The conflict, as I see it, is two-fold.  In order to find a place in the public school classroom, proponents have to define intelligence and the agent and the design in secular scientific terminology.  Intelligent design has to differentiate itself from creation science.  So far, intelligent design does not have textbook status and has support among a small group of scientists, and limited support in the larger scientific community.  Concurrently within the political community, legislatures with conservative evangelical majorities are introducing legislation to give equal status to multiple theories of scientific origins.  Some people see this as greater freedom of classroom instruction; others view intelligent design as a continuation of creation science which gave impetus to the Butler Act and the Scopes trial and national attention and ridicule it received.

I would like to believe that any and all advancements of secular scientific knowledge will eventually find a way into textbooks and into the minds of our student population.  I would also hope that all who believe in an omnipotent God would not deny him the tools of his handiwork.  As a philosopher, educator, and person of faith I would prefer the influence of politics and religion would never infringe our access to scientific and historical knowledge or the free exercise of our faith.

On Feeding Wolves

In our political dialogue, we have changed the meaning of our words and we have put them into sentences without logical syntax.  I find this to be more problematic with television than with books.  Books have the advantage of fact-checking and editing.  Television is either live or filmed to give the appearance of being live.  Cable and satellite reception has brought a new dimension to political commentary.  Instead of news coverage we have created something we call punditry.  Each channel has a staff of hosts who control their interviews.  The format includes the host; two or more regulars with similar views; and one other guest to voice a counter view to give the illusion of fairness.  For ratings, each host interviews affirming and dissenting persons to broaden its perspective, and validate its general philosophy.  The word pundit means “a learned person; or accepted authority.”  However, punditry seems to have a lesser image.

Though we like to believe we are a government of the people, the faces we see on the  networks seem to oppose one or more of factions of our divided government.  Government is “the act or process of governing, esp. the administration of public policy.”  Therefore, it is the body or organization of authority.  Do we need or like government?  Of course, we do.  In 1787, we prepared a document for establishing and defining our government, which is now embraced by everyone with uniquely defined conflicting interpretations.

In the stratification of government, we seem to like the government closest to the individual—homeowners’ association, town or city, county, state, and federal– in that order.  Each is empowered by the consent of the governed to collect fees or taxes, to provide beneficial services, and (with elected officers) to enact laws and restrictions to regulate the behavior, rights, and responsibilities of individuals within each jurisdiction.  So, why do we not like government?

There are so many contradictions.  The creation of government takes away your right as an individual to impose your will on others.  Government serves no other purpose than the quality of life for all within its jurisdiction.  The functions of government are sustained by the painful requisite of taxation.  Whether the government is friend, nanny, or nemesis; the government is us.

This morning I watched a program on C-SPAN, a political rally in South Carolina.  A speaker spent much of his presentation in opposition to the Federal Government, the deficit, and the national debt.  Included, later in his speech, was an appeal to persuade the federal government to continue funding Interstate I-23 which had been and would be essential to the development of industry and tourism for the State.

A woman complained that forty-seven percent of people pay no tax on their income, and suggested that we reduce the tax rate on all brackets.  She would also eliminate all write-offs and deductions, except the five or six she enumerated.

When I read the Constitution, I see the legalisms and amendments, but I think it is defined best by the Preamble.  Before they itemized the separation of duties and powers designated to each and all, they wrote, “We, the people…to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty,” not only for them but for generations to follow.

To illustrate, I quote from a book that is set in East Tennessee in the early 1900s.”The counties of eastern Tennessee hated the War party and the culture that went with it. With the topography of the state, the topsoil found its way to the river bottoms and flat- lands. The farmers retreated farther and farther into the rocky hillsides. They scratched out a living, and trusted no one else.  The mountain people learned from their fathers and mothers, for there was no one else to learn from.”  Theirs was a story of coal until the mines closed, and logging until the trees and the loggers were gone.  They were the poorest people in the United States.

One of those second-generation farmers was elected to the Tennessee Legislature, and went to the legislature to represent his neighbors.  Encouraged by a traveling backwoods preacher, he introduced the Butler Act, prohibiting the teaching of evolution in public schools, resulting in the trial that shaped the intellectual image of Tennessee for decades.

We are a republic; maybe not yet a perfect union.  How do we govern the descendants of east Tennessee, the Hispanic population of Arizona, the diversity of California, the states that have lost their industry, the Gulf States with valuable oil and fragile wildlife, the financial districts of New York, the recovery of New Orleans, and pockets of crime and poverty?  How big should government be?  What should it regulate?  What welfare does it promote?  What tranquility does it insure?  What blessings of liberty does it provide?

The contradictions in speech are most obvious in our uncertain discontent.  We ask that our sons and daughters can attend college; that we can afford health care; that we can start a business without government regulation; that we can be secure in our homes; that our deposits are secure; that our food is safe; that Iran does not develop a nuclear  weapon; that Social Security and Medicare will be there when we are old; that we will not leave our children a debt they cannot pay; that we believe in the sanctity of life and marriage; that we believe in equal rights for all people; that we can earn a decent wage; that we can breathe clean air and drink safe water; that we are free to practice (or not practice) any religion of our choice.

America today, as with the backdrop of the America of 1787, is a cultural conflict of wills.  It is more complex than class warfare—of wealth and poverty, of race and gender, of the religious and the secular.  Our cultural divide is a non-linear conflict of thesis and antithesis that transcends demographic statistics.    The contradictions of governing are more than conflicting rights of the several states and the preservation of individual rights.  Every culture has either a myth, or religious precept, or folkloric fable about two spirits (or animals, or contradictions) that live inside us. One is good; one is evil.  They fight.  In one ancient story about two wolves, the question was asked, “which is stronger, and which one wins?”  The wise person answered, “which ever one I feed.”

Endowed by our Creator

In the prevailing political debate, defending the Constitution is a rallying cry of shared human values and a diametric culture of ownership.  Most of the original document defined the role of the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial departments, and did not enumerate the rights and freedoms most often cited.  Most of us refer to the Bill of Rights and specific “Emancipation Amendments” and other extensions of voting rights to define unalienable rights.

More frequently, challenging candidates and political activists cite the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence.  Whether or not our nation was established as a Christian nation the quote reads “We are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”  I don’t think anyone would question this, but the Declaration of Independence was primarily a treatise avowing our national sovereignty and condemnation of the tyranny and abuses of the King of Great Britain.  It is not our governing document.

There are so many ambiguities in that statement.  Life is a continuum originating in the Garden of Eden, or in the scientific function of either intelligent design or laws of nature.  Life as an individual is a function of human reproduction and the complexity of the DNA miracle.  In the interest of brevity, I will not address the concept of birth control, personhood, conflicting rights, and rights of citizenship.  That unyielding debate continues.

The Constitution is neutral in its minimal religious references.  The Creator cited in the Declaration of Independence may have been a reference to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or the Christian God, or as defined by the Deists, Humanists, and founders with a more scientific and secular comprehension of the creative process.

Liberty also has relative disparity.  Our nation was born in Colonialism within which slavery was permitted, or even necessary, for an agricultural economy.  The denial of liberty and the fractional humanity of slaves; the trail of tears and confiscation of Native American land; and Bible-based subjugation of women give little credence to the erroneous nostalgia for the myth of a former time.

The pursuit of happiness is not to be confused with the right of happiness.  Happiness is a state of mind, contingent to some extent to success and quality of life.  Success is a variable based on individual economic, moral, altruistic, physical, and intellectual goals.  The ambiguity of this right is that happiness is defined, not by law or consensus, but rather is determined subjectively by the person seeking individual happiness.

These rights are endowed by our Creator, but the Founding Fathers chose to enumerate specific rights not easily assumed.  Some are difficult to interpret—the establishment of religion or infringement thereof; the funding, maintaining, and quartering of a militia; a speedy trial by a jury of peers; search and seizure and being secure in your home. Even more complex, certain rights not enumerated are retained by the individual (Ninth Amendment) or retained by the states (Tenth Amendment).  Both of these were enacted to limit federal power, but many of the conflicts coming before the Supreme Court, then and now, involve denial of individual rights by the states and are often reversed by judicial interpretation of the Constitution.

The transition from a confederation of colonies to a democratic republic included the compromise of the Electoral College for the selection of the President.  In numerical theory, a candidate could be elected with 22% of the popular vote today.  On the other hand, if the outcome were to be determined by popular vote, major cities would wield disproportional power.  If there were a minimal margin in total votes would we demand a recount the votes in all states?

Historically, we have often found rights in conflict.  The Emancipation Proclamation was followed by 130-plus years of prejudicial inequity.  The right to bear arms or the perceived safety of living in a gun-free environment is an ideological impasse.  The redefining of the personhood of the corporation was a major loss of individual freedom.  The presumption of constitutional rights of a fertilized egg is defended concurrently with insensitive attitudes toward the rights of women, children, and same-sex relationships.  Deportation of immigrants is influenced by needed labor skills and country of origin.  The presumption of guilt or innocence does not always sit neatly in the scales of justice.

We still debate the conflicting merits of the economic benefits in the extraction, processing, and marketing of natural resources and regulation of harmful environmental practices.  Liberty is predicated on the right to profit from capital investment and the worth and dignity of human labor.  The enactment of the Sixteenth Amendment came at a time when income was more easily defined, and the competition among near-equal individuals enabled a workable system of free enterprise.  We empowered Congress to declare war in the days when warfare was a respected and noble endeavor between identifiable combatants in distinguishing uniforms and textbook formations of combat.

Regardless of our religious and political differences, we share a Constitution, a common animated origin, a singular Creative entity however interpreted, and three departments elected by regional or national majorities, or appointed and confirmed by elected officials.  The principles of which, can or should with benign silence, enable or insure the quality of life of each individual.

The voices I hear, the words I read, the images on television, and the persons willing to assemble in the public square–all cry out for redress of grievance as endowed by our Creator, or Founding Fathers in the First Amendment.  I have tried to find a balance between established authority and the logic of change; between a strict or living interpretation of Constitution; between the success of the individual and the moral imperative of the general welfare; between a revealed sectarian certainty and a parallel philosophical and moral discovery; and the answers are elusive for me and may differ from your answers.

Thoughts on Small Business

This morning I watched a television interview with Senator John Barrasso, (R-Wyoming), recently elected chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee.  He repeated the idea that Congress passes some bi-partisan legislation and that they agree on approximately 80% of the issues, and the 20% on which they disagree gets the media attention conveying an image of a divided body.

Someone recently posted an article that showed the comparative liberal and conservative ratings of members of Congress as determined by the liberal and conservative watchdog organizations who identify legislation as liberal and conservative.  The Republican Party is more conservative than any time in recent history, and the Democratic Party continues to embrace the civil rights and anti-war ideology of the sixties.  The resulting phenomenon is that the most liberal Republican in Congress is more conservative than the most conservative Democrat, and the most conservative Democratic is less conservative than any Republican. We now tend to vote along liberal and conservative lines which dictates that candidates in party primaries are forced to position themselves as far right and as far left as possible for being nominated.  Consequently, we then have to choose between a far right and a far left candidate.  There seems to be no middle ground.

The interview that I watched this morning illustrated something to which I have given much thought.  Senator Barrasso spoke on behalf of the small business man or woman.  He portrayed the small business person as someone who was the job creator who saw the government as a heavy handed regulator and job killer, anti-business, anti-capitalist.

I was a small business owner from 1962 until 2003.  Being a Main Street retail entrepreneur is not just a career; it is life style.  I did not find the government to be my enemy.  I never felt oppressed by any regulation, or taxation, coming from government.  Most of that time, I felt that government protected me from unfair competition and abuses of business practices.  It was important that I could buy merchandise at the same price as larger retailers.  I knew that my clothing was manufactured in plants in America by adult men and women who worked under safe conditions making a living wage.  Government in many ways had helped create a better business atmosphere.  I borrowed money from banks that had Harpeth or Williamson in their corporate names.  The money I deposited at the close of the business day was protected by the FDIC and the banks were regulated to protect depositors.

I realize we live in a different time, and small banks and small retailers do not fare well in the current business environment.  If I were again 26 years old, I can’t imagine walking into the Harpeth National Bank, asking for money to purchase 10% of men’s clothing store.  The nemesis of small business is big business and big banks, not government.

More importantly, it bothers me that a conservative political party would assume that a Main Street small business person would embrace the social and cultural ideology of a conservative political party.  Why would the chairman of the policy committee think that a small business person would be attracted to the “faith and values” of the Religious Right?  Why would he think a small business person, by demographic profile, would oppose aid to families with dependent children, food stamps, unemployment insurance, health care reform, Planned Parenthood, gun regulation, don’t ask don’t tell, same-sex marriage, and Social Security.   Why would he assume that my children would attend private schools or are home-schooled and I would believe that public school teachers are overpaid and teach our children to be non-religious and unpatriotic?   Why would a small business person want “corporate strict-constructionist” Supreme Court justices rather than “socially activist” justices?  Why would a small business person care if same-sex people love each other, of if people file bankruptcy because their private insurer drops their coverage?  Should we support invading two sovereign countries for no logical reason, or care if evolution is taught in the science classroom, or if a woman has an unwanted pregnancy, or if government provides funding for breast cancer screenings, or if we have contaminated drinking water, or food with e-coli?  Should we be concerned about Wall Street, or financial bailouts, or stimulus packages, or jobs at General Motors, or a two-state solution in the Middle East, or religious and ethnic tolerance?

As a small business person, I was fortunate to be a retailer on the corner of 4^th and Main in Historic Downtown.  The small business owner was, and still is, highly respected by the community, not because he or she is successful, but because of what that person contributes to the people of the total community.  For some reason, I don’t feel that this Republican Party and their candidates for president understand or speak for the conscience of the Main Street small business owner, at least not for me.

My Thoughts on Reproductive Rights

“William Strickland Peach, 23-year-old horse trainer, died on March 18, 1936.  An employee of the Hillsboro Hunt club, Mr. Peach sustained what was thought to be minor injuries (broken ribs) three weeks ago when a horse knocked him against a feeding trough.  The injuries proved fatal.  He is survived by his wife, a bride of ten months.”  Review Appeal, March 19, 1936.

I have a framed picture hanging on my hallway wall of him sitting on the fender of a 30-something model car with his 21-year-old wife sitting on his lap.  The picture is dated December 1935.   Though you cannot tell by looking at the picture, the wife is two-months pregnant.

The paternal family, all Methodists, in Peach Hollow, and the maternal family, all Church of Christ, in Boston, Tennessee embraced this widow awaiting the birth of a child.  Dr. B. N. Woodard came from Spring Hill and delivered the baby at the home of her parents, in July of 1936, a half Methodist, half Church of Christ male child of a miracle birth, pampered by two hollows of aunts and uncles and believed to be destined for greatness.

In a chapter from The South Side of Boston, “A Half-orphan” there is a quote from my uncle who said, “Anyone who has 4 grandparents, a mother, six uncles, six aunts, and two hollows of cousins is not a half-orphan.”

The chapter is from a memoir in which an eight-year-old conveys his thoughts on the southern culture of 1944.  He tells about families with 12 and 15 children, women who spend most of their young lives pregnant.  He observes that men hang around the store and go hunting while mothers stay home and feed babies and change diapers.  In his innocence he does not understand the chauvinism of fundamentalist religion and submission of wives to the sexual egoism of the male culture.  He discusses a family who could not have children “because there was something wrong with the woman’s body,” and he heard stories of mothers who did not want babies and gave them to the orphan’s home, and of mothers who did something to make babies not be born.  He instinctively knew this was not good, but concluded in his innocence, “It seems like women ought to do the deciding about how many babies they have.”

He knew that his mother was loved by the community, and she loved him. Though she had no husband, no income, her life was blessed.  Her son was conceived in love in a marriage she shared for ten months.

The story of my birth precluded any thought of abortion.  I, maybe more than anyone, am anti-abortion.  But logically I am a defender of a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy.  I cannot accept the idea that a fertilized egg, a zygote, a cell formed by the union of two gametes, a fertilized ovum, has rights that negate the rights of a woman.  I would question those who use the term pro-abortion, who would criminalize abortion with no exceptions for rape, incest, or life of the mother.  No one is pro-abortion.  I am pro-choice.  I am anti-abortion, but I would defend a woman’s right to make this heart-rending decision.  This is not abortion on demand; this is not taken lightly.  Those who would deny that right are usually the first to emblazon a scarlet letter on the bodice of a dress, and assign some stigma or rejection on the mother of a child born out of wedlock.

I respect opinions you hold based on your interpretation of strongly held religious beliefs.  As a disciple of Christianity, I see Jesus kneeling with a woman caught in adultery, as he challenges the potential stone-casting executioners, saying ”Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.”  There is something harsh, judgmental, and unforgiving in the dialogue on reproductive rights in America today.

In a later book, Random Thoughts Left & Right, in the chapter, “Mind, Heart, and Womb” I wrote the following:

“When I look at my three daughters, my seven grandchildren, a wife I have loved for 47 years, and think about my mother and my grandmother, abortion becomes unthinkable.  I cannot imagine the thought of a potential break in the sequence of love and existence.  But this involves only five generations in my narrow, personal world.  My opinions are shaped in an environment of love, financial security, and a tradition of bright and healthy offspring.

With this limited experience, this narrow perspective, I could never make those difficult decisions for others—for the obstetrician torn between saving a fetus or the life of the mother; for the victim of rape or incest; for the third-world mother who has watched the children she loved die of malnutrition and disease; for the woman who clings to life giving birth to her eleventh child that she was advised not to have, born 16 weeks early with minimal chance of survival; for the loving mother who has just learned the tragic results of an amniotic examination; or the ninth-grader who is still a child herself.

Nor could I sit in a state or federal legislature and define the meaning of life, or introduce or support any legislation that would invade the privacy of the mind, the heart, or the womb.”

 

 

Two Boxes of Christmas Cards

“And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.”  Luke 2:7 (KJV).  Those of us who embrace the Christian faith turn our attention to the birth of Jesus at Christmas, and his resurrection during the season of Easter.  I try to avoid the 40 or so other religious holidays observed by Jews and Christians that would demand spending more time in church than I would care to spend.

One Sunday morning at the Fourth Avenue Church of Christ, I had the appointment to lead a prayer a few days before Christmas.  Within the rote of standardized prayer I included, “Thank God for Santa Claus and the love and labor that makes him real.”  Several parents thanked me after their children had heard and acknowledged my admonition.  I like Santa Claus, the padded and bearded jolly commercial image posing with children for pictures and detached promises of games and toys, following judgmental inquiry of behavior, as if it mattered.  More personally, I appreciate my late friend Charley Hafner and my current friend Pat Petty who often play the role of visual verification of an important belief system.

I grew up in a Five & Ten store from the age of two.  One Christmas eve, my mother brought home an “unwrapped” dart board at the end of her work day, that was to arrive later while I slept.  I watched parents pick up layaways on Christmas Eve, and the magic and love of waking up on Christmas morning was not diminished for me. It was just one more day knowing my mother loved me, and she had a job and a paycheck, and I was blessed and grateful.

Some of my closest friends are either atheists who deny, or agnostics who doubt the biblical nativity story.  Some of my closest friends have found some satisfaction in learning there was no Santa Claus, and lost the magic and the moment of the “Christmas morning myth.”

In an earlier book, I included a chapter, “Finding Peace in the War on Christmas.”  The coalition of Fox News and Fundamentalist conservatism has led many to believe there is a “war on Christmas.”  They see this as an extension of their fear of a war on Christians.  I think this began years ago because of the commercialism by retailers who lost sight of the religious observance by moving the shopping season back to the day after Halloween and then added Black Friday to make Baby Jesus an afterthought in a culture of capitalism.

I spend a lot of my writing trying to defend Christians and Christianity.  This is a dual challenge.  I can easily argue that this is a matter of faith guaranteed in the First Amendment.  No one should embark upon a war against Christianity because some over-zealous practitioners impose their presence in the public secular culture, which is also equally protected in the First Amendment. The more difficult challenge that I have is to defend the image of Christianity against the combined superficiality of big-box sole-proprietorship pop-culture mega-churches and the intolerance of extreme fundamentalism.

The right-wing coalition has condemned the retail message of Happy Holidays as their flag of passion to re-direct shopping destinations.  The use of the phrase is not to take Jesus out of capitalism but to extend the shopping season from Thanksgiving morning through the markdown days after Christmas.  It has been my observation that those who spend their effort to keep Christ in Christmas are still driven primarily by markdowns and cheap foreign labor, rather than egalitarian public relations.

There is no war on Christmas.  There is a cultural disagreement about Christmas.  We have misconstrued the definition of separation of church and state.  We do not seem to understand the difference in the Nativity scene at the Catholic Church or at First Methodist pre-school; the images of Frosty, Rudolph, Santa, and trees and ornaments in a retail window; and the Nativity scene in the Court House and the County Administrative Complex.  We confuse individual religious freedom, free enterprise retail choices, and established state religious activity.

For many years, in my days in retail I mailed a letter just before Thanksgiving announcing my extended hours from Thanksgiving to Christmas.  The letter included gift wrapping, free alterations after Christmas, brand names, and an institutional message about the store and its history and reputation.  I did not mention Jesus or God. The town was small enough that everyone knew that any message from Pigg & Peach was from the Peach family.  Everyone knew I was a retailer and a Sunday school teacher and they respected both.  I have been blessed to live in a small town in which my customers were my friends and my mailing list grew to over five thousand.

I rarely sent Christmas cards. Occasionally, I look at Christmas cards on store shelves.  I read the Bible verses and axiomatic wisdom written inside.  Some convey Seasons Greetings or Happy Holidays with ornaments, trees, snowmen, wrapped packages, lights, children, reindeer, sleighs, and bags of toys.  Some have images of the Virgin Mary, Joseph, the baby Jesus in a manger, camels, three wise men, gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

In my internet world of blogs, emails, and facebook I will continue to be an advocate for Christianity; I will continue to campaign for retail integrity and the economic logic of capitalism; I will repeat the logic of separation of church and state; and defend the value and integrity of secular morality.  Not all of my friends are Christians, and to respect their faith or feelings in seasonal dialogue, does no injustice to my faith.

From the last box of Christmas cards I bought, I saved one for a keepsake.  The cover is a painting of a shepherd with his staff, sitting on the ground beside a lamb, looking up at one, slightly brighter, of a million stars in the Heavens, maybe in the East, maybe not.  The message inside was a simple, “Peace on Earth, good will toward men.”  I really don’t want to buy two boxes of Christmas cards.  May I just share the image of that one card and its simple message with you?

Humble Gratitude toward God and Man

The Turkey–In any given year, approximately 250 million turkeys are raised for slaughter.  According to the Department of Agriculture, turkeys add 4.5 billion dollars annually to the national economy. About 50 million of these found a place at the dinner tables of America on Thursday.  There is a presidential tradition of pardoning one turkey, which is a gesture of compassion, begun by the first President Bush.  For whatever reason, President Obama pardoned two, but that does not significantly diminish revenue from turkeys.

Black Friday–Thanksgiving is officially the opening bell for the Christmas retail season.  I began my retail career at the age of 15 and the Friday after Thanksgiving was the beginning of extended hours and a major part of our annual sales.  That was before the introduction of the designation Black Friday.  I don’t know what marketing wizard thought up that name.  We created Mall Madness. We lined the pockets of corporate discounters and the Walton family, and changed the mentality of Christmas shopping forever.  Black Friday begins at midnight or some pre-dawn hour with the ceremonial introduction of loss-leader mark-downs to challenge a frenzied clientele.

We live in a culture in which it has become difficult to understand religious holidays that have been designated as national holidays and retail windfalls.  We share our blessings and offer appropriate expressions of gratitude for those blessings.  As retailers, we glean maximum retail revenue from those holidays. I like to believe I contributed to that economic phenomenon, and I am extremely grateful for having realized the American dream within the free-enterprise system.

Origin of Thanksgiving– We trace our Thanksgiving to 1621 and the Plymouth Colony.  What we know about the original feast comes from a letter written by Edward Winslow, a leader of the Plymouth Colony.  The event was attended by approximately 50 English colonists and about 90 natives of the Wampanoag Tribe.  The Wampanoag killed 5 deer, and the colonists shot some geese, ducks, and turkeys.  This was supplemented by the harvest which included pumpkin, squash, carrots, and peas.

The Pilgrims had been befriended by a man name Squanto, who had been captured and enslaved by the British and later escaped.  He had introduced the colonists to the Wampanoag Tribe, who had endured a severe epidemic of illness.  The Plymouth colony had lost 43 of its 102 persons who sailed from England in their first year in  America.  From what I have read this peaceful relationship between the Thanksgiving parties lasted some fifty years as one of the very few examples of civility in the colonies.  The Native Americans had not developed an effective immigration policy, and were ill-prepared for the ensuing influx of undocumented British immigrants.

There is no indication that the event was to be repeated, but there was a newspaper article published in 1841 with a reference to that “First Thanksgiving.” President Lincoln declared Thanksgiving Day a national holiday in 1863.  President Roosevelt established the current date for observation in 1941, as the fourth Thursday of November.

Earlier Celebrations–Before this there are several events of Thanksgiving.  Tradition says that Coronado and his troops celebrated a Thanksgiving in 1541 somewhere on the Texas panhandle.  There was a similar celebration in Jamestown in 1610 after receiving a shipment of food from England.  There are records of similar feasts among the French Huguenots in Florida in 1564, and the Abenaki Indians near the Kennebec River in Maine.

Thanksgiving is a tradition of Europeans, and other cultures around the world,   celebrating the harvest season with feasts to offer thanks to higher powers for their sustenance and survival.

Nature’s God—Thanksgiving has long been associated with the season of the agricultural harvest.  Most cultures have been sustained by the domestication of plant and animal food sources.  We came to understand the miracle of botanical and biological reproduction—the planting of seed, the cultivation and nurturing and the harvest.  Man has witnessed the repetition and predictability of nature, and yet still does not understand it and subsequently developed the tradition of voicing gratitude to the God or gods of the Harvest.

I grew up in fundamentalism and learned and sang “Praise God from who all blessings flow.  Praise Him all creatures here below.”  We found some harmony in our expressions of dependence on God, while we planted, cultivated, and harvested with our own labor and the labor of neighbors and share-croppers.  It was a compromise of faith and irony.

Gods of Mythology—earlier civilizations developed a diversity of multiple gods—of the Sun, the Moon, the Mother Earth, and the god of Thunder.  They were explained in a language of personification of super human features and powers.  We find in the Bible in chapter 17 of the Book of Acts in the writings of Paul an encounter with Roman culture a reference to an altar with the inscription “to the unknown God.”

I am reminded of a quote that I included in an essay called “the Handiwork of God” from a noted scientist (I think, Sir Isaac Newton) who found something that he could not explain scientifically, and which the assigned as “the handiwork of God.”

 Ethereal God—One of my readers expressed some concern that maybe I did not believe in God, and asked (as people do to establish credibility) if I believed in God.  I answered, “Yes, by default.  I have developed an appreciation for the complexity and vastness of the laws of nature and a philosophical code of ethics that is the operating system which I do not understand, but have found to be beneficial to the many components of my life.”  I don’t know if that answered his question, but it made sense to me.

The God of Israel —in the many years I taught Sunday school, I studied the Old Testament and a chosen but ungrateful people.  They were descendants of Adam, of the family of Noah; children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; a rebellious people taken into captivity and delivered by the hand of God; blessed and punished for sins and repentance; and were co-participants in the execution of the Messiah proclaimed by their Prophets.

Israel was Theocracy, with a divided religion dominated by the Pharisees, a forerunner of what we now call the Religious Right.  They were a New Testament nemesis in the teachings of early Christianity, condemned in the words of Jesus, “ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.”

Israel today is a secular democracy, a member of the body of nations, and a political ally of the United States.  Israel is not the most loved member of their neighborhood.  We honor our relationship with Israel diplomatically, but we have no covenant religious relationship, assuming realistically, that neither they nor we are a chosen people among the community of nations.

The Fundamentalist God—from our hymnal, we sang “Praise God from whom all blessings flow; Praise him all creatures here below.  As a Trinitarian extension, we sang “Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”  We are a monotheistic (Unitarian or Trinitarian) body of faith, assuming that as we understand God, there could only be one God by whatever name, as interpreted by believers from a holy document and a prophet or Messiah.

The Father Figure Anthropomorphic God –as a fundamentalist, I grew up with the paradox of God being a spiritual entity, while we described him (male pronoun) as the father figure, Father of Jesus but also father of humanity.  Our prayers of gratitude, and our petitions for blessings or forgiveness, were directed toward an entity that possessed human attributes.  God– listened, heard, thought, reacted, spoke, moved, knew, loved, rebuked, punished, and rewarded.  These words helped us understand the nature of God.  He was also the God of Nature, of Creation, of Fertility, of the Harvest.

The Interventionist God –I tend to believe that the gratitude and petitions of prayers of Thanksgiving serve to shape and mold the mind of humans and do not change or greatly shape the mind of God.  In the generic configuration of ethics, I think gratitude is a human virtue.  It is a fitting counterpart to humility.  Whether you believe in a God or not, either a personal god or a spectator god, you are better person if you realize you have been blessed beyond your ability to acquire the blessings you enjoy.

Let me dismiss the idea that we are a Christian nation.  I hope we covered this when I was here in July.  But, I find no harm in being a grateful nation.  If some of us believe and avow that “we are endowed by our Creator by certain unalienable rights among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” it does no harm.  I have no issue with that. But we are governed by a civil document with a much longer list of human rights not enumerated in the pages of Scripture nor acknowledged by the Founding Fathers.  Many of which were acquired through bloody and painful resistance, sometimes opposed by established religious orthodoxy.

Humanism—You and I approach Thanksgiving with a more humanistic attitude.  Humanism does not preclude faith in a Deity.  The original humanists were religious people.  I think to illustrate the humanist philosophy I will share this fictional story:

“A Baptist (or whatever) minister lived in the Williamson County flood plain beside the Harpeth River.  As the water rose to the living area the minister moved to the roof for refuge.  The rescue squad arrived in a boat and offered to rescue him.  He avowed that he was a man of faith and God would deliver him.  He also rejected the offer from the crew of a hovering helicopter offering to drop a ladder to him, and boastfully reaffirmed his faith.  The river crested several feet above his rooftop, and the minister arrived at the throne of judgment in a rage insisting that God had not answered his prayers.  God then reminded him that he had sent the emergency team with a motor boat and a helicopter.”

The essence of humanism is that human conduct and human thought are reality.  Whether or not there is a God; whether or not we believe in God, history is the chronicle of human accomplishments.  People of faith and non-believers reside in and hold dominion over a secular planet, subject of course to elements of natural law beyond human influence.

The Social Contract –Much of the political debate in America is a dialogue between the advocates of capitalism who believe that charity is voluntary, and those who advocate that government should play a role in alleviating human disadvantage.  Some believe that the income we earn, or the wealth we acquire, is ours to do with as we please.  Government has no right to take it, except for certain provisions for national security.  Others believe that it is the role of government to provide for the poor and less fortunate.  I tend to believe that democracy, capitalism, and religion form a workable and loosely related cultural configuration that unite us in an atmosphere of diversity as one people.  We are not Communists or Socialists, but we embrace what Rousseau called the social contract.

Within my Christian upbringing I was taught that prayer was to be offered on behalf of others—specifically I remember praying for the sick and afflicted, with no idea what afflicted meant.  We knew many things were beyond our control.  But we also knew that we were to visit and attend the needs of all within our reach.  This was God’s will.  If religion had no other value, this simple practice should justify its existence.  Though immersed in fundamentalism, we did not depend on God to comfort, or feed, or visit the least of our brothers.  Either by charity from the neighbors, or by taxation and shared sacrifice for those outside the community, we knew we were our brothers keepers.

The examples of prayer in the New Testament, beyond the acknowledgment of God, include the bilateral message –gratitude of being blessed beyond our labor, and a mandate for compassion and benevolence.

The words you spoke Thursday in gratitude, to whomever, served to expressed your realization that those 50 million turkeys were raised by hard-working farmers.  They were processed and brought to a local grocery, and were purchased with money earned by one or more family breadwinners, or social security, and cooked by loving hands, and served on the family dining table.  To people of faith, this is the handiwork of a loving God.  The reality of secular capitalism is not diminished by faith.

The Human Family –someone once asked Mother Teresa, “What is the greatest good?”  She replied, “Go home and love your family.”  For whatever reason the survivors of the Plymouth Colony and the Wampanoag Native Americans found a time to share the bounty of forest and field, I am grateful.  Your Thanksgiving was probably a gathering of an extended family of cousins and in-laws.  I am grateful that my ancestors found their way from England to Massachusetts to Tennessee in a span of 8 generations.

It is ironic that we celebrate a landmark moment of two cultures who shared a table of food on a parcel of land of contested ownership.  I would neither condemn nor praise the Europeans for their introduction of guns, disease, religion, and confiscation of land to their “New World.”  Whatever sins they may have wrought, there was a moment of Thanksgiving and sharing, and we give thanks for that.  I think it was a good idea, and we should do it every year.  Thank you for sharing this Thanksgiving Sunday

Awakening and Enlightenment

The Great Awakening was a spiritual renewal that swept the American colonies during the first half of the 18^th century.  It was a period of revivalism that spread throughout the colonies shifting emphasis from church doctrine to put a greater importance on the individual and personal spiritual experience.  Unlike the somber Puritan spirituality of the early 1700s, the revivalism allowed people to express their emotions more overtly in order to feel a greater intimacy with God.

Concurrent with this, a group of thinkers and writers in Europe participated in a movement that we called the Enlightenment.  This was another phase of the 14^th and 15^th century Renaissance Humanism.  They believed that human reason could combat ignorance, superstition, and tyranny.  Their targets were religion, embodied in the Catholic Church and the political domination of society by a hereditary aristocracy.

In Europe, the main proponents of the intellectual movement were men of letters—Voltaire, Locke, Diderot, Montesquieu and Rousseau.  Much of the movement stemmed from earlier discoveries of Galileo, Kepler, and Newton in physics and cosmology revealing a universe, seemingly infinite, yet governed by universal laws that could be discovered by human intelligence.

This new spiritual renewal began in England with the Wesley brothers and George Whitefield.  Whitefield, a British minister moved to colonial America.  His revival led to many conversions.  Jonathan Edwards was a key revivalist during the period.  In a monumental sermon in 1741, he explained that salvation was a direct result from God and could not be attained by human works as the Puritans preached.

The Great Awakening pushed individual religious experience, above established church doctrine, and the importance and weight of the clergy.  New denominations arose with emphasis on individual faith and salvation.

Meanwhile, many of the intellectual leaders of the American colonies were drawn to the Enlightenment.  Several of the leaders of the American Revolution—Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, Paine–were influenced by the English and French enlightenment thought.  The colonies had been founded by leaders of various dogmatic religious persuasions and it became obvious that to unite against England they had to find some religious commonality.  This impelled the movement toward separation of church and state, realizing that no one church could or should dominate the new state.

The Enlightenment philosophers saw Western Christian civilization as incompatible with the “rational order.”  This view dated from the Middle Ages—the absolute monarchy, the aristocratic society, the established church, despotism, feudalism, and the clerics became the objects of criticism and satire.

Revivalist churches took the form or rousing and charasmatic congregations.  But, the fear of hellfire and the power of conversion proved to have little staying power.  Rabid faith as previously with the Puritan zeal, faded like a mist.  After 1740, the revival lost much of its strength and momentum because many colonists were attracted to more rationalistic mainstream religious groups.

In modern American, in 1910 a pamphlet series The Fundamentals introduced the Fundamentalist movement with five points with which fundamentalists came to be associated–  (l.) The verbal inspiration of the Bible.  (2.) The virgin birth of Christ. (3.) The atonement of Christ. (4.) The bodily resurrection of Christ.  (5.) The second coming of Christ.

Out of Fundamentalism, in 1942, the formation of the National Association of Evangelicals introduced the “born-again” and “charismatic” movement.  Out of this came two interesting phenomena – the charismatic single proprietor mega-church and the Religious Right.  Evangelical Christianity brought back the physical manifestation of worship, with emphasis on conversion and spiritual healing.  The Religious Right set out to elect conservative Christians to all public offices.  They sought control of state legislatures and  school boards.  They identified secular humanism as the enemy.  The Citizens for Excellence in Education cited about 300 words used by the humanists in public schools including—academic freedom, analysis, career education, creative writing, human growth, identity, parenting, racism, worldview, and self-understanding.

The assault on public education took the form of textbook adoption, the science classroom, revisionist history and assigned readings in English.  There is a strong movement to have public schools be instruments of Protestant indoctrination.  There is a strong effort to abolish public education, and a strong movement for vouchers, and a strong political voice and support for home schools.  Some see this movement as another religious Awakening.

Counter to that, advocates of separation of church and state, and advocates of scientific inquiry, like to think that our best option is another Age of Enlightenment.  The difficulty is that people who are Christians, but not conservatives, would pursue a rational and intellectual approach to public education, and also to our religious freedom within the Christian faith.  I don’t think religious Awakening and secular Enlightenment are natural enemies.  I think I have images of peace between faith and reason.

But I do believe that the coalition of fundamentalism and evangelicalism with their reemergence in politics and their opposition to public education have drastically moved organized religion so far to the right we are losing the best and brightest of academia and politics.  Case in point, the influence on the Republican Party, in Congressional and Presidential elections with opposition to reproductive rights, opposition to same-sex contractual rights, displaying religious images in public venues, and symbolic utterances of religious verbiage, has distracted politics from matters of governance, of Constitutional integrity, human rights, and attention to human suffering.  We may need another Age of Enlightenment.  Where is Thomas Jefferson when we need him?

Symbolic Tyranny

It seems to have begun with the election of President Obama—an undercurrent of fear that some unidentified tyrant was going to take away our rights and freedoms with no clear enumeration of those threatened rights.  Today, a counter culture, diametric to the Tea Party movement occupies the public squares and plazas of major cities, in search of those same rights and freedoms, against a different tyrant, real or imagined.

Those fears have not driven me to street demonstrations, but these fears are the inkwells of literature and lesser profound bloggers.  I am reminded of the paradox of “Who am I to say?” and “Who am if I don’t say?”  Our fears of tyranny are shaped by our life experiences, for me it was—teaching Sunday school in a fundamentalist church; forty-seven years as a capitalist owning my own corporation; six years in the Army Reserve; unemployed since August 2009; twenty-four years in elected public office; thirty-five years on a board of public housing; author and philosopher; occasional visiting pulpit speaker; a liberal and a Democrat; and a Christian apologist.

As a democracy, our Constitution prohibits titles of nobility, and any aspirations of a strong executive.  So, traditional images of a tyrant have no relevance here.  Our fear is of a symbolic tyranny—collective, personified institutional barriers to individual freedoms. Who or what are those symbolic tyrannies?  I would offer five that are often mentioned among the voices of discontent:

1.)   Government.  This was (is) the mantra of the 2010 Republican resurgence and the rise to power of very conservative governors and state legislatures.  Ironically, the appeal for a less intrusive fiscal government seems to parallel a more intrusive presence in matters of personal choice.  The original campaign for smaller government has morphed into a libertarian cry for no government.  The retro-appeal for the Constitution and the founding of our nation, seem to have implications of denial of the role of government as defined in the Preamble.

2.)   Corporations.  This is not to be confused with capitalism.  Ownership of business drives our free enterprise system.  Corporate tyranny is inherent in monopoly.  The concentration of wealth for a very few undermines a viable economic system.  Corporate ownership is no less tyrannical than communism and socialism.  Independent banks, retailers, manufacturers, craftsmen, and investors are now denied any competitive viability in the present economic distribution of corporate power, empowered by the audacity of deregulation.

3.)   Organized Labor. Throughout history the conflict between labor and capital has been a manipulation of human labor.  We still have gangster images of union bosses, as co-tyrants with corporate greed.  Many still believe that unions drove manufacturing to foreign soil, created inner-city rust belts, and closed the textile and apparel plants in North Carolina.

4.)   Military.  During my six years in the military, I came to realize that the organization I had joined in resistance to the draft was unlike all of the principles of democracy and the Christianity of my youth.  The basic training required to mold the person proficient in “closing with and destroying the enemy” negated all of my noblest moral values.  The military demands an authoritative chain of command, with a civilian Commander-in-Chief.   My six years in the military during the Vietnam War was the low point of my love of country, and my images of democracy.  Now I see it as gunpoint diplomacy, either in supporting dictators, or encouraging insurrection, and the real culprit in our deficit and debt.

5.)   Religion.  The First Amendment prohibits establishment of religion at any level of government.  Article VI prohibits any religious test for holding public trust or office.  As a strong proponent of Christianity and the teachings of the New Testament, I find my spiritual values being questioned.  I hear the voices of an intimidating evangelical movement that may damage the image of Christianity to an unprecedented low.  Having grown up in the Church of Christ, believing and teaching a singular interpretation of Scripture, I feel the tyranny of those who would deny us membership in the family of believers.  Evangelicals have found a narrow checklist of hard-line issues, none of which parallel the recorded words of Jesus.  I fear for the “Papal State mentality” of evangelical religion, and the recurrence of the religious intolerance of early American History.  I fear that the sectarian call to arms against secular government could diminish our democracy.

There may be a sixth tyranny.  All of you have your own demons of denial of democratic principles.   I would suggest that anarchy is the greatest tyrant.  It leaves us all as fragile prey for the strong, the greedy, the rich, the thief, and those who would abolish or unrealistically reduce the government that is the foundation of our democracy, our economic system, our quality of life, our religious freedom, and our national security.

Ending a Discussion with a Bible Verse

Many of my efforts at writing non-fiction begin with a reference to growing up in a small fundamentalist church in Southern Williamson County.  Our sense of community found its commonality on Sunday mornings in worship and Sunday school and a Wednesday night of Bible study, with more singing, and prayer.  I am always offended when southern fundamentalism is depicted as uneducated snake-handlers, speakers in tongues, faith healers, and believers in signs and wonders. That was not the tradition in Boston, Tennessee.

I grew up in an environment which taught the sufficiency of revelation and a tolerance of reason so long as it did not conflict with revelation.  I just read an article on revelation and reason which divided the discussion into five perspectives – revelation only, reason only, revelation over reason, reason over revelation, and reason and revolution.  The ending premise was that you came to understand revelation through reason.  The site of the treatise included the word Pentecostal in its web address.  The attribution of an article approved for inclusion within a Pentecostal publication would for most people either validate or discredit the content of that work.

Though I taught many Sunday school lessons and earned a few hours credit in Bible from Lipscomb University, I have never felt I attained the level of Bible scholar or theologian.  I do believe that some working knowledge of our predominant religion and its governing document is essential in the total body of knowledge of our history and our culture.

I just watched a video of a woman who shed tears of joy at hearing the sound of her voice for the first time in her life.  It was an emotional moment for her and anyone viewing the video.  The masthead of the blog in which the video was included was a religious group.  All of the comments that followed made reference to the wonder of God and included the word miracle.  The woman had received a cochlear implant.  She was born deaf—a birth defect.  I don’t understand miracles.

I did some reading on apologetics, its definition and the work a group of advocates and practitioners.  Categorically, it seemed to imply a systematic defense of the divinity and authority of Christianity.  In further reading, I found the word polemics, which was used to illustrate any argumentation among the different sects of Christianity, concentrating on refutation rather than affirmation or defense.

I was taught that the Old Testament and the New Testament were written by inspiration.  That seemed unquestionable when I was a child.  It became irrelevant in my adult Bible study.  All of us who write claim some degree of inspiration, either derived from the voice of God, or some moment of assumed enlightenment derived from study or innate intuition.  I remember an incident following one of my Sunday school classes when a church member asked, “Was that something you learned from studying or something that you just already knew?”

We should not interpret questioning as rejection.  I came to believe that I could not believe something when logic did not concur with my believing.  This conflict recurs in so many of my religious discussions.  In the world of academia, there is an effort to teach the Bible as history and literature.  Most practicing Christians insist on the Bible being divine revelation.  There is no way I can know that the Bible is the inspired word of God, in that this affirmation is contained only within the document.  I can believe, but I cannot know.  I embrace the Bible as the history of the Jewish people, their heroes, their government, famine, slavery, deliverance, obedience and disobedience and their religion out of which Christianity had its origin and Messiah.  I totally reject it as a current governing document.  Having said that, one has to admit that early church reference to the scriptures was the Judaic writings.  This was prior to the written biographies of Jesus, the recorded acts of the early disciples, and the writings of Paul and his contemporaries.

Whether the new covenant replaced or fulfilled the old is a matter of semantics.  On balance, I have come to believe that Christianity, as historically practiced, has brought more benevolence than villainy among in followers.  Our difficulty in interpretation comes from its two dimensions, which we often refer to as vertical Christianity and horizontal Christianity.  Membership demands some acceptance of claims of divinity, virgin birth, resurrection, ascension, salvation, damnation and prophetic references.  Membership also includes compliance with mandates and accepted practices of the early Church.  As I read the history of the life of Jesus, I consider the conditions into which he was born.  Let’s assume that I am a secularist, or humanist, or social reformer, or community activist, or humanitarian, or philosopher, or advocate of family values and marital fidelity, of equal human rights, of concern for the poor, of educating children, of stewardship of the Earth.  Let’s also assume that I have an aversion to war, to vengeance, to greed, to violence, to prejudice, to incivility.  While I don’t find great delight in the word religious, I am very much attracted to the wisdom of Jesus, and occasionally repeat some of his teachings, sometimes citing chapter and verse.