John Buchanan, editor of The Christian Century offers up some thoughts on the difference between the constitutional concept of separation of church and state, and people of faith addressing social and political issues.  He also comments on religion as an issue in the current presidential campaigns.

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I first became aware of him in the movie Paper Lion, based on the book of the same name.  He rocketed to fame as a star of the television hit M*A*S*H.  That led to more movies and a bit of a platform on liberal political causes.  More recently, he portrayed a U.S. Senator -- Republican, no less -- who was a candidate for President when alternative-universe President Jeb Bartlett (Martin Sheen) ran out of time on West Wing.

You know him, of course, as Alphonzo D’Abruzzo.  Huh?  Wait, that’s his real name.  Most of the world calls him Alan Alda.  (By the way, Bartlett/Sheen really is Ramon Estevez.)

Rock and roll fans of a certain vintage and taste still clamor for CD’s and concert tickets for Vincent Furnier.  Never heard of him?  This son of a preacher man goes by the stage name Alice Cooper.

Can you guess who these folks are:  Carlos Ray, Doris von Kappelhoff, Jay Greenspan, and local celebrity Terry Gene Bollea?  How about Joseph Levitch?  Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr.?  Dana Elaine Owens?  They are Chuck Norris, Doris Day, Jason Alexander, Hulk Hogan, Jerry Lewis, John Denver, and Queen Latifah.

Loud-mouth sports broadcaster Howard Cosell’s catch phrase was, “telling it like it is.”  As someone pointed out, a person who wears a toupee’ and changes his name, isn’t doing that.   He was born Howard Cohen.

One of my favorite name changes actually was made by a pro basketball player.  Lloyd Free changed his name to World B. Free.  I wonder what ever became of him and his sentiment.  I hope he’s living up to his chosen name.

The Bible includes name changes:  Abram and Sarai; Simon; Saul, and other people; as well as places where God was experienced, or the people behaved a certain way.

DisciplesWorld reports that Steve Kreuscher, a 57 year-old artist and school bus driver is trying to legally change his name to “In God We Trust.”  He’s worried that the phrase will be relegated to antiquity if atheists move to have the familiar words deleted from U.S. currency. 

Kreuscher lives in Zion, Illinois, a town whose official seal was altered in 1992 by the removal of “God Reigns.”  (According to the article, Zion was established by some faithful folks who held onto the belief that the world was flat, and they installed their version of a theocratic government.  I guess when that finally changed some felt that God ceded political power to others.)

What would Marion Morrison say about all this?  You know.  The Duke.  John Wayne.

(By the way, Caryn Johnson became Whoopi Goldberg.)

One day as I walked from my office on East Capitol Street in Washington, DC, to catch the Metro at Union Station, I passed by the Supreme Court building before crossing Constitution Avenue.   When I was in the street I happened to glance left, and in the distance I saw a mass of people (I later heard it was 75,000, but Park Police estimates usually varied from those of events organizers) heading in my direction.  “Ah,” I thought, “It’s the anniversary of Roe v. Wade.”

Every year in January there was a rally on the mall, then a march to the Supreme Court by those who desired a rollback from rights affirmed in that landmark case.  Without fail, there appeared in the following day’s Washington Post a photo of out-of-control Bible-waving Christians, nose-to-nose, screaming invective, and looking for all the world as murderous as the road-ragers settling their scores on the Beltway.  In the days after the march, trash cans around the Hill overflowed with discarded placards featuring full-color photos of aborted fetuses.

For thirty years or more the ruling has stood.

Christian conservatives finally are waking up to the fact that some among their number have gone too far in the execution of their political activities.  Many liberal Christians share the same disease.  Writers and signers of “An Evangelical Manifesto” decry the diminishment of the Gospel by those caught up in the win/lose scenario of big-time politics.  They even admitted, “All too often we have attacked the evils and injustices of others while we have condoned our own sins.”

The old guard among conservative Christians still clings to the notion that abortion and marriage, as they define it, are the crucial issues that must be addressed by people of faith.  Younger evangelicals are looking for a wider witness, including concern for the environment, economic justice, and issues of war and peace.

There is no suggestion in the Manifesto that people of faith should not be politically active, but the slash and burn approach practiced by some has worn thin with thinking folks, and has not endeared practitioners to the general public.  I might add, it also has seriously debilitated the general perception of what it means to be a Christian.  We’re actually not all racist, misogynistic hate-filled homophobes.  Nor are we all Republicans.

Absent from the list of Manifesto signers are Richard Land, public policy guru of the Southern Baptist Church (“I wasn’t asked to sign.”), and James Dobson of Focus on the Family.  Some suspect that if the heavyweights among the vocal Religious Right aren’t included the document won’t carry water with the regular folks.

I’m not so sure.  The scriptures show pretty clearly that God raises up new leaders, even from unlikely sources, when more faithful direction is needed.

And, by the way, Pentecost is upon us.

News satire is all the rage these days.  The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is the main, or even only, source of news for some.  The Colbert Report is a derivative, seemingly also successful.  I have no doubt that spinners who want to get their message out take seriously the opportunity to appear on these and similar programs.

The Onion has been around for awhile, as a published “news” paper, and now, of course, online.  I recall several years ago seeing its headline following the passing of Jerry Garcia, front man for the rock group The Grateful Dead:  “Head Deadhead Dead!”

Today I happened across the online version of The Onion, and laughed my way through the article “Former President Carter To Be Tried For Peace Crimes.”  Some of the other articles posted on the site were “All Seven Deadly Sins Committed At Church Bake Sale,” “Area Man’s Pop Culture References Stop At 1988,” and “Deficit-Racked Maryland Decides To Call It Quits.”  So, you get the idea of what we’re dealing with here.

The Carter article, while a few years out of date, still is relevant, as the former president recently made a trip to the Middle East to talk with disputing factions, a visit not sanctioned, sponsored, or welcomed by the Bush Administration.  Still, ol’ Jimmy was out there trying to get people to overcome their differences.

In The Onion, faux quotes such as this one set the tone:  “The former president, described as ‘relentless in his naked pursuit of everlasting global peace,’ has been sought by peace-crimes officers in the international war-making community for decades. Police apprehended Carter on July 25 in South Florida, where he was building low-income housing as a part of a Habitat For Humanity project. Shortly thereafter, he was extradited to Geneva, where he will be prosecuted for ‘grossly humane acts against all nations.’” 

Continuing to state the case against the former president, the article “quotes” an analyst who “said,” “Carter is one of the worst enemies the forces of destruction have known since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his non-violent rampages of the '50s and '60s. Even today, in his capacity as an ex-president, [Carter] continues his pursuit of non-aggression. He must be stopped now, before another terrible war is avoided and more lives are saved.” 

There is little to say in defense of Jimmy Carter against these charges.  After all, the article points out, the stated goals of The Carter Center, which he established following the conclusion of his presidential administration, are “Fighting Disease,” “Building Hope,” and “Waging Peace.” 

While the whole notion of the article is ironic in nature, it kind of reminds me of the old saw, “If you were on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?”   

Sometimes irony is a part of that idea, as well.

Here are some articles and opinion columns that I find worth reading:

The continuing struggles of post-Katrina churches.

In reading a series of stories listed under an online “Religious News in Brief” site, it seemed to me that there was an underlying theme to most of the stories.  That theme was control.

There was an account of the desire of the mayor of Birmingham, Alabama to have pastors and other citizens make a public display of repentance through a Nineveh-like wearing of sackcloth and ashes.  The Old Testament book of Jonah was the point of reference.  It seems the homicide rate in Birmingham is on the rise, and this was the mayor’s approach to a solution.  He previously held a couple of other religious rallies or events in the city, so now there is the potential for civil action against the mayor and the city government for promoting a specific religion.  Can the mayor and his religious practices control the crime in his city?  Can civil liberties organizations control how the mayor applies his religion to his work?

Malaysia is struggling with religious diversity issues, as minority groups complain that the courts favor Muslims in their rulings.  The religious contention ranges from the claiming of bodies at funerals, to documenting whether an individual told his or her family prior to converting to Islam (a proposal that failed to become law).  Twenty-seven million Hindus, Buddhists and Christians are pitted against the other sixty-percent of the country’s population that is Muslim.  I’m guessing those in the minority don’t always get along with one another, either.  Power and control are issues with which they all wrestle.

A third story deals with a pledge that is required to be signed by students, faculty, and staff members at Wheaton College in Illinois.  It’s called a Statement of Faith and Community Covenant.  Folks have to commit to the code of conduct, and it covers a range of issues, including marriage.  If a married person tries to get a divorce, he or she is required to explain the reasons to the school administration.  This became problematic for an English teacher who taught at the school for twenty years.  After all this time, he decided he did not want to comply with the requirements of the Covenant, so rather than explain the reasons for his divorce, he resigned.  He knew the alternative would be his dismissal.  Again, control is at play.  Why would anyone want to attend or work at such a school?

In my mind, faith and human control are antithetical.  I realize not all the faiths mentioned here are Christian, but wherever God is in play, the context is freedom.  God is the source of life, and while we humans make a royal mess of things so many times as a result of the choices we are free to make, God continues to hold open the possibility of new life, ultimately freeing us from our self-imposed shackles.

It seems to me that those who seek control over others through religious means miss the point, narrowing, minimizing, and otherwise depriving themselves and others of the joy God intends for all of humanity.

It appears that the National Day of Prayer has turned into yet another contentious fiasco involving people of faith.  The annual observance is established for the first Thursday in May, and was initiated by Harry S. Truman when he was president.   While it is not an official U. S. Government event, observance, or holiday, ceremonies always are sponsored at the White House and on Capitol Hill.  The president issues a proclamation, as do many state governors.

The problem is that the organizers limit participation to a narrow group of Christians.  While there is an application that allows faith communities to sign up, there also are strings attached.  A doctrinal statement must be accepted and embraced:  “I believe that the Bible is the inerrant word of The Living God.  I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the only one by which I can obtain salvation and have an ongoing relationship with God.”

Whew!  That cuts out a lot of praying people – not only Jews, Muslims, and other non-Christians, but eliminates many Christians, as well.  The head of the group controlling participation in the National Day of Prayer is Shirley Dobson, wife of James Dobson, who presides over Focus on the Family. 

Her group tosses off criticism of their restrictions against people who understand God differently basically by saying the others can form their own events.  They make no apologies for excluding people of faith and good will from this “National” opportunity to join together in prayer.

This isn’t how most believers would understand or approach a National Day of Prayer.  I rather doubt this is what Harry Truman had in mind.

And, I wonder whether God even would listen to prayers from those who judge the hearts and faith of others.

I think Eugene Robinson hits the target in his op-ed piece about Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the now-retired pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago where Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is a member. Robinson reflects on Rev. Wright’s recent media explosion, most specifically his appearance this week at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.

Robinson, who is African-American, recoils at Rev. Wright’s assertion that attacks on him are attacks on the black church in America.  Robinson makes it clear that Wright does not personify a monolithic ethnic church because there is wide diversity among African-American Christians and churches.  As Robinson phrases it, Wright “represents one twig of one branch of a very large tree.”

It is true, Robinson maintains (and I agree), that Wright’s ministry of many years cannot be characterized by a few sound clips taken out of context.  After all, Trinity Church not only grew exponentially under Wright’s leadership, it also provides numerous and effective ministries to many more city residents who are not listed on the church rolls.  Countless lives have been transformed by God through the faithful efforts of Rev. Wright and dedicated members of the church.  The evidence that proves this is overwhelming, and well-known to anyone who has bothered to learn the facts.

But, the whole African-American Christian experience is not wrapped up in Wright’s opinions, views, approaches, words, persona, or priorities.  There is too much richness for one person to embody.  This applies to theology, social consciousness, political involvement, preaching, and worship styles.

When a widely-known African-American preacher in my church tradition was caught in long-standing and repeated ethical failure, the issue of race became dominant.  Some thought the outcry of criticism was racially-motivated.  Others, mostly white clergy and laity, tried to make excuses for him by saying things like, “The black church is different.” 

This, to me, smacked of paternalism, and underscored pervasive ignorance regarding the realities of the black church.   And, the fact is, it wasn’t a case in which every African-American person in his church, or elsewhere, supported the preacher or tried to justify his actions.  The multiplicity of opinions and outrage revealed that diversity extends beyond race or skin color.

A Brazilian priest attached himself to hundreds of helium-filled balloons in an attempt to set a new record for the longest flight powered by party balloons.  He did this in order to raise money for his pet project, the establishment of a spiritual truck stop.  The previous record, apparently, was nineteen hours.  On Tuesday, some of the priest’s balloons were found floating in the ocean, but there was no sign of the priest himself. 

“Given his physical condition and the equipment he was carrying, I would say that there is an eighty percent chance that he is still alive,” remarked the commander of a local fire department.  Let’s hope so.

The balloon pilot wore a helmet, flight suit, water proof coveralls, and a parachute when he lifted off in pursuit of the record.  He carried with him drinking water, cereal bars, a GPS, a satellite phone, and a floating chair.  According to reports, he is an experienced skydiver.

So, while it sounds as if he was well-prepared for this adventure, I have to wonder about his methods for trying to solicit contributions for his envisioned new ministry.  How much is this approach costing?  The fire department and Navy were on alert to monitor his flight; now they are trying to find him.  That’s not free.  The balloons, helium, and above-listed paraphernalia cost money that otherwise could have been contributed to the cause.  And his life and physical well-being are at risk.   He already may be dead.

I don’t know why the priest chose a dangerous stunt like a helium balloon flight to raise money.  Is it really necessary in order to get people’s attention?  Is he a show-off?  Is the cause not compelling enough for folks to be convinced it is worthy of their support? 

The impetus to begin new ministries should come as the result of prayer and the leading of the Spirit.  It seems to me too much time and too many resources are wasted on mediocre or failed projects when someone thinks it would be nice to start something, and they forge ahead without consulting God.

Maybe the balloon-riding priest did all of this.  Maybe it was the Holy Spirit who opened his eyes to the need for a spiritual truck stop.  And while I hope he survives, I just find it highly unlikely that God inspired him to go about funding his new ministry in this way.

Yesterday, I heard a snippet from an interview with guitar legend Carlos Santana, one of my favorites, and he was talking about the current presidential campaign.  He thought he should have a say in the outcome, since he pays “a whole lot of taxes to the government.”  His idea was that Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton should be co-presidents, with “Obama working the night shift, and Clinton working the day shift.  Obama can stay home, while Clinton goes around the world cleaning up the mess Bush has made out there.”  I guess Carlos is a Democrat! 

It’s an interesting idea, but probably not palatable to either candidate, let alone John McCain! 

International relations always is a topic of news and discussion.  Former president Jimmy Carter recently was criticized for his Middle East trip, as he was not acting within the parameters of official U.S. foreign policy. 

I once had an interesting experience pertaining to foreign relations, during my tenure as Executive Director of William Penn House, a Quaker-related seminar center in Washington, DC.   It involved a group of perhaps a dozen Russians booked to stay with us for several days, under the sponsorship of American University. The morning after their first night at WPH I showed up for work and Barbara Silverman, the resident House Manager, was waiting for me at the front door.  “This can’t be good,” I thought as I bounded up the front steps.  It wasn’t. 

Barbara told me that a number of the Russians were drunk during the night (alcohol and drunkenness were against the stated rules for guests at WPH), wandered into rooms occupied by other guests not associated with their group, and made suggestive overtures toward Barbara and others.  After thinking about what to do, knowing that Barbara was very upset, I asked her to point out the miscreants to me, which she did. 

If you ever saw the movie The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas, there is a scene in which Burt Reynolds, in the role of the town’s sheriff, goes after Dom DeLuise, who played a sensationalist reporter seeking to gain attention and fame by exposing on television the town’s open secret.  The sheriff breathes fire on the reporter, backing him down the sidewalk of the town square, the reporter tripping and stumbling, the sheriff calling him every name in the book while the townspeople look on.   

Well, except for the fact I wasn’t wearing a cowboy hat, I was the sheriff, giving the Russians, whom I had cornered, what some people refer to as “down the country.”   And I threw them out.  The people at American University were not pleased by this turn of events and tried to talk me out of it, but I said, “Get their stuff out of here by this afternoon.”  And they did. 

Actually, I generally had a positive relationship with folks from their part of the world.  The Soviet Union still existed when I began my work at William Penn House, and numerous times I invited representatives from the Soviet Embassy to speak to students.  They always seemed willing to comply.  I got to know one of the First Secretaries at the embassy, and he was my regular contact for such arrangements.  He sometimes came and spoke to groups himself.  We never went to the embassy, however. 

There was another person the embassy sent several times to speak at WPH.  One day I received a telephone call from the FBI asking me about this particular person.  Now, how did they know I knew him?  The FBI even sent an agent over to William Penn House to question both Barbara and me about this man.  We really didn’t have much to tell.  All I know is, the next time I called the embassy to invite the man to speak to another group at WPH, my contacts there never heard of him.