I am the only Quaker I know who talks about a return of the military draft in a positive way. In the same way that I am considered a heretical Christian for not accepting (or necessarily rejecting) the idea that Jesus was "born God," I am a heretical Quaker because I don't think the volunteer army was a victory that improved the condition of us or our country. I think it was, rather, a diabolical victory that serves the powers, not the kingdom.
The draft once provided an impetus for resistance to war. Facing the draft once developed the peace testimony among Friends as individuals and as a religious society--and showed that testimony to the world as an alternative response to a call for war. I don't often talk about this among Friends but when I do, by this point, I usually have to ask to be heard out.
Please, hear me out.
The all-voluntary military was not the product of enlightenment or the movement of Christ, it was not in any way "spiritual progress" for national policy. When the all-volunteer army was created the military was in disarray because of the unpopular war in Vietnam. Richard Nixon, as president, was brought to understand that the mutinies, the killing of officers by the troops in the field ("fragging"), desertions and even the peace movement within the military itself were a threat to the "reliability" of the armed forces, an especially ominous development in light of the political rebellion at home against the American policy in South East Asia.
After the spectacle of the National Guard shooting down students at Kent State University many wondered, right or wrong, whether, called upon to put down a rebellion at home driven by opposition to that war, the "real" military, with a core of draftees at its heart, would uphold "law and order" if it was called upon to do so.
This military, with a core of draftees at its heart, was certainly not "optimally" reliable in Southeast Asia.
Faced with being forced into harm's way in a war they didn't support, and watching flag draped coffins on television, a generation (or maybe even two) of young men, along with their parents, their wives and their girl friends became a formidable opposition to that war--an opposition that went into the streets and, increasingly, into the voting booth. Over time a consciousness began to develop among those involved in and sympathetic to the anti-war movement about the infrastructure of US policy, in general, and the interests that it served. Not just Vietnam, the whole political/economic system was under attack.
If you weren't there you might underestimate the flash point potential that was rolling around the campus and the ghetto between 1967 and 1972. If you were there you might over estimate it, too. But, as I say, people were afraid, regardless of how real the danger was of everything coming apart.
This opposition was effectively co-opted, and America made safe for "the party" in the midst of which we still live, by two measures. The first was the 18 year old vote, that laid to rest the "old enough to die but not old enough to vote" slogan that had great traction, at the time. ("you're old enough to kill, but not for votin'..." in the words of a prophet of the day).
The second was the all-volunteer army (which sapped the strength of another line, from the same song cited above, "...you don't believe in war, but what's that gun you're totin'?").
These two, but especially the latter, put an end to the anti-war movement, at least as a mass movement, almost overnight. Safe from the possibility of going to war, most young men, their parents, wives and girl friends were no longer interested in marching, protesting or voting for people who ran on anti-war platforms.
No longer able to visualize themselves, or someone they loved, in one of those flag draped coffins the war in Vietnam just didn't seem to pressing an issue, anymore.
The now defunct "citizen army," was designed by the founders of this country as a check on the ability of the government to fight wars and to oppress its own citizens with military force. Their scruple against standing armies was based on experience and they held to the idea that a country could not engage in wars that the citizenry did not support--at least grudgingly--if the ranks were filled (as volunteers or conscripts) with people who had to lay down their lives, in both senses of that phrase, to fight them.
This was not entirely effective, but the difficulty of raising an army was a restraint on imperial ambitions. No, the draft did not prevent the Vietnam War, but it sure was without doubt, on its way to putting an end to it--until those who wanted to prolong that war (and the American imperialist party to which we are all invited, at birth) put an end to the draft.
You can look all this up, by the way. The Vietnam revisionists have been at work but mainstream history still tells the tale accurately enough.
Would we have gone to war in Iraq (either time) if, when Congress pondered the question, Senators and House Members knew they would have to go home and tell their constituents that they (or their children) had to suit up and go kill and be killed?
Would we still be at war in Iraq if, over the past eight years, high school class after high school class graduated substantial numbers of its members into camo--while parents of younger children saw their growing up as creeping ever closer to the age of conscription?
(Did you graduate from high school between 1964 and 1973 or so? Been a class reunion? That table off to the side that has pictures of classmates who have died...examine it carefully, next time.)
I wonder how many bright young conservative men who support(ed) war in the Middle East would do so if there was a chance they would have to go fight it? Would that at least slow down their enthusiasm, cause them the kind of soul searching it did in young men prior to the all volunteer army?
I wonder.
This is at bottom a question of integrity. Joe Biden and Sarah Palin have children who have gone to war. But how many people who support (even passively) the war(s) would do so if their children were part of the pool? And if they would--then fine. They would be living their faith--instead of letting others live it for them, without paying the price of that faith, themselves.
Yes, the draft was corrupt in those days--the poor and people of color were drafted more often than the white and the affluent--and women never were. One thinks of George Bush and Dick Cheney who found comfortable, legal evasions that one cannot help but think were set up to benefit people of their race and class. But enough white, middle class kids found themselves unwillingly in uniform (and their friends and parents could find their names, later, inscribed on a wall with many friends of mine in Washington DC) to cause substantial opposition--opposition that (it seems hard to imagine this today) had the stability of this country teetering on a precipice.
What about Quakers and Mennonites and others who have a scruple against war?
How did we fare under the draft, and how have we fared since?
Sometimes when I talk to younger Friends about it there seems to be a superficiality to what they say, and I have seen some "cracks in the wall" in regard to the Middle Eastern wars among them, too. Not outright support but an uncertainty, an inability to articulate the basis of their faith in the face of pro-war ideology. It is not the durable conviction that is heard in Friends (and others) who spent World War II in the work camps, who had to do some thinking and soul searching to receive their CO status in the Sixties and the Seventies.
This is not their fault. They grew up in a situation in which they have not been required to contend seriously with this, in which their faith has not been tested (or even explored) by swimming against the cultural tide. They have not grown up required to prove/test themselves.
And such proving/testing was not only edifying to them.
Other young people looking at military service today are deprived of the example and the model of young Friends (and others) testifying to their faith through conscientious objection. Who is actively, seriously, obviously presenting the alternative of peace to main stream young people these days in the same graphic way that Friends, Mennonites and others did in the past?
Yes, we do work with our young people, and we do reach out to young people beyond our hedges whose conditioning has gone unchallenged all their lives, but not with the energy or the organization that we used to. And our young people are not as engaged or focused--they don't have to be--on their spiritual development around war (and how the tendrils of war branch out into our every day lives and all of our relationships).
Who can doubt that we have an out-of-control military, today, that is dictating policy to the President in a way that, in the days of McArthur, got Generals cashiered?
Who can doubt that it's easier to prolong wars when the people who make the decisions (even passively) do not have any chips of their own on the table?
Who can doubt that it's easier for us to all settle back into our own daily lives if the cost of the wars that keep our own personal consumption oriented oil guzzling party going don't touch us in obvious and direct ways?
Have we been "bought off," here? Can we--safe with our children from the storm--just "sit it out" and "mail it in" in regard to opposing the wars fought in our name (fought with our money? By the way, where is the Hyde Amendment for spending money on war against the moral conviction of ... I digress)?
Do we look to Friends like Chuck Fager and the others who work with young people caught up in the military to do that for us, instead of taking our turn to do it when it is our turn, or the turns of our children to face the possibility of fighting? Have we forgotten that when we did that kind of standing up for ourselves and our children we were also standing up for others who are not heard as clearly as we might be?
Because there was a time we were heard clearly on this. CO status was a hard-won recognition by the world that a scruple against war was legitimate and respectable and that recognition made it powerful in the eyes of people who, before, completely discounted pacifism as a means of engaging evil.
Do we think that it's no longer necessary to "hard win" that status is some kind of benchmark or the improved spiritual condition of us, our children or the world? Or do we face the truth that no longer needing to go through that just means we have bought off the system, accepting our own safety in return for letting the evil or war go on without much resistance from us?
Now a significant portion of Americans can outsource paying the price for the "American Way of Life" and no longer need to contend within their own heart about whether it's worth our own lives and the lives of our own children.
Have we outsourced our calling to testify and witness against war, deprived of the most urgent goading we could have to do so? Has our peculiarity (our fitness for a particular purpose) as a voice against war been neutralized?
If so, has this edified us or has it caused our condition to deteriorate when the world needs us (and others like us) as much as it ever has?
If someone thinks war is worth whatever "it" is (this time)? Then they should go fight it or send their children or their grandchildren.
Don't want to fight for it but think it the "purpose' of the war should be accomplished? Then they need to find and pursue a different way to accomplish it.
Don't want to fight for it and don't want to do anything else for it--then they should shut up. They don't have enough integrity to cover their nakedness. they are hypocrites. They should live with that or change it. Just have some integrity.
Nobody should die for what I enjoy (whether I say I want it or not) but that I won't die or sacrifice for.
Thank you, Friends, for hearing me out, on this.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Teach Your Children Well
Riffing off a post on another blog, again!
Chuck Fager (always a source of inspiration) got me wound up over what we tell our young people about the faith and practice of Friends.
(That's OK, I am trying to get around to a blog post that I know will wind him up.)
This was a hot topic around this old house last year when RR went to Guilford, enrolled in The Quaker Leadership Scholars Program and found herself face to face with all of which Chuck wrote, and more. That meant, of course I came face to face with it, too., because she was able to say that she was a Beanite Friend (she'd heard me and others in our yearly meeting call ourselves that) but she was kind of short on what could be said about that. I never tried to "teach" her much about it, before, because she didn't really want to know, before. And I couldn't have "taught" her, anyway. As Fox said, one can only lead others to Christ and leave them there--to be "taught" by the source.
Christ has come, George Fox said, to teach his people, himself. Christ did not leave a representative (or representatives) on earth to do that. Christ did not leave a book on earth to do that: everyone would be taught by the source--even if led to it by secondary authorities.
It's hard to run empires that way, of course, but Jesus wasn't about running empires. Some years later others would see the value--and they continue to see the value--in using a movement based, at least originally, on following Jesus as a pillar of supporting and running empires.
Quakers, originally, wanted to go back to that pre-Constantinian religion.
The core of the faith and practice of Friends--even since before they were called that--has always been the experience of transformation we undergo through our obedience to Christ/(The) (Holy) S/pirit, the transcendent reality, Goddess, the Great Kahuna or whatever. We are transformed--conformed--to a certain predictable condition.
The core didn't used to be so much, as it is in many Quaker corners, now, about where this transformation came from, why it happened or what it was about in the long run. Unknowable such things are and thus these are the source of great contention if emphasized.
The Light shows us what needs to change and we change--or we don't.
We all attach meanings about where that transformation comes from, how it happens and what it means for us and the world in the long run--but those are our own insignificant meanings and, it should come as no surprise, others have different meanings they have attached to this process. What with the fact that no one really knows (or can know) what it means, contention springing from such disagreements can interfere with the process, itself.
Much better to leave all with their own notions about that and live with them in the transformation--supporting and encouraging (edifying) one another as we live out our spirituality (our relationship with the divine).
That Light is available to every person, everywhere.
Don't look for it too high up or too far away. It's right here, right now: always.
Theology (unprovable notions about the source, nature and purpose of God--useful notions for getting tithes and taxes paid) is not an essential part of the faith and practice of most Friends in the my liberal neck of the woods, as it was of secondary importance originally (which is why George Keith became an Episcopalian). Such notions moved to the center of the Quaker mind later and, as the result we have been left with a torn up and divided fellowship in which to worship.
Even the demons knew who Jesus was, and believed he was just that (so it is written) and yet their sincere belief in those propositions about him could not save them.
Have our (myriad) cherished notions about creedal theology "saved" our Society? That's what worrying about "belief" gets you. Beliefs don't lead to change: obedience does.
Quakers became so concerned and so certain about who Jesus was (where he came from and what he was up to) in the 19th Century that they divided and diminished the Society disagreeing over the possibilities. Friend Hamm's book, "The Transformation of American Quakerism," explains it succinctly--from peculiar to pretty much identical to evangelical protestantism in about 100 years.
Whatever place there may have been for Quakers in the religious world, then, almost all decided to go somewhere else.
"Christian First, Quaker Second"--a sign of those (and our) times.
I believe all kinds of notional things but I try to keep my hand on the plow. I don't make decisions based on my notions. My morality is guided by God, not by my notions--or anyone else's notions-- about God.
So I let people believe whatever they want and support them in keeping their hand on the plow, too.
No one knows what being "saved" is, or whether "atonement" is any one of the many things we parse it to be in our imaginings, in our speculations. Lake of fire? Maybe, I dunno. And neither does anyone else.
All we can really know is our experience of The Light and the transformation it brings about in our lives.
None of us knows whether it's really going to be pre or post or any other kind of millenium and even if we did know/believe it wouldn't do us any good. All that will do us any good--in either or none of those cases--is that which we are becoming, not which we believe(d).
All we can really know is what we used to be and what we are being transformed into. All we can really know is Christ--by whatever name we know him/her/it.
The Sermon on the Mount is not about what I should believe--it's about what I should do or not do with my life.
Our protestant brothers and sisters have made one or another of the Bible(s) handed down to us by this or that editorial committee the ultimate source of truth for themselves and have placed a very high premium on conforming to "right belief" as they define it.
Our Catholic friends put such authority in a person who is the contemporary holder of place in a long line of a different kind of political succession/process and have placed a very high premium on "right action" as the current human being in control of that succession/process defines it.
Friends used to get in a lot of trouble for eschewing both of those points of view (along with the thrones and aspiring thrones they are so apt to support)--orienting themselves, instead, to the source of whatever artifacts of inspiration may be passed along by either of those "authorities," in such condition as they are passed along, with the spin of today put on the spin that was put on those same artifacts yesterday.
Now people wonder whether there wasn't just some kind of big misunderstanding 350 some years ago that got Mary Dyer hanged--because Quakers today are not so different from protestants and even Catholics, anymore. The peace testimony is optional in some domains of the Society, I hear. Even "Quakerism" can apparently support empire (powers, thrones...).
Go with what you know (and not with hearsay religion no matter how "sincerely" or "certainly" someone else knows it). That is, I believe, the essence of the faith and practice of Friends (you can look that up--it's back there with wearing it for as long as you can). So I'll go with my experience in The Light and the transformation toward the fruits of the spirit (which the testimonies paraphrase) that it has brought about in me. It's not been easy, or gentle, or comfortable at times but I hurt myself and others a whole lot less, now, than I did when I was sure about what the Bible said God was and what He (and it was a He) wanted.
Is it still enough for people to follow Christ even if they have never heard that word, or are not so concerned about the historical accuracy of this or that account of the recurring truths of human existence that are described in the Bible?
Is there still a place for this kind of faith and practice in the world, today?
Is there a place for this focusing on improving one's moral condition as part of a similarly inclined corporate body under the direct guidance of an empirically benevolent transcendent guide (albeit not one we can say a lot about except to express our wonder and gratitude) who has been changing people (who let themselves be changed) in the very same way for (probably) ever?
There is room for this kind of religion.
There has to be room for this kind of religion in a world dominated by religion that too often comes out of the the pit of human fear, out of our insecurity at being in fellowship with those against whom we cannot prevail in arguments about things none of us can ever know. There has to be room for this instead of "believing" in "religions" that we must lay down so we can fall back on our true faith in redemptive violence and in the necessity to coerce others into giving us what we imagine will meet our needs.
That's more or less what I told my 18 year old daughter a year or so, ago. It's what I could say.
I can see, once in while, that it's still rolling around inside her head and that, along with other things, appears to be leading her to Christ. I don't have much else, at least on this subject, to say to her.
Chuck Fager (always a source of inspiration) got me wound up over what we tell our young people about the faith and practice of Friends.
(That's OK, I am trying to get around to a blog post that I know will wind him up.)
This was a hot topic around this old house last year when RR went to Guilford, enrolled in The Quaker Leadership Scholars Program and found herself face to face with all of which Chuck wrote, and more. That meant, of course I came face to face with it, too., because she was able to say that she was a Beanite Friend (she'd heard me and others in our yearly meeting call ourselves that) but she was kind of short on what could be said about that. I never tried to "teach" her much about it, before, because she didn't really want to know, before. And I couldn't have "taught" her, anyway. As Fox said, one can only lead others to Christ and leave them there--to be "taught" by the source.
Christ has come, George Fox said, to teach his people, himself. Christ did not leave a representative (or representatives) on earth to do that. Christ did not leave a book on earth to do that: everyone would be taught by the source--even if led to it by secondary authorities.
It's hard to run empires that way, of course, but Jesus wasn't about running empires. Some years later others would see the value--and they continue to see the value--in using a movement based, at least originally, on following Jesus as a pillar of supporting and running empires.
Quakers, originally, wanted to go back to that pre-Constantinian religion.
The core of the faith and practice of Friends--even since before they were called that--has always been the experience of transformation we undergo through our obedience to Christ/(The) (Holy) S/pirit, the transcendent reality, Goddess, the Great Kahuna or whatever. We are transformed--conformed--to a certain predictable condition.
The core didn't used to be so much, as it is in many Quaker corners, now, about where this transformation came from, why it happened or what it was about in the long run. Unknowable such things are and thus these are the source of great contention if emphasized.
The Light shows us what needs to change and we change--or we don't.
We all attach meanings about where that transformation comes from, how it happens and what it means for us and the world in the long run--but those are our own insignificant meanings and, it should come as no surprise, others have different meanings they have attached to this process. What with the fact that no one really knows (or can know) what it means, contention springing from such disagreements can interfere with the process, itself.
Much better to leave all with their own notions about that and live with them in the transformation--supporting and encouraging (edifying) one another as we live out our spirituality (our relationship with the divine).
That Light is available to every person, everywhere.
Don't look for it too high up or too far away. It's right here, right now: always.
Theology (unprovable notions about the source, nature and purpose of God--useful notions for getting tithes and taxes paid) is not an essential part of the faith and practice of most Friends in the my liberal neck of the woods, as it was of secondary importance originally (which is why George Keith became an Episcopalian). Such notions moved to the center of the Quaker mind later and, as the result we have been left with a torn up and divided fellowship in which to worship.
Even the demons knew who Jesus was, and believed he was just that (so it is written) and yet their sincere belief in those propositions about him could not save them.
Have our (myriad) cherished notions about creedal theology "saved" our Society? That's what worrying about "belief" gets you. Beliefs don't lead to change: obedience does.
Quakers became so concerned and so certain about who Jesus was (where he came from and what he was up to) in the 19th Century that they divided and diminished the Society disagreeing over the possibilities. Friend Hamm's book, "The Transformation of American Quakerism," explains it succinctly--from peculiar to pretty much identical to evangelical protestantism in about 100 years.
Whatever place there may have been for Quakers in the religious world, then, almost all decided to go somewhere else.
"Christian First, Quaker Second"--a sign of those (and our) times.
I believe all kinds of notional things but I try to keep my hand on the plow. I don't make decisions based on my notions. My morality is guided by God, not by my notions--or anyone else's notions-- about God.
So I let people believe whatever they want and support them in keeping their hand on the plow, too.
No one knows what being "saved" is, or whether "atonement" is any one of the many things we parse it to be in our imaginings, in our speculations. Lake of fire? Maybe, I dunno. And neither does anyone else.
All we can really know is our experience of The Light and the transformation it brings about in our lives.
None of us knows whether it's really going to be pre or post or any other kind of millenium and even if we did know/believe it wouldn't do us any good. All that will do us any good--in either or none of those cases--is that which we are becoming, not which we believe(d).
All we can really know is what we used to be and what we are being transformed into. All we can really know is Christ--by whatever name we know him/her/it.
The Sermon on the Mount is not about what I should believe--it's about what I should do or not do with my life.
Our protestant brothers and sisters have made one or another of the Bible(s) handed down to us by this or that editorial committee the ultimate source of truth for themselves and have placed a very high premium on conforming to "right belief" as they define it.
Our Catholic friends put such authority in a person who is the contemporary holder of place in a long line of a different kind of political succession/process and have placed a very high premium on "right action" as the current human being in control of that succession/process defines it.
Friends used to get in a lot of trouble for eschewing both of those points of view (along with the thrones and aspiring thrones they are so apt to support)--orienting themselves, instead, to the source of whatever artifacts of inspiration may be passed along by either of those "authorities," in such condition as they are passed along, with the spin of today put on the spin that was put on those same artifacts yesterday.
Now people wonder whether there wasn't just some kind of big misunderstanding 350 some years ago that got Mary Dyer hanged--because Quakers today are not so different from protestants and even Catholics, anymore. The peace testimony is optional in some domains of the Society, I hear. Even "Quakerism" can apparently support empire (powers, thrones...).
Go with what you know (and not with hearsay religion no matter how "sincerely" or "certainly" someone else knows it). That is, I believe, the essence of the faith and practice of Friends (you can look that up--it's back there with wearing it for as long as you can). So I'll go with my experience in The Light and the transformation toward the fruits of the spirit (which the testimonies paraphrase) that it has brought about in me. It's not been easy, or gentle, or comfortable at times but I hurt myself and others a whole lot less, now, than I did when I was sure about what the Bible said God was and what He (and it was a He) wanted.
Is it still enough for people to follow Christ even if they have never heard that word, or are not so concerned about the historical accuracy of this or that account of the recurring truths of human existence that are described in the Bible?
Is there still a place for this kind of faith and practice in the world, today?
Is there a place for this focusing on improving one's moral condition as part of a similarly inclined corporate body under the direct guidance of an empirically benevolent transcendent guide (albeit not one we can say a lot about except to express our wonder and gratitude) who has been changing people (who let themselves be changed) in the very same way for (probably) ever?
There is room for this kind of religion.
There has to be room for this kind of religion in a world dominated by religion that too often comes out of the the pit of human fear, out of our insecurity at being in fellowship with those against whom we cannot prevail in arguments about things none of us can ever know. There has to be room for this instead of "believing" in "religions" that we must lay down so we can fall back on our true faith in redemptive violence and in the necessity to coerce others into giving us what we imagine will meet our needs.
That's more or less what I told my 18 year old daughter a year or so, ago. It's what I could say.
I can see, once in while, that it's still rolling around inside her head and that, along with other things, appears to be leading her to Christ. I don't have much else, at least on this subject, to say to her.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
more on Obama's speech...sort of
My post on the President's speech in Oslo was one insignificant comment among millions that were made and I found one other that interested me.
The part of this that jumped out reminded me of something that may seem peripheral, but something that is at best a "lesser included" ramification of the major point. Mr. Obama said:
"… America cannot insist that others follow the rules of the road if we refuse to follow them ourselves. For when we don’t, our action can appear arbitrary, and undercut the legitimacy of future intervention — no matter how justified."
This is about integrity, now, not an American strong point. But we are Friends and walking one's walk, living out one's spirituality regardless of consequences is pretty big onions (at least aspirationally) in my Quaker neck of woods. We should talk about this when we see it--or don't see it--working out in the world.
Because the United States turned its back decades ago on integrity where nuclear weapons are concerned our President now faces an unsolvable problem in the Middle East. We are apparently worried about the collapse of our geo-political control (such as it remains) in the Middle East because of the danger that Pakistan's nuclear weapons might fall into the hands of the Al Qaeda. How can we leave if that possibility looms?
So, we are stuck in sin because we are afraid of the outcomes of righteousness in light of our previous sins?
Well, whose fault is that?
For 60 years we have sanctimoniously held on to nuclear weapons and conspired with those who also have them to guarantee the exceptional-ism of our possession.
(There are several layers of hypocrisy, here--including slogans like that of the Strategic Air Command--"Peace is our profession.")
This means that we created a premium on developing such weapons. North Korea, for example, didn't suffer invasion as Iraq did because that member of the "axis of evil" could give us a radioactive bloody nose that Saddam could not. In fact, Saddam getting the nuclear weapons was on of the most harped upon distractions from the reality of the blood for oil policy of the United States. The word is out--get nukes and no one, not even the United States, will mess with you. What a surprise that Iran got the message.
If the United States had worked for abolition of all nuclear weapons--including our own--and to implement President Eisenhower's "open skies" inspection system to guarantee a practical way to assure everyone that no one else had nukes would we be where we are now? Forget unilateral disarmament--what if we had been tireless champions of verifiable abolition of nuclear weapons for the past fifty years? What if that had been the policy of every US president since?
(Yes, I know, that would have conflicted with other US policies--but those are the very policies that have us in trouble, now, on so many fronts. And I use the word "fronts" consciously.)
If we had the courage to allow integrity to shape our policy would we be where we are now?
Perhaps nuclear weapons would still be sought by small countries fearing larger habitual enemies. Perhaps, however, not.
If every powerful nation had destroyed its nuclear weapons in concert with all others, in the context of an openness that would guarantee no secret program would make re-arming possible, would Pakistan have developed nuclear weapons that might, now, fall into the hands of terrorists?
We not only look stupid saying that we can handle nuclear weapons but other countries cannot, we have sown the seeds of what could prove, yet, to be our own destruction.
If Quakers don't have something to say about this who could?
And, next, should we talk about integrity and the military draft?
;-]
The part of this that jumped out reminded me of something that may seem peripheral, but something that is at best a "lesser included" ramification of the major point. Mr. Obama said:
"… America cannot insist that others follow the rules of the road if we refuse to follow them ourselves. For when we don’t, our action can appear arbitrary, and undercut the legitimacy of future intervention — no matter how justified."
This is about integrity, now, not an American strong point. But we are Friends and walking one's walk, living out one's spirituality regardless of consequences is pretty big onions (at least aspirationally) in my Quaker neck of woods. We should talk about this when we see it--or don't see it--working out in the world.
Because the United States turned its back decades ago on integrity where nuclear weapons are concerned our President now faces an unsolvable problem in the Middle East. We are apparently worried about the collapse of our geo-political control (such as it remains) in the Middle East because of the danger that Pakistan's nuclear weapons might fall into the hands of the Al Qaeda. How can we leave if that possibility looms?
So, we are stuck in sin because we are afraid of the outcomes of righteousness in light of our previous sins?
Well, whose fault is that?
For 60 years we have sanctimoniously held on to nuclear weapons and conspired with those who also have them to guarantee the exceptional-ism of our possession.
(There are several layers of hypocrisy, here--including slogans like that of the Strategic Air Command--"Peace is our profession.")
This means that we created a premium on developing such weapons. North Korea, for example, didn't suffer invasion as Iraq did because that member of the "axis of evil" could give us a radioactive bloody nose that Saddam could not. In fact, Saddam getting the nuclear weapons was on of the most harped upon distractions from the reality of the blood for oil policy of the United States. The word is out--get nukes and no one, not even the United States, will mess with you. What a surprise that Iran got the message.
If the United States had worked for abolition of all nuclear weapons--including our own--and to implement President Eisenhower's "open skies" inspection system to guarantee a practical way to assure everyone that no one else had nukes would we be where we are now? Forget unilateral disarmament--what if we had been tireless champions of verifiable abolition of nuclear weapons for the past fifty years? What if that had been the policy of every US president since?
(Yes, I know, that would have conflicted with other US policies--but those are the very policies that have us in trouble, now, on so many fronts. And I use the word "fronts" consciously.)
If we had the courage to allow integrity to shape our policy would we be where we are now?
Perhaps nuclear weapons would still be sought by small countries fearing larger habitual enemies. Perhaps, however, not.
If every powerful nation had destroyed its nuclear weapons in concert with all others, in the context of an openness that would guarantee no secret program would make re-arming possible, would Pakistan have developed nuclear weapons that might, now, fall into the hands of terrorists?
We not only look stupid saying that we can handle nuclear weapons but other countries cannot, we have sown the seeds of what could prove, yet, to be our own destruction.
If Quakers don't have something to say about this who could?
And, next, should we talk about integrity and the military draft?
;-]
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
another comment too long to be a comment...
My thanks to Bill Mounce for his edifying post on his blog. I encourage all to read it (and not just because what I have written below will make more sense if you do).
I actually agree with you, Bill. That which is called "blessed" is the product of obedience to God and to nothing else. A "salvation experience" is not enough. One must live out the sermon on the mount, as best one can, one's ability to do so improving over time with each small success in the way we treat others.
I am a Quaker. What any text says is the test of nothing beyond what it says. The Bible is not the highest authority--God is. The Bible is not the "word of God" it's words about God. The word of God came and comes to all of us--heeded or not, understood or not--directly from the source every day. So it says in John's gospel and so it proves to be, empirically, every day.
The question is not so much about one's theology, it's about one's transformation--spiritual (and therefore moral). It's about, as I say (and as you say), living it out. Theology has nothing to do with it and may even be a cumber to it getting done.
We are to be proved by the fruit, it is also written, represented in our lives and our moral transformation. That is not only "written" it's been tested in my own life and the lives of Friends for more than three centuries (and in the lives of others for much longer).
Evidence of being "saved"--transformed--will be apparent in the way we act--the fruits of the spirit manifest in our lives. You are correct that the fruit is pleasing to God when it is that fruit which results from obedience to God--not from affirmation of propositional "beliefs" based on interpretation or parsing of texts and the rationalizations on the "nuances" of those interpretations and parsings. If it's fruit from obedience to God then we know what it will look like. We also know what it looks like if it's fruit from deductive reasoning based on scriptural interpretation.
The Truth you point out, here (and it is true), would be just as true--and no less true--if there were no Greek Bible or even if that Greek Bible said the opposite. We know that because that Truth is sent to us constantly from it's source: the one who must be obeyed.
Queries:
Can we support and encourage others to aspire with their behavior to transformed lives in ways that do not accuse them, divide them from us (or others) and cause them to resist?
Does the form of our exhortation to others testify to our own meekness, mournfulness, poverty of spirit and to the purity of our own hearts in making those exhortations?
Do our actions show us to be (or are they contributing to our becoming) peacemakers?
I actually agree with you, Bill. That which is called "blessed" is the product of obedience to God and to nothing else. A "salvation experience" is not enough. One must live out the sermon on the mount, as best one can, one's ability to do so improving over time with each small success in the way we treat others.
I am a Quaker. What any text says is the test of nothing beyond what it says. The Bible is not the highest authority--God is. The Bible is not the "word of God" it's words about God. The word of God came and comes to all of us--heeded or not, understood or not--directly from the source every day. So it says in John's gospel and so it proves to be, empirically, every day.
The question is not so much about one's theology, it's about one's transformation--spiritual (and therefore moral). It's about, as I say (and as you say), living it out. Theology has nothing to do with it and may even be a cumber to it getting done.
We are to be proved by the fruit, it is also written, represented in our lives and our moral transformation. That is not only "written" it's been tested in my own life and the lives of Friends for more than three centuries (and in the lives of others for much longer).
Evidence of being "saved"--transformed--will be apparent in the way we act--the fruits of the spirit manifest in our lives. You are correct that the fruit is pleasing to God when it is that fruit which results from obedience to God--not from affirmation of propositional "beliefs" based on interpretation or parsing of texts and the rationalizations on the "nuances" of those interpretations and parsings. If it's fruit from obedience to God then we know what it will look like. We also know what it looks like if it's fruit from deductive reasoning based on scriptural interpretation.
The Truth you point out, here (and it is true), would be just as true--and no less true--if there were no Greek Bible or even if that Greek Bible said the opposite. We know that because that Truth is sent to us constantly from it's source: the one who must be obeyed.
Queries:
Can we support and encourage others to aspire with their behavior to transformed lives in ways that do not accuse them, divide them from us (or others) and cause them to resist?
Does the form of our exhortation to others testify to our own meekness, mournfulness, poverty of spirit and to the purity of our own hearts in making those exhortations?
Do our actions show us to be (or are they contributing to our becoming) peacemakers?
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Three Comments About Oslo Speech
President Obama made a speech in accepting the Nobel Peace Prize and I have three things to say about what he said.
First, he said that no non-violent force could have stopped Hitler's army. Perhaps, not, once that army existed and was on the move. But an American policy of collaborative engagement with Europe after the First World War--rather than retreating behind our ocean frontier and leaving the League of Nations at the altar--might well have prevented that army from being created.
One of the problems with redemptive violence as a world view and a national policy is that one does things that cause the impetus to violence to build and build until--shock!--violence is inevitable. Pacifism is a long range strategy for security and must be pursued over the long haul.
Second, Mr. Obama called Al Qaeda evil. Mr. Obama's Bible, like mine, draws a distinction between people and the "power" called evil--our enemies are not flesh and blood but the powers that hold and control other human beings just as they sometimes hold and control us. When we drop death out of the sky on innocents with drones and such we are as much in the thrall of evil from the point of view of Al Qaeda (and in reality) as they were, our eyes (and in reality), when they flew airplanes into buildings. When we stop calling people evil, and affirm that evil is something they--we all--serve, at times, we change the paradigm into one that is more useful to building peace and a world community that is secure.
My third comment is about this "just war" thing. Not the first to serve this up, the President put at least as much irony as anyone else ever has into that sugar cone, and has created at least as big, and tasty, a brain freeze. Like the equally destructive human doctrine/notion of original sin, "just war" was invented by St Augustine. It is not a part of the Gospel or even the Bible, itself. The religious hand-maidens of imperial power had to contort scripture (and common sense) to put those "doctrines" of political control into the "constantinian" hands of their idolatrous masters. All wars ever fought were "just wars"--just ask anyone on either side of any one of them. The undeniable truth is that "just wars" are just war--period. Linking the concept of "justice" to any one of them, or either side in any one of them, is missing the mark.
Like traffic tickets, no one is ever to blame for a war or wrong for having been part of one--just ask them.
I know that the Obama administration is sliding along greased rails, here, and sees no other way out. So many opportunities for constructive engagement around community building with the people of the Middle East have been lost and wasted in the past while this country opted for manipulation and force as a means of "pursing our interests."
But if our interests are really security and peace (rather than something else) than we must--at least with one hand--start to do some of that kind of constructive engagement that will improve life for people in that part of the world, and we should gradually cut down on the manipulation and force while we increase the constructive collaboration.
Al Qaeda is a threat because the soil they work has been composted for decades by the poverty and injustice we have helped heaped upon it, poverty and injustice that has been in our "national interest." Until we start offering something better, or at least stop spreading more of the same, no one apt to being successfully courted by Al Qaeda is going to pay any attention to anything we have to say.
Blaspheming non-violence, identifying human beings as hapless as ourselves as being, rather than serving, one of the corrupt powers of this world and throwing the concept of "just war" around only makes it possible for the other side to rationalize their allegiance to evil, as we rationalize our own.
Thank you for conjuring the mirror, Mister President. Pray look into it.
First, he said that no non-violent force could have stopped Hitler's army. Perhaps, not, once that army existed and was on the move. But an American policy of collaborative engagement with Europe after the First World War--rather than retreating behind our ocean frontier and leaving the League of Nations at the altar--might well have prevented that army from being created.
One of the problems with redemptive violence as a world view and a national policy is that one does things that cause the impetus to violence to build and build until--shock!--violence is inevitable. Pacifism is a long range strategy for security and must be pursued over the long haul.
Second, Mr. Obama called Al Qaeda evil. Mr. Obama's Bible, like mine, draws a distinction between people and the "power" called evil--our enemies are not flesh and blood but the powers that hold and control other human beings just as they sometimes hold and control us. When we drop death out of the sky on innocents with drones and such we are as much in the thrall of evil from the point of view of Al Qaeda (and in reality) as they were, our eyes (and in reality), when they flew airplanes into buildings. When we stop calling people evil, and affirm that evil is something they--we all--serve, at times, we change the paradigm into one that is more useful to building peace and a world community that is secure.
My third comment is about this "just war" thing. Not the first to serve this up, the President put at least as much irony as anyone else ever has into that sugar cone, and has created at least as big, and tasty, a brain freeze. Like the equally destructive human doctrine/notion of original sin, "just war" was invented by St Augustine. It is not a part of the Gospel or even the Bible, itself. The religious hand-maidens of imperial power had to contort scripture (and common sense) to put those "doctrines" of political control into the "constantinian" hands of their idolatrous masters. All wars ever fought were "just wars"--just ask anyone on either side of any one of them. The undeniable truth is that "just wars" are just war--period. Linking the concept of "justice" to any one of them, or either side in any one of them, is missing the mark.
Like traffic tickets, no one is ever to blame for a war or wrong for having been part of one--just ask them.
I know that the Obama administration is sliding along greased rails, here, and sees no other way out. So many opportunities for constructive engagement around community building with the people of the Middle East have been lost and wasted in the past while this country opted for manipulation and force as a means of "pursing our interests."
But if our interests are really security and peace (rather than something else) than we must--at least with one hand--start to do some of that kind of constructive engagement that will improve life for people in that part of the world, and we should gradually cut down on the manipulation and force while we increase the constructive collaboration.
Al Qaeda is a threat because the soil they work has been composted for decades by the poverty and injustice we have helped heaped upon it, poverty and injustice that has been in our "national interest." Until we start offering something better, or at least stop spreading more of the same, no one apt to being successfully courted by Al Qaeda is going to pay any attention to anything we have to say.
Blaspheming non-violence, identifying human beings as hapless as ourselves as being, rather than serving, one of the corrupt powers of this world and throwing the concept of "just war" around only makes it possible for the other side to rationalize their allegiance to evil, as we rationalize our own.
Thank you for conjuring the mirror, Mister President. Pray look into it.
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