Quote of the Week

I've always been a big fan of The Onion, and this week I had to pass along what I thought was a particularly awesome bit of work from them.

Introducing The Onion Book of Known Knowledge, clearly the greatest encyclopedia in world history, and also the source of this week's Quote of the Week. I present to you the introduction to the Book's entry on "Christianity", the world's most popular religion.

This week's QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"Christianity, monotheistic religion occasionally rooted in the teachings of Jesus Christ, whom Christians regard as the son of God and a sometimes-convenient model for their own values and behavior. Christ promulgated charity, humility, nonviolence, and other virtues that Christians once in a while regard as sacrosanct and that, when sporadically adhered to, demonstrate the path to a righteous life. The world’s 2.2 billion Christians consider Jesus a messianic figure who will deliver to heaven all who conduct themselves as he did when the mood strikes them and if they have the time."
                             - The Onion Book of Known Knowledge

I think the timing of this little takedown is particularly apt, given the interesting (though rarely discussed) religious undertones which underlie our current Presidential election. With an ever-increasing population of evangelical Christians among the voting ranks, especially in many of the nation's swing states, the opinion of the so-called "Christian right" is typically heard very loudly in November.

In this election, those voters are faced with a bit of a dilemma—the sitting President is a practicing Christian whom many people believe is secretly a Muslim, whereas the Republican challenger is a high-ranking official of the Mormon church, which many Christians sneeringly deride as a cult. This has led to some strange and awkward moments for religious conservatives like Billy Graham, who recently had to remove Mormonism from his "list of cults" so as to encourage his followers to vote for Romney instead of Obama. These are strange times indeed for the Christians in our nation, many of whom are not sure exactly what to do in two weeks.

Of course, I must admit that The Onion's criticisms are hardly unique to Christianity—they could just as easily be applied to Islam, for example—but their short satirical summary certainly does give some food for thought, while possibly helping to explain people like this and places like this. No, not all Christians (or religious people of any persuasion) are bad people or hypocrites, but neither are all churchgoers good or honest people. One does not necessarily lead to the other, even though many people do profess to be good citizens and members of their community simply because they regularly attend services on Sunday. It's a pet peeve of mine, and it's a significant reason behind my personal disillusionment with the church during my adulthood.

Yes, I recognize that I'm treading on a third rail here, foolishly discussing both religion and politics at the same time—typically, it's advisable to talk about neither, under any circumstances. But with a possibly pivotal Presidential election hanging in the balance, it's simply no longer possible to ignore the elephant in the room. Whichever way voters lean in November, religion (and race) will certainly have a big role to play.

[The Onion]

Legislative Tourette's in NYC

A few weeks back, I introduced the concept of "legislative Tourette's" with respect to Los Angeles, which decided to make throwing footballs or frisbees on city beaches (or digging holes deeper than 18 inches) a fine-able offense. I took that as a ridiculous example of a local government overstepping its bounds and meddling where it really doesn't need to meddle.

But there's always more examples of that sort of thing, and New York City came along and made me shake my head once again. From the New York Post (yeah, yeah, I know, consider the source, but CNN was on this one too...):

In a bizarre case of political correctness run wild, educrats have banned references to “dinosaurs,” “birthdays,” “Halloween” and dozens of other topics on city-issued tests. 

That’s because they fear such topics “could evoke unpleasant emotions in the students.” 

Dinosaurs, for example, call to mind evolution, which might upset fundamentalists; birthdays aren’t celebrated by Jehovah’s Witnesses; and Halloween suggests paganism. 

Even “dancing’’ is taboo, because some sects object. But the city did make an exception for ballet... 

Words that suggest wealth are excluded because they could make kids jealous. Poverty is likewise on the forbidden list. 

Also banned are references to divorces and diseases, because kids taking the tests may have relatives who split from spouses or are ill... 

“This is standard language that has been used by test publishers for many years and allows our students to complete practice exams without distraction,” said a Department of Education spokeswoman, insisting it’s not censorship... 

The city asks test companies to exclude “creatures from outer space,” celebrities and excessive TV and video-game use — items that are OK elsewhere. 

Homes with swimming pools and computers are also unmentionables here — because of economic sensitivities — while computers in the school or in libraries are acceptable. 

City officials also specified that test makers shouldn’t include items that are potentially “disrespectful to authority or authority figures,” or give human characteristics to animals or inanimate objects.

I'm sorry, but WHAT IN THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?? I mean really, once you've corrected for every single thing that any student could conceivably be "sensitive" to, what is left? Anything?

I had a run-in with a German Shepherd when I was a little tyke, so should dogs be off-limits on my tests? I also once fell off my bicycle and scraped my knee, and also this one time when I was playing basketball with the other kids I took a shot and I missed and I still feel really bad about it. So please let's just not mention it, okay? Really, where does this all end?

Ultimately, I understand the concept that these administrators are going for, I really do. But it's pretty clear to most of us when these attempts to sanitize everything have simply gone too far. Education, if nothing else, should be designed to prepare students for the things that they are likely to encounter in life, out in "the real world".

Out there, Halloween does exist, people have birthdays (we even celebrate them with national holidays--which, if you think about it, should also be off-limits on these tests...), and you're going to encounter rich people, poor people, dancing people, dinosaur fossils, and maybe even an alien or two. Sheltering our young students from these realities serves no real purpose, and could even be counter-productive to their long-term development.

Yes, I know, this article isn't saying that students won't be taught about these sorts of things, only that they won't be tested on them--but is that really such a fundamental difference? This whole thing is an utter waste of time and resources, and our administrators need to focus their attention elsewhere--their ridiculous misplacement of priorities is a huge part of the reason that our nation's academic performance continues to flounder.

[NY Post]

R.I.P. Rev. Peter Gomes

I was saddened to learn that Rev. Peter J. Gomes--a prominent preacher, professor, and theologian, and one of the more memorable characters from my college days--died on Monday night from a brain aneurysm and heart attack. Rev. Gomes was a great speaker, a brilliant academic, and the rare witty and humble preacher. On the merits of his voice alone, he was the type of man whom you simply couldn't forget meeting, even if the meeting was only brief.

Widely regarded as one of America’s leading preachers, Gomes participated in the inaugurations of Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He was named Clergy of the Year by the organization Religion in American Life in 1998; in 1979 Time magazine called him “one of the seven most distinguished preachers in America.” He received 39 honorary degrees and was an Honorary Fellow of Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge.

“We are deeply saddened by this loss,” said Harvard President Drew Faust. “Peter Gomes was an original. For 40 years, he has served Harvard as a teacher in the fullest sense — a scholar, a mentor, one of the great preachers of our generation, and a living symbol of courage and conviction. Through his wisdom and appreciation of the richness of the human spirit Reverend Gomes has left an indelible mark on the institution he served with unmatched devotion and creativity. He will be sorely missed.”

“No one epitomizes all that is good about Harvard more than Peter J. Gomes,” said Henry Louis Gates Jr., Harvard’s Alphonse Fletcher University Professor. The pair met in 1991 when Gomes was part of a recruiting committee that helped to bring Gates to the University. Gates quipped it was “love at first sight,” and said Gomes had been a loyal friend and adviser for 20 years.

For a jaded Catholic like myself, Rev. Gomes' somewhat irreverent take on modern religion was a breath of fresh air, and an affirmation of what religion and faith can and should be. I was therefore glad to have been directed to this clip from the Colbert Report, which does a pretty fair job of showing Rev. Gomes in his element. It's rare for a religious man to out-funny Stephen Colbert, but I think our man might just have pulled it off.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Peter J. Gomes
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

R.I.P.

[Harvard Gazette]

Becker & Posner on Catholicism & Contraception

I often read the Becker-Posner blog, a blog co-written by a pair of University of Chicago professors who aim to bridge the gap between law, economics, politics, and public policy. They often have very interesting takes on complicated issues--think Freakonomics on a grand scale--and I find their posts (they typically post once a week, both writing on the same topic) to be consistently thought-provoking.

Having spent time in the Vatican and Florence last week--and having been overwhelmed by the breadth and grandeur of Catholic imagery throughout Italy--I found their posts this week (Becker; Posner) on Catholicism and contraception to be both timely and intriguing. For the purposes of this post, I will focus on Posner's post. He writes:

It is always difficult to decide whether a religious tenet of a hierarchical religion, such as Roman Catholicism, reflects religious belief or institutional strategy. The Roman Catholic Church is a huge “corporation,” one that reached its present size, wealth, and influence in a competitive environment, where it had first to confront paganism and Judaism, and later Protestantism and secularism.

The Church has long been hostile to contraception, but the nature of its hostility has changed, and may be changing yet again with the Pope’s recent acknowledgment that the use of condoms may sometimes be justified as a way of preventing the spread of AIDS. I want to consider the institutional as distinct from doctrinal considerations that might explain the history of orthodox Catholic views of contraception.

In the early years of Christianity, the Church had to steer a middle course between Christian extremists who thought sex a form of purely animal behavior that Christians should eschew, and pagans, who had a notably relaxed attitude toward sex, including masturbation, homosexual and other nonmarital sex, and contraception in the form of coitus interruptus and abortion. Rejecting sex altogether was not a viable policy for an ambitious Church (think where rejection of sex got the Shakers), but accepting the pagan view would have resulted in a failure to differentiate Christianity from paganism, and perhaps reduce Christianity’s appeal to women.

The compromise position that the Church adopted was that sex was proper as long as it was oriented toward its proper function, which, the Church held, was procreation within marriage. But it had to qualify this view to avoid condemning sex by married people who turned out to be sterile, for example because the wife had reached menopause. So the Church allowed that a secondary lawful purpose of sex was to reinforce the marital bond. 

This compromise worked well for a while (think of the number of massive Irish Catholic families in cities like Boston, families very similar to my own), but ran into problems when heavily Catholic nations achieved greater prosperity.

For various reasons, birth rates fall as prosperity rises, which led to a growth problem for the Church. The Vatican tried to hold its ground by embracing the "rhythm method" of contraception, but has found itself in a place today (according to Posner) where Catholics around the world use contraception at the same rate as non-Catholics. Posner concludes,

The Church finds itself today in a quandary: its proscription of contraception is so widely ignored, and so anachronistic given today’s sexual mores, as to invite derision—to make the Church seem “out of it.” This might not matter a great deal if Roman Catholicism were a fringe faith, as Christianity was at its inception. It is, as I said, a vast “corporation.” It has hundreds of millions of “customers.” It has been losing customers in the Western world, but gaining them in Africa—but Africans, ravaged by the AIDS epidemic, are pressing for a relaxation of the Church’s ban against contraception because condoms are a cheap and effective method of preventing infection with the AIDS virus. 

It is therefore not surprising, from an institutional perspective, that the Pope should take a first, albeit hesitant. step back from the proscription of contraception by acknowledging publicly that condoms might be justifiable as a method of reducing the incidence of AIDS.

The risk, of course, is that the Church could undermine its religious authority in favor of self-preservation. Any religion derives its primary power from the faith of its constituents, but there is often a conflict between the believers of the past and the believers of the present (and future).

My own checkered history with Catholicism derives from precisely these types of conflicts--and the Church's bizarre inability to reconcile them satisfactorily. The Catholic sex abuse scandal hit close to home for me at a formative time (right around the time of my Catholic confirmation), and certainly soured my opinion of the Church to the point where I no longer actively practice any religion.

The question for the Vatican is whether or not it is possible for the Church to reinvent itself without stripping away its own authority. We no longer live in a time where religious authority implies political authority (as it most certainly did in the Holy Roman Empire, not to mention throughout the Middle Ages), and the Church is uncertain how to respond.

To admit that "corporate" concerns play a huge role in religious doctrine may seem unsavory, but it is likely the only way for the Church to remain relevant in the modern world. Posner is right on in his analysis. The Church can no longer hope to achieve growth (or even maintain relevance) through higher birth rates; it must instead make sure that its message has maximum relevance in today's world. It's a lesson that the Church has been slow to learn.


[Becker-Posner Blog]