An email conversation between Mark Stricherz and Amy Sullivan about the current politics of abortion:

Mark:

Amy, you write that plenty of Democratic voters are pro-life and that Americans are conflicted about abortion. I agree.

I disagree about the national Democratic Party's commitment to abortion rights. I think it's commitment is something close to total. No major Democratic presidential candidate has been pro-life since Ed Muskie in 1972. Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and John Kerry each said that they would only nominate a candidate for the Supreme Court who upheld Roe v. Wade.

On no other issue -- not economics, not foreign policy -- has there been such a uniformity or intensity of belief. I wish it were not so!

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The film “Fitna,” released on the internet last week by Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilder, is the latest attempt by a marginal European politician to turn prejudice into political capital.

Still reeling from the Danish cartoon crisis, many Dutch public officials have criticized the film. The Christian Democrats called it “villainous and unnecessarily hurtful.” Marriette Hamer, vice-Party leader of the Social Democrats, accused Wilders of “seeding fear.” Others dismissed the film as simplistic and crass.

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Last week, the anti-immigrant Dutch politician, Geert Wilders, released on the internet a film intended to smear Muslims. But his movie "Fitna" is such a bore that it has only given freedom of expression a bad name.

"Fitna," the Arabic word for "social strife," is being trumpeted as a provocative manifesto with the potential to create yet more strife in the cosmic confrontation between Islam and the West.

I have watched it. Others should too, not because it is compelling but because, in its utter predictability, the film reminds us why freedom of expression is worth defending. To remain powerful, freedom demands creativity -- the very creativity that Fitna lacks.

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A statement made during morning worship at the Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago on Sunday, March 30, 2008:

I want to take a moment and think together about the continuing controversy surrounding Trinity United Church of Christ; its former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, a friend of mine; and its new pastor, Otis Moss III, also a friend and a new board member of the Christian Century.

Trinity Church has been in the news every day for the past two weeks because one of its members is Senator Barack Obama. Jeremiah Wright was pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ on the South Side for thirty-six years. During his ministry, the congregation grew to 8,000 members, the largest in the United Church of Christ. More importantly, the church, under Wright's leadership, reached out to the community with mission programs, education, social services, AIDS education and treatment, and health care.

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Before he was a civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, Jr. liked to remind people, he was a preacher. From the start of his ministry, King was enticed by transracial possibilities, preaching to white liberal Protestants at New York’s Riverside Church and Chicago’s Sunday Evening Club and through the sermons he polished for his book, "Strength to Love." In those guises, King often projected the most refined and worldly persona as he cited theologian Paul Tillich, quoted the verse of the Roman poet Ovid or observed didactically, “Hinduism. . .calls this tension a conflict between illusion and reality.”

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Death and Resurrection?

Christian theology, of course, centers on that rhythm. Traditional Jewish prayer books also praise the God Who "gives life to the dead," but most modern Jews have either deleted or ignored that passage. Forty years ago, I was the kind of activist secular Jew who not only ignored that passage, but ignored the prayerbook altogether.

Yet precisely forty years ago I experienced a profound – and profoundly unexpected –- death-and-rebirth of my own self, deeply intertwined with the American agonies of that spring, that year.

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The arrival of Pope Benedict XVI in the middle of a presidential election is raising hopes among Republicans, fears among Democrats and excitement in the media. Republicans hope that the pope will strongly condemn abortion, gay marriage and embryonic stem cell research, while the Democrats fear that he will. The media is looking forward to covering the papal visit through this lens.

Everyone remembers the controversy during the last election when about a dozen bishops said they would deny Communion to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. That only about a dozen of the approximately 190 diocesan bishops said this is conveniently forgotten. No editor wants to run the headline “180 Bishops Say Nothing About Kerry and Communion.” Nor did many in the media notice that John Paul II gave Communion to pro-choice Italian politicians.

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If Ratzinger is not asked at every stop he makes, and in level yet firm tones, why he and the Vatican continue to shelter Cardinal Law, our profession will have shamed and disgraced itself. We already know that the Pope is a Roman Catholic. What we need to hear is his reason for giving sinecure and asylum to the man who organized and excused the rape and torture of tens of thousands of American children. And then, when he has given his first answer, we need to hear how he answers all the supplementary questions.

Pope Benedict is not a showman, as many – intending praise or blame – said his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, was. Benedict is a priest and professor who finds himself in the unexpected position of being pastor of a universal church of 1.2 billion people. This visit to America is a pastoral visit, and he will do what good pastors do: teach, encourage, and gently correct where necessary. The best way to understand Benedict is to listen carefully to what he says.

Many who claim to be perplexed by Benedict wonder how the harsh doctrinal “enforcer” under John Paul II can reinvent himself as the benign father of the family of the faithful. (The word “pope” has its origins in “papa.”) No reinvention is necessary. Those of us who have known him for many years, recognize in Benedict the invariably gentle manner of the learned and intellectually curious Joseph Ratzinger. If there is a surprise in these first three years, it is that Ratzinger, who very much wanted to retire to his scholarly pursuits, seems to enjoy being pope.

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Pope Benedict XVI’s first visit to America as Pope will not be his introduction to this country, but it will be the first opportunity for Americans to see this Pope up close – three years after his election as pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.

Along with others, many evangelical Christians will be watching with interest. The long pontificate of the globe-trotting John Paul II is all an entire generation of evangelicals now remember as background, and Benedict is a comparatively unknown figure.

Writing immediately after Benedict’s election, I wrote these words, referencing the Pope’s previous role in the Vatican as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger:

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There has been speculation lately that Pope Benedict XVI will publicly chastise Catholic college presidents when he meets with them at The Catholic University of America (CUA) on Thursday. In fact, a scolding is highly unlikely and uncharacteristic of Pope Benedict—but that’s not to say he won’t be urging reform.

Pope Benedict’s manner of address is typically forward-looking, calling God’s people to something better, to that which is attained by a sincere and obedient love of Jesus Christ.

Even so, a declining but still-dominant faction of Catholic college presidents know that Pope Benedict can hardly be pleased with many of their institutions, which often pose serious conflicts with Catholic teachings and morals.

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Tuesday, Pope Benedict said he is "deeply ashamed" of the scandal and assured Catholics that seminaries will not tolerate pedophiles. "It is a great suffering for the Church in the United States, for the Church in general and for me personally that this could happen," Benedict told reporters. "If I read the stories of these victims, it is difficult for me to understand how it was possible that priests betrayed in this way their mission to give healing, to give love of God to these children."

In his response, the Pontiff has utterly mis-stated the nature of the clerical pedophilia scandal. The scandal is not the presence of pedophiles in the church, but the institutionalization of child-rape by the knowing protection and even promotion (by non-pedophiles) of those who are guilty of it. The most grievous offender in this respect is Cardinal Bernard Law, currently an honored figure at the Vatican. This expression of contempt for the victims makes the Pope himself a direct accomplice in the very atrocity that he affects to denounce.

The virtue of hope has been a leitmotif of Benedict XVI’s papacy. He dedicated his second encyclical to the topic (Spe Salvi) and is making “Christ Our Hope” the theme of this his first visit to the United States. But fear, not hope, has been a predominant note in his major writings on feminism and the changing role of women in the Church and in the world. Unfortunately, fear begets fear. For their part, many women, both Catholics and non Catholics, express wariness about the Church’s positions on women. The are afraid, I think, that the Church will use its influence to reduce the opportunities for women to flourish, rather than to expand them.

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Rivalry seems to be hardwired into human nature. Whether we take the Darwinian view or the theological one, it doesn’t bode well for Peace on Earth, good will toward men. While making a case for a certain point of view must be acceptable, “Why can’t we all just get along” might be the mantra of human history, resounding through all political systems as well as belief systems where they come into close proximity. Transcending rivalries with compassion and forbearance would then be a spiritual step toward conscious tolerance that in fact all religious revelations by their prophets from the beginning of time have insisted on.

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The visit of the leader of the Catholic Church to America will be of interest to many people in the Jewish communities across the U.S.A. While the Pope’s visit will focus on the United Nations and the Catholic communities in New York and Washington D.C., he has set aside time to engage other religious communities as well. Jews will join in the interfaith gathering in Washington, but Park East Synagogue in New York City will welcome him Friday evening before the Sabbath begins. It will not be just any Sabbath, but the one prior to Passover which starts on Saturday evening.

Before entering their Sabbath rest, members of synagogues across the USA will have cleaned their homes of “leaven” as they fulfill the commandment to eat only unleavened bread and food products for the next eight days. “Cleaning out the leaven” is more than a physical act. It is understood as a metaphor for cleaning our consciences and clearing up disputes so that Jews can focus on the meaning of their holiday.

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Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to a synagogue in New York this week will evoke his visit to the oldest synagogue in Germany nearly three years ago. On that occasion, addressing leaders of Cologne’s Jewish community, Pope Benedict properly addressed the question of the Shoah. He deplored Hitler’s campaign to eliminate the Jewish people, and he condemned Nazi antisemitism – words which still need to be spoken. That this Catholic leader is himself a German, having had his own youthful glimpse of Hitler’s death-regime, made his remembrance of that history all the more compelling.

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In my life so far, I’ve seen the Pope four times. In 1984, he visited my hometown of St John’s, Newfoundland, and my mom sang in the choir. Not only that, I was mere inches away from the Popemobile as it drove by. Then I got side-armed by an 80-year-old, daily communicant with a rosary in one hand and a Bible in the other. She should have been playing rugby for the local “Vandals” team. I digress.

In 1999, when the Pope visited St Louis, I was backing up a good friend, Tom Booth (who had written the theme song for the Archdiocesan Youth Day) in the Kiel Center. There were 22,000 people in there. When the Holy Father appeared, it was so loud from people (mostly teenagers) screaming that the noise canceled itself out. It turned into white noise.

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When Pope Benedict XVI addressed Catholic educators at The Catholic University of America last Thursday, he did more than insist on orthodoxy in Catholic schools and colleges—he laid out a vision for Catholic education that spiritually transforms its students, the Church and the world.

For the Pope, this means not just fidelity to Catholic teaching, but “that each and every aspect of your learning communities reverberates within the ecclesial life of faith.”

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The long season of Pennsylvania’s primary discontent is now coming to a blessed close.

Marred by candidate stumbles, the six-week trek through the Keystone State also put the spotlight on Pennsylvania’s Democratic party maverick, Sen. Robert Casey, Jr.

Why are there not more Democratic leaders like this anti-abortion, anti-Iraq-war Catholic native son who is vocal about his concern for working people and for economic justice? In a party that professes to care for the oppressed and the powerless, politicians who advocate for fetal life are few and far between.

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For thousands of years, the Passover Seder has focused solely on the liberation of the Jewish people -- whether anciently from Pharaoh or in liberations since. But beginning with the Freedom Seder in 1969, in the new atmosphere of an America in which Jews did not fear oppression from the state or from other communities, many Jews have seen that the liberation of other peoples echoes elements of that ancient struggle for liberation from Pharaoh.

So in this past generation there have emerged Haggadot – the text of the Telling that guides the Passover Seder —that have celebrated the struggles for freedom of Black America, of Israelis and Palestinians striving for a peace that would liberate them both, of the mothers of the "disappeared" in Argentina and the victims of U.S.-encouraged death squads in Central America, and of women striving to liberate themselves from patriarchy.

This year, two calls for freedom have especially resounded across the Internet as Jews have prepared for Passover: the outcry of Tibetans bereft of their sacred land and leadership by a modern Empire, and the outcry of the earth itself and many of its peoples, suffering from an flood of suffocating gases that are bringing on a global climate crisis.

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“He who had gathered much had no excess, and he who had gathered little had no deficiency: They had gathered as much as they needed to eat.” (Exodus 16:18)

This past weekend, Jews and their friends sat down at dinner tables across the country to recall the story of the Exodus from Egypt. For forty years, we reminded ourselves, the Israelites wandered in the desert, searching for the Promised Land.

Each year the ritual meal known as the Passover Seder remains the same. Yet each year we find ourselves reflecting on the holiday with new eyes, as current events illuminate the significance of different chapters of the Exodus story.

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While many Christians have long celebrated Easter, this year Orthodox Easter takes place on Sunday, April 27 – much later than normally, as a result of ancient calendar calculations and regulations requiring the prior celebration of the Jewish Passover, in accordance with their traditional interpretation of scriptural record. Thus, at midnight on Saturday April 26, the night that is said to be brighter than any sunlit day, some 300 million Orthodox Christians will crowd churches to hear the words: “Come, receive the light!” Throughout the world, entire congregations, previously waiting in darkness and anticipation, will light up in splendor and people’s faces will shine with joy and hope. All of them will chant the familiar hymn of triumph: “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling death by death, and granting life to those in the tombs.” For Orthodox faithful, Easter is the feast of feasts. As one Orthodox Easter hymn says, the feast of the Resurrection proposes “another way of seeing” and “another way of living.” Yet, the secret of that new life is already foreshadowed in the previous day, when the Orthodox Church recalls the harsh reality of the Cross.

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In the tales of Uncle Remus is the story of Br’er Rabbit and his enemy Br’er Fox. Fox pondered what he would do to Rabbit once caught. Rabbit pleaded for Fox not to throw him in the briar patch. Fox, delighted that Rabbit gave him a devious idea, threw him into the dreaded patch. But Fox’s delight soon turned to dismay as he watched Rabbit negotiate the thistles and thorns of the briar patch until he was safe and free on the other side. Rabbit, who is now free, shouts to the startled Fox, “Bawn en bred in the briar patch, Br’er Fox. I was bawn and bred in the briar patch.”

The journey of African Americans in what poet Maya Angelou refers to as “these yet to be United States” is one where we have been “bawn en bred in the briar patch” of slavery, Jim Crow apartheid and the ongoing fight against institutional racism. To be who we are is to be in a continuous state of crisis.

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The “axis of evil” has no relevance for me when I think of Iran, a country I’ve found to have a human, loving, hospitable face throughout 40 years of encounters. I lived in Iran between 1968 and 1978, and started returning again, this time with peace delegations, in 2005. It is one of the great joys of my life to see the layers of misunderstanding and fear gradually fall away from those who visit Iran today for the first time.

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Historically, African American spirituality is rooted and grounded in the belief that God hears the prayers of the oppressed.

The capture, forced migration and enslavement of millions of Africans brought about centuries of extreme suffering for the ancestors of modern day African Americans. Throughout the American South, these enslaved Africans were evangelized by Christian slaveholders and plantation missionaries.

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With all the upset over Jeremiah Wright and his so-called Liberation Theology, many have been asking what Liberation Theology is all about. Well, it is not very complicated! It is the simple belief that in the struggles of poor and oppressed people against their powerful and rich oppressors, God sides with the oppressed against the oppressors.

Those who adhere to Liberation Theology point out that all through the Bible we find that God always champions the cause of those who are poor and beaten down as they struggle for dignity, freedom and economic justice. When the children of Israel cry out for help as they suffer the agonies of their enslavement under Pharaoh, God hears their cry and joins them in their fight for freedom. God sides with the Jews as they seek deliverance from Egyptian domination.

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Shortly after the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001 a reporter called requesting an interview about the events of that awful day. He asked me what we ministers were saying about what had happened and what is the responsibility of a pastor in such a situation. I told him that our first responsibility is pastoral. We must seek to comfort those who lost loved ones, to help them work through their anguish and grief; We must respond to the needs of those who were injured, those who had lost their jobs and the emergency workers who were involved in our rescue and recovery efforts. We must calm the fears of all of us who are at various stages of post-traumatic disorder. All of the leaders of our tradition will do their best to make sense of the tragic events and to offer prayers of healing for courage and hope to face the uncertainty of the days ahead.

But there is another responsibility. It is called the prophetic dimensions of ministry. What do I mean by that? What is the source of that aspect of a preacher’s task? And how does the prophetic dimension manifest itself in the witness of the black religious experience?

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