The Question: Which "ism" is more entrenched in America, sexism or racism? Which should religion address?

Racism is more obvious and overt; sexism is more subtle and is still more deeply acceptable.

John McCain rebuked a talk show host for racially tinged remarks he used when calling Senator Obama by his middle name “Hussein.” When McCain was asked by a woman at a rally “How are you going to beat the bitch?” he proceeded to answer by saying how he would defeat Senator Clinton without ever unloading the hostility present in the question.

Continue »

My newest book, Jesus for the Non-Religious, just released in paperback, is written for those people who are committed to the Jesus experience, but because they are citizens of the 21st Century cannot twist their minds into First Century pretzels in order to say “I believe” to the traditional explanations offered by the biblical writers. Rather I seek the reality of the Jesus experience that made these explanations seem appropriate.

I do not believe, for example, that Jesus was born of a virgin in any biological sense, but I do believe that people found in Jesus a God presence that caused them to assert that human life could never have produced what they believed they met in him.

Continue »

My first observation about the Eliot Spitzer affair is that compulsive sexual activity is a human disease like compulsive gambling or compulsive drinking. It should be treated psychologically, but human beings seem to enjoy making moral judgments, especially when compulsive behavior appears in the political arena. Watching the mighty fall is viewed as a popular sport.

Continue »

I think the penchant to change religious affiliations in the United States has to do first with the fact that we have become a mobile society and, second, with the economic and educational achievements that drive mobility.

Traditional religious forms, whether they are Protestant Evangelical Fundamentalism or
Conservative Catholicism are particularly strong among people who do not stray far from family roots, geographically or emotionally.

Continue »

Obama does elicit fervor. Is fervor somehow considered to be a mark of religion? Perhaps it is for some, but fervor alone is not necessarily an asset. Billy Graham elicits fervor. So did Adolf Hitler. The issue is whether the fervor leads the candidate and the nation in the right direction.

Some presidents seek to reflect the point of view on issues they discover in focus groups. Lyndon Johnson was famous for that. Some are ideologically oriented and try to sell the people on following their lead in moving the country in their direction. Ronald Reagan and Franklin Roosevelt were both successful presidents in doing just that, even though on opposite sides of the ideological fence. Others seek to impose their own ideological perspective on the nation when they have no mandate to do so. The results are usually destructive. George W. Bush is the most recent illustration of that.

A politician’s vision must always be in dialogue with the people that politician hopes to lead. I do not want a president with no vision of his or her own, nor do I want a president who will not listen to the will of the people and seek to be in dialogue with them. In that way fervor and passion will serve the nation.

This nation has a strange fetish with sexual sins. The press obsessed on President Clinton’s tawdry sexual behavior, but seems to regard the Bush administration’s distortion of truth about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to justify its military adventure in that land to be of lesser significance. Even the intelligence report on Iran’s efforts to build nuclear weapons reveals that this administration was caught once again in what can only be called deliberate acts of misinformation. President Clinton’s actions, distasteful as they were, did not cost the lives of some 4,000 American military personnel and thousands of innocent Iraqis. Yet the Congress wasted time and money in impeachment procedures on the Lewinsky affair. The far greater, but not sexual, nature of this administration’s crimes has not had a similar response.

We live in a time of changing sexual standards. Premarital sex is almost a universal practice in the developed world against which an “abstinence campaign” is laughably ineffective. The reasons for this are not that we have become an immoral generation, as ecclesiastical leaders like to presume. Rather, it is caused by the fact that we have created a 10-to-15-year gap between puberty and marriage. That is not a reality that contemporary moralists seem to notice. Better health practices have lowered the age of puberty in girls, while the opening of the doors to higher education and thus for career opportunities for young women has postponed the age of marriage to new and more mature age levels. In the Middle Ages when life expectancy was much shorter, females tended to marry within 12 to 18 months of puberty. Today marriage in the late twenties for young women is commonplace. In the past the double standard that governed sexual activity meant that the male was not expected to be chaste until his marriage. Today, not only has that double standard disappeared, but so has the rigid chaperone system we once employed to protect the virginity of upper class females.

Continue »

I found Governor Romney’s speech on religion to be little more than pandering to right-wing religious enthusiasts. It may help in the primary process with southern and mid-western evangelicals, but should he get the Republican nomination, it will not help him in the general election. He does not seem to embrace the fact that this nation has more than just religious voters.

The fact that Governor Romney is a Mormon has constituted no problem for me. Indeed, I am suspicious of those for whom it is a problem. That arises, I suspect, out of the fact that America’s “Religious Vote” (a category that does not include me, I hasten to add) seems to be eager to impose its view of both God and the universe on this nation in violation of our Constitution. I could support no candidate who would pack the Supreme Court with religious ideologues, seek to create a theocracy in America, or go to war after consulting with his heavenly father. Those have been the tragic mistakes of this administration.

Governor Romney was a more appealing candidate to me before he made the “Religious” speech. I was impressed with his demonstrated ability to run the Olympics and to be an effective governor of Massachusetts. When he reversed his position on abortion, gay rights and gun control, I became less enamored. Now that he panders to militant fundamentalism, I am no longer willing to consider his candidacy at all. I once regarded him as the most competent candidate on the Republican side. I think the choice now offered by the Republican Party is quite threadbare. If I were to vote in the Republican primary, I believe my present choice would be John McCain, but I would cast that vote with no enthusiasm.

I found Governor Romney’s speech on religion to be little more than pandering to right-wing religious enthusiasts. It may help in the primary process with southern and midwestern evangelicals, but should he get the Republican nomination, it will not help him in the general election. He does not seem to embrace the fact that this nation has more than just religious voters.

The fact that Governor Romney is a Mormon has constituted no problem for me. Indeed, I am suspicious of those for whom it is a problem. That arises, I suspect, out of the fact that America’s “Religious Vote” (a category that does not include me, I hasten to add) seems to be eager to impose its view of both God and the universe on this nation in violation of our Constitution. I could support no candidate who would pack the Supreme Court with religious ideologues, seek to create a theocracy in America, or go to war after consulting with his heavenly father. Those have been the tragic mistakes of this administration.

Governor Romney was a more appealing candidate to me before he made the “Faith in America” speech. I was impressed with his demonstrated ability to run the Olympics and to be an effective governor of Massachusetts. When he reversed his position on abortion, gay rights and gun control, I became less enamored. Now that he panders to militant fundamentalism, I am no longer willing to consider his candidacy at all. I once regarded him as the most competent candidate on the Republican side. I think the choice now offered by the Republican Party is quite threadbare. If I were to vote in the Republican primary, I believe my present choice would be John McCain, but I would cast that vote with no enthusiasm.

Desmond Tutu’s great insight was that there are no conditions on forgiveness. The “even if” part of this question means that the questioner is not talking about forgiveness.

South Africa is a miracle. I do not know of another example in history where the political authorities in a nation gave up their power voluntarily without bloodshed and civil war. The fact that these authorities went on to become a cooperative minority in the new government was a stunning achievement.

Continue »

I am completely and gratefully supportive of the action of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in urging its bishops not to discipline clergy living in faithful, same sex unions.

It is time for us all to begin to recognize that there are varieties in the human family that are not evil because they are different and only our lingering ignorance and prejudice continues to call that which is a normal but minority aspect of our common humanity sinful. This battle for full recognition of and inclusion for the gay and lesbian part of our population has already been won. It is time to simply grow into a new consciousness.

I find it embarrassing that the primary opposition to the recognition of gay unions and gay marriage come from the Christian Church. That is not surprising, however, since most of the support for slavery and segregation came from the Bible Belt and most of the negativity toward women's rights has also come from both the Protestant and Catholic sides of Christianity. The Church lost those battles and it will surely lose this one too. The Evangelical Lutherans seem to recognize that.