I’m a long way from the Mexican border. But like many others, I can’t tear my eyes away from it, via the media. Many journalists are doing fine work this week, bringing the rending of families there into sharp focus. Here’s a sampling; hope the images and text make some impact. From the Jackson, Mississippi … Continue reading A Visit to the Border
For a long time I’ve felt that much of the deepest internal struggles in American culture have religious roots.
Sure, there’s also politics, class, race, gender and empire involved as well. But take off your Bubble-colored glasses and look closer, and religion pops up in most of these contexts too.
Further, one passage, Romans 13:1-7, has long been close to the center of these conflicts. It equates worldly rulers, and their use of “the sword”, with God’s divine order. and has long been used to support whichever ruler a preacher most favors.
Blogger Doug Muder, who on most Mondays puts out “The Weekly Sift,” reviewing the past week, has an excellent brief summary of the current version of this larger struggle, summed up in the question: “Is Trumpism Becoming a New Religion?”
In technical terms, my initial answer to Muder’s query has to be “No.” That’s because whatever it is, this new cult is definitely not “new.”
But on Muder’s main point, if there’s a religious character to what we face, and a struggle between gods, or at least idols, my answer is not just “Yes,” but “Hell, yes.”
I didn’t plan to do a followup to the previous post on the Bible and defending slavery.
But there’s been something tragicomic in the scramble by some reporters to get churchy rebuttals to the use, by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, echoed by press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, of the Bible to defend their latest, cruelest border policy of splitting up families and penning up children. This scramble also brings up some similar issues & dilemmas.
Speaking to a law enforcement group in Indiana, Sessions turned to the Tyrant’s old standby, Romans 13. And within 24 hours, even the Friends Committee on National Legislation had a statement out condemning it . . .
The Southern Baptist Convention just adopted a resolution condemning the view that the Bible supports slavery, which was the main premise on which the SBC was founded back in 1845. To back up this new view, it cites Bible verses used by 18th Century abolitionists to condemn slavery, which the early SBC long & steadfastly denounced as heretical, subversive, etc. That’s Irony #1.
Irony #2 is that the abolitionists were wrong & the early SBCers were correct: the Bible DOES support slavery, in numerous texts; and Jesus, who spoke of slaves often, never said a negative word about the practice.
Okay, I’m sitting on the waiting bench at the big box pharmacy. There’s a guy at the counter: lean, middle-aged, in a white tee shirt, looks like he works hard. He’s waiting too, seems jumpy.
A pharmacy clerk comes in view, stepping from behind the long rack where dozens of plastic bags holding filled prescriptions are hanging. She says something to the guy, and all I catch is “Five seventy five.”
The guy steps back.
“What?” he says, and he’s angry. “I’m not paying that.” He makes a fist, but doesn’t raise it. “I’ll just die.”
I glance back at the clerk. Did she mean “Five dollars and 75 cents” per pill? Or was it “Five hundred and seventy five dollars per dose”? Like for an Epi-pen?