Thursday, January 24, 2013

Erasing our Foundations

I did a very ordinary, nothing fancy arts degree, majoring in English literature, minoring in Canadian history/ Canadian studies.  It's a long time ago now, so I'm nowhere near qualified to begin an exposition on the whole of western literature and culture, especially in the time I have today. I know that, but I was in England a few years ago and I was doing a bus excursion. It was the end of the day, and I was getting quite tired, especially with the time change and being five months pregnant with my youngest daughter. The tour guide announced that we were now on our way to Canterbury and added imaginatively that we should prepare ourselves for the journey. Before he said that, I hadn't really noticed Canterbury listed on the program of drop in spots for the day but then a light went on. Canterbury, as in ...The Canterbury Tales, I asked myself quietly, afraid of being embarrassed if I was wrong. Could I be on my way to -Canterbury? I love history, and may I just say that the highlight of any trip to a museum is always, for me, seeing the pages of my education come alive, that these battles really happened, that these people were alive. The highlight of that trip, more specifically, for me were the cathedrals, which could be said to represent the height of European culture and history.  I was moved, standing inside and in front of Canterbury cathedral that day, feeling small, seeing the worn frescoes and early Gothic spires, that this was what those poor medieval pilgrims were willing to travel for, to suffer for. And when we got to Paris, thinking that Canterbury couldn't be outdone, sitting inside of Notre dame I  cried, while trying to hide that I was crying.  I didn't want my husband to be worried about me. Such beauty.

Yet the funny thing is to me, looking back on my university studies, is that I don't think I really grasped at the time that the Canterbury Tales were about a pilgrimage, or that Paradise lost was about the fall of man, or that Dante's Inferno was about hell and the afterlife. I mean, I did but I didn't if that makes any kind of sense. What do I mean by that?  Well, the only time that I can ever remember a Bible being pulled out in school was in a first year survey of western literature in which my then professor read the story of the fall as a way of demonstrating to us that this was an example of the subjugation of women in literature (and everywhere else) throughout history. So, when we got to Beowulf or The Canterbury Tales or Jane Eyre or just about anything else it seemed... well, it all seemed to end up being about the subjugation of women. Funny that, how now, thinking about it, the whole of western literature was about the subjugation of women. Just scratching my head here. And there was no mention of the Bible, other than to suggest that it was a fine example of the subjugation of women.  Now, I loved that professor, I always had a soft spot for her and still wonder how she's doing sometimes, where ever she is, so I'm not feeling bitter as I write this, just nostalgic haha, and puzzled.  It's only now, in my late thirties, looking back on my education and asking, how did we get from saying the Lord's prayer when I was in grade four, to seemingly erasing Christianity in all of it's forms from our culture? Unless of course, it's to pull it out once in a student's university life to blame it for something. Well, we obviously haven't forgotten it's influence completely, or have we?

Anyway, so where am I going with this?  I came across an article in Huff Post last night. Should the Bible be taught in public schools, it asked. How should the Bible be taught in schools might have been a more reasonable or informed question, and here's my answer. Ask Shakespeare, or Milton, or Tennyson or Frost, or Donne or Bunyan or Bronte, to name a few, to begin to scratch the surface of the hands down most influential book in western if not world history. They were not ignorant of it's influence. Clouded allusions seem to have been reserved for present day secularists and their students.


Sincerely,

M.A. Harvey

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/23/arkansas-bible-course-bil_n_2536445.html?ir=Religion&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

Monday, January 21, 2013

The Mission

It remains one of my favorite movies.  I was just listening to a clip of the soundtrack of "The Mission." What I remember loving about that movie is that it showed the complexity of missions work, rather than just dismissing it entirely, which I find is often what our present day secular culture does, when looking at the work of Christian missions historically. The film showed the missionaries as people who cared deeply about the people they were trying to reach, while economic and political forces raged against the good that they were trying to accomplish. I ask myself the same sort of questions about secularism today. Should secularism be equated with consumerism? Are the values of secular consumerism and the honouring of economic principles above the needs of people responsible for current environmental degradation and oppression of the poor? Should we dismiss secularism entirely due to our current society's failings in these areas? Or, does secularism itself possess better qualities or values, than the secular backdrop of the political and economic forces of our own time? I know that not everything that came out of European contact with aboriginal peoples around the world was good, let that be acknowledged, and I would never try to say otherwise. But I think we do aboriginal people a disservice when we think of them only as passive recipients in that cultural transaction. It was a meeting of two sophisticated cultures, we learned from them, they learned from us. Unfortunately, the economic and political forces that resulted in the degradation of aboriginal peoples continue to shape their brokenness to this day. But it's not simple, because even our own modern languages for example, are very much a product of Christian missions and transmission of the Bible into the languages of the common European peoples, in order to reach them. Education and health care in much the same way, are very much tied to the history of Christian missions.  It's too simple, to say we should simply dismiss missions as entirely oppressive.

It is also not accurate for our contemporary secular culture to segregate the history of Christian missions as separate from their own "progressive" history. Why is it, that secularism likes to equate science and technological "progress" for example, with secularism, and equate religion as being anti-science or anti- progressive, while at the same time blaming Christianity for anything negatively associated with said technological progress?  Like guns for example, over the killing efficiency of bows and arrows. Now, would that be secular progress or Christian oppression? How can it be, to say it is only one, when the dates and locations are the same? lol.  Europe to world, post Columbus. Anyway, what I'm trying to get at here, is that the history of secularism and "progress" if you will, is very much aligned with Christianity historically. I've said it before, but it can be argued that much of modern science came out of a monotheistic worldview.  We have a lot in common, secularists and Christians, as much as neither side wishes to admit it. Many of our values are the same. Our roots are the same. So, here's the question, why is it that when secularists push for human rights around the world, alongside Christians, delivering clean water and educating mothers, the secularist is seen as progressive, while Christian missionaries, often doing the same work, are seen as oppressive?  The reality is that when secularists assume the value of human life and the rights of the individual, they fail to realize that the rights of the individual are rooted in the value of the individual human soul, as taught by Christians for centuries before on the same soil. And that is why we must be careful, are we criticizing historical Christianity, or are we criticizing political opportunism and greed that finds oppressors where and when it can.

The funny thing to me, is how I find myself living in a culture where Christian missions are very politically incorrect, my name is mud, and yet the same culture demands conformity on any number of issues. Where does this leave us? As has been said to me, "Margaret, you don't have the right to tell them that they are wrong," while at the same time the same person would have no problem telling me that I am wrong. That someone like Franklin Graham is wrong to send missionaries to the middle east, but then why is it not also wrong to demand that I adopt the ideology of political correctness, or the middle east for that matter? Here's what I say, that having a culture as we do, thank goodness, in the western world, where we're free to argue and tell each other that we're wrong  is far superior to the alternative. And what is the alternative? What does the alternative look like? It looks like an Easter musical at a local church, but it is not, it is the body of a Christian convert in the middle east, newly crucified, or the burned bodies and torched churches of  Christian minorities in predominantly Muslim countries. Today. Or more positively, religious freedom looks like the glow in the eyes and the beauty of a smile, of an untouchable in India, because she is no longer being blamed, at least by someone, for her oppression. Religious freedom is the foundation of a free society, let's not criticize that.  Let's have a good discussion, and let us continue to advocate, as secularists and as Christians, for the rights of people here and around the world, for freedom of conscience, for the right to disagree, and if we wish, the freedom to change our mind.

Thanks for listening,

M. A. Harvey

Here's a few clips from "The Mission."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kghJGeMYI3U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQnKFfvHYgE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmUxkdTZY18

Friday, January 11, 2013

New Tolerance, True Tolerance: Challenging the New Tolerance

I've learned the hard way a couple of times that it's not a good idea to drive when I'm angry.  I think I'm coming to the same conclusion about blogging, as it has the potential to do a lot of damage. I read this article last week and it's typical of the sort of thing that tends to get me going, and then I started to write about it.  It's a good thing I'm learning, because you're going to get the toned down version. 

"Saying Goodbye to Tolerance," written by Marilyn Sewell, a retired Unitarian Universalist minister. It was typical rhetoric of the kind that I tend to find upsetting, those preachers of tolerance, in their own words, who are "saying goodbye to tolerance." Righters of exclusionist wrongs, while themselves seeking out a group of people to tear down, namely people like me, evangelical Christians, to blame as the source of the world's problems. Why evangelical Christians I plead, why not Hindu Nationalists or Islamic militants, or bent on change violent Maoists? I can only assume she is busy making them feel welcome. Lucky us.

Sewell asserts that it is evangelical Christianity (not the rest of orthodox Christianity which shares the same creed, harder to marginalize I suspect), alone that claims that Jesus is the only way to salvation. Well Jesus made the claim actually, not us, we're just trying to accept what he said and not be hypocrites you know, like when you say you believe in something, but don't practice it, like tolerance for example. She asserts that exclusive truth claims can only be a bad thing. Is that true?  Is Jesus' claim to be the way the truth and the life a scary treacherous idea? Only if you oppose him. lol. But why would you do that? Underlying my facetiousness is a serious question, one that I have been asking myself for years. Was Jesus making his exclusive truth claim against the ignorance of some poor soul sitting on a street in Calcutta, blind and deaf and begging? Or, was he saying that to those who would willfully oppose him and his move for long lasting peace and universal security, while knowing that only he, being God, would have the ability to frame? Don't forget, there were a lot of people who wanted Jesus dead, and still do. In short, critics of Christianity need to examine it's exclusiveness within the context of it's deeper theological significance. The problem is, is that they often don't consider the possibility that it might be true in the first place, to begin to do that. Truth claims are bad, remember?

And this is where I'll try to bring it down a notch. I  understand where (let's call her) Marilyn is coming from, both personally and historically. I too bear the scorch marks of fundamentalism, and I can see how two world wars and record bloodshed in a century that followed modernism and 19th century optimism alongside increasingly global consequences would have a way of having people say, hey, maybe we should try to find a common ideology here. Sounds like a good idea, doesn't it? For the record, I would actually agree with Sewell that there is truth in all the major world religions, and that we can learn from each other. I would also agree that it's not my place to judge, but neither would I assume that all religions are one and the same. I would want to find common ground where I can when dialoging with diverse people, but I would also want to test ideas against my own spiritual tradition and life experience. I would want to weigh the evidence, in short. I think our present pluralist culture has this nebulous idea that all paths lead to the same place, but may I ask, on what is that belief grounded? Do you know what I mean? It's not that I don't think other religions have anything to offer, that's not it at all. I don't doubt for a moment that Buddha was a great seeker or Confucious was wise or that Hinduism has a tremendous cultural depth, it's that I question Confucius' ability to save me.  Honestly, as someone who has a tendency towards melancholy and a persistent fear of death since I was a child, I need more than an assumption. I need an anchor. I need a life preserver.

In continuing, I want to get at something deeper, this idea that exclusive truth claims can only be a bad thing. In so doing, comparatively, you have two ideologies, Christianity vs. pluralism. Pluralism teaches that exclusivism is bad and inclusivism is good. So, if you believe that exclusivism is the problem, are you going to tolerate exclusivists? Well, apparently not, according to Marilyn Sewell. Christianity, on the other hand is exclusive, no doubt. Christ's claim was exclusive, yet he taught his followers to love their enemies, to bless those who would even harm them. So, if you're a Christian, and you are confronted with difference, how will you respond? Well, if you take the teachings of Christ seriously, it should be in love. That's the thing isn't it? Is exclusivity the behavioral determinant of an ideology, or is the actual behavioral directives of a religion, the better predictor of a religious follower's behavior? And that is why as hard as Sewell  tries to connect Christianity to hate crimes, the statistics do not support what she is reaching for. Further, she seems to be either unaware or simply doesn't care that her words could be contributing to a culture that leads to the persecution of evangelicals. Think I'm crazy?  As much as what she is saying about her experiences of a gay family member being shunned saddens me, may I also say that I have been looked down upon and scorned within my own family for being an evangelical Christian all my life, as well as feeling a tremendous pressure to conform from the larger culture. Now, would I blame this on articles like Ms Sewell's for creating a culture where evangelicals are not welcome? Should I? All I can say is, is that in my mind people are responsible for their own behavior at the end of the day, not society. And that is why I would plead with Sewell not to judge Christianity or every evangelical Christian by the behavior of her family member, but rather challenge her family member to be more like Christ.

Okay, I'll get off my soapbox now, but I think some of the pluralist and liberal denominations of our time, seem to be more of a cultural reaction to Christian fundamentalism than necessarily having a solid theological or philosophical grounding. And this is where I wonder if a little easing up of the religious right might help lessen some of these cultural and religious tensions. But Evangelicalism need not be equated with fundamentalism per se, or perhaps more accurately, a fundamentalist mindset. May I suggest that it is possible to adhere to certain core tenets of Christianity, and yet retain a perceptual depth or sensitivity to difference, or acceptance that not everyone will share our beliefs. But all ideas are exclusive, bottom line, and as Sewell demonstrates, those that claim otherwise seem to jump to exclude the exclusionists. All of this might seem fine and well if you agree with her, but please consider what she's saying from the perspective of those who sincerely do not.

Having said all this, mainly I began writing this because I wanted to ask, what is true tolerance? What does it look like? Is tolerance holding all the right politically correct opinions, or is tolerance leaving room for people to disagree, to see things differently, to ask honest questions?  I hope it's the latter, because my fear is that if political correctness takes over, any more than it already has, than I'm in trouble, because I don't hold the right opinions. But I do believe in compassion, I do respect people's right to make choices for themselves. I do believe in the sanctity of human life, all human life, young and old, rich and poor, gay or straight, black or white, regardless of whether you find yourself on the privileged side of the planet or not. And why shouldn't that be enough, may I ask, to care, to love, to see value in human beings and in human relationships, to want to engage in respectful dialogue? Why would anyone, claiming to be tolerant, shun someone wishing to politely dialogue? We all have the right to an opinion here, and so I ask that theological conservatives also be included in that emerging discussion, anything less would be a loss of freedom of conscience in favour of a dictated ideology.

Thanks for listening, sincerely,

M.A. Harvey


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marilyn-sewell/saying-goodbye-to-tolerance_b_1976607.html

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