Blessings: Not Just for the Ones Who Kneel

So, earlier this summer I was fortunate enough to experience the wedding of a dear, dear friend of mine back home in Virginia. As a part of my pre-flight packing, I biked down to one of our local drugstores to pick up a card for the bride and groom. I admit, the selection wasn’t amazing, but there were a good 25-30 choices to be had.

And these choices had a pretty clear organization: “Religious” and “Everything Else.”

Maniy, via flickr

So the “Everything Else” section (you know the whole slew of choices: “From Us,” “Second Marriage,” “Third-Cousin Twice Removed”) was pretty scant. I mean, there were maybe three cards that even worked for my place in things as a single friend of the couple. And those three or so cards were pathetic, either with three paragraphs of text about what a marriage should look like (note: don’t rely on greeting cards for marriage counseling) or were so vapid I couldn’t let a good friend have it. So, begrudingly, I started opening the “Religious” cards.

Guess what the only difference was? Instead of “We love you guys,” these cards said “You’re a blessing to us.”

And I was a little intrigued. Is that really religious language?

Of course blessings have religious connotations, going back in all kinds of religius traditions. But somehow, I always think of blessings as something more spiritually benign. “I feel blessed” doesn’t always mean a literal giving of divine fortune, and to be a “blessing” to someone often means being in the right time and place. To me, it’s just a common turn of phrase, a more elegant want to say you appreciate someone or something.

But apparently greeting card companies disagree. They apparently have a broader definition of “religious” than I might.

I, for one, have no issue with that kind of language, and bought a “religious” card as a result. It’s a beautiful sentiment. But I wonder if others have different takes on this, both secular and religious folks and everyone in-between. What’s your take on common religious expressions, and is there any harm to their wide use?

Religious, But Not Generous

A week and a half ago, the Rev. Lillian Daniel wrote a widely-circulated article for both the Christian Century and the United Church of Christ, titled “You can’t make this up: The limits of self-made religion” and “Spiritual but Not Religious? Please Stop Boring Me” (respectively). The Century article was by far the better (and longer) of the two, as is often the case. And and it got Daniel’s point across much more clearly than the UCC daily devotional.

If only I could admire that point. I respect Rev. Daniel, and can vouch that she’s thoughtful (and intense) in person. But this little write-up doesn’t do much to reflect that.

uair01, via flickr

The article (which has been discussed all across the blogosphere, especially in the Century comments section. Just give it a cursory Google search) centers on the “spiritual but not religious” contingent. Daniel experienced on of these spirituals (apparently on a plane ride) and recounts the conversation. Unfortunatley, it’s a reflection littered with false assumptions, ungraciousness, and just a little hint of pride.

For Daniel, the “spiritual but not religious” label seems to be equated with “not serious.” The spiritual person is all rainbows, puppies, and cute aphorisms, a symptom of “self centered consumer culture.’ It is selfishness, sleeping in on Sunday mornings with the New York Times while the spiritual warriors head out the door. So the religious folks do the heavy lifting in community, while the spiritual loners live lives of personal taste and fell-goodism.

Which is just bullshit. No matter how generously I try to read this, it’s still wrong.

Of course there are plenty of shallow spiritual folks who might happen to match part of this description. They might talk of deeply spiritual stuff to feel superior to others. They might call themselves “spiritual” to avoid long religious conversations. Or they just hate Sunday-morning alarms. But to try and make a broad, sweeping generalized statement based on that reality is ridiculous.

Guess what? There are plenty, plenty of similarly shallow Christians. Just walking in a door on Sunday, just kneeling at an altar rail or taking a sip of wine, does nothing to deepen individuals in community. Sure, a church can be a place for spurring on, for enlightening and invigorating and aspiring. But that’s not a given. It takes some personal investment to get there. It’s less the surroundings, and more what you bring through the door.

How is the spiritual community any different? Alright, you might argue that not having an institutional line to toe might make personal accountability more difficult. I’d disagree with you, but it could be argued. But then it’s a wash: Rigorous spirituals, lax spirituals. Rigorous religious, lax religious. Rain falling on guilty and innocent alike. But that’s not what Daniel is saying, and that’s where I really take issue.

Also, I have to point out this “can’t make up” nature of Daniel’s religion.  She’s more than willing to note the way spiritual people can pick-and-choose their piety. But to make Christianity some sort of monolith, to take or leave, that constantly challenges and guards borders is ludicrous. Don’t like homosexuality? There’s a church for that. Approve of it? A couple for that too. Any bit of social or theological dissent gets one church’s door shut behind you and another open in front. There are Christians who think the poor are blessed, and others who think the rich are. It is, again, a wash.

So don’t tell me that the church is the best place to be challenged. Because when opinions change, people move across denominations in a flash, and suddenly you’re surrounded by people who agree with you again. “Christianity” is a moving target, sometimes as much as “spiritual,” and  you can match up your political views with a nicely corresponding sect, with liturgy added to taste.

And if you stay put, wrestling with ethical convictions that differ from your denomination, well, you probably will end up like many of the spiritual folk that Daniel finds so annoying. Many, many people who happen to fall in the SBNR camp were in religious communities, got burned, and now are looking for meaning outside of a particular tradition. I applaud them. It’s not the easiest thing to do, especially when so many parts of the country look down on those who won’t accept “Christian” as their personal label.

Standing outside of Christianity isn’t always an act of complacency, as the piece might indicate. It can be a heroic act of integrity as well.

So I have to shake my head at Daniel’s work here, this artificial delineation between the spiritual and religious folks. I think there’s more than a little frustration–and fear?–in her words here, and I can’t help but be heartened by just how many people feel comfortable identifying outside of the institutional church. Let people identify as they see fit. The human search for meaning will always spill over the bounds of accepted religious norms. And no amount of liberal-Protestant hand-wringing will change that.

Lies Your Blogger Told You

So these days, I haven’t been doing much sleeping in on Sundays. Guilty.

During the past school year, I had the pleasure of interning at Rockefeller Chapel, one of the most cathedral-like chapels you’ll ever see. My time there was mostly devoted to weekdays: working with our Secular Alliance chapter, leading a book club on Comte-Sponville’s Little Book of Atheist Spirituality, and other aspects of being the Humanist Advisor here at UofC.

From http://uuhk.weebly.com

I attended service on Sunday, though, because I enjoyed the community aspect. I liked seeing Rockefeller as something more than just a rental space for weddings and yoga, a living and breathing thing. And I loved that time there: the people were lovely, and our wide-open worship allowed for me to preach from both St. Matthew and Nietzsche. It was a wonderful time.

But this summer, as my time at Rockefeller came to a close, my Sunday mornings didn’t end up any more restful. Instead, I was hopping around the Chicago area looking into Unitarian Universalist congregations. Because, for almost half a year now, I’ve been giving UU ministry a hard, long look.

I enjoy UU circles for a lot of different reasons. One, I can be open about my atheism without alienating others, or myself. I don’t have to put on any sort of airs in most UU settings. I’m nowhere near the first UU atheist, and I won’t be the last. Also for me, integrity is big; I need to feel like the internal self and the external self are in sync. I feel authentic in that sort of an open space, where a secular humanist walking in the doors isn’t anything new.

Secondly, I enjoy the community. Plenty of secular people go without church and don’t bat an eyelash. Good for them. Me, I really enjoy that sense of shared living that a healthy congregation helps provide. Seeing the same people week by week, learning a little more during the service and coffee hour, listening and responding to forums. It’s that sort of give-and-take, outside of professional or academic settings, that I think enriches life for many of us. I like those interactions. Heck, I’m looking forward to First Unitarian Chicago’s Humanist meetup group tonight.

And, lastly, I love church. Good church, that is, It’s one of those things that, when I get out of bed at 9am, I’m not thinking fondly of. But the movements, words, songs, people, and that weekly challenge to my thinking is something I hold dear. At most UU congregations I’ve attended, the message is something powerful and timely. I enjoy the ethical questions that get posed, the lay people who go from pew to pulpit on any given week. I think there’s  a powerful, humanistic statement to be made that less than 1 in 4 UU services I’ve attended has featured a minister preaching. Everyone should have a voice there.

I’m personally a fan of the mix of religious and secular UUs in the  majority of congregations I’ve experienced. I’m of the interfaith bent, and have a lot of sympathy and respect for (most) religious communities. Your mileage may vary on those kinds of matters, but that’s for you to decide. For me, I enjoy the breadth of experiences that religious and secular UUs bring to the table, despite some big differences in opinion across that aisle. We have different answers, but we’re often asking the same questions.

Obviously things aren’t perfect in the UU, and every Sunday isn’t perfect either. I’ve heard some snoozer sermons, pretty weak singing, and felt out of place more than once. As a denomination, the Unitarian Universalist Association has a bit of an identity crisis going on, is losing members as an unfortunate rate, and has plenty of other warts to note. There are plenty of issues to go around.

But imperfect community is the only thing we can rely on in life. So, for this humanist, a UU setting is a great place to ground those questions and experiences. Whatever you find in life that deepens your own experiences, savor it.

If We Claim the High Road

I had the chance to attend the 70th annual American Humanist Association conference this past weekend in lovely Boston, MA. It was a great time, the highlight of which was easily the absolutely wonderful people I met from across the country. I can’t tell you enough about those great people–those at the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard, the Arizona Coalition of Reason, the Secular Student Alliance, and so many other people (affiliated and not) who made for an unforgettable time.

swanksalot, via flickr (click image for original)

Obviously, it wasn’t a perfect conference (they never are). I’m a student-member of the AHA, and I really appreciate the work they do. Some of the speeches and talks were engaging: big props especially to the Secular Colatition for America and Secular Student Alliance offerings. Others weren’t my cup of tea (Steve Wozniak and, regrettably, even Richard Dawkins. The former was rambling and too engineer-y for my tastes, the latter didn’t deliver his most comprehensive or thought-out talk). But if a conference leaves you excited and wondering at its end, along with a little bit sad to leave new friends behind, then it’s done its job.

Humanism, as a movement, makes a few key claims. We aim for human flourishing. We denounce any supernatural understandings of the world, which often lead to wish-fulfillment and concern beyond the visisble here-and-now. We try to build an ethical future based on human wellbeing, sustainability, and equality in society, each broadly construed.

And one of our greatest developments has been our long-standing claim to the equality of women. Much of this is because of our relative new place on the world stage–we’re not fighting an interpretive battle with 2,000 year-old texts. Which is often a beautiful thing, as it makes some so-called “moral” issues in society–LGBTQ rights, women and authority, contraceptives and sex education–decidely one-sided. Philosopher Andre Comte-Sponville calls these areas decidedly “theological” issues, as the real contention regarding them stems from decidedly religious circles. Since we don’t have to wrestle with those texts, we can be a vanguard for progressive social action in unfettered ways. In theory, of course.

At the same time, we should be held accountable to those high-minded ideals. Humanism, unlike atheism or secularism in general, has a specific ethical stand, and thus we’re held to that standard as members of the humanistic movement. If we claim we’re taking the high road–as many figures from the past, including Robert Ingersoll and Elizabeth Cady Stanton have epitomized–then we should show that high ethical ideal, not just tell it. It should be reflected in our actions, both in the secular community and abroad. We’re uniquely free to do so.

So why do some women feel preyed-on at humanist events?

I’m not asking “why do people hook up at conferences?” Humanism is all for freedom of sexual expression, within the safety and consent of all parties involved. Enjoy your sexuality as you see fit. Revel in it. But I find it disheartening when hear from women at humanist events who feel like they’re viewed as a sexual commodity. Afforded overwhelming attention by men (often a large contingent at such events), brought up in conversation as primarily sexualized figures. I heard it come up time and time again this weekend, which is a little disheartening to me. At our best, we’re much, much better than that.

Look, sexuality isn’t a switch you turn on and off. Human interaction involves all parts of us, rationality and emotion combined, and sexuality often spans that gap. I understand that there’s a balance here. Everyone has different comfort and tolerance levels, of course, and it’s not easy territory to always navigate. Good-natured flirting is one thing. Male oneupmanship and the creation of unwanted sexual tension is another.  I’m not getting into examples, as I don’t want to throw around others’ stories without permission. But women and men alike should be treated as fellow human beings, there for more than our own pleasure, and deserving of the utmost respect.

By and large, I see a refreshingly open and honest stance towards sexuality in secular circles, one that is much healthier than some repressed religious sexual stances and our schizophrenic, hyper-sexualized and yet taboo-laden society. It’s a great advantage. But we also have to temper our guiltless sexuality with the right of those in our midst to feel comfortable and honored. Freedom of expression doesn’t happen in a vacuum. We should all be reminded that our own freedom should never come at the expense of another.

I don’t claim to fully understand the issue, have suffered in kind, or anything of that sort. This topic touches on so many others–gender, identity, social constructs, sexual ethics, demographics. I’m a straight white male, one whose sexuality has been by-and-large labeled (problematically) “default” in the wider society. But I think every person in our movement should be afforded freedom and openness to the greatest extent. If anyone in the movement feels wronged, the movement itself has to consider the why and how.

As humanists and rationalists, we should always examine–and re-examine–our own place in things. Our freedoms overlap, our responsibilities are complex, and our ethics aim to promote humanity in its every form and expression. Lets always try to use that freedom wisely.

When You Just Shouldn’t Say Anything

I try to be as generous as possible. I try to listen first, think things through, give others the benefit of the doubt.

But when someone says something so ignorant, so poorly thought-out, and so dishonest that it makes your head spin, then you have to say something. Especially when that person is a fairly well-known public figure.

So here it goes: Sam Harris, you’re not helping things. At all.

cfarrivar, via Flickr

Seriously, the article this week from his website (find the link here) is painful to read. Titled–wait for it–”Honesty: The Muslim World’s Scarecest Resource?”, it taps into the conversation over the dubious “Radical Islam” hearings that have recently been taking place. And it does so very, very poorly. Leaving behind the entire question of these hearings–which Harris doesn’t go into, and thus I will not either–I want to say a few words about his take on Islam.

Harris argues that violence and killing are the “central message of the Qur’an,” which he argues by citing a whole slew of Qur’anic verses that deal with conflict, war, and other contentious issues. He is worried that moderate Muslims don’t understand their own religion well enough to see this history of bloodshed, at best, or they purposefully misrepresent Islam to the West, at  worst. But Islam pushes a “unified message of triumphalism, otherworldliness, and religious hatred,” and Harris argues that this reality has to be recognized. Moderate Muslims just need to fess-up, and then we’ll really be able to address Islam qua Islam.

I have news for you, folks: it’s the biggest load of short-sighted, reductionist, misappropriated bullshit you’ll find. And while I do not mean to accuse Harris of any sort of bad intentions, I do want to make mention of just how poorly this so-called analysis addresses Islam.

-Harris seems ignorant of the fact that Muslims don’t all read every verse of the Qur’an as clear and concise in its literal meaning. There is an entire field of Qur’anic study–from an Islamic perspective, through the centuries–that is concerned with the historical reception of a particular Surah (chapter). When was it revealed? What was the particular social/political context? How does that change how we view that Surah, in the light of other Surahs? Do certain later verses replace earlier ones (a process called abrogation)? Are their conflicting images we need to reconcile? It’s not a case of reading one or two verses, drawing conclusions, and calling it a day. It’s a struggle with the Qur’an, to rightly understand it, and to live according to that understanding.

-The verses cited aren’t quite as scary as he makes them out to be. Many of them use violent imagery–fire, mostly–to convey the judgment that us unbelievers will experience at the hands of God. Not at the hands of men and women on earth. But at the Last Day. Why should this constitute a particular kind of Islamic violence? Do we need to cry foul when Jesus breaks the world down into wheat and chaff, with us unbelieving chaff being burned up? Or when the sheep and goats are separated, and us less-fluffy, more pointy-horned secular-folk are similarly burned to a crisp? Does that scare you? It doesn’t scare me. That is putting the power into Divine hands to judge and cast out, not human. I couldn’t care less, unless individuals start citing that verse in hopes of having my head. At that point, it’s not the “unified message” of the text that is to blame, but an inconsistent interpretation by the religious believer. And those are two very, very different things.

-Lastly, I hate to give a counter-list of positive Qur’anic verses to problematize Harris’ own. Quite honestly, the dueling walls of text do little to convince anyone, since they always lack any sort of context. I can make any Scripture say anything I’d like, if I parse things well enough.  Thus “There is no God,” says the Bible (that was easy). Seriously, though, there are Qur’anic interpretations that need not be a “unified message of triumphalism, otherworldliness, and religious hatred.” Anyone who thinks they can boil a millenia-old religious text down to that kind of tagline is doing that text injustice. And thus I’m not going to get into this verse-critiquing war, but recommend looking at someone like Amina Wadud, a female Muslim scholar who has found the Qur’an to be wonderfully transformative and freeing in her own life as a feminist. Others won’t. But you can’t just cite the verses that sound evil and think this explains the heart of Islam. You have to dig deeper.

Harris, quite frankly, presents Scripture here as a fundamentalist would. It is a dry, topical understanding, devoid of historical or textual context, that makes proof-texting possible. There is no room for interpretation, for conversation, for nuance. No different schools of thought. It’s decided, “The text as a whole says X”. Islam becomes a robotic, artificial existence, and humankind mere automatons. And I feel like Harris should know better. When you have a bigger audience to speak to, you take on the responsibility of presenting yourself and others with as much integrity and honesty as possible. And this article just doesn’t measure up.

Not everyone can be an Islamic Studies scholar. Not everyone can study Classical Arabic. Not everyone can take courses on the Qur’an. But if you don’t have a background in the subject, don’t write public statements that claim real understanding. I can promise that I won’t be writing a critique of a neuroscience theory (Harris’ field), because I don’t have the background. Not just the lack of credentials, but lack of the methodology, vocabulary, and experience in the field. For Harris to so blindly and haphazardly dismiss a particular community, just because his cursory glance at their Scriptures seems violent at first glance, is intellectually suspect. And it can do more harm than good.

Please, anyone and everyone, don’t take Harris’ analysis as your own understanding of Islam. This atheist, who is not a Qur’anic scholar, but who was lucky enough to spend four year in undergrad studying Islam, is interested in the Muslim and secular communities engaging in dialogue over real issues. Poorly-reasoned critiques, more diatribe than discourse, will never get people to the table. Everyone deserves to be as generously understood as possible, and it’s about time the Muslim community got similar treatment from our secular circles. If I read a Muslim thinker picking any secular text apart in this kind of manner, I’d be equally miffed.

I have nothing against Sam Harris as a person–I’m sure he’d be lovely to sit down and share a pint with–but I couldn’t let this one pass. Atheists and Muslims deserve better.

For more basic information about Islam from an academic perspective, I can personally recommend Michael Sell’s Approaching the Qur’an and Carl Ernst’s Following Muhammad. If you’re still caught up in the overly-simplistic “Islam vs. the West” historical narrative that Maher and others keep repeating, look at Zachary Karabell’s Peace Be Upon You. There are plenty, plenty more great sources I can recommend, if needed. Stay informed, and think for yourself!

Outraged and Atheistic… What To Do?

The Huffington Post religion blog this week has had a few posts touching on secularism–you can peruse them at your leisure, and some are better than others–but there’s one I’ve been genuinely impressed with. It’s title, “Why Are Atheists So Angry?” might lead one to expect a sort of half-hearted complaint about so-called “Angry Atheists.” But Rabbi David Wolpe has a genuine question to ask, and he deserves some genuine thought on the matter.

Rabbi Wolpe had seen two past articles (religiosity-themed) inundated with comments by secular readers. Many of the comments were quite hostile in tone and content, leading the author to ask the genuine question: Why the anger?

Rabbi Wolpe offers four possible answers for this, which you should take a look at. Briefly, they consist of:

1. Genuine outrage at religious violence/missteps in history.

2. Seeing religion as anti-science.

3. A “narrow, thoughtless” inability to take religion (and the religious) seriously

4. A sort of wonder-envy, in the wake of God’s absence.

There are plenty of issues here. Obviously each commenter would have to give their own response, but a little brief foray into the comments to this article alone are rife with (some of) what Rabbi Wolpe is pointing out. Glib, self-assured answers are often the language of the internet (especially blog comments!), so it’s not just secular people who are on the hook for this. Our online dialog is pretty low-level fare. Maybe that’s just the way things are, unfortunately.

But seriously people…? Is anything really as simple as these comments seem to indicate? Do people honestly think that:

1. All rabbis and priests are scam-artists by nature?

2. There are no serious religious thinkers?

3. Religious people “leave everything up to God”?

Come on. These are too simple, too easy and un-nuanced for serious thinkers to take seriously. But they’re real thoughts in the comment section of his post.

Now, Rabbi Wolpe needs to come to terms with a few things. For one, most atheists I know (myself included) have no lack of wonder in our lives. I find nature wonderful. People wonderful. Art wonderful. Music, paintings, literature. A godless world is not a world without wonder- far from it! I find our world all the more wonderful when God is not in the mix.

And for some areas of wonder in which we might lack–ritual, for instance–people will continue to work. James Croft’s new blog, “Temple of the Future,” is partly envisioned to be a creative space for that kind of development. I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes. But I think it’s more than a bit presumptuous to claim that atheists, by nature, lack some openness to wonder.

Hell, I will go so far as to say (as I told a friend of mine earlier this week), both strident atheists and fundamentalist Christians can share a severe lack of imagination, an closure to wonder, that often leads to less-rational, less-questioning lives. Atheism and rationality don’t always go hand-in-hand, but neither do religiosity and wonder. Plenty of religious folk are as close-minded to true wonder–the possibility of the unknown–as Rabbi Wolpe’s most harsh critic. It all depends on the individual.

So lets be sure we keep our level of discourse as high as we can. But lets also remember that, like it or not, neither atheists nor religious individuals have a monopoly on wonder. Or intellect. No matter how many pithy sayings we flood blog postings with.

Wrestling With the Text

Every Wednesday this quarter, a group of about 10 students and staff here at the University of Chicago gather. There’s no one delivering a paper, no presentation given. The attendance isn’t mandatory. The common text is inexpensive, fairly unknown, and quite short.

It is a book group. And it’s more important than most might think.

Our text at hand is Andre Compte-Sponville’s The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality. It’s a surprising little book, with quite a bit of deep philosophical questioning (Comte-Sponville did spend 20 odd years in the Sarbone…). The title (and small footprint) might remind you of a book you’d glance at while waiting in line at Barnes & Noble, the little devotional works that aren’t particularly taxing. You’d be wrong.

Our current group-text

The specific book is less important than the group itself. The willingness of people–both religious and secular–to spend time wrestling with  a text. I want to say that those secular individuals often need it the most. I know I do. Without a common text to wrestle with each day, it can sometimes be too easy to not be constantly challenged. To question where you’re at, and where you’re coming from.

Maybe it comes from my upbringing in more evangelical circles. I remember spending hours sitting with my Bible, both in personal study and with others, trying to work out my own life within those words. It’s a particular approach to a text, very different from skimming for a course or leisurely working through a novel. It’s the kind of close attention that leaves room for changing you, for challenge and growth and loss and all the rest of the stuff that makes up our lives. It grounds discussions beautifully, so that the big issues–God, death, life, meaning–are all framed by a shared experience.

So I treasure these weekly meetings, this wrestling with the text. Communal discussion. The rare rebuke, the common questioning, and all the beautiful potential in that kind of space. Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t help but find real joy there, no matter if Compte-Sponville or I see eye to eye on a given topic. It’s the action itself that draws me.