Clean Monday: Straightening Out Alaska

Normally my Clean Monday thoughts tend more toward the devotional side. (I've already had some lagana this morning, have you?) But as I was perusing news from the Orthodox world, this little tidbit struck me as too delicious not to share.

US President Barack Obama must have known that his support of gay marriage would bring him trouble. But of all possible repercussions, a demand to roll back Alaska’s 1867 sale to the United States was one he was unlikely to have seen coming.

And yet that was the very claim that an ultraconservative religious group made in a Moscow arbitrage court, citing the need to protect fellow Christians from sin.

Obama’s alleged plans to legalize the “so-called same-sex marriage” threaten the freedom of religion of Alaska’s Orthodox Christians, who “would never accept sin for normal behavior,” the nongovernmental group Pchyolki (“Bees”) said.

“We see it as our duty to protect their right to freely practice their religion, which allows no tolerance to sin,” the group said in a statement on their website.

The groups charges that the contract for the sale of Alaska is null and void because of a technicality about the method of payment. Ironically, this lawsuit is only coming to light now because of the group's own inability to abide by the legal technicalities of their own system.

Something tells me this isn't the kind of cleanliness Clean Monday is supposed to be about. It's a shame that Lent starts so much later for the Orthodox this year than for Catholics and Protestants--my preference would always be to observe them simultaneously--but, if nothing else, let those observing the Western fast season allow today serve as a reminder of the purity you committed yourself to back in February. Your Orthodox brothers and sisters around the world join you today in offering themselves as living sacrifices. If only for two weeks, Christians everywhere will be united in a period of self-reflection, purification, and anticipation of the resurrection.

Mitt Romney: A Failed Mormon Prophecy

Well, it's official. Barack Obama has been sworn in for his second term as president, and the news media has parsed all the important issues: eye rolling, lip syncing, and age-appropriate hair. Finally it feels appropriate to share an observation out of Mormon history when it should have none of the sourness of political partisanship (which I try so desperately to avoid).

In the Winter of 1855, with full blown war with the federal government on the not-so-distant horizon, Brigham Young, governor of the Utah Territory and leader of the Latter Day Saints, envisioned a time when America would fall into such a state of disrepair that the people would call on a Mormon to save them:

Brethren and sisters, our friends wish to know our feelings towards the government. I answer, they are first rate, and we will prove it too, as you will see if you only live long enough, for that we shall live to prove it is certain; and when the Constitution of the United States hangs, as it were, upon a single thread, they will have to call for the "Mormon" Elders to save it from utter destruction; and they will step forth and do it.

If the LDS church's loudest public voice is to be believed, America has reached that precipice. Then why the monumental failure of Mitt Romney to secure the presidency and save America? Could it be that Glenn Beck is wrong and ACORN, radical Islamic militants, and Reform Jews didn't conspire to put a socialist race-warrior into office? Or could he perhaps be right and Satan still holds the world in his thrall, leaving the saints to wait for the nation to get just a little bit worse before their final vindication? Is it possible that the Mormons in general and Brigham Young in particular were not actually gifted with any special ongoing revelation from God?

Let's table all those wonderfully provocative suggestions for the moment and consider another. One year earlier, Brigham Young had delivered a Fourth of July address as part of a series of speeches by prominent Mormons taking America to task for its partisanship and its failure to realize the lofty goals of the American Revolution. Young had his own observations about failures of the US in its highest office and proposed a different set of qualifications for the highest office. Maybe Romney failed to be the great Mormon savior of America because, it turns out, he's not the kind of man Mormon's thought the nation needed and the people deserved:

The people should concentrate their feelings, their influence, and their faith to select the best man they can find to be their President, if he has nothing more to eat than potatoes and salt--a man who will not aspire to become greater than the people who appoint him but be contented to live as they live, be clothed as they are clothed, and in every good thing be one with them.

[A man] capable of communicating to the the understanding of the people according to their capacity, information upon all points pertaining to the just administration of the Government. He should understand what administrative policy would be most beneficial to the nation. He should also have the knowledge and disposition to wisely exercise the appointing power, so far as it is constitutionally within his control, and select only good and capable men for the office. He should not only carry out the legal and just wishes of his constituents, but should be able to enlighten their understanding and correct their judgment. And all good officers in a truly republican administration will constantly labor for the security of the rights of all, irrespective of sect or party.

In Other News

When I went to bed last night, Barack Obama was president, Republicans controlled the House of Representatives, and Democrats controlled the Senate. When I woke up this morning, Barack Obama was president, Republicans controlled the House of Representatives, and Democrats controlled the Senate. More than a year of persistent hue and cry, an anticlimax, and now, with any luck, a swift denouement. Meanwhile, to the disinterested surprise of Americans, the rest of the world has continued to turn while they beat their heads against a political brick wall.

Copts have just selected a new pope at one of the most critical junctures in modern Coptic history. The new leader, Pope Theodoros II, has rejected the political activism of his predecessor and is encouraging the church to follow his lead:

“The most important thing is for the church to go back and live consistently within the spiritual boundaries because this is its main work, spiritual work,” the bishop said, and he promised to begin a process of “rearranging the house from the inside” and “pushing new blood” after his installation later this month as Pope Tawadros II. Interviewed on Coptic television recently, he struck a new tone by including as his priorities “living with our brothers, the Muslims” and “the responsibility of preserving our shared life.”

“Integrating in the society is a fundamental scriptural Christian trait,” Bishop Tawadros said then. “This integration is a must — moderate constructive integration,” he added. “All of us, as Egyptians, have to participate.”

This seems to be fine by the ruling Muslim Brotherhood who have encouraged the new primate "to “support the Islamic Shariaa,” to “let go of the seculars”, and to “revoke the Church’s political role.”"

In other parts of the Muslim world, Christians are facing more direct challenges from the government. Christians in Malaysia are being "converted" to Islam without their consent on government roles simply because of their names.

Bumiputra Christians in Sabah continue to be “converted to Islam” by the National Registration Department (NRD) simply because they have “bin” and “binti” in their names. Sabah churches are seeking urgent solutions to the crisis but none seems to be in sight, Bob Teoh writes in My Sinchew.

The NRD has made it clear it would continue to list Bumiputera Christians in Sabah as Muslims as long as they are known by bin or binti. It would also not rectify past entry errors by way of changing the religion listing back to Christianity in the identity cards (MyKad) of those affected. The NRD would only act upon an order by a Syariah High Court to determine whether those Bumiputera Christians whom it had listed as Muslims are not Muslims indeed.

The implications of this are far ranging--not least because these "Muslims" are not legally allowed to marry the Christians in their own community--and the hurdles the government has thrown up to rectify the error are numerous. What makes this more serious than a minor bureaucratic foul-up, however, is that perennial problem of apostasy in Islam. There is no permissible way to cease to be a Muslim, a conundrum which has found itself institutionalized in the racial-religious identity cards of Malaysia.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, sitting on the supposed burial site of Jesus, is the site of yet more controversy, this time over the more mundane matter of an unpaid water bill. The hub for Christian pilgrimage insists that it has never paid water bills as part of an unstated agreement with the utility company. Hagihon, the water company, is no longer content to receive nothing for something and has frozen the church's assests until the $2.3 million in back bills is paid.

"We trust God and hope that people will help us," [the General Secretary of the Patriarchate, Archbishop of Constantina Aristarchos] said, adding that the Patriarchate has sent letters to Israeli President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Tension in the Christian world comes home with still more revelations from the Orthodox Church in America. After much publicity and dutiful investigation, church officials have released their findings about the suspended bishop accused of sexual misconduct:

Text messages and emails sent by the bishop of the Orthodox Church in America’s Diocese of the Midwest did constitute sexual misconduct, according to a letter posted to the church’s website Sunday...

“I wish that I could convince all of you what I am certain of in my heart — that conscious motives behind my interaction with this woman were not impure,” [the accused bishop] Matthias wrote. “But, I know that only active, demonstrated repentance — confession of my sins, pursuit of the means of changing, and a resulting change in conduct — will be convincing.”

Unlike the Catholic stereotype of furtive reshuffling, the OCA has embraced a more public but no less Christian program of rehabilitation and penance. Matthias will ask forgiveness from the victim directly, be admitted to a residential therapeutic program, and submit to a “focused period of time under the guidance of a peer bishop to examine, articulate and provide concrete direction in managing the expectations and accompanying spiritual, emotional and interpersonal challenges of exercising the office of the bishop.”

And more besides. If only we had directed that one billion dollars to affecting actual change in the world. But, as always, where our treasure is indicates where our heart is. Money is always hard to find except when it comes to war and politics. If that doesn't indicate their affinity, perhaps nothing will.

Shane Blackshear, Starting to Get it Right

A minister recently pointed me to this entry by Shane Blackshear--she described him to me as "an emergent church guy" and assured me I shouldn't feel bad for never having heard of him. Blackshear begins with the gut-wrenching confession to the Christian community: "I'm not voting." It is a tragedy that it has come to this, come to a point where it requires more than a little courage to say with anything other than youthful apathy, "I will not be voting come November." Yet this is far from melodrama on Blackshear's part. My wife finds herself regularly harassed at work and among her relatives when it comes up that she does not vote. Just yesterday, I invited the ire of one of my colleagues by announcing, "I'm not voting. I don't have a dog in your fight." The notion that Christian principles could tend toward anything other than full and patriotic participation in American democracy is entirely foreign to the modern mind.

Blackshear, for his part, makes the beginnings of a good case for why he won't be voting in this election. Proceeding from the principle that he is pro-life, he asks two important questions:

Remember when we had a Republican President and abortion stopped for 8 years?

...Remember when a Democrat was elected 4 years ago and our soldiers were brought home?

There is in this a microcosm of the futility of conscientious voting for Christians, and Blackshear seems to feel it acutely, quoting Psalm 14 and discouraging Christians from trusting "in princes." Yet he proves willfully unwilling to press these observations to their logical conclusion. Appealing vaguely to the "valid reasons" for voting for each candidate, Blackshear makes it clear that this is a personal protest and not a Christian imperative. Where is the recognition that every vote is a vote for warfare? Why is it so difficult to extrapolate from the last twelve years of anecdotal evidence the profound truth that governments exist solely for the purpose of violence? The logical conclusion is easy enough to draw: in a representative republic, we elect people to govern on our behalf. Every abortion Obama facilitates, every "enemy combatant" Romney "subdues," it is done on behalf of the voting public and they partake fully in the culpability for those actions.

If Blackshear, making the right stand as I believe he does, really wants to argue that he cannot , as a Christian, cast his vote for another politician who cannot respect life, then it is incumbent upon him to realize that, as a Christian, he cannot vote. At which point, I'll be the first to welcome him into the rich, historic fold of Christian anarchism.

Destroying Obamacare, the American Way

I happened to be on the road this past Tuesday--all day in a compact car filled with all my earthly treasures--and managed, from time to time, to pick up bits of NPR and conservative talk radio, depending on what city I was passing through. It happened that in the Metroplex I tuned in to the Ben Ferguson show, only the regular host was out for the holiday. Faux-Ferguson, unsurprisingly, was in a tizzy about the much discussed recent Supreme Court decision regarding health care. The overwhelming boredom of a long road trip compelled me to listen.

Faux-Ferguson was of the opinion that, once Mitt Romney is elected president, he needs to sign an executive order voiding the decision of the court. He seemed to understand the unprecedented and unfounded nature of this action, suggesting that what America really needed was a "constitutional crisis." After all, in his opinion, the action of the court had been unprecedented and unfounded. He was of the opinion that anyone who read the Constitution would understand that judicial review as it is now practiced is beyond the scope and power of the judiciary.

What he could not do, is point out where the Constitution contravenes what I learned in kindergarten: that two wrongs don't make a right. Thankfully, a caller phoned in and suggested that very fact to him, implying that just as the Constitution didn't envision a tyrannical court, it didn't intend for an imperial presidency. The caller insisted that what Republicans needed to focus on now, to get rid of Obamacare, is electing a majority in both houses of Congress and a Republican president.

Faux-Ferguson pointed out that even with the legislative repeal of Obamacare, the legal precedent of taxing inactivity has been set and will need to be overturned. And he's right, but there is a perfectly legitimate constitutional mechanism for achieving this without falling into the blatant hypocrisy of a so-called "consistent constitutionalist" suggesting that the actions of a single man can unilaterally overturn the actions of an entirely equal branch of government.

If the talk jockey would spend less time shouting at his dissenting listeners "have you read what the Constitution says about the court" and move on to the history of the court, he might make some headway and realize that the court's size is not fixed. It has changed at least a half a dozen times over the course of history, both expanding and shrinking. No less a revered Democratic figure than Franklin Roosevelt made a valiant attempt to stack the court with justices in order to ensure his legislative achievements would stand. With a little determination, modern Republicans might succeed where he failed.

Certainly the eradication of Obamacare requires the election of Republican majorities in Congress and a Republican president. From there, the constitutional course is for the new Congress to pass legislation expanding the size of the court from nine to eleven justices, for the new president to nominate two strict constructionists to the bench, for the new Congress to speed there approval, and for Republican states to find new grounds on which to bring suit once again.

Sure, it's an arduous process, but Faux-Ferguson and other Republicans need to understand that this is precisely the beauty of the Constitution. With all the whining about how slowly the wheels of progress turn in Washington, it is important to realize that the USA was founded with deliberate safeguards to insulate government from the hot will of the masses. It is just as dangerous to have a president who is willing and able to sign unilateral orders on the basis of public opinion as it would be elect justices by popular vote for short terms or to directly elect Senators (oops). The point is that each branch of government always has recourse to correct the errors of the other, but these correction require, and ought to require, a tremendous exertion of political effort. It is this political inertia that actually prevents the government standstill that would inevitably result from conflicting branches of government entering a cycle of political power-brokering and one-upsmanship.

Imagine if all the branches of government thought like Faux-Ferguson's president. Romney would sign an executive order voiding the courts decision, then the court would unanimously strike down this move, then the legislature would move to impeach the court, but the court would have itself acquitted. Ad infinitum. What a wonderful world that would be. At least for talk show hosts.

As always, the preceding were my thoughts as a politlcal observer and not a political participant.  They were not intended to endorse a particular course of action, whether that be the repeal or the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.  It was simply an attempt to bring historical observations to bear on the present situation and to encourage an internal consistency by the parties as they discuss the way forward.  The Kingdom will come in its own time and in its appointed way whether the government penalizes citizens for not buying health care or not.

Regarding Cyborgs and Demagogues

Nearly a decade before the publication of his book, American Demagogues: Twentieth Century, Columbia professor of history Reinhard H. Luthin penned an article for The American Historical Review entitled, "Some Demagogues in American History." The purpose was to review the way mass popular appeal had been commandeered into the service of politics throughout American history, from the early republic up to Luthin's own days. The term demagogue has a very obvious connotation, particularly in political rhetoric, and has for centuries. "The tendency to hurl the derogatory epithet indiscriminately at politi- cal opponents has perhaps led to confusion as to just what it is that constitutes a demagogue," lamented Luthin. Instead, he offered this comparably less vitriolic definition to be employed in the service of history: "the influential party chieftain who, by vigorous personality and noisy appeal to the crowd, made gross political capital by waging warfare against the affluent minority." It is this kind of politician which Luthin suggests has dominated the American political scene since the advent of universal, white manhood suffrage.

EVER since the late eighteenth century and particularly since the Jacksonian era, American political history has been colored in part by the campaign opportunism of the "demagogue," the professional "man of the people." With considerable histrionic variety and always noisily, he has sought to whip up and intensify the emotions, the prejudices and the passions, of the voting public. And not infrequently his tactics have won out over his more sedate rivals in the political arena.

What would this definition and this evaluation of demagoguery look like if applied disinterestedly to the American political climate today? Who would be labeled a demagogue? Who would be considered among the demagogue's sedate rivals? I cannot help but immediately call to mind the rhetoric which dominates the most popular media of every stripe regarding Mitt Romney, the cold, detached, disengaged, mechanical, affluent robot. In a bygone era, when "gentlemen of birth, wealth, and education, not the "lower orders," monopolized elective office" and when "a government office was a prerogative of the "upper" classes, not a paying job to be sought by flattering the voters," the epithets attached to Romney's name would have been quite different. In fact, in many respect with regard to his person, he is something a relic, a nostalgic throwback to a period in American political history when office was sought by men of leisure who did not need public positions to afford them all the privileges of rank and power.

That is not to say that he would make a good president. It isn't even an attempt to call into question Barack Obama's credentials simply by virtue of his mass appeal and demonizing of affluence. (After all, Luthin formed his definition of a demagogue with no less storied of a figure in mind than Andrew Jackson.) History will evaluate Obama. He may be deemed a good president--as so many political scientists and Norwegians seem to have decided in haste--or a bad one--as so many radio talk show hosts decided just as hastily. It is even possible, though anathema to most, that he may just be an average president, more historically noteworthy for the color of his skin than the contours of his policy. Regardless, the purpose here is to suggest that whatever history has to say about Obama's qualities as a president, it is safe to declare now that he is one of presidential history's greatest demagogues. With Luthin's criteria of mass appeal, self-deprecation in service of populism, impassioned rhetoric, and antagonism toward affluence, Obama is set to ascend into the pantheon of American political demagogues alongside Andrew Jackson and William Jennings Bryan.

This coming election may very well give Americans a chance to evaluate and make decisions about what they want from their most powerful politicians. Will Americans choose the "hopelessly disengaged" plutocrat, who is channeling the Old World notions of a successful business man, a Cincinnatus, who will set aside his wealth and his leisure in service of his country? Would they rather have the young, attractive political superstar, who knows just what to say to whip the masses into a frenzy against the oppressive elites? It will be interesting to see how America's self-discovery and self-determination play out on the national stage (much as it has been interesting to watch Republican self-discovery and self-determination play out on a smaller scale as Romney is pitted against lesser demagogues like Santorum and Gingrich). This election, however it ends up, will be one more chapter in the ongoing saga of America's waxing and waning love affair with her demagogues.
___________________________________________________________
As usual, when I comment on politics, I feel compelled to add this disclaimer: I am not in any way attempting to endorse any candidate nor do I intend to encourage Christian participation in politics in any way. The above is offered merely in an attempt to bring the past to bear on the present, which is the purpose of history. It is my firm and longstanding belief that Christians have an ethical obligation to abstain from participation in politics.

Then again...(or Positive Secularism Fights Back)

Perhaps my last offering was prematurely triumphant. I awoke this morning to find an article analyzing President Obama's decision to press the issue of faith-based organizations providing sterilization, contraceptives, and abortifacients as part of their health insurance regardless of any moral qualms or religious conscience. The position taken by the executive branch seems more ideological than practical, forcing Catholic groups to provide birth control which is freely and widely available elsewhere. For the author of the article, the message the government is sending is clear:

Obama's decision also reflects a certain view of liberalism. Classical liberalism was concerned with the freedom to hold and practice beliefs at odds with a public consensus. Modern liberalism uses the power of the state to impose liberal values on institutions it regards as backward. It is the difference between pluralism and anti-clericalism.

I don't know that this can necessarily be cast as "anti-clericalism," and I certainly reject the provocative claim that "the war on religion is now formally declared." This is, however, indicative of this shift in American conceptions of liberalism that I referenced last night, away from the idea of non-intrusive freedom that dominated, at the very least, in the antebellum period and toward a new idea of government sponsored, socially mandated positive pluralism. It is no longer enough to merely not infringe upon the life and liberty of another; in fact, infringing on that liberty can be seen as a moral good provide it is done in the service of securing an increasingly bloated list of rights on behalf of another. (Imagine suggesting to an American two hundred years ago--or one hundred, or fifty, or twenty--that abortion, sterilization, and birth control were inalienable human rights that trumped religious liberty.) There does some to be a clash in cultures occurring here--though again, not some vague war on religion--which no longer sees conscience as the liberty so essential that it became enshrined in the very first amendment to the Constitution, but instead considers it to be a private peccadillo to be tolerated so long as it doesn't interfere with the liberated mindset of post-sexual revolution America.

Without climbing too high onto my soapbox, I'd like to suggest that this viewpoint is only possible because of the trivial way contemporary Christians have handled their faith, allowing it to become more about politics than piety, more about sexual ethics than kingdom ethics. I am ultimately convicted that if Christians were to take faith in Christ as the all-consuming, life-transforming, community-constituting reality that it is and allowed it to distinguish us from society at large rather than trying to conform it to social expectations, perhaps it would be harder for the world to see faith as secondary in importance to the all-powerful right to have a thin, lubricated layer of latex between you and the sexual partner of your choice.

Obama Brings Rape into the 21st Century

And gets a gold star from me for doing it. After more than eighty years of the federal government inadequately defining "rape," the Obama administration has updated the definition. Under the old understanding, rape was the "carnal knowledge of a female, forcibly and against her will." The new and improved definition is much more expansive:

Penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.

Why is this better? The most glaringly obvious improvement is that the FBI now recognizes that men can be the victims of rape, which has been one of the most dastardly oversights in the decades old dispute over equal rights for the sexes. By removing the specification that a rape victim must be "female," the government finally acknowledges what should have been self-evident all along: it is possible to sexually violate a male. Additionally, the new definition expands rape to include the variety of sexual acts which, in our perverse excellence, we have perfected in modern times, including object rape, vaginal or anal penetration with body parts other than the penis, and forced fellatio.

It is important to remember, however, that this change does not affect penal codes--state or federal--in anyway, though thankfully most already included the full range of offenses in their rape and sexual assault laws. It does, however, bring the statistical analysis of rape into the 21st century, which is an important step. Many state and local organizations use the official rape statistics put out by the FBI to assign funds and other resources to rape prevention and awareness programs as well as victims' services. The greatest victory, however, may still be the moral one. It is encouraging to know that our government is still nimble enough to change patently absurd conceptions of crime, even if it takes eighty-five years to do it.

In Other News

Taking its cues from the Nobel Committee, the Orthodox Church has preemptively canonized President Barack Obama and pre-humously (totally a word) memorialized him with this icon:



Venerate it at your leisure.