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Oppose Flag Idolatry

Oppose Flag Idolatry

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Oppose the “Flag Anti-desecration” Amendment.

First off, notice the language of religion and the sacred here. To “desecrate” is to violate the sacredness of something. To be “anti-desecration” is to be against the violation of the sacred. This assumes that the flag is holy, sacred, sanctified, blessed, consecrated.

The American flag should not be made into a golden calf, a graven image; to worship the symbol would be a grave mistake.*

Making a “holy” thing of the American flag is a form of idolatry. The flag is only a piece of cloth. It is wrong to worship a flag. (On this one issue I still agree with the Jehovah’s Witnesses.)

The flag is, at its best, an emblem or symbol of the United States of America. To focus on the symbol is a way of forgetting that to which it points. What it’s meant to stand for are things like our constitutionally-protected rights and values, our freedom, our democracy. (Unfortunately, in some places it stands for other things.)

It is also symbolic of America that we don’t worship a flag. Have one, don’t worship it. We have freedom of expression. Criticism of actions and policies of our government is also a form of patriotism, and part of a functional democracy in the land of the free.

The more important and “sacred” the flag becomes, the uglier the country becomes (including ours). There is a huge difference between patriotism and nationalism. Self-aborbed nationalism is a dead end in our world. We are crossing that line into a major fall already.

Of course, if they somehow pass this thing, a lot of Americans are going to be in deep trouble some weeks after Independence Day (you know, that celebration now referred to as “4th of July”) when ratty flags start getting reported. Maybe that’s one way to start people snitching on one another. Maybe it would even stop the practice of requiring that international students pledge their loyalty in homeroom to a piece of cloth that signifies a country that isn’t even theirs. Or not. (I wonder how many Americans would tolerate that in another country?)

Why are these pseudo-Christians so tied up with flag issues? You’d think they might see the idolatry in it, but maybe not. The current governor of Georgia got elected on the Confederate flag.

What a cowardly path to take. With so many more important issues and challenges facing us, this transparently political strategy is yet another issue aimed at igniting hate and fanning its flames. Like so many other interpretations held by this administration, it is profoundly anti-American. I suppose that anyone who happens to mention that freedom of expression is a Constitutional right, and that enforced patriotism in a democracy seems a little strange will then be called “treasonous”?

We would do better in this global economy to open up to other friendly countries, rather than set ourselves so pridefully and arrogantly above all others. We aren’t in the Crusades or the Inquisitions or the Witch Hunts (not yet anyway). We’re not going to accept Bush as a king, an emperor, or (a) god.

We’re not ready to say “Heil,” not even in Georgia.

The flag itself is meaningful as a symbol of our freedom and democracy, neither of which seem particularly valuable to this administration.

Oppose the “Flag Anti-desecration” Amendment. Oppose flag idolatry.

Oh, and Congress? Get off this constitutional amendment kick. We all know you have something better to do.

*Nelson, I rewrote this a bit after yr email (but yes, it’s a pun). Post revised June 14th.

Rant on the So-called Marriage Amendment

Rant on the So-called Marriage Amendment

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Tell Congress you oppose the “marriage” amendment to our Constitution. I did….

How dare you try to amend our Constitution to discriminate against any American citizen? How dare you appeal to hate? How dare you use God for this!

This is so low, so hypocritical. You won’t dabate Iraq, but you WILL debate this?

Is this what you have left to say about “compassionate conservatism”? You’ve let pseudo-christian dominionists (otherwise known as supremacists) gain too much power in our process because you think hate will motivate enough votes that the rigged elections can be rationalized.

These people want to bring back stoning! In America! They are wayyy too concerned with how to control other people. It won’t stop with this – gays aren’t the only people they hate. They want to put women “back in the box” as well, and they are training the children just like little Hitler youth with their home-schooling programs. Some even speak of a return to slavery.

But that’s not even what it’s about, is it? Because in addition to payback to the terrorist christian right – remember these are the people who incited to murder, bombed clinics, etc – this is really about something else.

It’s about insurance. You want to nip that “alternative family insurance” movement in the bud. You know, at the behest of the people who wrote the laws for the prescription drug “benefit”? It wouldn’t look good to talk about poor grandma raising her grandchildren, or the single moms or dads doing the best the can. Noooooo….you have to find that bigotry that remains, and work it, baby, work it.

Meanwhile, the dollar seems (to me at least) ready to plummet, Iraq is a disaster, Iran is about to become a disaster, Halliburton and ExxonMobil walk off with our money, and you don’t think there are any monuments in New York so you’re cutting homeland security funds. People are dying, people are hurting. There are parts of America that are as poor as any third-world nation, but you’re in bed with crony corporatists (when you don’t have prostitutes or long-term buddies from college to sleep with and promote).

You want to lecture us about morality? You want to use our own constitution for power, for hate? You have profoundly misunderstood the nature of this country. This country belongs to WE THE PEOPLE.

You’ve handed power to the executive branch. You’ve destroyed our country. You’ve taken our future. Keep going, and you’ll be showing up for photo ops in your hoods or uniforms or whatever.

The Nazis had their scapegoats too.
Shame on you. Shame on you. Shame on you.

You fundamentalists have lost
the thing most fundamental.
Pharasees again, in code
have lost or burned the message.
You fanatics worship manmade creeds
that will undo us all
And YOU, you terrorists of all religions
your gods will make us fall.

Yes I confess this deep deep flaw,
this remnant of rigidity,
scar-tissue of self-righteousness,
torn open yet again.
Yet one must speak from where one stands
and this is what I know,
I have no room left in my heart
for love toward you to grow.

The evil that your “god” incites
in you and o’er the world,
stains for all time our histories,
we all pay for your sins.
I guard compassion jealously
held selfish in reserve
for the ones you hurt so deeply
and whose stories aren’t heard.

I name you and yours false prophets
because you do define the phrase,
you lead the would-be faithful
always far and further astray.
Placing demon masks
on the faces of our kin,
undoing all the fragile good
that lets us breathe again.

Former Jehovah’s Witness Speaks

Former Jehovah’s Witness Speaks

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This testimony letter gives a glimpse into some of the recurring issues. Thanks for sending and giving your permission to post, Angela!

I was raised by parents who converted to Jehovah’s Witnesses (from the Catholic religion) when I was five years old (I am now 32). My father is an elder and he and my mother are very active. I have six younger brothers and sisters who are all active JW’s.

When I was 18, I married a “brother” I had met at a quick-build. Five years later we had a daughter. After seven years of marriage, I found myself very unhappy and I decided to leave. My husband (a Ministerial Servant), along with the elders help, tricked me into signing custody papers that were not as they were presented. My ex and his wife have primary physical custody of my daughter. I see my child every other weekend and six weeks during the summer (they moved 3 hours away). I tried to regain custody of her, only to fail. Can you say “Parent Alienation?”

After I remarried, I tried to return to the Kingdom Hall in 2003 to be reinstated. I attended meetings faithfully for six months. I decided to write my letter in order to be reinstated. The elders on my committee told me that everything seemed to be going well and it would only be a couple of weeks before they made the announcement of my reinstatement. When I met with the elders a week later, they informed me that my ex-husband did not think I was ready to be reinstated… and the elders wanted me to drop my appeal that was currently in progress for custody of my daughter. I gave up and almost went crazy with grief for the sudden loss of my daughter, my family and all of my friends. I had to receive intense counseling to deal with the emotional pain.

Since 2003, I had allowed my daughter to attend meetings with my family during my weekend and summer visits with her. Things have recently taken a turn. I told my seven year old daughter that Jehovah’s Witnesses do not know if they have the only true religion… no one knows. Well, apparently she told one of my sisters who in turn retaliated with a very nasty letter that stated, “you are basically trying to kill her (my daughter) by telling her or trying to convince her that she does not have the true religion!” and “you now have the name of an apostate in my eyes.” That letter made me sick. My sister who had been my best friend had written these horrible hurtful words. She had been disfellowshipped at one time, but I took her in despite being chastised by the elders.

Since that letter was written, I have not allowed my daughter to attend a meeting at the Kingdom Hall while she is with me. She is around those people enough with her father. This decision that I have made will probably result in another nasty custody battle because my ex husband will not respect my decision… he will try everything in his power to program our daughters mind. She has already started asking me why she can’t go to the Kingdom Hall this summer. Her father must have her convinced that God will look unfavorable upon her if she doesn’t persuade me to let her attend the meetings. He’s making her feel torn between two worlds.

I too am in limbo. No one seems to understand how it feels to lose all of your friends and family in one day. No one understands how it feels to be treated like dirt on someone’s shoe. I have never done drugs, been a drunkard, beat my children, or murdered anyone… yet I am treated (by JWs) as someone who is beneath those type of people. The lowest scum of the earth. What gives those imperfect humans the right to judge me as unworthy of God’s love??

I have just begun to explore websites that are created by former Jehovah’s Witnesses. In the past I was afraid. I am only full of anger now. I want to relate to someone. I want to talk to people who understand what I’ve been through and what I am still going through. Thank you for taking the time to read about what I’ve been through.

Angela, I hope you know that you are not unworthy of God’s love, which is endless and does not depend on human organizations like the one in Brooklyn. Show your daughter better examples of caring, compassion, and kindness. She will remember, and in the long run, it is the best thing you can do for yourself and for her.

You are not alone in this, but it is a difficult path to navigate. Start building a more authentic life for yourself, and let go of some of your anger if you can. Document everything that happens (and do not respond in kind, no matter how tempting it might be). Take control of your own religious path and your relationship to God – prayer helps a lot, if only to focus and meditate. If you can, turn your focus outward toward acts of friendship and service – not door-to-door service, but the kinds of “helping” gestures that can mean so very much to others. This will help lift you up, stabilize you, and help you to rebuild a sense of yourself that brackets out these unfair judgments.

There are some JW boards where you can thrash some of this out if you want to, but ultimately it’s up to you to find inner strength (if not for yourself, for your daughter). Think of the mommy you’d most like to be, and start moving in that direction. The more you act out of the center of your soul, the more it becomes habitual. Take the good things you’ve learned, and dump the rest. God is bigger than their vision – explore your ethics and your spirituality for yourself.

As for your family and “friends” – I can only mourn with you. It’s heartbreaking, and I’m so sorry. Again, the best thing you can do, when you can manage to do it (it’s not easy sometimes) is to set an example of ethics, compassion, caring, and love. It is the only thing that might make any difference at all.

I have a good feeling about you because you took in your sister when she had been cast out. That means you have a sense of ethical priorities, which JWs usually have trouble ordering. You already know that the highest priority is not following the rules of an organization, but rather caring for others (and for yourself, too! don’t forget that). Take care of yourself first, so that you may then care for your daughter.

Arm your lawyer with any documentation that you have of any of this. Alienation of a child’s affection is a serious matter. That the JW elders sat down with you (!), misrepresented the agreement, and so on may be basis for coercion, and the judge may take that into consideration. Also, your situation is changed now, and that also has to be taken into account. As you have discovered, JWs will hit hard for children to remain in the custody of the JW parent. They could even lend your ex one of their own lawyers. I recommend that you do a little web research on Jehovah’s Witnesses and custody battles – there are perhaps some previous cases that may be of help to you and your lawyer.

Keeping you in my daily meditations, and sending you waves of healing and love.

No Tax Money for GA Public School Bible Classes

No Tax Money for GA Public School Bible Classes

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The Georgia State Senate has passed two pieces of legislation that pose a serious threat to the separation of church and state.

One would create state-funded Bible classes in Georgia public schools.
The second would allow the Ten Commandments to be displayed by county governments.

Both bills are on Governor Sonny Perdue’s desk, and he is contemplating whether to sign them.

Take action now and demand that Governor Perdue defend the Constitution and Georgia’s citizens from these attacks on the separation of church and state.

If these were really christians, they would want to post something that better represented Jesus’ teaching. The focus on the ten commandments is symptomatic of their seeming inability to understand love, forgiveness and grace. Neither do they take into account hundreds of years of Jewish and Christian scholarship and debate on issues of interpretation, translation, or socio-historical context. Their “take” on christianity is a perversion of their own religion. Their absolutist views of human beings show little evidence of any of the spiritual virtues. Think I’m overstating? Try Googling “Christian Reconstruction” or “theonomy” – they want a theocracy here, complete with the total control of women, even stoning!

From the Forerunner – I’m not linking to this site – Google a phrase:

We are not looking for a “voice a the table” nor are we seeking “equal time” with the godless promoters of pornography, abortion, safe-sodomy subsidies, socialism, etc. We want them silenced and punished according to God’s Law-Word.

They use God as a tool. Jesus would think they were jerks. This is about votes! This is about scapegoating and turning us against one another so that we don’t notice that we’re all getting robbed. I mean literally robbed – of our traditions, our ideals, our treasury, our natural resources, our futures.

From Apologetics Index:

Epitomizing the Reconstructionist idea of Biblical ”warfare” is the centrality of capital punishment under Biblical Law. Doctrinal leaders (notably Rushdoony, North, and Bahnsen) call for the death penalty for a wide range of crimes in addition to such contemporary capital crimes as rape, kidnapping, and murder. Death is also the punishment for apostasy (abandonment of the faith), heresy, blasphemy, witchcraft, astrology, adultery, ”sodomy or homosexuality,” incest, striking a parent, incorrigible juvenile delinquency, and, in the case of women, ”unchastity before marriage.”

I can’t believe this. Really. I’m shaking my head. So now they want to get ’em while they’re young – and use our own tax dollars to do it! Already they have uniforms. What next, a special salute?

The separation of church and state protects religious rights, the freedom of religious expression. There should be no state sponsorship of a specific religious tradition. Religious training of minors is the right and responsibility of families and their own religious tradition.

There is no proposal here to teach a wide range of religious texts or religious themes across the world’s traditions. The cuts to more fundamental educational areas serve only to highlight the political motivation of these bills.

Bible classes for minors are an unconstitutional use of funds. At the college level, courses related to religion, such as comparative religion and mythology, spiritual autobiography, Bible as literature, and the like are appropriate as elective courses at state universities. I have been trained in theology and ethics at a state university, and taken courses in religion at the undergraduate level at another. But courses and departments of religion have a different set of approaches than the ones we can expect to see from public school teachers. They started with home schooling, now this. Questions of belief will enter the classroom, and we will see a newly indocrinated “Christian Youth” if they get their way. Wake up, sheeple.

No – you can’t use our tax dollars to indoctrinate our children. No – you can’t fool us, we know what this is all about, and we’re not all as ignorant as you seem to think. Add these totalitarian “religious” power freaks to the neo-cons of empire and the puppets of corporate interests, and you see the unholy trinity that is killing this country and all it stands for! Those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, take heed!

Stop the pseudo-religious right from pushing their dubious “theology” in our public schools and our public square.

Banning hot cross buns?

Banning hot cross buns?

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What do you get when you pour very hot water down a rabbithole?

Hot cross bun(ny)s!

One a penny two a penny – Hot cross buns!

It’s official – the memes of repression in the name of freedom and diversity have travelled to the U.K. Or have they?

For fear of offending the religious minorities at The Oaks Primary School in Ipswich, headteacher Tina Jackson has asked suppliers to remove the cross from their hot cross buns. .. “The cross is there in recognition of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ but for our students who are Jehovah Witnesses hot cross buns are not part of their beliefs. “We decided to ask to have the cross removed in respect of their beliefs. It was just a currant bun.”

For some reason, they seem worried -only- about Jehovah’s Witnesses. JW’s are not activists for such things – I smell mendacity here.

Evening Star – School decides to ban the bun

Albert Berwick, a minister with the Ipswich Cavendish Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses, said the buns would indeed be offensive to members.

He said: “I can understand why the school has done this and I support the decision. Hot cross buns are a pagan symbol of fertility no different to bunnies, eggs and Easter.

The sentence is so typical in its self-confusion and half-understood prohibitions. I notice they didn’t get any offical statement from the Watchtower Society, who would never put it quite this way. Excusing the grammer (or lack thereof) for a moment, I’m simply trying to understand how hot cross buns are a symbol of fertility – you know, exactly. Since when is bread, currents and the shape of a cross made in icing a symbol of fertility? If you want to talk about the “pagan” roots of the resurrected god, that’s one thing, but this? “Hot cross buns” does of course sound a little bit suggestive (or is it just me?), but “hot cross buns” are a very different thing than “hot buns” in general…

The cross, cut into the dough before cooking or added later (as in this case) with icing, was thought to ward off evil spirits. You might not have noticed, but JWs don’t say anything when someone sneezes. The common “God bless you” or “gesundheit” has the same sort of ancient belief attached.

Of course, bunnies and eggs harken to something other than Christianity – but everyone knows that. Are egg hunts “offensive” to the Church of England?

Are the Brits turning into JWs? I’m curious about how exactly this school made the decision, and why they leave it at the feet of JWs. If they wanted to mollify JWs, they would have to end all of the holidays, delete all of the celebrations, get rid of anything that suggested a connection to any of them. Somehow I don’t see that happening.

My recollection is that JWs who are troubled by “pagan” celebrations and symbols simply do not participate, and they do not partake of those foods if they feel they are too closely associated. They simply wouldn’t eat the buns. Or – they could have an alternative, such as regular bread. Or they could simply smear the icing. You can’t spend your life trying to avoid symbols – anything can be a symbol.

An aside – I wish my son had the option of hot cross buns at school – they are delicious.

So is this for real, or are the same folks operating over there as here? Sounds either bogus or extremely silly to me. It’s a Monty Python sketch in the making. I welcome any contact from the school administrators. It would be an interesting conversation. No mention of any other religions…

As a former JW and an American liberal (as well as a scholar of religion, ethics and literature), may I suggest that banning hot cross buns has nothing to do with liberation, affirmation of cultural or religious diversity, or reducing hatred of those different from one’s own comfort group?

Pretending that traditions do not exist is not “politically correct” at all, even if you forget that the designation of “political correctness” is meant as an insult rather than a description. With all my disagreements with Jehovah’s Witnesses, I don’t know a single one who would be “offended” by such a thing as hot cross buns. If there is someone who is in fact offended by hot cross buns, please send contact information and an interview invitation. That would be the story here – someone is offended by hot cross buns! Let them explain.

A better solution might be to include some foods from other cultural and religious traditions. Some of them are downright yummy.

Inclusivity, toleration, respect and dignity for all people regardless of their religious beliefs – these are the deeper issues, and I don’t see how these are served by eroding and erasing one set of beliefs for another. There is no need to become bland in order to have dialogue. This attempt, if it was sincere, only reinforces resentment – the JW is reconfirmed in his own sense of superiority above the “impure” and the “pagan” remnants tied up with Christian tradition (as though there were a “pure” place without such influences), and the traditional Christians feel threatened and upset that even the most innocuous food should(?) be sacrificed (they don’t necessarily know the history of traditions, but why spoil them for everyone?).

If what has come to be called “political correctness” is really about attempting to erase difference in some authoritative way, then it no longer represents a move toward a language of liberation and freedom. As I recall, the main point was to create a language of inclusivity and dialogue so that everyone could speak – not to make every utterance so problematic that people were afraid to speak at all. Those who would make freedom of expression a way to limit expression have profoundly misunderstood. The regulatory function has to do with limiting hate speech, not with erasing one’s own differences from others.

Compare this to the situation of depicting Mohammed in cartoons – misunderstanding all around. The cartoon used the Prophet as a visual shortcut to depict radical Islam as terrorism. It’s sloppy, but no more so than the cartoons of Jesus and God that are seen all over. The main problem is not so much the comment on terrorism as its collapse into Islam generally, which isn’t really fair and, most importantly, it is regarded as blasphemous. There is a prohibition on depicting God (and by extention, perhaps) the Prophet in images. By the way, this prohibition is technically shared with Judaism and I’m not exactly sure how the Christians got around it. It’s a commandment. Here is the wriggle room – how does anyone know that the cartoons depicted the Prophet specifically? Were they actually labelled as such, or could they have been depictions of terrorist leaders? Personally, I was more disturbed by the exaggerated features on the one I saw, which seemed a caricature of race/nation/people more than of religion per se. There is a whole history of such caricatures of the “enemy” (see, for example Faces of the Enemy: Reflections of a Hostile Imagination by Sam Keen).

The culture clashes on religion can be mediated – with difficulty, but it is not impossible. Why just jump in to opposition, hatred, violence – without speaking with one another, without even an attempt at dialogue? Again, the differences are reinscribed as opposing ones and all sides have forgotten to care for one another as all religions of the book agree we ought to do.

Laura Bush – Corinna Corinna

Laura Bush – Corinna Corinna

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Laura Bush (and again, what drugs do they have her on?) referred to the hurricane Katrina as “Corinna” twice.

Laura Bush - Hurricane Corinna Corinna

It wouldn’t bother me so much except that:

1) It occurred to me that it was a Freudian slip. Whoopi Goldberg may be the only black person that Laura can think of, and she is assocated with a killer hurricane? What does that imply? Some sort of “they brought it on themselves” idea? Or should we look at the movie itself, a low-key romantic comedy, for the answers? I’d love to hear Whoopi’s opinion on this – she could write a whole routine on this one.

2) When the transcript was put on the web, they corrected her words. Hey, I listened to the clip on Randi Rhodes. She said “Corinna” – twice!

3) The other Bush woman, the mighty Barbara, had also made a very revealing statement: “What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality,” she said in a radio interview from the Astrodome in Houston, Texas. “And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this — this is working very well for them,” she said – with a laugh. (Crooks and Liars has the audio)

It reminded me of Barbara’s comments before the invastion of Iraq, when she indicated her lack of interest in the potential death toll. “Why should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day it’s gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? It’s not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?”

Beautiful, beautiful minds there. Sigh. I have a pile of stuff here about FEMA and photo op fakery and some amazingly repulsive quotations, but it looks like it’s all being covered elsewhere in the blogosphere and even on some of the news – so I think I’ll skip it for today.

This afternoon, we’re doing to my nephew’s first year birthday bash. Ben picked out a great present, and we’re going to try to appreciate what we have. It’s a beautiful day in Atlanta – crisp early fall – my favorite time of the year. I’m about to turn off the computer.

After that, I will be requesting that Benevolent Deities, Inc. deliver love and necessities and all-over healing to everyone who is hurting. I’m sure they can do a better job than the government of the USA. Oh – there was a memo – it seems that Big God (of which none greater can be thought) is getting a bit…. I believe the word might be….”miffed.”