[Dialogue] Spong New Year

[KroegerD@aol.com]

December 28, 2005 
A Meditation at the End  of 2005 
We human beings live consciously inside a medium called time. We experience  
everything in life as having a beginning and an ending. We count our age with  
annual birthdays, and our marriages with annual anniversaries. We evaluate  
history in units of time: years, decades and centuries. Because that is so it 
is  inevitable that when we come to an end point of one of our measurements of 
time,  we pause to evaluate. That is going on in every area of life at this 
moment as  2005 fades into history and 2006 emerges. This is how it looks to me. 
 
Starting with the perspective of the world, we discover that the war in Iraq  
dominates that scene. This war, which has never been popular in world 
opinion,  is now beginning to wear thin on the citizens of this nation. The character 
of  the political debate has shifted dramatically in 2005. The president is 
clearly  on the defensive, as the tactics he has used come under scrutiny. The 
political  will to pursue this war to some "successful conclusion," however 
that is  defined, is simply flagging. That fact was symbolized when 
Pennsylvania's  Representative John Murtha, a Pentagon favorite and a decorated marine of  
undeniable heroism and integrity, decided that the time to speak out for  
complete withdrawal had come. Things got nasty for a few days as the White House  
said that Representative Murtha was advocating surrender and likened him to  
anti-war filmmaker, Michael Moore. Then Vice President Cheney attacked 
Murtha's  patriotism. To these charges, Murtha made reference to the fact that Vice  
President Cheney sought and received five exemptions from the draft to avoid  
fighting in Vietnam. That was a war of words the administration was not going 
to  win and shortly thereafter both the President and Vice President began to 
praise  Representative Murtha's patriotism and to say simply they disagreed 
with him.  
Other critics did not fare as well as heavy Republican guns were fired at  
Howard Dean, the chair of the Democratic Party, for his assertion that the war  
could not be won, and TV ads began to play showing a white flag of surrender  
being waved over a picture of Senator John Kerry when he attacked the  
government's war policy. After all, if the strategy of attacking the patriotism  of 
this decorated Vietnam veteran worked in 2004, why not try it again?ê  
Underneath the bluster of this administration, the withdrawal of numbers of  
troops will occur, probably before the congressional elections in November of  
2006. Congress is restive. The cost of the war is now affecting projects back 
 home and is an issue raised in local political campaigns. The first Iraqi  
veteran to run for Congress as a war critic almost defeated the Republican in a 
 heavily conservative district in Ohio, a crucial swing state. That got 
noticed.  
Americans do not deal well with situations that lack a quick solution. The  
strategies being offered for public consumption are so old and threadbare. 
Sixty  years ago the American people were told that our exit strategy was to train 
the  army of South Korea to defend its own country. American troops are still 
in  Korea today. Thirty years ago it was to 'Vietnamize' the war in Vietnam. 
We did,  but without any popular support our puppets collapsed. Now our 
'strategy' is  turn over the defense of Iraq to the newly trained Iraqi army. 
Reality is,  however, that the militias of both the Kurds and the Shiites are 
stronger than  the prospective national Iraqi army, while most of the insurgency 
comes from the  dispossessed Sunnis, where local Mullahs have their own militias. 
No election  and no Iraqi army can alter these facts. What is yet to be 
gained by our  military presence no longer seems to justify the sacrifices of 
American capital,  to say nothing of the rising toll of deaths among our service 
personnel, which  now approaches 2200. The recent admission on the part of the 
President that this  war has cost the lives of 'at least 30,000 Iraqis,' 
brought the price of war in  contrast to the benefits derived into clear relief. The 
president, whose poll  numbers are plunging, now puts his hope in the recent 
election. Yet none of the  potential prime ministers has sufficient broad 
support to build stability, and  the USA will not accept an anti-American 
government in this conquered land.  
The president has a credibility problem of his own creation that will not be  
overcome easily. The fact that he has made four major speeches about this war 
in  the last two weeks of the year makes that abundantly clear. Credibility,  
however, is never rebuilt with rhetoric. Too many people remember the 
rhetoric  of the past, from the presidential promise to bring Bin Laden back "dead or 
 alive," to the statement that the war against Iraq was necessary because 
Saddam  had "weapons of mass destruction." Bin Laden is still at large and there 
were no  weapons of mass destruction. Then we were told that our troops would 
be greeted  as liberators, yet since the "mission accomplished" speech 
delivered in full  battle dress on the deck of an aircraft carrier in the late spring 
of 2003, most  of the casualties have occurred. The only thing that we are 
certain has fallen  permanently to our armed forces is Saddam Hussein's statue.  
Iraq and Afghanistan are not the year's only unfinished business. It was in  
this calendar year that the world had to embrace the utter tragedy of last  
December's tsunami that killed more than 200,000 people. 2005 also brought us  
other natural calamities. There was the earthquake in Pakistan that claimed 
tens  of thousands of lives and left many others destitute and doomed to die with 
the  onset of winter. In the United States, the hurricane that devastated New 
Orleans  was the year's biggest story, though category 5 winds and massive 
flooding also  constantly victimized the State of Florida. Florida, however, 
seemed to fade in  the nation's consciousness because the tragedy of New Orleans 
was so total and  revealed so much about the character of our national life. 
We witnessed the  insensitivity of the haves to the have nots, when the 
authorities gave orders to  evacuate the city, assuming that everyone had both the 
means to leave and a  place to go. That was followed by the ineptitude of our 
nation's response, the  revelation of poverty at the heart of our major cities 
and the fact that the  safety net underneath our poorest citizens has been 
significantly dismantled.  New Orleans forced us to see the priorities by which 
this nation lives. It was  not a pretty sight. The levees of New Orleans, 
symbolic of the decaying  infrastructure of the entire nation, have been neglected 
under the guise of  "cutting unnecessary spending." In 2005, by deliberate 
political decision, the  tax laws were restructured to allow the gap between the 
rich and the poor to  grow to what are surely immoral levels. The specter of 
the two houses of  Congress at the end of 2005, with New Orleans still heavy 
upon our nation's  collective conscience, voting 90 billions in additional tax 
cuts, weighted  toward the wealthy, while reducing expenditures in Medicare, 
public education  and public safety, that serve the nation's poor, was deeply 
distressing. The  argument that these top tier tax decreases will spur business 
and create jobs  might well be good public relations but such statements are 
deeply dishonest,  since jobs flee this country for cheaper labor abroad every 
year in pursuit of a  better bottom line for corporate America. When these 
fiscal policies are  attacked, the response is that the critics are "engaging in 
class warfare,"  pitting the poor against the rich. The fact is that we have in 
this  administration open class warfare already going on and the rich are 
clearly  winning.  
There was also a growing sense that the increased fury of the hurricanes was  
not just a freak of nature; but a direct result of global warming that we 
seem  incapable of facing. Many scientists contend that the warmer waters of the  
Atlantic Ocean are the primary factor in making the intensity of the 
hurricanes  much greater. In 2005, Brazil experienced a drought sufficient to dry up 
its  inland water sources. This too is said to be related to ocean warming. 
Europe  looks destined to become much colder as the jet stream that warms it is 
bending  farther and farther south due to the same ocean warming trends. The 
leadership  in both China and the United States, the world's two largest 
polluters appears  to be in denial. One wonders how much more evidence will be 
required to open the  eyes of these two countries' decision-makers.  
In religious circles, the biggest story of the year was the death of Pope  
John Paul II and the election of Joseph Ratzinger, the head of the Vatican's  
Inquisition Office, to be Pope Benedict XVI. This is a man who has used the  
power of his office to censure and to drive underground the leading scholars of  
the Roman Catholic Church. He has consistently opposed initiatives to remove 
his  church's medieval attitude toward women. He is an open persecutor of 
homosexual  persons, despite the widely accepted fact that homosexual prelates 
dominate the  Vatican itself. His election removes all hope for the viability of 
that faith  system in our lifetime.  
I am deeply discouraged by the trends of 2005. I see the world heading toward 
 a new "Dark Age." I see fear as the emotion that places people, who are so  
obviously inadequate to the task of leadership, into positions of power. I see 
 Christianity increasingly identified not with peace on earth or building  
wholeness, but with blessing tribal attitudes, justifying lingering prejudices,  
and violating those different by race, religion, gender and sexual 
orientation.  
I vest my hope as 2006 dawns in the words of one of our great hymns: "Time  
like an ever moving stream bears all its sons (and daughters) away." I greet 
the  New Year as one who is grounded in that transitory character of time. I 
take  comfort from the lessons of history that it is always darkest before the 
dawn.  Support for the war in Iraq is weakening. Global warming is beginning to 
be  recognized as a major problem. The attempt to ignore the poor is proving 
too  expensive to continue. Awareness of the radical interdependence of all 
life is  rising in each of us. I see the day coming when to the cry of the 
prophets, 'How  long, O Lord, how long?' will be answered by an aroused public, 'No 
more, no  more!' I greet 2006 with that prayer.  
— John Shelby Spong  
_Note from  the Editor: Bishop Spong's new book is available now at 
bookstores everywhere  and by clicking here!_ 
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060762055/agoramedia-20)   
Question and Answer
With John  Shelby Spong 
Kelly from Seattle, Washington, writes:  
I go to a Presbyterian Church that is fairly progressive. Sermons have  
included arguments for environmental stewardship, non-literal interpretation of  
the Bible and a general respect for science. Prayers don't generally ask God to  
intervene physically. I like all those things. However, there are still many  
traditional values embedded in the music, language and customs of the church. 
 Sometimes, when a passage from the Bible is read aloud by a church member, 
"this  is the Word of the Lord" follows. The belief in redemption through the 
death of  Jesus is central. Theism is of course deeply entrenched. What are 
your thoughts  on this situation? I would not be surprised if many others wrestle 
with the same  issue.  
Dear Kelly,  
Liturgy is usually a century out of date. In my church, the revised and  
supposedly modern prayer book of 1979 probably was relevant to the world of the  
early 19th century.  
The first step in reformation is to change those things that an individual  
can change. That includes the sermon, the interpretation of the Bible and the  
respect for science and knowledge itself. Your church has taken these steps 
but  it swims in a sea of pre-modern concepts. If the earth is not the center of 
the  universe with heaven just above the sky, then so much of the Bible is  
immediately reduced to the pre-modern book that it is. Why do we expect it to 
be  otherwise it was written between 1000 B.C.E. and 135 C.E? Everything 
written in  that period made the assumptions of that time. Remember Jesus thought 
epilepsy  was demon possession.  
What you are now doing is experiencing the conflict of living in the 21st  
century while your worship reflects the 1st, 4th and 13th centuries. Inevitably  
you are feeling the tension. It is, however, a tremendous advance just to be  
facing these realities. That tension will create one of two responses: Either 
 you and those who think like you will begin to force changes in the liturgy 
or  the liturgies will finally become so incoherent to you that you will give 
up  worship altogether.  
Reformation is the only alternative to seeing Christianity split into two  
groups — one, Fundamentalist (they come in both a Catholic and Protestant form)  
and two, members of the Church Alumni Association.  
Work on liturgy is going on everywhere but it is in small isolated groups  
within every denomination. Eventually it will break out of its places of origin  
— coalesce into a movement that will shake the foundations of traditional 
church  life.  
I will welcome that day. I pray for it every time I sing, "O come, O come  
Emmanuel." Emmanuel means God with us — that is God deep within our being as the 
 very ground of our being. We journey inward not outward to meet this God. 
The  moment we realize this is the moment that liturgy will be transformed. 
Write  again in about a year and give me a progress report.  
— John Shelby Spong  

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