[Dialogue] Spong on topic

[kroegerd@aol.com]

July 20, 2005
Political Fundamentalism 

I listen to the rhetoric. It makes rational sense at first glance but the argument is circular and the feelings are hostile. Yet it has a familiar ring. I have heard it somewhere before. "The president wants to appoint a justice to the Supreme Court who will "interpret the constitution not amend it." " We want judges who will apply the Constitution not judges who will legislate." The words are consistent, coming in many variations. They sound like a mantra, the product of a prepared script of "talking points," published for dealing with the media. They are normally accompanied by a visceral negativity expressed toward "activist judges." When one presses for a definition of an activist judge one discovers that it means 'one who adopts any opinion that changes the status quo or diminishes the speaker's control' When asked for concrete examples the issues are lined up generally in this order of importance. 
First, there was Roe v. Wade that, to them, means that abortion is not only legitimate, but that a genuine separation now exists between sexual activity and the social power that a male dominated society has long exercised over a woman's body. That is what has created our sexually permissive society, they contend. 
Second comes that series of court decisions that they believe has effectively "removed God from public life." The outlawing of prayer in public schools is the flash point for these feelings. Other decisions that made illegal the public displays of such things as crèche scenes on state property or the Ten Commandments in court rooms cause them to fear that the court intends to abolish religion, which they regard as the bulwark of their social control. 
The third item on their agenda is the court's support for affirmative action as a way of redressing centuries of overt racism. Here they believe the court is saying, "Your word is not enough. We will judge the level of your prejudice only by what you do." It thus impinges on their freedom to engage in business without government interference. 
The final issue on their list is homosexuality. Specifically they want to be assured that the court will recognize that marriage can occur only between a man and a woman, which they believe is the God-ordered traditional and unchanging view. 
This debate is engaged quite publicly, because attacking the court and its "liberal manipulators" frees them from having to face their own prejudices. Why judge yourself when you can vent your hostility on those "wild-eyed judges who bend the constitution to fit the newest social fad." It becomes essential to the preservation of their security to surround their point of view with both the history and the sanctity of the Constitution. 
This rhetoric, omni-present since Justice O'Connor's resignation, has always sounded familiar, but I could not immediately identify it. Like so many pious arguments its irrationality does not always sink in at first hearing. Finally, however, the connection became clear. Conservatives talking about the Constitution are exactly like fundamentalists talking about the Bible. Both assume that the document they are quoting is somehow inerrant or perfect. Both assume that all problems can be solved if one only applies the right quotation from the revered source to the issue at hand. Both seek to use the authority of a sacred text to cover their baser instincts. Both view change as evil by definition. Both feel that their vested interests will be at risk if anyone tampers with their source of authority, so both cover it with an aura of sanctity designed to minimize any erosion. The passage of time must not relativize 'unchanging reality'. 
The Constitution is actually less dangerous than the Bible for at least the Constitution offers the possibility of an amendment that will actually alter, or even expand the gifts of freedom. Only once, in the prohibition amendment, has that privilege been unwisely used and it was repealed when its damage became apparent. Yet, following the Bill of Rights, every attempt to amend the Constitution has come only after an enormous shift in consciousness has occurred, sometimes as the result of cataclysmic events, but always in response to an aroused populace. 
It took a bloody civil war, for example, to end slavery and to enfranchise the African-American segment of our population with a constitutional amendment. Even then poll taxes, segregation, and tactics of intimidation tempered the freedom offered by the Constitution as the dominant white part of society co-opted law enforcement agencies to keep their prejudices in tact. It took an enormous challenge to the popular definition of a woman to bring about the emancipation from the stereotypes of the past, which enabled women to rise in our society to their current levels. The right to own property in their own names, to receive a university education, to enter the job market and ultimately to receive the vote by an amendment to the Constitution was the work of almost a century of rising consciousness. Equality has not yet been fully gained as the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment, as well as the gap between the compensation paid to a man and that paid to a woman still reveals. The dominant male world did not sacrifice its control or compromise its power over women easily. Yet inch-by-inch they were forced to do so by these "activist judges." 
This nation was founded officially as a secular state. The constitution refused to allow any religious system to be established but it guaranteed the freedom of worship to all. Yet the assumption was still made by the dominant part of society that freedom of worship was limited to the various Protestant denominations of Christianity. The Catholic minority experienced such rejection in this WASP society that to survive they felt compelled to build a parochial school system. Jews, as the only non-Christian minority found in America at that time, also knew what it meant to be marginalized. Anti-Semitism was widely accepted as both legitimate and deserved. When the world grew smaller and the enlightenment challenged all believing systems, religions native to other parts of the world and even non-religious secular attitudes demanded that they too be protected from the imperialism of the religious majority. When the Supreme Court moved to do so, it was condemned by those who felt that their majority power was being threatened and their influence weakened. Since God was on their side, they reasoned, the court, when it disagreed with them, had to be anti-God. 
Today homosexual people are the new minority demanding equality before the law. They seek the benefits available to other citizens and claim for themselves the right to pursue what the Declaration of Independence has called "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness!" 
Court critics today argue that in each of these instances "activists" judges abandoned the literal text of the Constitution and stretched its meaning to new levels of inclusiveness. To keep the Constitution timely it was amended. In a similar manner fundamentalists have suggested that liberal (read 'activist') clergy have abandoned the 'strict constructionist' approach to the Bible by reaching beyond the literal text to arrive at new solutions. They fail to notice, however, the primary difference that when the Bible was on the wrong side of history it was not amended, it was simply ignored. This occurred in 1215 C.E. when the Bible, quoted in defense of the divine right of kings and against the Magna Charta, lost. It lost again when it was employed to condemn Galileo and to support the idea that the earth was the center of the universe. It lost again when it was quoted to defeat Charles Darwin, and yet again when it supported slavery and segregation, opposed equality for women and the rights of full citizenship for homosexual people. 
Why is it that human beings ever attribute to a human document, whether the Bible or the Constitution, the power of possessing ultimate truth? Do they not realize that this is idolatry? Is not every human creation time-bound and time-warped? Do they not know that always "new occasions teach new duties?"* Do they really believe one can serve truth by applying the words of an ancient document in an always-changing world? "Strict constructionism" and "biblical fundamentalism" are two sides of the same coin. Both attempt to order life for the benefit of those who possess power now. Both oppose opening the world to a new consciousness, a new inclusiveness, new ideas or new realities. Both are used in the service of the status quo. Finally, both attempt to legitimatize ongoing prejudices and to perfume them with acceptability. 
The sad and obvious reality is that this tactic never works. This "liberal court" castigated as "outrageous" by Republican House Leader Tom DeLay is made up of seven judges appointed by conservative Republican presidents. Perhaps as significant is the fact that a Republican controlled Senate confirmed the only two Democratic appointees. One can hardly claim that this is a liberal court of judicial activists. Strict constructionists are never satisfied and biblical fundamentalists will always be thwarted and disillusioned because they cannot stop the relentless march of time. Both the Bible, written between 1000 B.C.E. and 135 C.E., and the Constitution, written in the 18th Century embody truth, as truth was perceived in the time of the creation of each document. No document contains truth for all time, the answers to all problems or quotations to apply to every contemporary issue. Such talk is both uninformed and nonsensical. Yet we still hear this rhetoric and the ones who employ it are still trying to hide their prejudices beneath their source of authority. Time moves on, and when it does it always make "ancient good uncouth."* Either we learn how to move with it or we become irrelevant. "Strict constructionists" and "biblical fundamentalists" are both destined to lose. The issue is only how much harm will they do before they realize it. 
- John Shelby Spong
  
Question and Answer
With John Shelby Spong
* Both of these quotations are taken from a poem by James Russell Lowell. 
Dr. Ned Wallace, a missionary doctor from Pennsylvania, who has served in Central America and Africa, writes: 
"Our diocese has a linked relationship with one of the dioceses in southern Sudan. Terrible conditions. Our bishop and his wife visited the area (Kajo Keji) for three weeks several months ago. Our diocese has responded generously to pleas for food and other assistance. As it often happens, once caring people become personally exposed to conditions of millions upon millions in the developing world and have an opportunity to compare and contrast, the result - certainly by most Christians I have known - is a strong motivation to respond. In Swaziland in January, I guided our rector through a nine-day tour of conditions and the AIDS situation in Swaziland - same response. My bias as a Christian has been for many years that many faith groups place a significant emphasis and focus on the importance of belief as compared with the importance of behavior. 
I recall a number of passages in the New Testament that cite Christ's focus on loving God and our neighbors. From my personal perspective, love of a neighbor and all of its critical interpretations receives much less focus and emphasis in the Church than love of God. What usually occurs after a meaningful experience with poverty, loss of hope and inequity, there is a brief flash of sympathy, often action of some sort - some of which is indeed useful. But sooner or later there seems to be a return for our church leaders to fall back on what appears to me to be some fuzzy interpretations that occurred many centuries ago and would never stand active interpretation. 
So, as I challenge church leaders, clergy and congregations, my question relates to how I can encourage them to review one of the essential mandates from Christ - his clear and emphatic emphasis on our responsibilities toward our fellow human beings." 
Dear Dr. Wallace, 
You touch the ultimate question that always hampers the Christian Church. I am not sure Christianity would have survived for 2000 years had it not been institutionalized. I am not sure if it will survive the next 100 years because it is institutionalized. 
Every institution places its ultimate weight on preserving its own life. That is why the Church emphasizes loving God over loving one's neighbor. Loving God can be expressed through worship and liturgy, building stone monuments and in filling them with music as well as mystery. These are the emotions that build great cathedrals, vest clergy elaborately, decorate the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, create chorales and oratorios, all of which shroud God in mystery and wonder and draw people, who are always seeking relationship with the holy, into the Church's orbit engaging them in worship. This serves the Church's need for power that has always been its highest priority. 
The push for justice on the other hand might be at the center of the Gospel but it also attacks the balance of power in the society. Since the rich always exploit the poor, to give the poor power, dignity and humanity makes them less pliable, less cooperative. Prejudices also cover human insecurities and so they always receive religious sanctions. The Bible portrays God justifying the hatred of the Hebrews for their overlords, the Egyptians. Otherwise, the story of the divine plagues aimed at the Egyptians at the time of the Exodus makes no sense. 
White people cover their fear and insecurity against people of color by subjugating them as either slaves (later segregation and dehumanizing prejudice) or as vassal states to a colonial empire. Males cover their masculine sense of inadequacy by treating women as second-class citizens. Heterosexuals reveal their sexual insecurity by oppressing homosexual persons. It is interesting to me to see how throughout history we blessed our prejudices with sanctified quotations from Holy Scriptures as if to say God shares our prejudices with us. 
The great biblical tradition says that loving God and loving one's neighbor are not two separate actions but two sides of the same action. It was the prophet Amos who bore witness to the fact that divine worship is nothing but human justice being offered to God and human justice is nothing but divine worship being lived out. It was the First Epistle of John that warned us that one cannot love God without loving one's neighbor and to suggest otherwise is to be "a liar." It was Jesus himself to whom the words are attributed that his purpose is to bring life and to bring it abundantly. To be a disciple of Jesus means a dedication to being a life giver, a life enhancer to all people at all times and under all circumstances. Finally, in the parable of the Judgment in Matthew 25, the entire basis of salvation is said to be not the way one believes, that is to creeds, doctrines and dogma but whether or not one serves the Christ who is to be seen in the faces of the poor, the hungry, the naked, the imprisoned and the sick. 
The task of people like you, Ned, is to call institutional Christianity daily to accept its vocation to follow its Lord by giving its life in the service of others. But lest you be disillusioned, you need always to be aware that the people who will hear the call of Christ and the call that you have so often heard and to which you have given yourself so courageously will always be a minority, a saving remnant within the body of believers. However, that witness is essential to the life and health of the whole body. It is a fact that the great reformers of Christian history were generally regarded as troublemakers in their own generation. Only history applauds the prophet. The vast majority of those who share your generation, Ned, will be forgotten in a generation or two. But your work will be enshrined in the memory of the people you have served so deeply that it will finally enter the mythology of their culture. That is no insignificant contribution. 
My best to you, my friend, 
- John Shelby Spong 
 
 
Dick Kroeger