Our Children ARE a Significant Reason We Haven't Returned to Church

This is kind of a continuation of a few conversations I have had since we left the church over a year ago. Generally, it is along these sorts of lines: “Not all Christians are like that.” “Stop dissing the Bride of Christ™.” “My church is great!” And, my all time [least] favorite: “Why are you depriving your kids of the experience.”

And my response is this:

Our children are a significant reason we are reluctant to go back.

***

Let me clarify a few things. I remain a committed Christian. I still believe. The problem is that I really don’t see Christ in the American church right now. And, although it pains me to say it, I find that, rather than helping my walk with God, church was hindering it and making me miserable in the process. Rather than giving encouragement in following Christ, I was finding that the church was pressuring me to abandon my beliefs in favor a political culture war.

I also am not saying that I will never go back to a church. Never is a long time. But I am not eager to do so, and I feel that in our current climate, doing so would require unacceptable compromises in the name of getting along. If I do go back in the future, though, I don’t think it can ever be to an Evangelical church. The trust is broken, and it isn’t coming back.

Also, since every time I speak out against the increasing toxicity of American religion, those who remain in the church feel defensive, let me say it again: no, not everyone in church is like this. There are good people there too. But a lot of people are devoted to a political faith, and the poison is in the water, so to speak. Also: lots and lots of good people in Mormon tabernacles - and in mosques and Hindu temples. Just saying.

***

My wife and I have been watching the ongoing suicide of Evangelicalism (and the American church in general) for a long time. Because we grew up in nutty, cultic subcultures, we saw the crazy before most ordinary churchgoers did. And we have watched, as she put it, the crazy become mainstream. From openly anti-Civil Rights (and sexual predator) Roy Moore to White Supremacist Steve Bannon. From viciously anti-gay Tony Perkins to deeply racist Bryan Fischer. Ideas too, from abusive child rearing practices (see the Pearls and the Ezzos) to Modesty Culture. From the endless obsession with female virginity to a delusional persecution complex. From outright rejection of science to conspiracy theories. From the economic policies of Ayn Rand to the racial policies of Milo Yiannapolous. (Oh yes, that’s real. I know several people from our former church - including leaders - who are big fans.) From the Cult of Domesticity to toxic masculinity. From gender essentialism, gender roles, and gender hierarchy to survivalism.  From virginity pledges and rings to macho man activities. Maybe I was unaware when I was a kid, but I don’t remember any of this being mainstream back then. Heck, even in the 1990s, when our respective families got involved in cult groups, we were the fringe people. Now, much of what we experienced in those far out groups is just another day in the pew.

***

Even before we left our longtime church (which had for a while been a haven from the craziness), we had some significant warning signs. And since we left, a number of additional things have happened that make us reluctant to go back. Some of these were specific to our situation, but others are more universal. Here are just a few that stand out:

● A sermon in which misogyny and feminism were presented as opposite evils. (The political, social, and economic equality of women is an evil?)

● The Christmas Wars™ becoming a focal point of our kids’ Sunday school every December.

● Frequent historical revisionism from the pulpit. This was generally of the hagiography of the past variety, but also the “everything good was done by our theological tradition” sort.

● Frequent references to “persecution is coming” from the pulpit.

● A seeming obsession with preaching against homosexuality - and at a time when open white supremacy was evident from people within the church - including leaders.

● A friend’s daughter being pressured (at a large local church) to make a virginity pledge - and this is very, very common. (Personally, I don’t think young teens - let alone tweens - have the capacity to enter into contracts. This is actually the law too. I think it is inappropriate to pressure children into making pledges they are too young to understand. Also, why virginity but not, say, greed?)

● Swag from a political lobby group (and recognized hate group) being distributed at church

● A leader at church pushing “be a real man” theology

● A guest preacher saying “When God comes to your door, he will ask to speak to the man of the house” from the pulpit, with no blowback from leadership.

● Our food pantry, which partnered with the local dialysis center was for all intents and purposes eliminated by leadership without input from those involved. It was deemed not to be a priority.

● At the same time, the establishment of a quasi-security-force group, which changed the vibe to one less welcoming. I cannot help but wonder if this was connected to the fact that some African American young men had started to attend.

● Some church leaders - including ones who taught our kids - posted stuff from openly White Supremacist jerk Milo Yiannopolous. And also openly social darwinist stuff like “we don’t feed the poor for the same reason we don’t feed squirrels in the national forests.”

● At a winter camp, a speaker pushing grossly sexist beliefs about men and women, making creepy remarks about how attractive his kids were (with them present), pushing sexist views of the marriage relationship, and more. My kids had to be deprogrammed by a friend (who was a chaperone) afterward, lest they think these were truly Christian beliefs.

● After said camp, the child of a friend deciding (s)he couldn’t be a Christian anymore because (s)he couldn’t live up to the demands the speaker said needed to be met.

● Open talk at church (not from the pulpit, but in the hallways) in favor of building a border wall and sending the Mexicans back.

● A sermon in which the line from Numbers, “Now the man Moses was very humble, more than any man who was on the face of the earth.” was claimed to have been written by Moses. Say what? Even a kid can see that was added at some point by a scribe. Likewise, St. Jerome (who did most of the work translating the Vulgate, back in the 4th Century CE) understood that the Torah wasn’t written by Moses. It was just one example of the Bible-dolatry that tried to make scripture what it isn’t.

● My wife being ignored and marginalized when she filled a job viewed as “male” (sound tech.)

● A candidate for leader of children’s ministry spending an interview with my wife making it clear that she didn’t care what parents wanted, she was going to do what she wanted, particularly culture war stuff. And lied about it afterward. Oh, and also bragging about the intact condition of her daughter’s hymen (medically verified!) and saying it was her greatest accomplishment as a parent. And dissing Harry Potter. And saying she didn’t see the point in having missionaries talk to the kids. She wasn’t hired, but it was close. (We would have left then if she had.) Oh, and she was in the same position previously at a much larger church before that.

● A men’s retreat that feature the use of military-style weapons as an exercise in manliness. I’m a gun owner, but that still just feels wrong to me that weapons would be part of a spiritual retreat.But, manliness, yo.

● After we left, a leader at our former church was talking with a friend about the local women’s march, which my wife participated in. He said, and I am not making this up, “Some women just need to be smacked.”

● Another friend’s teens were taken aside by another church leader, and the girl informed that she shouldn’t be leading, but should defer to her brother, because God intended women to be submissive and take that role.

● A friend dyed her hair a lovely shade of blue, and a bunch of people at church stopped talking to her.

● A local megachurch held a big rally in support of a local business owner who violated California law by refusing to serve LGBTQ people. A friend who counterprotested this was insulted, threatened, and physically assaulted by the church members. Gaining the right to refuse to do business with LGBTQ people seems to be an obsession of the American church right now.

● My dad teaches a church history class at a local largish church. He has mentioned how much effort he puts into pushing back against the idea that Christianity is synonymous with (white) America. And trying to convince people that “love your neighbor” applies to immigrants and refugees and poor people and black people and so on. While I greatly admire his efforts as a missionary to the unregenerate, the fact that he has to spend effort fighting against ethno-nationalism in the church is a huge problem to me. That isn’t a place I want my kids.

● A local church held an official “service of mourning” after Obama was elected.

● In response to protests over police killings of unarmed African Americans, several local churches have held services with “Blue lives matter” type themes.

● A local pastor finally left the local high school board after years of pushing toxic stuff like creationism in science class, armed teachers, and - of course - no transgender people in the “wrong” bathrooms. (This is in violation of state law here in California - he was advocating open defiance of the law, just like Roy Moore.)

● A fellow professional musician was disinvited from the nursing home ministry she had served in for years (with her former church) because she was “caught” playing a professional Easter gig at another church. (Our former church - to their credit - was much better about this sort of thing. It’s too bad it went off the rails in other ways…)

● And that’s just the local stuff. I could also mention Steve Bannon speaking at the Values Voter Conference. (Yeah, the guy who recently said “They call you racists. Wear it as a badge of honor.” That guy.)

● I could mention 80% of white evangelicals voting for Roy Moore, despite credible accusations of child molestation against him.

● I could cite the poll showing that a solid majority white Evangelicals believe they are more persecuted than Muslims in our country. And more than racial minorities too.

● I could mention Jerry Falwell Jr.’s assertion that Trump is a “dream president for Evangelicals” and that one big reason was that he was building a border wall and evicting immigrants.

● I could mention that Russell Moore was nearly ousted from the SBC because he called out Trump’s racism.

● Or that the SBC was going to let a resolution condemning the “Alt-right” (a new euphemism for old fashioned White Supremacy) die in committee, until the most prominent African American member threatened to walk - and leave Evangelicalism altogether. Faced with likely becoming a whites-only denomination, they finally voted for the resolution. (Under duress, basically.)

● I could list the building of a multi-million dollar, high-tech gun range at one of the largest Christian universities - so that students will be prepared to fight of the inevitable Muslim invasion.

● Furthermore, in the midst of a push by the Trump administration to follow through on his campaign promise to ethnically cleanse America, a prominent and influential Evangelical organization decided that was the right time to come out with a document denying the existence of intersexuals and transgender persons, and asserting that you cannot be a “real” Christian if you don’t uncategorically condemn departures from “traditional” gender or sexuality. Basically a litmus test for the faith that would exclude me and many others from being accepted.

● The current political cause of much of the American church is over so-called “religious liberty,” meaning the rights of Christians to punish and control those who do not observe their sexual purity rules. That means denying employees birth control, refusing to serve LGBTQ people and single mothers, and refusing to obey the law as government employees.

● A trend (of which “9 Marks” is the best known example) toward the use of “church discipline” to enforce doctrinal purity and loyalty to leadership. And, along with this, the inclusion of beliefs about human sexuality, young earth creationism, abortion, and other issues that are at best non-essential (and really are mostly political issues) as core beliefs from which there can be no dissent.

● A never-ending series of sex scandals where church leaders who molest children or commit clergy sexual abuse are protected from prosecution, and the victims blamed.

● Ditto for domestic violence.

● 68% of white Evangelicals say we have no obligation to take in refugees. Worse, the polling on this has gotten worse over the last couple decades. Religion in America is becoming more, not less racist and xenophobic over time - in measurable ways. The trend is in the wrong direction.

● The Trump administration decides to start separating immigrant children from their parents indefinitely in an attempt to discourage them from seeking asylum, and this is met with deafening silence from most Evangelicals.

● Instead, they promote Franklin Graham’s political rally tour of our state - he’s literally working to get out the vote for Republicans, saying that “progressivism is another word for godlessness.”

●After a year of watching Trump consistently deport, harass, defame, and antagonize immigrants; after seeing the GOP come within a couple votes of ending healthcare for the poor and disabled; after it came out Trump paid off a porn star -- after ALL of the crap we have seen -- white Evangelicals approve of Trump with a 75% rating. They are by far his most loyal fans. It is safe to say that Trump is the truest expression of the moral values of Evangelicalism.

Basically, both before and after, there has been ample evidence that church culture is becoming ever more political, reactionary, and toxic. It isn’t just one church. It’s the whole system. What was once fringe right-wing lunacy is now mainstream.

It isn’t that everyone believes these things. And there are lots of good people in American Christianity. (Just like there are lots of great people in Mormon tabernacles. And in mosques.) But the increasingly toxic culture taints the experience, and makes it particularly difficult when you have kids and don’t want them to think this kind of evil is okay.

Here are my concerns:

1. Incompatible moral values. I have discovered that to a rather significant degree, I do not share the same values as a solid majority of American Evangelicals. Not the same political values. Not the same moral values. That’s a problem, because that means that putting my kids in church means that they will surrounded by people who will be undermining the values I wish to teach them. Not everyone, obviously. But an awful lot of them...and usually the people with power. 

2. Deprogramming. One of the most exhausting things about being part of a church the last couple of years before we left was the continual need to monitor and deprogram. Over and over. No matter what we said to leaders. And it was getting increasingly worse. In retrospect, we probably should have left sooner. But for a while, the good outweighed the bad...until it didn’t. And honestly, it would be the same pretty much anywhere else, because the political and cultural beliefs are widespread. We are so tired of fighting this fight, and realize we are never going to win it.

3. Recruitment into the culture wars. This is related to the above concern. We have, over, and over, and over, objected strenuously to the culture wars and to their being brought into Sunday school. We have mostly gotten a pat on the head, followed by our wishes being completely ignored. And this is the same pretty much throughout American Christianity. As social justice causes became passe (due to the need to justify slavery and Jim Crow), and with the founding of the Religious Right (on a pro-segregation platform - I am going to keep saying this until people start listening…), the political culture wars are pretty much the only way that white middle class Christians in this country interact with those outside the tribe. Certainly, within Evangelicalism, there will be NO escape from this. (And that means most protestant churches in our town.)

4. Historical Revisionism. This was also becoming an increasing concern as the kids got older. Particularly since church leadership types tend to live in their own intellectual bubble, getting news from Fox (or, gag, Breitbart), and seemingly everything else from approved “christian” sources. Groupthink is a problem with any group, but there doesn’t seem to be any openness to facts that threaten the theological or political beliefs. In particular, the revisionism was a problem when it came to the places that race and religion intersect. It was more important to maintain the image of Christianity as a force for good at all times (and the Republican party as righteous - unlike those godless commie Democrats - too) than to admit and wrestle with the dark things in our history. And our present. The thing is, my kids aren’t stupid. They read, they listen, and they notice lies.

5. Alternative facts and reality. On a related note, there is a growing problem of acceptance of “alternative facts.” As Peter Enns puts it:

Theological needs – better, perceived theological needs – do not determine historical truth. Evangelicals do not tolerate such self-referential logic from defenders of other faiths, and they should not tolerate it in themselves.

And this goes for so many things. The perceived needs of theology - and politics - bulldoze any possible consideration that might challenge those beliefs. So if theology says we are persecuted, well then we are! And if we have to make stuff up to prove it, we will. If we have to persecute others and claim we are persecuted when those outside the bubble call us on it, then do it, right? I’ve written before about the poison of Presuppositionalism and how it creates an alternative version of reality where everyone else is by definition wrong. BTW, I wrote the following before we left the church, and it is spookily prescient:

“Right now, I have my doubts that unless some fundamental changes occur, it will not remain possible for a person to be part of Evangelicalism and still be intellectually honest or morally and ethically decent. Such people will be increasingly purged in the name of doctrinal purity.”

We are part of that group purged in the name of doctrinal (and political) purity. We were forced out. There is no longer a place for people like me in Evangelicalism. On a related note, I find that anymore, I don’t share a common experience of reality anymore. Since I can’t believe Fox News’ fabricated (and xenophobic) reality, I can’t really have a discussion. We cannot agree on the basic facts of existence or how to find them.

6. Hostility toward science. This isn’t just about evolution - although it is about that. It is about human sexuality. It is about environmental conservation (proof positive that American Evangelicals largely get their ethics from Fox News, not from a consistent Christian ethic or the historical teachings of the church.) It is about social science. It is about the very existence of absolute truth that can be discovered. (Sorry. Evangelicals do NOT believe in absolute truth. They believe in absolute authority, which is a very different thing. A belief in absolute truth means that you change your opinions as you get better information. A belief in absolute authority means that you believe what your accepted authorities - and that includes leadership's preferred interpretation of scripture - say, in the very teeth of the evidence.) It is the same problem with perceived theological (and political) needs - they trump (pun intended) reality. Every time. I have real concerns about this when it comes to my kids. I am working to give them a solid grounding in science and math. I loved science as a kid, and I can say that one of my major struggles with faith as a young adult was due to finding out just how much the church lied to me about science. It was a tough pill to swallow. I don’t want my kids to grow up with the same problem.

7. Marginalization of women. Even within progressive denominations, church is a male-dominated affair. (Yeah, not all, but the overwhelming majority.) And within Evangelicalism, keeping women out of leadership is now a core doctrine, and has become an increasing obsession. Before we left, I did what I could to give women a platform within our worship teams. But, as the church culture changed, it seemed that there was a push to relegate women to the “pink collar” positions. I already mentioned one of my wife’s experiences. I grew increasingly concerned that church was the one place my daughters (and my wife) would be systematically excluded from the leadership positions that actually had decision-making power. Church was the one place they were viewed as “less than” men. This is rather a contradiction to the witness of the early church, where women were a majority, and respected as leaders. I know there are exceptions, but they are rather few.

8. Worrisomely bad response to sexual predators. It is bad enough that American Christians overwhelmingly voted for a serial sexual predator (Trump) and credibly accused child molester (Roy Moore.) But they continue to defend those two predatory men. Likewise, in my own experience and as demonstrated by a number of high-profile cases, if a sexual predator is a male church leader, he will be protected, the victims slandered and marginalized, and justice will not be done. As fellow OBCL alumnus Rachael Denhollander said, “Church is one of the least safe places to acknowledge abuse because the way it is counseled is, more often than not, damaging to the victim. There is an abhorrent lack of knowledge for the damage and devastation that sexual assault brings.” She is absolutely right, and, unsurprisingly, SGM (who engaged in a serious coverup of abuse), is now trying to destroy her reputation. One advantage we had at our former church in this area is that they did have a good policy - and also, we knew the people who would be leaders of our kids for years before our kids got to that age. With a new church, we would be placing them with strangers, essentially, and given what we have been through, I am not really comfortable with that.  

9. A pathological lack of empathy. This was the most horrifying part about the last couple of years. If you can’t find common ground on logic and reason, can’t agree on the basic facts of reality, how do you have a discussion? Once upon a time, like when I was a kid, you could at least start with empathy. But now, empathy for those outside the tribe has pretty much disappeared from American Christianity, replaced by social darwinism and tribalism. I don’t want my kids in that kind of environment. One the one hand, I don’t want them to become heartless and ruthless. On the other, I know that because they are compassionate and empathetic people, they will suffer. And as soon as they fail to conform, they will be torn to pieces in the name of God. (Just ask Russell Moore. Or Rachel Held Evans. Or Jen Hatmaker. Or John Pavlovitz. Or...the list goes on and on and on. You are useful to American Christianity only as long as you further the party line. Fail to do so, and you will be ruthlessly destroyed and disowned.)

10. It’s just politics. It has become more and more apparent that Christianity in America is mostly a thin veneer of religion over what is essentially a political movement. (Or movements.) Theology may trump reality - but politics always trumps theology. Party comes before the teachings of Christ - or even basic human decency. I can predict what at least 80% of Evangelicals believe about pretty much any political issue. Not by consulting scripture, Christ’s words, or the historical teachings of the church. Nope. All I need to do is check with Fox News. And it’s not just Evangelicals. I can likewise predict the beliefs of most “progressive” Christians by doing the reverse. (It’s not as uniform with progressives as for conservative Christians, but it’s still pretty striking.) And it isn’t so much the beliefs themselves as the fact that the beliefs seem to change in lock step with the change in the platforms of the parties - not with any meaningful change in the official theology. The last thing I want for my children is for them to have politics and religion inseparable in their minds. As it is, I am suffering loss of my church connection because I was unable and unwilling to change my morality to fit better with the racist/xenophobic/social darwinist direction the Republican party has chosen. I don’t want my children to see me sell my soul. (Heck, I don’t want to watch myself do it either.) Right now, I feel that political loyalty is the price of admission to the church club. It’s not one I am willing to pay.

11. I will never be accepted. Not really. If there has been one theme in my life experiences with church, it is that here in America, everyone is a resource. A source of money or labor or credibility. We don’t love people for who they are. In the church context, that means that you are only valuable for what you give. And only valuable as long as you further the agenda. Increasingly, certain beliefs - particularly in the areas of human sexuality and gender roles - have become a litmus test for full acceptance. Many churches say “all are welcome,” but this is mostly bullshit. You are welcome as long as you agree to change. You are welcome as long as you shut up when you disagree. You are welcome as long as you don’t rock the boat. Shut up, write that check, and give us your free labor. And when you are no longer lock-step with us, don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Right now, for a variety of reasons (which I may blog about in the future), I cannot in good conscience subscribe to the doctrinal statements of most churches. Particularly in this town. Because of this, I know I will never be truly welcome.

12. You will know a tree by its fruit. This to me is the ultimate deal-breaker. When I look at the Church, I see an institution which is decades behind the larger culture in recognizing the basic human rights of non-white, non-male persons. I see an institution which makes people less compassionate. The fruit I see is most certainly not what I want to see in my own life, or in the lives of my children. And let me be blunt: in 2016, white Evangelicals voted in a larger percentage for Donald Trump (running openly on a KKK platform) than for any presidential candidate in history. Actions speak louder than words. Actions indicate values more than theological statements. I have come to believe, like Chris Ladd, that the election of Trump was no anomaly. Trump is the truest expression of the moral character of the Evangelical Church in America.

I refuse to identify myself with that kind of “moral character.” I won’t place my children in that moral environment. Period.

***

Hey, want to change my mind? What I am looking for is kind of an old-fashioned Christian concept:

Repentance.

There are several components to this, as any good Evangelical kid can tell you.

1. A realization that one has sinned. I am still waiting for the vast majority of Evangelicals to wake up and say, “Oh my god! What have we done?”

2. A change in behavior. This would mean doing the opposite of what they have been doing. No more voting for racists. No more Ayn Rand economics. No more pathological lack of empathy.

3. Making amends. Without this one, it is just words. You all have caused tremendous damage to vulnerable people. (The poor, refugees, immigrants, minorities, LGBTQ people, women, children.) Time to attempt to repair that damage. Until I see that, it will be obvious that there is no repentance.

Until there is repentance, I’m done.

***

One of the facets of organized religion that can be great is the community. This is one thing I really do miss. But the thing is, I missed it before we left. Things changed. I have been thinking about it over the last year or so, and I think that the core issue is that fellowship requires being able to be real and open. If you have to hide who you are in order to maintain relationships, it isn’t fellowship at all.

I understand disagreement. And I understand avoiding politics, like we often do at family gatherings to preserve the peace. The problem comes when politics becomes so inseparable from religion that you can’t even talk about religion anymore. At church. If you can’t talk about religion at church, well, what the heck is it even about anymore?

For all intents and purposes, I could not talk about religion at church, because to talk about how the teachings of Christ compel us to love our neighbor was, by definition, political. It would, after all, indict the embrace of the politics of hatred and viciousness toward those outside the tribe which is now a core belief of Evangelicalism.

So, it isn’t really realistic to expect community and fellowship at church right now. The trust is gone, the illusion of common values is gone. Rather than being a source of connection, our (allegedly) common religion is a source of alienation.

***

Why not join a progressive church?

That may eventually be in the future. Or maybe not. I don’t know at this point. I’m not ready to date again after a bad breakup. But never is a very long time. Ten years ago, I would not have predicted I would be where I am either. So the future is, as Tom Petty sang, “wide open.”

I am to a degree hampered by geography. Bakersfield is a schizophrenic town. We have a good legal community, vibrant arts and music, and a growing educated class. But we also have poverty, high teen pregnancy rates, low average education, and a lot of people who love Truck Nutz and Confederate Battle Flags and AR-15s. And we have a VERY conservative and highly political church scene. A local pastor who was on the High School board of trustees stirred up controversy for over a decade with things such as trying to get “In God We Trust” in every classroom, eventually resigning in protest over the board agreeing to follow state law on transgender bathroom use. I already mentioned the LGBTQ discrimination issue. It’s a tough town for Christians who aren't Republicans - which means Trump now.

After we left, I spent some time with another former member of our church, who left after a rather passionate anti-gay sermon. (They have a gay son.) They too haven’t found a home. It’s not hard to see why. In a metropolitan area with half a million people, and a few hundred churches, I could count on one hand easily the number of Protestant churches that aren’t fundie, political, or both. And one of those is the Unitarian church. The rest are all pretty small. And no offense meant to the likely lovely people who go there, but they are overwhelmingly old and white. I realize this is a problem facing churches all over (and Evangelicalism is most definitely NOT immune to this trend.) But the idea that we can magically find some fellowship for our kids isn’t really true. There’s no great option here.

Related to that is that progressive churches also tend to be filled with people a lot like me: white, educated, professional class - just older and long time Democrats. You know, I like people like me. But religion should cut across demographic lines. Right now, it doesn’t, and I am very much feeling like religion in America is just politics by another name. I suspect that once it becomes clear I don’t toe the Democrat platform, I will be viewed with suspicion.

Another concern for me too is that progressive churches (at least in this town) have taken kind of a non-confrontational stance, which means they have been largely absent from public discourse. The counterweight to the hate and bigotry has come, not from religious, but from secular sources. It feels kind of like the churches that were quietly uncomfortable with slavery, but too fearful to actually risk pushing back.

A more personal issue for me (and other Evangelical ex-pats) is that a big denominational switch means learning an entirely new religious language and ritual. I don’t want to sound whiny here, but ritual is important to us humans, religious or not. And part of what holds us together in the hard times is the muscle memory of our observances. It isn’t that I can’t worship God in a new way, or that the form itself is that terribly important. It’s that part of the sense of belonging that comes with being part of a community is sharing a common - and familiar - ritual. To make a complete switch after 40 years is hard enough for anyone. For someone like me, who spent 30 of those years actively creating a part of those rituals (particularly music, but more than that - I was an active, participatory church member all my life), it is particularly disorienting. It is hard to feel so much of an outsider, and everything reminds me of the loss of something that was very important to me - a vital part of me, really. I was pretty decent at both CCM and traditional hymns, and I’m proud of the work and passion I brought to it. Alas, I doubt that will ever be part of my life again. After being stabbed in the back on the way out, I am extremely reluctant to take a visible role in a church again, even if I go back. It is like losing a limb. And then watching others run and play and not being able to be one of them. Not really. So I grieve. I didn’t choose this. I didn’t want this. But I am no longer welcome where I was, and I am unable and unwilling to sell my soul to fit in again.

***

Please read my comment policy. For this post, if you quote your favorite proof-text, or just want to lecture me, I will delete your comment. And no, not really interested in hearing how great your church is. I’m glad you found a place you fit.

***

Update June 5, 2018: I can't believe I forgot to link this song. In Southern culture (so Michael Stipe says), the phrase "Losing my religion" isn't a crisis of faith. It's when you are at the end of your rope and can't be polite anymore. This is actually a great description of where I am at and have been for the last two years or so. Maybe three. I'm still a Christian, and I am more inspired by the teachings and example of Jesus Christ than ever before. It is THAT which has led to my break with the organized church. And I'm tired of being polite and pretending that American Evangelicalism in particular is anything less than the polar opposite of Christ. It is, so to speak, anti-christ in pretty nearly every measurable way.

Take it away, R.E.M.

 

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

Source of book: I own this. My wife found a beautiful boxed hardback with the original author’s illustrations at a library sale.

Quick, name the three most three best-selling poets of all time. If you guessed “William Shakespeare,” you would be correct. No surprise there. But who are the other two? Number two is Lao-Tze (aka, Laozi and Lao-Tzu), author of the Tao Te Ching. (Which I own, and is on my reading list.)

The third, believe it or not, is Kahlil Gibran.

Gibran was a Lebanese American, who came to the United States as a child, returned to Lebanon during his teens, and then came back to the United States. He attained fantastic success with The Prophet, pioneered a prose-poetry fusion which is the form of that book, had some success as a painter, and later became a major influence on the counterculture of the 1960s, three decades after his death.

As with many artists, Gibran’s personal life was both fascinating and tragic. He died of alcoholism at age 48. But he also had a long-term relationship with Mary Haskell, ten years his senior, which was, well, complicated. There is a lot of argument over whether he physically consummated the relationship. The were, however, romantically, intellectually, and spiritually enmeshed. The letters they wrote each other are almost as famous as his poetry.

The Prophet is an interesting work. It essentially tells of a messiah-like figure, “The Prophet,” who comes by ship one day to a mythical land, and gives his teachings on life, the universe, and everything.

It is easy to see Gibran’s influence on popular culture. Definitely, some of the “New Age” stuff of the 1960s and beyond can be traced to this. I think I remember a few of the aphorisms that were popular during my childhood.

But the work is much more than that. It is, in its way, a retelling and reinterpretation of the lives of the great teachers, Christ included. Obviously, the Fundie tradition I grew up in would find most of it highly offensive...for many of the same reasons they would find the teachings of Christ himself highly offensive if they actually read them without their theological defenses against their meaning. After all, the Prophet also takes aim at religious legalism, systems of power, and oppression. Don’t expect systematic theology. Think instead of poetic musings that pack a lot of truth and wisdom.

The form is one of “prose-poetry.” At the time, this was in line with other experimental forms, although not exactly like other novel formats. It fits in well with free verse in general, and with such poets as Whitman and many in the later 20th Century. It lacks meter, rhyme, and regular line length, but it retains other poetic ideas, such as alliteration, metaphor, and a keen sense for the sound of the words as they flow. So yes, “prose-poetry” fits. It isn’t exactly poetry in the classic sense, yet it isn’t straight prose either. The sound and flow are at least as important as the straight meanings of the words. It is easy to see why this work has been immensely popular. To the educated reader, it is easy to see flaws and glibness. But it also difficult to deny the power of the language. There is something magic about both the ideas and the way they are expressed. It reminds me of the difference between, say, Brahms, and Dvorak. Now true musician would claim that Dvorak had the technical prowess and depth of thought that Brahms had. (Oh, I love Brahms to be sure.) But Dvorak had a way of touching the soul of a wide variety of people - and if I want to introduce neophytes to Classical Music, Dvorak is always one of the ones I think of. (And, honestly, I never tire of playing Dvorak either.)

Let me mention some of my own favorite sections from The Prophet.

In the introduction, the prophet is musing about is potential influence.

And he said to himself:

Shall the day of parting be the day of gathering?

And shall it be said that my eve was in truth my dawn?

The prophet is met by a woman - a seer - by the name of Almitra. Throughout the work, she is his foil, often asking the best questions. And, at the end, anticipating that she might be the mother of the next incarnation of the prophet. She starts off the dialogue by asking the prophet about the most important thing in the universe: love. From there, she asks of marriage. I think a portion of the response is absolutely fantastic. It represents a good bit of my own marriage.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.

Give each other of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,

Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.

For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.

It is so hard to explain to people who haven’t experienced it what this is like. We are both fairly independent, yet bonded to each other. We are not just one person (and certainly not the “traditional” view of marriage wherein they are one because the female half disappears into the male.) We are two people bonded by love, independent, yet a beautiful partnership. We love each other deeply, but we also cherish our own space and personhood.

Also intriguing in this work is the startlingly Christ-like approach to social justice. I particularly love the way Gibran turns “charity” on its head.

You often say, “I would give, but only to the deserving.”

The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture.

They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.

Surely he who is worthy to receive his days and his nights, is worthy of all else from you.

And he who has deserved to drink from the ocean of life deserves to fill his cup from your little stream.

And what desert greater shall there be, than that which lies in the courage and the confidence, nay the charity, of receiving?

And who are you that men should rend their bosom and unveil their pride, that you may see their worth naked and their pride unabashed?

See first that you yourself deserve to be a giver, and an instrument of giving.

For in truth it is life that gives unto life - while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness.

This is, in a lot of ways, the delusion of the Right these days. They alone deserve, and everyone else may as well die. They insist on placing themselves in that arrogant position where they have earned their privilege, and deserve everything. As Christ noted, the Kingdom of God is upside down: those who have now will be destitute, and the poor and oppressed are far closer to God than the wealthy.

Another bon mot was this bit on “modesty culture.”

And the weaver said, Speak to us of Clothes.

And he answered:

Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful.

Oh, heck yes. As one who grew up in that culture, this is totally true.

The Fundies obsess about female bodies, and how much skin and shape shows. But all this cannot any longer conceal their vicious racism, misogyny. It cannot conceal their endless failures to actually address sexual assault and rape - or their protection of powerful and predatory old men.

Oh yes. They insist that women conceal the beauty of their bodies. But they cannot hide the festering cancerous ulcers of their evil. People like my wife are slut shamed, while pussy-grabbing Trump becomes the new messiah of white fundamentalism.

I also liked the discussion of the role of reason and passion. Or, perhaps, logic and emotion. But reason and passion are better terms. Because passion encompasses empathy, which has seemingly been purged from much of our public discourse.

And the priestess spoke again and said: Speak to us of Reason and Passion.

And he answered, saying:

Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against your passion and your appetite.

Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the dischord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody.

But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements?

Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul.

If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.

For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.

Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing;

And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix, rise above its own ashes.

I would have you consider your judgment and your appetite even as you would two loved guests in your house.

Surely you would not honor one guest above the other; for he who is more mindful of one loses the love and the faith of both.

Yes, both are important. And both should be subject to the law of love. I have noted a few times that a major factor in why I left Evangelicalism is that I was tired of being expected to leave both my brain and my conscience at the door. Gibran notes the interplay of reason and passion. And I agree both are important. Gibran also starts his argument with a discussion of love - as did Christ. (See: the greatest commandments.) Instead, for my Fundie tradition, the foundation is a theological edifice that was developed to justify colonialism, racism, slavery, and misogyny. As I have come to realize, that is why I cannot really have a fruitful discussion with anyone still in that belief system. I cannot appeal to reason. Because centuries of denying empirical reality is central to defending the theological system. And I cannot appeal to empathy either. Because empathy has been systematically purged from the theology - because it had to be compatible with genocide, slavery, and Jim Crow. Gibran has it better, I must admit. First, start with the premise that we must love, above all, and that we cannot consider ourselves better than everyone else. Then, we can combine reason - the embrace of empirical evidence and logic - with a passionate empathy for the disenfranchised and oppressed. You know, like Christ’s teachings and example.

It gets even better.

Say not, “I have found the truth,” but rather, “I have found a truth.”

Say not, “I have found the path of the soul.” Say rather, “I have met the soul walking upon my path.”

For the soul walks upon all paths.

The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed.

The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.

Yes! I am so sick of the endless arrogance of my tradition. Indeed, someone in the 1900s - or 1600s - fathomed all truth, and now we just contemn everyone who thinks differently. Nope. We see in part. We know in part. We see as through a glass, dimly. We struggle toward the truth, and attain a mere fraction of the whole at best. Without love of our neighbor, it is meaningless - or worse, evil. But there is a better way, as St. Paul noted.

Let me end with this passage, from the end of the prophet’s discourse, before he embarks on his boat and sails away.

And an old priest said, Speak to us of Religion.

And he said:

Have I spoken this day of aught else?

Is not religion all deeds and all reflection,

And that which is neither deed nor reflection, but a wonder and a surprise ever springning in the soul, even while the hands hew the stone or tend the loom?

Who can separate his faith from his actions, or his belief from his occupations?

Who can spread his hours before him, saying, “This for God and this for myself; This for my soul and this other for my body?”

All your hours are wings that beat through space from self to self.

He who wears his morality but as his best garment were better naked.

All our life is our religion. It isn’t the pieties we spew on Sunday morning. We can say “love your neighbor” all we want in church, but if the rest of our life is “keep the dirty brown people out, end health care for the poor, and stave the gays,” our actions speak louder than our words in church. As someone famous once said, “by their fruit you shall know them.” For American Evangelicalism, the fruit is Ayn Rand and David Duke. I am still astounded that my Evangelical friends - most of them anyway - seem to have exactly zero fear that Christ might actually judge them on how they treated the vulnerable. Zero fear. Instead, they are sure that “I opposed gay marriage and abortion” is the sum total of necessary faith.

Gibran wrote a provocative and thoughtful work, which is why it has remained popular. It was at the time - and remains today - a challenge to the complacency of arrogant, overfed, and moralistic “slaveholder religion,” which dominates the supposed “Christianity” these days in our nation. It points to a freedom which grants dignity and well being to all, and asks us not whether others deserve our love and assistance, but whether we are worthy of being part of the Kingdom - and decent humanity.

This was an interesting read. I’m not a particular fan of either the New Age movement or of the 1960s in general. (Okay, except the music - so much good stuff there…) But The Prophet unexpectedly resonated with much of what I have read of the teachings and life of Christ. It was yet another reminder that Christ consistently challenged power, moralism, and privileged. And most of what we call “religion,” then and now, is mostly about retaining power, privilege, and a sense of superiority.

***

My edition contained Gibran’s original illustrations. I feel they add to the experience. 

Morality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith

Source of book: Audiobook from the library

Time somehow got away from us, and it has been nearly two years since we listened to an Alexander McCall Smith book. How did that even happen? Anyway, it’s nice to be back.

As I noted before, we have listened to these all out of order, due to what was in stock at our library. However, having time to plan ahead, the last couple have been chosen to fill in the gaps. I still haven’t read or listened to the first one, but my kids have, so we haven’t gone back to do that one. 

Morality For Beautiful Girls is the third book, and comes directly after The Tears of the Giraffe, which we listened to most recently. Mma. Ramotswe and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni are engaged, and they have essentially adopted a couple of orphans. However, not all is well.

First, the detective agency is having difficulty making a profit. This leads Mma. Ramotswe to consider laying off her assistant, Mma. Makutsi. This is problematic in part because Mma. Makutsi not only relies on her income for her own support: she is supporting a dying brother as well as her family back in the village.

Second, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni has lapsed into clinical depression, and isn’t bothering to eat or come into work, leaving the repair shop in the hands of the lazy and incompetent apprentices. What is to be done?

And then there are the two cases. A wealthy and powerful government official seeks the aid of the #1 Ladies Detective Agency to gather evidence that his brother’s wife is trying to poison her husband. This plot takes Mma. Ramotswe to a distant cattle ranch - and into a hive of unhealthy family dynamics. Meanwhile, Mma. Makutsi is left to mind the agency (and manage the repair shop until Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni recovers.) She is handed a large retainer, and an intriguing task: can she determine which of the finalists for a beauty contest is likely to bring honor, and not disgrace, to the contest?

As usual, McCall Smith handles the complex moral issues at stake with humor and subtlety. I particularly appreciated in this case the focus on Mma. Makutsi, who is more perceptive than she appears at first glance. She fully understands the patriarchal dynamics at play in the contest, and the way that women are punished for sexual behavior that men get away with every day - particularly in a “traditional” culture.

Also interesting in this book is the dynamic between the wealthy and their hired help. I don’t want to spoil the way one case ends, but I will note that there is often a tendency for the wealthy to take advantage of their economic power and treat their underlings as subhuman - and indeed to try to control their lives.

McCall Smith also shows, once again, a keen understanding of family grievances. Having spent the last 18 years assisting families in settling their ancestors’ estates, I certainly have seen many of these in play. Some days, one feels less like a lawyer and more like a therapist.

I also appreciated that McCall Smith addressed mental illness. I was raised in a belief tradition that had (and still has) a tendency to make all psychological issues into “moral” or “spiritual” issues. Thus, many I know have been shamed and condemned, rather than treated with compassion - and modern medical understanding. I think this is improving in our culture as a whole, but for my religious tradition, it has rather gone backwards in the last few decades, which is sad. I hope for better things with the next generation.

This is my 5th (and the kids’ 6th) of the Mma. Ramotswe series. There are quite a few, and I hope to keep them in our regular rotation.

***

Here are the other Alexander McCall Smith books we have listened to previously (in the order we experienced them):

The Kalahari Typing School For Men (#4 in the series)

Blue Shoes And Happiness (#7 in the series)

The Full Cupboard of Life (#5 in the series)

The Tears of the Giraffe (#2 in the series)

The Sunday Philosophy Club (from another series - read without the kids)

Si Se Puede! - Cesar Chavez National Monument

This post is part of my series on the National Park System. One of my goals while the kids are still at home is to visit as many of the National Parks and Monuments in the Western United States as we can.

It is kind of strange to think that we had never been to the National Monument closest to us. Cesar Chavez National Monument lies a mere 30 odd miles east of Bakersfield, and we drive right by it every time we head out to Utah, Arizona, or even just Red Rock Canyon State Park. Perhaps one reason for the neglect is that it is a fairly new monument. Created in 2012 by President Obama, it was intended to eventually be part of a larger National Historic Park with several locations throughout central California. (That will require an act of Congress, which seems unlikely as long as the Republicans are in power and are dominated by a xenophobic ideology.)

It is difficult to escape knowledge of Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers if you live in California’s central valley. The famous Table Grape Boycott and worker strike started in Delano, about 30 miles north of Bakersfield. Chavez’ name is on almost as many streets, buildings, and schools as Martin Luther King Jr.’s here in California. From The Grapes of Wrath to Esperanza Rising, the history of farm labor is inseparable from the history of California. The stories are told in histories, fiction, and legend. Helen Fabela Chavez, Cesar’s wife - and a labor legend in her own right - lived here in Kern County until her death less than two years ago. Dolores Huerta is still with us, and as feisty as ever.I have friends who worked the fields, and some of our local bench and bar grew up in farmworker families.

Just a bit of background, for those who aren’t as familiar with the story. Mexican farm workers have been working the fields, vineyards, and orchards of California ever since the Spaniards showed up and established missions. California was part of Spain, then Mexico for nearly 100 years. During that time, migrant workers went back and forth freely across the border. Actually, let me be honest: it has never really stopped. Up until the immigration changes in the 1920s, anyone could cross that border (except certain known criminals) and settle here. Or come, work, and return as they wished.

Things changed during the Dust Bowl. With white migrants from Oklahoma and Kansas and other Great Plains states, suddenly there were extra workers - which meant the brown ones had to go. During the Mexican Repatriation, around two million Mexican Americans (about 60% of which were American citizens) were forcibly removed. But that didn’t mean that immigration stopped. Rather, as the Okies largely moved out of farm labor, and into other professions, the vacuum was filled once again by Mexican migrants. And also Filipino immigrants. (To this day, Delano has a large Filipino population. There are two Senior Centers, which I used to visit during my GBLA days. One was predominantly Filipino Americans, while the other was mostly Mexican Americans.)

Fast forward to 1965. Our section of California grows the vast majority of the table grapes grown in the United States. Grapes are a big deal here. Large family and corporate farms dominate the industry, and all rely on farm labor for the tremendous work required to tend and pick the vines. Due to an unfortunate loophole in the law (and lax enforcement of the laws that existed), workers were being paid less than minimum wage - and the growers were demanding lower wages even as a record harvest rolled in.

The Filipino union started the strike, but Chavez joined in soon after. The two unions merged to form the UFW soon after. You can read more about the Delano Grape Strike and Boycott here. The boycott would become an international blacklisting of California table grapes, and the pain would eventually be felt by the growers. Chavez would fast for 25 days to draw attention to the issue, with Robert Kennedy, among others, eventually joining the fight. A march from Delano to Sacramento - 200 miles! - drew nationwide press. The strike continued for five long years, but eventually, the growers gave in, and union representation was put in place. Laws were also changed.

Later, Chavez had a vision for a headquarters for the UFW that would also serve as an American version of the Kibbutz - a collective community. A property that appeared suitable came on the market, and Chavez and the UFW made plans.

The history of this place is fascinating. They had a video on it at the visitor’s center. Originally, in 1913, the property was the site of a rock quarry run by the Kern County Highway Department. Later, in 1917, the quarry was shut down, and the site was converted to a tuberculosis sanitarium, run by the California Bureau of Tuberculosis. (Yes, we actually had that back in the day!) Quite a few buildings were added over the years to “Stony Brook Retreat,” and it became quite the compound. It’s in a beautiful spot in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, with clean, dry air and moderate temperatures year round - the perfect place to try to beat the consumption.

Alas, by the 1960s, admissions were way down - darn you, penicillin! - and the State shut down the operation. The County then had this property on its hands, and decided to auction it off.

Chavez knew, however, that he was hated by the powers that be in Kern County. (We still have some of that Good Old Boy network going - and a few really horrid politicians...although by no means all of them.) Thus, the chances of him being permitted to purchase the property (in 1970) was pretty much zero. The County went so far as to refuse to let anyone from the UFW view the property.

A little strategy was needed. Edward Lewis, a film producer, offered to help. He got permission to view the property, and took along one of Cesar Chavez’s brothers...who posed as a chauffeur. (I can’t find exactly who he was - he was in the film, but not on the NPS website about the site. I think I have the relationship correct.) Lewis then bid on the property, won, and then turned around and leased it to the UFW with the intent of eventually selling it to them.

The County officials were furious, and refused to accept payments for a few years, before eventually giving in. But the deed was done, and there was no helping it. The UFW got its property.

The compound was renamed Nuestra Señora Reina de La Paz, and the UFW moved its headquarters there. Chavez would also live there for a number of years. From 1970 to 1984, the site served as a community as well. Times changed, and many of the buildings have become a bit run down. You can’t tour them, although some are still retained by the UFW, and are available for conferences and stuff.

A part of the site was donated to the National Park Service, and is now the Cesar Chavez National Monument. You can read more about La Paz on the NPS website.

The part you can visit consists primarily of the visitor’s center and the gardens. Within the visitor’s center is a reconstructed farm worker house, which is all of six feet by eight feet, with no plumbing, and a single bed. Often more than one family would share the house. This is what the growers offered their workers - and the housing and food ate up their meager wages - and often more than that, which is why children worked the fields rather than attend high school. Also there is Cesar Chavez’ office, and a collection of historic photographs and artifacts from the early days of the UFW and its predecessors.

The gardens are interesting. Not particularly large, they consist of three parts. The first part as you enter is filled with plants important to California, from a giant native blue oak (likely a few hundred years old) to roses (the Rose Parade flowers are sourced from Shafter and Delano) to grapes, naturally.

The middle section contains the gravesites of Cesar and Helen Chavez, as well as a monument to the UFW. It is a peaceful and beautiful place.

The third section was inspired by Cesar Chavez’ birthplace, Yuma, Arizona. It contains cacti, agave, and ocotillo, all of which were in bloom.

It won’t take long to tour: we spent about an hour and a half there, and some of that was because I was chasing birds with my camera.

To make a day of it, like we did, I recommend heading to Tehachapi for lunch, then touring the historic train depot. Finally, drive up to the Tehachapi Loop, a section of train track where a full loop is made, and most freight trains will be on top of themselves 77 feet below. It is a busy line - really the only artery from the Southwest to the Central Valley - and trains pass every half hour or so. We even got to see a “Meet,” where two trains pass on the Loop.

I am hoping that eventually Congress finishes the task, and adds the Delano headquarters and other sites to a larger National Historic Park, the way they did for the World War Two Homefront sites. Farmworker rights still remain an unfinished task, and our racist and dysfunctional immigration laws are part of the problem, giving employers extra leverage against exploited workers. (I highly recommend The American Way of Eating by Tracie McMillan for an inside look at the realities of farm work.) The recent Supreme Court decision allowing employers to force employees into individual arbitration rather than group together in a class action is a terrible step in the wrong direction. I cannot but believe that there is more need for unionization than ever before, in the face of increasingly powerful (and more monopolistic) corporate employers, with no perceived duty to their workers. Chavez began the work, but there is so much still to do.

One final thought: the slogan, Si Se Puede! is so very familiar, yet its significance isn’t always appreciated. Chavez helped popularize it, but credit belongs to Dolores Huerta for coming up with it in the first place.

Barack Obama essentially “borrowed” it with his “Yes We Can” speech, and that certainly is one possible translation. More literally, it might be read as “Yes, it CAN be done.” But as the exhibits point out, both of these miss that the “we” part is crucial. The meaning is “Yes, it can be done if we work together. WE can do this.” The collective action is important. Strength and power in numbers. And in community.

***

Pictures, of course: 

 

"Huelga!" - "Strike!" Chavez named his dogs Huelga and Boycott. 

This is one of the original signs for the "National Farm Workers Association," one of the two unions that merged to form the UFW.

My youngest, Lillian, working on her Jr. Ranger book. She was horrified at the crowded conditions. And the lack of bathrooms. 

 Chavez' Office. 

 A picture of the march on Sacramento - this covered an entire wall. Very impressive. 

 The gravesites. As my wife said, "it isn't often I see one of my patients' graves." 

 A major score here. This is a male Hooded Oriole - what a beautiful bird.

 Cactus in the Arizona garden. 

 This Red-shouldered Hawk and California Scrub Jay were in a dead treetop right by the old Sanitarium.

 Trains on the Tehachapi Loop.

The Happiness Philosophers by Bart Schultz

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

Another impulse read from the New Books shelf.

I have a good friend who is a thoughtful guy, and we, from time to time, have conversations about religion, philosophy, and ethics and stuff. I recall in particular a conversation from a couple of years back.

At the time, my friend was rather into Christian Apologetics, specifically William Lane Craig. Unfortunately, I loathe apologetics in general, and presuppositional apologetics in particular. While Craig does have some good points, and he is at least far more intellectually honest than the average Evangelical/Baptist/Fundamentalist, he still had several things that rubbed me really wrong. The main one, of course, was Divine Command Theory, which I find to be essentially ethical suicide. (I might have to blog about that some time.) In the context of this conversation, however, the big irritant was Craig’s chauvinism about ethical systems. The presuppositional assumption is that, without some “objective” source of ethics - meaning a supernatural being who has laid down the law - there is no possible way to determine right from wrong in an intellectually consistent manner. And, to the Evangelical/Baptist/Fundie sorts like Craig, that means acceptance of the bible as literally dictated, capable of a single obvious objective interpretation, and so on. Of course, this is a major flaw in presuppositional apologetics in general: they make the leap from “there is a rational basis for belief in an ultimate source of the universe” to “our interpretation of an ancient collection of writings is the only possible conclusion,” which is ludicrous to anyone who pushes the issue.

Anyway, here is where I am going with this. At some point in the conversation, my friend raised the question of how one determines ethics without a divine command. This is a legitimate question, actually, and it is one that has occupied philosophers around the globe for the last, well, four or five thousand years at least. That IS one of the great questions of philosophy. Why are we here? Does life have purpose? And, perhaps most pertinent: How should we live, and why?

At this point in the conversation, my friend brought up the Utilitarians, with kind of a derogatory tone. Which is precisely how Craig and other presuppostionalists respond to any ethical system which does not start with “things are right or wrong because God says so.”

This was not a surprise. In the circles I was raised, the Utilitarians were definitely personae non grata, blamed for every ill of our modern life - well, along with Hegel and Nietzsche. It was obviously their fault for the holocaust, Stalin’s purges, and homosexuality. (And every other possible real or perceived evil.) The claim was that the Utilitarians severed the connection between ethics and the teachings of the Church, so after that, anything was ethically permissible.

That this is a ridiculous straw man should be obvious to anyone with a passing knowledge of philosophy.

I will confess, I didn’t really understand the issues until relatively later in life. I wasn’t ready in high school to get into the details. Later, in my late 20s, I did explore things a good bit more, and realized that it was pretty obvious why the Fundie/Evangelical tradition in which I was raised as absolutely freaked out about Utilitarianism. (More on this later.)

At this point, let me give a recommendation: before you read this book, you really should read an introductory book on philosophy. The author assumes the reader already knows the outlines of Utilitarian thought, as well as Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, Marx, Kant, and others. Trying to read this book without some form of background knowledge is going to be frustrating. Trust me on this.

So, here is my suggestion: go online and find a copy of Socrates to Sartre: A History of Philosophy by Samuel Enoch Stumpf. Various editions have been available for decades - since 1966 - and used copies are fairly easy to find. A hardback 6th Edition (1999) graces my bookshelf, and I have referred to it constantly since reading it cover-to-cover. One of the strengths of the book is that it goes through Western philosophy in chronological order. It really helped me to see that philosophy isn’t a bunch of independent schools of thought, but a long conversation stretching back thousands of years. Each new development is a response and reaction to what came before. You can’t understand Bentham unless you understand Kant and Spinoza and Aristotle. Go get this book. Read it. Then come talk philosophy with me.

Sorry about the long introduction. I thought it might be helpful in seeing where I was coming from both in my own Fundie history and in more recent conversations.

Bart Schultz didn’t write a summary of Utilitarian thought, nor did he intend primarily to defend or criticize Utilitarian philosophy. On the other hand, this isn’t a mere biography of the four great Utilitarians. Schultz weaves the biographical information together with a chronological view of how the ideas of the main characters changed over time. The goal is to let the lives of the Utilitarians shed light on their writings - to show how the men (and women) themselves aid in the interpretation of their ideas.

Generally, when one thinks of Utilitarianism, one thinks of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. Schultz brings in two other luminaries. First is William Godwin (perhaps best known these days for being the eventual husband of Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman), but who really set the stage for what Bentham and Mill did within a few years. Likewise, Schultz spends a good bit of time on Henry Sidgwick, who took Mill’s ideas even further by the dawn of the 20th Century. Both of these figures are important, although less known than Bentham and Mill. 

 William Godwin, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Henry Sidgwick

Schultz also did something which has been long overdue, which is to consider the three women whose contributions have been largely suppressed and forgotten because of a combination of sexism and prejudice against women who refused to adhere to cultural demands for their gender. In addition to Wollstonecraft (who was largely dismissed for her child out of wedlock and other sexual liaisons - stuff Victorian men were expected to have but women were punished for), there were two others.  Harriet Taylor, Mill’s eventual wife (after perhaps a long affair...it’s complicated, as the book points out) collaborated on many of his works - she should be listed as a co-author. Eleanor Balfour - sister of Arthur Balfour, Prime Minister of England - married Henry Sidgwick, and was a significant influence on his philosophy throughout his life. She too likely deserves a co-author credit for his works. 

 Mary Wollstonecraft, Harriet Taylor Mill, Eleanor Sidgwick

The common factor that these women had is that they were all independent, feminist, and progressive - in an era when this was frowned upon. Men might perhaps be radical, but women were expected to know their place, submit to their husbands, and keep their vaginas virginal. These three, um, perhaps not so much. But, as Schultz points out, it is often their contributions to philosophy that have aged the best. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that it was these women who were most ahead of their time, not just on questions of sex and gender - but on racism, colonialism, and poverty as well. More so than their husbands, they would seem at home in our 21st Century world.

This is a long book, and a dense one. Small print, lots of pages, footnotes, and a plethora of quotes from the subjects and others. It took me a while for that reason. It was quite excellent, however.

Let me try to hit a few highlights, realizing that I will miss so many great lines, quotes, and ideas.

First, let me start with this:

The Utilitarians have been largely slandered and intentionally misunderstood by the reactionary forces in my religious tradition.

Certainly, they have been unjustly mocked for attempting to apply scientific reasoning and reason to the difficult questions of personal - and political - ethics. I think, actually, that this is the reason they have been slandered. At their best, the Utilitarians presented a formidable intellectual and ethical threat to the status quo. The challenged the idea that noble birth entitled one to luxury while others starved. They questioned whether something could be “virtuous” in the abstract, without reference to how it affected others. They raised doubts about church teachings on sexuality, and insisted that “because tradition says so” was insufficient to determine right and wrong.

I think, too, that Utilitarianism has been limited in the popular imagination to a mere individualistic ethical system. Certainly the Utilitarians did examine how each of us individually might approach ethics. But that was less of a concern than the political question: how should public policy be shaped? And this is where, in my view (and many others), the most lasting contribution of Utilitarian thought is manifest.

At its core, then, Utilitarianism asks that we order our politics (and our own actions) with the view to maximize “happiness” and - and this is crucial - minimize pointless suffering.

Two points need to be made here. First, “happiness” in the Utilitarian sense - and in the sense intended in our own Declaration of Independence, the “pursuit of happiness,” isn’t some fleeting, circumstance-based, subjective feeling of pleasantness. Rather, “happiness” means well being, a decent life, a lack of needless suffering. For Jefferson, this meant that it was a god-given right for each of us to pursue well being, a lack of pointless and unneeded suffering. The American Dream, if you will. (Really, the dream of humanity.) So, for the Utilitarians, the goal was to attain this well being, lack of suffering, and good, decent life...for everyone, not just the wealthy.

The second point is this: the goal of Utilitarianism was in large part to avoid policies which inflicted needless and pointless suffering on people. In considering our own actions - and our public policies - we need to consider whether we will harm others. For the same reason, something which benefits a few wealthy powerful people while causing harm to the poor is an ethical evil. In this sense, Utilitarianism is actually rather similar to the teachings of Christ - the ones that modern Evangelicals are thoroughly committed to ignoring in our time. Utilitarianism is “love your neighbor” in action, in that sense. The author also quotes Socrates on this point: “Actions are more reliable evidence than words.”

I cannot emphasize enough the importance of the political in this book. Let’s start with this quote from William Godwin (who is the first subject in this book) from Political Justice:

“Is it well, that so large a part of the community should be kept in abject penury, rendered stupid with ignorance, and disgustful with vice, perpetuated in nakedness and hunger, goaded to the commission of crimes, and made victims to merciless laws which the rich have instituted to oppress them? Is it sedition to enquire whether this state of things may not be exchanged for a better?”

Couldn’t this have been written in our own time? It sure continues to ring true in an era when the idea that the wealthy of society owe the rest of us something is somehow controversial. We have lost the ability to recognize inequality as oppression - something the biblical prophets had no difficulty doing.

I will note in the above, the dedication to education. This was certainly a common theme for the utilitarians. Women, the poor, and (nearly) everyone should have an education, they believed. One can directly trace the thought from here to John Dewey and others who pushed for a universal public education. It is no exaggeration to say that Godwin, Bentham, and Mill deserve much of the credit for the fact that humanity (particularly in the first world) is more literate than any time in history.

I’ll note at this point an interesting question regarding Bentham. Of all the Utilitarians, he was the most prosaic, having little of the sense of wonder and magic that the artistic sorts would have. (Sidgwick, on the other hand, was a friend and devotee of Tennyson, and was poetic as heck.) The author, however, points out that Bentham’s views on education needing to be more about usefulness to the student than cultural indoctrination were more a reaction to the teaching of subservience than contempt for poetry.

Bentham had particular contempt for the role of religion in society - and I am afraid in the era of Trump, I am increasingly of Bentham’s viewpoint on that. Like Bentham, I find that organized religion in our time and his is so far divorced from the teachings and example of Christ as to be unrecognizable. And, furthermore, that it is calculated and focused on justifying injustice and oppression. Here is one quote that stuck with me:

“Destitute of intellectual instruction, man, even in the bosom of the most civilized country, is often found appearing in no better a character than that of a savage. Of the Hulks, and the Penal Colonies - not to speak of the home Prisons - the population is, for the most part, composed of human beings thus abandoned to ignorance, vice, and wretchedness. Such as to the far greater part, appears to be the state of the population under the Church of England.”

Every bit as devastating is Bentham’s observation that religion spends an awful lot of time convincing people to hate things they would not otherwise hate. In our own time (as in Benthams...this is also a theme of the Utilitarians), this includes the endless obsession with sex and genitals and what people do with them.

Mill too was no fan of established religion. He too argued that the poor should have a right to an education - but not by the Church of England, which spent its time trying to convince the poor that they deserved poverty.

I also found interesting Mill’s intellectual crisis, where he felt he needed to somehow revise his views to accommodate the reality he had discovered. (I’m not even going to attempt an explanation - you’ll have to read the book.) The one thing that jumped out at me was the argument - still ongoing today - about how much of our morality is merely an artifact of evolutionary “survival value” versus things that have an inherent “moral value” in and of themselves, separate from evolutionary utility.

While the classic Utilitarians definitely show the defects of the age in which they lived, they had some great ideas which have been influential today. Chief among them was a radical (for their time) feminism. I would also add a shockingly progressive view of poverty and economics. Both of these seem, to me, to be a solid stand in favor of Christ’s teaching, against the forces of Empire and hierarchy.

One of the most interesting parts of the book in regard to feminism was the discussion of Harriet Taylor Mill. Harriet was widely slandered as a shrew and haridan during her lifetime, and later by the biographers of John Stuart Mill. Her contributions to their books were dismissed, and every fault amplified.

However, as later biographers noticed, she really wasn’t like that. The problem was, she failed and/or refused to be a good Victorian woman. Her marriage to John Taylor was troubled, and, despite the fact she bore him three children, it was difficult at best. Reading between the lines of her writing (with Mill) on domestic violence and divorce, there is good reason to believe he was abusive to her. Eventually, they would separate, although the would, of necessity, remain legally married. Her intellectual collaboration with John Stuart Mill was apparently a huge scandal, despite a lack of evidence of sexual intimacy. (Indeed, there is reason to believe he was impotent.) Rather, the idea that a woman might be merely a friend without benefits was rather unthinkable. On the other hand, there was definitely an emotional connection. After Taylor’s death, they did eventually marry. Her’s was a “complicated” life by female Victorian standards. And, she wrote extensively with a distrust for “conventional” marriage. As a later biographer would explain:

“Finding a way to construct such a life took consummate skill in a society that disallowed divorce, prevented married women from maintaining financial independence, and discouraged women from obtaining a liberal arts education.”

The same biographer would also note a fundamental hypocrisy of Victorian society. And, let’s be honest, of our own as well:

“Selflessness is the kind of virtue society tries to instill in women. (Men tend to be hypocrites on this score, since they are allowed some freedom for their own desires, while women wound their wings at every attempt to expand them against their gilded bars.”

Harriet’s influence on Mill is readily apparent in their mutual work, On the Subjection of Women. I really wanted to quote several pages that were reproduced in this book. Let the following suffice, as a cogent description of the effects of social pressure on women to be a certain way. This pressure makes it difficult to ascertain exactly what the differences are (if any) between the sexes.

“All causes, social and natural, combine to make it unlikely that women should be collectively rebellious to the power of men. They are so far in a position different from all other subject classes, that their masters require something more from them than actual service. Men do not want solely the obedience of women, they want their sentiments. All men, except the most brutish, desire to have, in the woman most nearly connected with them, not a forced slave, but a willing one, not a slave merely, but a favourite. They have therefore put everything in practice to enslave their minds. The masters of all other slaves rely, for maintaining obedience, on fear; either fear of themselves, or religious fears. The masters of women wanted more than simple obedience, and they turned the whole force of education to effect their belief that their ideal of character is the very opposite to that of men; not self-will, and government by self-control, but submission, and yielding to the control of others. All the moralities tell them that it is the duty of women, and all the current sentimentalities that it is their nature, to live for others; to make complete abnegation of themselves, and to have no life but in their affections. And by their affections are meant the only ones they are allowed to have - those to the men with whom they are connected, or to the children who constitute an additional and indefeasible tie between them and a man. When we put together three things - first, the natural attraction between opposite sexes; secondly, the wife’s entire dependence on the husband, every privilege or pleasure she has being either his gift, or depending entirely on his will; and lastly, that the principal object of human pursuit, consideration, and all objects of social ambition, can in general be sought or obtained by her only through him, it would be a miracle if the object of being attractive to men had not become the polar star of feminine education and formation of character. And, this great means of influence over the minds of women having been acquired, an instinct of selfishness made men avail themselves of it to the utmost as a means of holding women in subjection, by representing to them meekness, submissiveness, and resignation of all individual will into the hands of a man, as an essential part of sexual attractiveness. Can it be doubted that any of the other yokes which mankind have succeeded in breaking, would have subsisted till now if the same means had existed, and had been as sedulously used, to bow down their minds to it?”

Damn mic drop after that one. And it gets even better:

“Stand on the ground of common sense and the constitution of the human mind, I  deny that any one knows, or can know, the nature of the two sexes, as long as they have only been seen in their present relation to one another. If men had ever been found in society without women, or women without men, or if there had been a society of men and women in which the women were not under the control of the men, something might have been positively know about the mental and moral differences which may be inherent in the nature of each. What is now called the nature of women is an eminently artificial thing - the result of forced repression in some directions, unnatural stimulation in others. It may be asserted without scruple, that no other class of dependents have had their character so entirely distorted from its natural proportions by their relation with their masters…”

It’s as if Mill had viewed the toxic teachings of the Fundie cults my wife and I spent time in - or sat through a 21st Century Evangelical sermon on gender essentialism. Oh yes, this is one reason we left and will never go back. The Utilitarians argued for women’s suffrage, among other feminist causes. I believe this is one of the biggest reasons why Fundies loathe them, and have grossly slandered them.

Now, let’s take a look at the Utilitarian approach to poverty. Again, here it is helpful to see Utilitarianism as a reaction against other ideas. I have mixed feelings about Edmund Burke, but I will grant that his ideas were in direct reaction to the French Revolution. And he has some great points. He identified why people like me, who are essentially center-right in temperament and philosophy, have a distaste for revolution, preferring reform. And also why we are deeply concerned about the modern American Right, which combines a Gilded Age approach to inequality with a vicious racism. Burke had his weaknesses, though, and it is best to view the Utilitarian approach to poverty and economics as a reaction to the worst of Burke, rather than a confirmation of Marx. (Indeed, the Utilitarians had a bias toward individual freedom, rather than government control, in many cases.) Likewise, the Utilitarians were in conversation with Adam Smith - who was far less libertarian or social darwinist than the modern disciples of Ayn Rand would have you believe.

So, for the Utilitarians, it was natural to question whether the status quo was ethical - or inevitable. Mill wrote in his biography a number of statements on economics which I found fascinating and pertinent to our own modern discussion. First, Mill questions a conflation of free enterprise with oppression of labor. And credits Harriet with the idea, by the way.

“This tone [of Harriet’s] consisted chiefly in making the proper distinction between the laws of the production of Wealth, which are real laws of nature, dependent on the properties of objects, and the modes of its Distribution, which, subject to certain conditions, depend on human will. The common run of political economists  confuse these together, under the designation of economic laws, which they deem incapable of being defeated or modified by human effort; ascribing the same necessity to things dependent on the unchangeable conditions of our earthly existence, and to those which, being but the necessary consequences of particular social arrangement, are merely coextensive with these. Give certain institutions and customs, wages, profits, and rent will be determined by certain causes; but this class of political economists drop the indispensable presupposition, and argue that these causes must by an inherent necessity, against which no human means can avail, determine the shares which fall, in the division of the produce, to labourers, capitalists, and landlords.”

Again, a mic drop moment. I had a conversation just today with a doctrinaire right-winger who seemed to insist that there was no possible way to change the allocation of wealth and income. Economic laws (which largely benefited him) were fixed, and human efforts to change things were doomed to failure - and would indeed fuck up the economy at large. Meaning - Always Cut Taxes™. No matter what the circumstance. Mill (Harriet, really) point out what should be obvious: there is no inevitability about landlords and capitalists reaping the vast majority - and growing share - of the production of an economy. It isn’t the result of immutable laws. It is the result of particular customs, laws, and institutions. And these can be changed.

Later, Mill makes another fantastic argument. I wish I could quote it in full, but it is too long. Here is the best of it:

“What is true is, that wages might be so high as to leave no profit to the capitalist, or not enough to compensate him for the anxieties and risks of trade; and in that case labourers would be killing the goose to get at the eggs. And, again, wages might be so low as to diminish the numbers or impair the working powers of the labourers, and in that case the capitalist would generally be a loser.”

This much is actually classic Adam Smith. There is a gap here, however, as Mill points out. Smith calls this the “higgling of the market.” Mill notes that, given powerful employers, and individual workers, wages will be at the bottom end of this. Unionized labor would push wages toward the higher. Realistically, as Mill notes, sometimes mistakes are made, and the limits on both ends are violated, making adjustments necessary. But Mill makes a moral judgment, which I not only agree with, but believe is at the heart of the evil of the present-day right.

“But, having regard to the greatly superior numbers of the labouring class, and the inevitable scantiness of the remuneration afforded by even the highest rate of wages which, in the present state of the arts of production, could possibly become general; whoever does not wish that the labourers may prevail, and that the highest limit, whatever it may be, may be attained, must have a standard of morals, and a conception of the most desirable state of society, widely different from those...of the present writer.”

Exactly. This is a key point of Utilitarian politics: the goal should be greater happiness for the greatest number, not a high level of happiness for the elite few, and misery for everyone else. That this is the polar opposite to today’s American Right is pretty much beyond dispute. Rather, they are convinced that employers need ever-increasing power of workers. It’s a totally different standard of morals than I have.  I hate to say that, as I am inclined toward conservatism. But that isn’t a value of today’s right - they have sold their souls to Ayn Rand’s philosophy which is that the capitalists deserve as much as they can squeeze out of everyone else.

Speaking of Adam Smith, how about this from The Wealth of Nations:

“No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.”

That sounds practically Marxist in comparison with today’s Right.

In each section, Schultz examines the legacy of each Utilitarian. After all, philosophy is a continuing conversation, not a set of boxes containing separate philosophies. As a general rule, I am not a particular fan of Peter Singer (although he has the occasional good point.) I tend toward Martha Nussbaum, and her application of Utilitarianism to a modern world. One particularly fantastic section in the book is the one in which Nussbaum expounds on Mill’s views of patriotism. I have written a bit about that. Both Mill and Nussbaum have amazing things to say on the topic - things which are so relevant today, in a time when the American Right stands in opposition to Mill’s ideals.

“I never said that we should not have a particular love of and attachment to our own nation...I compared our relation to our country to our relationship with our own children: just as good parents love their children more, but still, compatibly with that, may and should seek a nation in which all children have decent life-opportunities, so too we may love our own nation more while seeking a world in which all citizens have decent life-opportunities.”

AMEN! Is it really that hard? Apparently so to the Steve Kings of the world, who throw shade on “other people’s babies,” thus setting themselves up for hell. (Nope, tired of sugarcoating this one. I don’t believe in the traditional Evangelical hell - but I believe that if it exists, the overwhelming majority of white Evangelicals right now are competing to purchase a one-way ticket there. Seriously. Read Matthew 25 again.)

Before I finish, I really should mention the Utilitarians and sexuality. I believe this is another reason why the Fundies I grew up with hated them. They dared to challenge the misogyny that underlies “traditional” sexual rules. In addition to the feminist ideas that women were not the chattel of men, and should be able to choose their partners - and divorce if they wished - the Utilitarians pushed back against another trend in the culture.

Jeremy Bentham was the first Utilitarian to question the proscription of homosexuality. From his point of view, both the risk of overpopulation and the idea of human freedom indicated that this might be legitimately questioned. It wasn’t just Bentham, however. By the time of Henry Sidgwick, there was a full-on puritanical witch hunt under way. The Criminal Law Amendment Act in England was a mixed bag, to be honest. (Seriously, note that raping a 10-13 year old was a misdemeanor - and the Act didn’t do much to fix that.) The main issue, however, was a re-criminalization of homosexual contact, even when anal intercourse couldn’t be proved. This is the law that put Oscar Wilde in prison, and led eventually to his death. The late-Victorian witch hunt against LGBTQ people is pretty obvious, both in England and in America. It coincided with a reaction against Feminism and social change in general. Hey! Sounds like today too!

There is a fun passage in this book on Sidgwick and his associates. He was part of “The Apostles,” an intellectual group that included Tennyson among others. A number of gay men were part of the group, and Sidgwick, however sympathetic, did his best to censor the erotic or philosophical writings of these men (particularly John Symonds) out of a fear it could get them prosecuted. Symonds probably originated the idea of sexual orientation as we know it now, and the Utilitarians examined the issue using reason, rather than religious teachings - yet another reason why Fundies hate them…

One not-so-pleasant part of this book is the examination of the racism of the Utilitarians. This is, alas, a common experience in reading about pretty much any Victorians. The Empire was considered noble, and non-Europeans lesser humans at best. I wish I could say that this was unique, but it wasn’t. It is difficult to find any white writer of the era that didn’t share the prejudice and blind spot. Although all of the Utilitarians suffered from this problem, it was particularly sad to see that Sidgwick, who was the latest in time and the most prone to doubt about his ideas, was enthusiastic about Charles Henry Pearson, who pretty openly advocated for genocide of non-whites. (On a related note, Pearson would fit right in with Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, and Steve King. And, sadly, Hitler a half century later. Just vicious racism and a view of whites as superior. All too familiar…)

Again, this isn’t unique to the Utilitarians. It is a problem the vast majority of Victorian whites suffered from - it is the rule, not the exception. But, on the other hand, they did pretty universally deplore slavery - even before it was cool. The Utilitarians advocated for universal education, universal suffrage, and human freedom and thriving, before such concerns became mainstream. In our own era, we owe a lot to the Utilitarians that we don’t even realize. I have been struck this year with just how much of the modern American Right is actually a reaction against Utilitarian values. A reaction against a belief that government should be for the common good, not just the good of the wealthy few. A reaction against Feminism. A reaction against the egalitarian impulse in general.

At its core, Utilitarianism is about the common good. It is about considering the needs of others and rejecting selfishness. These are values in short supply these days.

Let me close, however, with a line from the author’s epilogue:

“Arguably, if today we were to follow the lead of the great utilitarians, a decent education for all would be more of a priority, and the world would be less cruel.”

I cannot agree more.