On Hypocrisy and Christianity

After I wrote about the values and ideas that I have taken from Christianity, I happened to read Nathaniel Manderson’s essay in Salon, which was a bit of a righteous rant based on Matthew 23, a longish speech by Jesus of Nazareth condemning hypocrisy.  I ended my essay with a brief and (sadly) flippant reference to how much I loathe hypocrisy but made a poor job of linking it to the things I took from Christianity when I left that belief system behind.

Since then, I have been thinking both about what I might have said about my feelings regarding hypocrisy and Manderson’s essay.  On the one hand, Manderson’s essay resonated with me very strongly.  Manderson’s condemnation of the followers of Jesus who ignore his speech as reported in Matthew 23 fit very neatly with my own sense that many of the Christians that I have encountered personally and read about almost daily in the news are indeed hypocrites.  Reading Manderson’s essay also reminded me that, in my youth, when I believed most strongly in Christianity and the inerrancy of the Bible and tried very hard to be the kind of person that Jesus/God would want me to be, this passage had strongly affected me.  Indeed, with the reminder from Manderson, I realized that this is where I would have learned about hypocrisy and internalized the loathing thereof into my own personal value system.  

I can now more clearly assert that loathing hypocrisy is a value that I took from Christianity.  Indeed, it is the very reason that I left the church of my youth:  I found myself to be a hypocrite and felt that I no longer deserved the fellowship of my church.  In this same period, I was reading Emerson and beginning to think in more naturalistic terms, but the impetus to leave the church was definitely and purely a matter of those strong “Woe unto you” statements in Matthew 23 applied to my own self.  

So what happened?  In a nutshell, I was attending various churches in Houston as a singer.  I sang in their choirs, but as often as possible I “brought the special music” for the day’s service.  At some point, I sat in the choir loft of some church and realized that I didn’t care about the sermon, felt no bond to the congregants in the room, and really just wanted to get to the podium and sing my solo.  Singing was my joy.  My pride.  My whited sepulcher.  I saw that in myself, believed myself to be a hypocrite, and punished myself for it by leaving the church so that I would not be tempted to sing from pride and vanity.

Well, I was young.  Young people often see things in black and white, and I was no different.  I can see now that I pretty much cut off my nose to spite my face with this decision.  It was, however, a genuine reflection of a sincere belief that a hypocrite was not the person I wanted to be.  

These days, however, I still hope not to be a hypocrite, and I am still angered by hypocrisy when I see others espousing one standard and then acting on another, lesser standard.  I think of it as a special form of lying.  Looking around me, I see hypocrisy most clearly in Christians, admittedly because I am biased.  This is likely also because I am tarring all Christians with the same brush, something I truly do not wish to do.  Manderson wrote about evangelical Christians, and he wrote about the kinds of beliefs that I held when I was young, which gave his essay a special resonance with me.  Those beliefs are not, in a surprisingly large part, what progressive Christians believe or practice.  Modern evangelicals, especially those who follow the so-called prosperity gospel, also seem to have moved away from “that old time religion,” albeit more in the direction of commerce and social control.

As an Ethical Humanist, two things come to mind:  One, I think I need to work on my tendency to homogenize all Christians, and, two, Ethical Culture has a role to play in calling out hypocrisy in favor of truth.  It is the first that I will focus on here, but, as I explore, as I plan to do, our commitment to try to act with integrity, I think avoiding hypocrisy and calling it out will both be strong components of our actions.

We may think that identity labels can help us in dealing with others in a respectful way.  It does seem to be true that knowing that someone is, for example, of Jewish heritage may help remind us to be mindful that some foods might be better left off the menu or that some dates should be avoided for meetings.  But not everyone of Jewish heritage is the same in their beliefs or their practices or their experiences.  Someone of Jewish heritage may also carry more than one “identity”:  female, transgender, third generation Dutch, lawyer, even Republican.  The list could go on.  We are each of us complex intersections of our cultural and personal histories.  Applying one label to a person can easily lead us to forget that there may be other important labels to consider and, more importantly, that the person before us is more than just a set of labels or, worse, the stereotypes that go along with them.

I do know that all Christians are not the same.  Christians in more mainstream traditions have a broader view of society and their place in it.  Christians in Europe are more often more secular in their world view.  I would like to remove a few of my stereotypes so that I can feel as well as show more respect (and not be a hypocrite in faking my respect).  The way to do that may include more interfaith work with, say GreenFaith, the Poor People’s Campaign, or even Revolutionary Love, although each of these very worthy organizations make me uncomfortable when their religiosity is expressed in mostly Christian terms. 

My past experience with Christianity was narrow, limited by the doctrines (and policies) of the Southern Baptist Convention.  In later years, I did have occasion to work with “the faith community” in the effort to gain better access to medications for Texans living with HIV and AIDS.  That experience, however, could be described (as I thought of it, in military terms) as a war on two fronts.  While there were allies for the work in the broader Christian community (and indeed with people of other faith traditions), there were also strong opponents who were also “people of faith,” ranting about sins and punishment rather than compassion and care.  O ye hypocrites!  These religious views often distracted attention from the important work of improving both prevention and treatment for HIV through public funding.  I have no doubt that both periods of contact with these Christians influenced my perception of those who believed in this tradition and biased me against the tradition as anti-science and completely hypocritical in proclaiming love with such hate.

At this point, the “war” is within me.  Looking for peace rather than victory, I want to be open to seeing that “diversity in the creed,” using Felix Adler’s framework, should not become a barrier to working together when there is “unanimity in the deed.”  I think, however, that what I am looking for goes beyond the practical matter of working with people whose beliefs I will tolerate.  Tolerance cannot help but include an element of rejection:  “I don’t like what you believe but I will put up with it so we can work together for a common goal.”  That is utilitarian and makes me look at people as a means, not an end, when it is the reverse that I would hope to practice.  

This need to go further comes, I think, from my understanding of religion.  Religion is nothing more than a human construct which functions to serve human needs.  It is vitally important to humans to have this particular kind of construct--it explains the universe and one’s place in it, it provides a basis for human relations, it provides the means to reinforce other structures, such as those for economic and political processes--but there is no single such construct for all humans.   Respecting the diversity in individuals--the unique and complex intersections of their various labels--I would also hope to respect the constructs and solutions which they have chosen to meet their personal needs (which include their individual needs as well as the needs of the communities they seek to construct or maintain).  

Respect implies acceptance more than tolerance.  What I would hope to find in true respect is an acceptance that embraces not only the wide variation in belief that goes with the various constructs that are called “religion,” but also accepts my own need to hold my own such constructs, different and evolving as they are, without rating those who hold different constructs with evaluative comparisons.  That is to say, I would hope to accept that different is neither better nor worse but merely different and to do so with a compassionate recognition that human needs can be addressed in different ways.  What would be important in my understanding, then, is not one or another answer to the question of how the universe came to be but that those who need the comfort of an answer to what is still an unknown can find the comfort that they need in whatever answer they can accept.

Such an idealized version of respect may not, however, survive its encounter with reality.

What happens when I believe that some element of a construct will cause harm to others?  Can I still respect the construct and condemn the harm?  Am I hypocritical to claim to respect another’s belief and yet seek to oppose its practice?

Here’s a reality check.  The Muslim practice of requiring women to wear veils is nuanced.  Neither the same veil nor the same rules for wearing the veil apply from one sect of Islam to another nor in different geographic locations for members of the same sect.  I can accept the various social functions of veiling and whatever ideological justifications are given for veiling as merely different from my own views until the requirement to veil butts up against my own closely held belief that a woman has the right to control her own body, including what she chooses to cover it with.  My limit faces both directions.  The shift in political winds in France has led to a secular government’s ban on a specific religious garb for women.  I would oppose the government’s right to interfere in the woman’s choice.  The shift in political winds in Afghanistan has led to increased control by the Taliban and a requirement that women, who had been free of the veil for a number of years, must now again don the veil--and the severe restrictions that go with it--against their will.  Again, I would oppose that government’s right to interfere in a woman’s choice.  

If I wish to avoid hypocrisy, I need to find a more nuanced construct that allows me to affirm my support for the right to believe differently than I do, but that also allows me to confront a point when competing constructs come into conflict.  To respect the beliefs of others, to accept their right to believe whatever they need to believe in order to live their lives with the hope and comfort that religious beliefs can afford, is not the same as accepting the validity of those beliefs.  More importantly, it is not the same as accepting that those beliefs can and should be carried out in actions that violate my own beliefs about causing harm to other human beings or the environment on which we all depend for life.  

So here’s a construct that may serve to get me to what I want to be.  Religion, as a category of human constructs, has important functions to serve for humans and their various social structures.  Cohesion and survival of these various human societies will depend on their various systems of belief (constructed religions) that may (or may not) include a deity, reverence and obedience to some ideal or principle (often expressed as a deity), and conformity to a varying set of rules, prohibitions, rituals, etc.  That my own break with one of those constructed systems of belief came with a tiny bit of a bang, influenced significantly by the Sage of Concord, but with more than a few emotional scars is, in fact, a personal problem, which I may still have to work out for myself.  However, my Ethical understanding of hypocrisy is leading me to an understanding that the “creed,” whatever it may be, is secondary to the “deed,” whatever it may be, when there is an opportunity to work together for the common good.  That means, I think, that I need to put my past experiences with a specific religion aside in order to work/meet/get along with others who practice other religions for the common good of maintaining our social connection(s) within the broader framework of this modern nation state.  This does not imply hypocritical and false “respect” but asserts the basic and fundamentally shared human solutions to human needs advanced to a more inclusive level that allows pluralism in the more particular details of belief with the occasional necessary adjustments to work/meet/get along.

On Adler's "Religion" (Part III)

 (Continuing commentary on quotations taken from Felix Adler, Life and Destiny, "Religion", 1908)

Part III

¶ It is the moral element contained in it that alone gives value and dignity to a religion, and only in so far as its teachings serve to stimulate and purify our moral aspirations does it deserve to retain its ascendency over mankind.

 “There is a time to act for the Lord by breaking his commandments” was a saying current among the ancient Hebrews. This means there is a time to act for religion by protesting against what passes for religion; there is a time to prepare the way for a larger morality by shattering the narrow forms of dogma whereby the progress of morality is hindered.

I disagree with the first statement in this section.  Functionally, religion is a form of social control.  Moral schmoral.  In any society, the system of religious belief buttresses the status quo by motivating conformity to norms of behavior within the system.  Law, when it exists outside of religion, is also a form of social control.  In contemporary industrialized societies, we often recognize law as the greater and more direct form of social control, but religion supports that law by providing the ethical and moral basis for its tenets and by supporting behavior that conforms to its general trend.  Gossip is another form of social control (“What would the neighbors think?”).  “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is not about medicine; it’s about behavior.  Religion does have other functions to perform--see the earlier discussion of hope--but its essential function is to make sure that people act in ways that support the dominant social structure and institutions of political and economic power. 

On the other hand, I see the final statement in this section as central to Adler’s purpose:  To aim for what he saw as a higher morality, better ethics, by breaking free of dogmas and strictures that had become ineffective in his time.  In my mind, this is another way of saying that religion cannot be static because society is not static.  As knowledge grows, as social practices change, religious explanations for knowledge and behavior need to accommodate the new information, the new norms that grow out of that new information.

Adler died before World War II, but that global cataclysm brought two new sets of demands on American society at war’s end.  Black Americans who had served their country in the military returned home with new skills and knowledge and also with a new understanding of their rightful position in society.  American women who had served their country by taking on many jobs formerly (and normally) held by men saw the return of the nation’s military men as a force returning them to their former inferior and disadvantaged position in society.  They, too, had a new understanding of their rightful position in society.  In both cases, however, Adler’s vision was accurate in predicting that new knowledge would demand changes in old beliefs.

A religion that justifies slavery, as Christianity once did, does not function positively as a matter of course for those who are held in slavery.  When that religion shifts, however begrudgingly, to disavow slavery, but still supports segregation and discrimination and inequality, it still does not function positively for the whole community.  Either version might have sufficed for a society that was homogeneous in “race” (a human construct), but it was doomed to fail its practitioners once the society became mixed (by whatever means).  Black Americans returned to a post war America with new insight and new determination to claim the rights of citizenship and humanity.  Their religious beliefs had already shifted to include them in the larger society.  Today’s religious communities become less and less relevant to the people they wish to serve because people have moved on while their religious institutions have not.  Science discounts the old beliefs in “race,” racial “inferiority,” racial traits, and so on.  History shows the bias of Western “civilizations” when ancient remains show cities and trade routes and scientific advances in places far away from the northern climates once believed to foster innovation and progress.  Racism has no place in modern society—nor, I would argue, in the religious thought that supports such a society.  Racist beliefs, even those wrapped in religious justifications, are relics of the past unsuited to support contemporary social and economic institutions.

A religion that justifies sexism, as Christianity still seems to do, does not function positively as a matter of course for those who are relegated to socially inferior positions.  When that religion shifts, however begrudgingly, to allow for more physical safety for women, but still discounts the value of their work, bars them from meaningful roles in their community, and subjugates them to male domination, it still does not function positively for half of the planet’s adult population.  To be fair, many of the older religions hold similar views of women and their value to society, so Christianity must be considered an example, noting, nonetheless, that it is still the dominant religion in America.  American women left the factories and offices and schools in which they had served during the war, returning to their homes to serve, as their mothers had done, as homemakers and participants in producing the postwar baby boom.  However, they did not forget the independence and satisfaction of their work during the war; many became determined to claim their rights of citizenship and humanity, and they taught their daughters to do the same.  Today’s religious communities become less and less relevant to the people they wish to serve--even though women still participate more than men in religious activities--because women have moved on while their religious institutions have not.  Science and history have both shown that women can perform anywhere they are physically capable of serving--and they are more physically capable than social prejudices permit.  Still American women earn less than men for doing the same work.  Still American women are denied, in the old religions, equal access to positions of leadership and authority.  Sexism has no place in modern society—nor, I would argue, in the religious thought that supports such a society.  Sexist beliefs, even those wrapped in religious justifications, are relics of the past unsuited to support contemporary social and economic institutions.

Ethical Culture has its own checkered past to reckon with.  There have been some periods and some Leaders who have treated the matters of racism with no more than “benign neglect.”  Men, as one lay leader commented not too long ago, still “take up a lot of space” in Ethical Culture.  The diversity of our community demands more openness to a “progress of morality” that grants dignity, recognition, equality, respect, space for people of all colors, nations of origin, sexual orientation and gender identity, talents, interests, and personalities.

The good news for Ethical Culture and its participants is that Adler laid an excellent foundation when he insisted that religion itself must progress with the society that it serves.  Good, that is, for those of us who feel that we do not have to be bound by the errors of our past, that we can change and grow and be better today than we were before. Whether Adler or any other individual within the Movement changed enough or fast enough or in any particularly desirable direction is irrelevant in the broader context of a Movement which can honestly evaluate its flaws and weaknesses and also honestly seek to become more Ethical, more capable of meeting the needs of the contemporary society in which it exists, not that of some mythical past.

On Adler's "Religion," Part II

[Commentary on the essays in Felix Adler, Life and Destiny, "Religion," pp. 17-27.]

¶ Religion has been so eager to supply us with information concerning the universe outside of us, its origin and its destiny, because our life is linked with that of the universe, and our destiny is dependent on the destiny of the universe.

¶ The dependence of man on outside forces which he cannot control is the point of departure of religion.

Close, but no cigar, I would say.  

It is difficult without being flooded with images from fiction and films, not to mention Western cultural biases, to imagine that moment when our far distant ancestors became human.  What they experienced had to begin in infancy within a band that was not entirely human.  At some point, however, the first human(s) began to see the surrounding environment, to experience the impact of natural forces beyond his/her control or comprehension, and to think in a different mode from his/her own parents about self and world.  Some basic questions may already have been answered in the family band.  Where can I find food?  How can I keep warm?  I am, at this moment, keenly interested in the prospects for a sexual encounter with my neighbor.  How can I make that happen?

Such questions deal with fundamental human needs, with technology and environment, with social organization.  So does religion, but not quite, I think, in the way that Adler frames it.  Adler speaks of religion as if it is a source of authority over human lives:  Religion, he says, “supplies us” with information.  Religion is, I assert, a human construct.  As such, it is humans who construct the religion that then informs us of how we are to see the universe and live in it.  Humans, then, are the source of authority over their own human lives, reflected in a myriad of beliefs about who, what, when, where, how, and why their piece of the universe came about and continues to function.

Let’s take Adam and Eve.  In some belief systems, Adam and Eve are First Man and First Woman.  In other belief systems, there are others who fill those roles, some more ancient than Adam and his rib.  So Eve, sometimes called a temptress, decided (Genesis 3:6) to eat a fruit which had been forbidden to her and Adam.  She did so because she was informed, by The serpent, that The local deity had lied when he told her that she would die if she touched the tree or ate the fruit.  Without any particular evidence that The serpent was more trustworthy than The local god, Eve nonetheless exercised her reason on three points:  (1) the fruit was good to eat; (2) the fruit looked appetizing, and (3) both The god and The serpent said that she would gain wisdom if she ate the fruit--and she wanted to be wise.  Then she did a very human and ethical thing:  She shared the fruit with her husband.  Adam took the food from his wife’s hand, as he had presumably done before, and, without considering The god’s prohibition, ate it.

True, not true, it’s a myth (see definition 1).  The point of the story--in the tradition of those who believe it--is to assert the power and authority of the deity to command obedience, to explain the causes of certain natural phenomena (the pain of childbirth, why snakes have no legs, etc.), and to justify patriarchy (women are to be blamed for the Original Sin and can never be trusted, they have poor judgment, they lead men astray, etc.).  The earlier chapters of Genesis did link humans on the planet Earth to the vastness of the known (and unknown) universe, but the major function of the text is to lay out social order and cloak it in religious terms.  This function was a positive one as long as those in the society believed the stories, including their origin and their authority.

Believing the stories also included interpreting the stories in a particular way.  Even without reading Genesis 3:6 in the original language, we can see the various translations trending in the same direction.  Eve thought about the fruit:  She was tempted vs. she reasoned. Eve gave the fruit:  Eve shared with Adam vs. Eve tempted Adam.  Which was it? Look at the story with a different interpretation and we see Eve as caring, sharing, thinking, reasoning.  Instead of blindly following the orders of an authority figure, she gets a second opinion and decides to rely on her own agency to gain benefit for both herself and her husband.  The bad guy in the story is not the Old Deceiver who now crawls on his belly, but the deity that promised death but delivered exile.

This story is central to at least three major religious systems.  The interpretation of the role of Eve in the Garden of Eden has been determinative of social order and gender roles in those systems for millennia.  Yet it is not Religion (or even religions) that interpret Eve’s behavior as an archetype for all women:  It is humans who do so.  In those early days (centuries) when humans began to try to understand the world around them, there were observations followed by questions, questions followed by stories, stories follows by beliefs and norms and a social order that reflected and depended upon the structure created by human curiosity, ignorance, and determination to bring order out the chaos of existence--even if it was wrong.  Substitute “humankind” for “religion” (plus some grammatical finesse) and these statements come closer to what we now know of science and history.

¶ [Humankind] has been so eager to supply us with information concerning the universe outside of us, its origin and its destiny, because our life is linked with that of the universe, and our destiny is dependent on the destiny of the universe.

¶ The dependence of [humankind] on outside forces which [we] cannot control is the point of departure of [our creative construction of] religion.

In the former statement, as edited, I think that we are now looking at a simple truth. Humans are part of the universe, curious about it, and are understandably interested in finding out more about it. Looking at the material universe as a scientific puzzle to be solved, we eagerly await the news of space exploration and and the new understandings we may gain.  We are not reliant on some outside source (religion) for our understanding of what is discovered through science.  We know that there is more to discover, and we can live with lack of information while we seek our answers.

The latter statement is my own conception of religion, something closer to home, something  more directly related to our daily lives, which are subject to forces of nature in our environment and in our bodies, where we still seek understanding within our desire to be better persons and live better lives.  In Ethical Culture that desire includes the added dimension of becoming better persons through the work of making the world better for others.  For other religions, that desire may include dependence on a deity for guidance and security, clear statements of permission and prohibition, set rewards and punishments for behaviors that meet (or fail to meet) prescribed standards.  As a religion, Ethical Culture may seem uncomfortably unstructured, but it is a religion that forces us to be self-reliant, to seek understanding, but also to adjust our thoughts and actions as we learn.  Our responsibility is not to a deity but to each other.  I can live with that.

On Adler’s “Religion," Part I

[Commentary on the essays in Felix Adler, Life and Destiny, "Religion," pp. 17-27.]

¶ Religion is a wizard, a sibyl. She faces the wreck of worlds, and prophesies restoration. She faces a sky blood-red with sunset colours that deepen into darkness, and prophesies dawn. She faces death, and prophesies life.

The poetry of this passage is achingly beautiful.  It provides an apt description of the solace that one’s own religious beliefs can provide in times of trial and uncertainty.  Humans are almost always anxious in their inability to see the future and need hope to survive the present moment.  Adler reminds us that religious belief offers hope when we are most fearful.  Whether the hope is realistic or practical is irrelevant.  The emotional need to believe that things might get better, that the crisis might pass, that harm might be averted is deep.  Without hope we can be paralyzed by our fears, unable to think or act in any productive way.  If we can see disaster and hope for restoration, we are more able then to begin the work of restoring.  

So, too, faced with death--for ourselves or for those we care about--the promise of a new life in some other dimension can ease the passage from one state to another.  We face the loss of a parent, but are comforted that our mother has “gone to a better place,” without pain or suffering.  We can see ourselves without her, ourselves transformed into a new role or status (orphan, adult, bereaved), and begin the work of living in ways that include the certainty that our loved one is now safe, our lives no longer directly intertwined or interdependent, our responsibility for care and protection now ended.

While the hope that religion provides is a positive function, Adler labels religion in magical and mythical terms.  A wizard--a magician--is no scientist.  Rather she (as Adler characterizes her) is a deceiver, who distorts our sense of reality with ritual words and artifacts and actions to see what is not there, what did not happen, at least not by the forces and powers represented as active in the event.  A sibyl--an oracle, a fortune teller--is the product of legend and literature.  Also a deceiver, a sibyl, inspired by some supernatural being while in a trance state, predicts the future.  Religion gives us a certain future as a promise from a higher power, but a future from a point in time when we will no longer be able to report the truth of the prediction.

In elegant images, Adler presents us with a clear understanding of the nature of religion as beautiful, comforting, and false.  One wonders if he got carried away with his rhetoric.  Taken alone, this statement would condemn all religion for all time as a mere crutch for the gullible.  Yet we know that Adler was founding a new religion for a new time--one which could even change as its practitioners changed with new knowledge and new experience.  

Ethical Culture is definitely a religion (although not all Ethical Culturists identify themselves as religious). Even in terms of these glowing images prefaced by the names of charlatans, Ethical Culture gives us “restoration,” “dawn,” and “life.”  Restoration, we know, can come in several forms; Ethical Culture invites us to repair and restore our lives, our environment, our community--to build and make better that which time and recklessness and cruelty have damaged.  We are invited to restore our neighbor in her loss so that our own spirit can be restored by sharing the loss as well as the work of repair and renewal.  Dawn comes with each new day and the new knowledge it brings, the new opportunities it presents, the new experiences it dispenses.  Beyond the literal rising of the sun, there is the dawning of understanding as we commit ourselves to learning more about our world, each other, ourselves.  Ethical Culture invites us to new dawns--to see the day as a rich library for the spirit and the mind and to open each hour, as a book, with a will to discover the insights it can provide.  As for life, Ethical Culture allows us to seek our own answers to the question of “What happens after I die?” while it challenges us to use the time until that moment to live life today--mindfully, intentionally, joyful in the moment.  None of these “gifts” of Ethical Culture come with magic or supernatural sanction.  Instead they come from within ourselves and our connection to community.

Adler did condemn religions that are static, frozen in time, unable to meet the demands of change and progress and any new facts of science.  He did not, however, condemn Religion, seeing the human need for hope and having a practical idea for meeting that need in this world, this life.  

Holey, holey, holey

That's part of the title of an article by Michael Schulson posted on Religion Dispatches.  The other part is:  "The Problem with a New Study Valuing Religion at $1.2 Trillion Per Year."  Schulson is referring to an article by Brian J. and Melissa E. Grim, entitled "The Socio-economic Contribution of Religion to American Society: An Empirical Analysis," published in Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion.  The Grims' article has made quite the media splash without a great deal of push back on its methodology, its purpose, or its conclusions.  Schulson undertakes some push back on all counts.

The abstract of the Grims' article includes some striking notions:

". . . the first documented quantitative national estimates of the economic value of religion to U.S. society. . . . the revenues of faith-based organizations, is $378 billion annually – or more than a third of a trillion dollars. . . . undervaluation because it focuses on annual revenues . . . Our second mid-range estimate [provides] an estimate of the fair market value of goods and services provided by religious organizations, and [includes] the contribution of businesses with religious roots. This mid-range estimate puts the value of religion to U.S. society at over $1 trillion annually. . . . Finally, we discuss the limitations of this study and suggest several possible lines of research that could build upon and extend this research." [Emphasis added.]

I have chopped away at the abstract for space, but it provides a clear enough window into the Grims' study for our purposes here--to look at and expand on Schulson's analysis.

Here are some thoughts on Schulson's thoughts:

• Word.  Data have been selected.  The methodology may be a step above WAG (wild-ass guess), but it is at least biased.  As Schulson points out, the choice of "businesses with religious roots" seems somewhat capricious. He does not press, however, the emphasis on Abrahamic religions and failure to recognize offshoots of Eastern religions, such as the booming businesses based in yoga.  Perhaps the Grims are guilty of the same myopia that allows the cultural appropriation of yoga for secular fitness programs in disregard of its religious and philosophical origins.  Perhaps some of the choices are related to a bigger agenda which discounts religions with a smaller presence in the US.
• If the purpose of the article is to show the economic value of religion in the American economy, it fails, as Schulson rightfully points out, to balance the monetary contributions with the social and economic consequences of the businesses and religious organizations that should be subtracted from that awesome total before one can say one has truly found the bottom line. Schulson singles out Walmart*, the largest of the "businesses with religious roots" and a behemoth in the American economy.  He points out that Walmart, for all its gross sales, costs the American public in funds spent to subsidize the health and welfare of Walmart employees--enough to whittle down their "contribution" to the economy quite substantially.  Schulson, perhaps for lack of space, fails, however, to point out that Walmart also costs communities where it out-competes the smaller mom and pop businesses that had long anchored the centers of small towns all over the country.  What cost to local economies in jobs and taxes?  What cost to local communities in, well, community?
• Why do this study?  Schulson follows up on some questions regarding purpose, the answers to which largely seem to be on the order of:  Gee, we make a valuable contribution to the American economy!  I think there may be more to the study than simply serving up another version of Little Jack Horner.  When I first encountered reports of the Grim study I felt there was something more ominous, something more in the line of threat implied in the research.  Perhaps it was the copy editor's headline, which I have now lost track of, that gave that sense of oppression, but my first reaction was that this whole study was intended to communicate intimidation.  The implied message--enhanced by the exaggerated "value" that came from adding in "businesses with religious roots"--seemed to me to be that religion, particularly America's favored versions of religion, were so essential to the economy, being practically its very backbone, that any falling away from religious belief (and action) would bring economic disaster for all of us.  It is as if the author's were saying:  "See?  Religion runs this country."

Perhaps I am making too much of this study.  Or, perhaps the Grims do have a devious motive in creating such a grossly inflated statement of the economic relevance of religion-related expenditures.  As it is, I think we would all do well to look for some perspective on how religion should be considered in the context of American society.  Shrilly asserting dominance isn't what I would consider a useful perspective.  Unless, of course, we flip it and argue that everything that is not included in the Grims' study as part of religion's economic contribution to the American economy must therefore be secular and not religious.  $1.16 billion vs $17.9 billion (estimates, of course) is big, but not dominant.  Just saying.

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*  Yes, I am still a Walmart shopper, as I have explained before (see also Comments).

Things that need to be said

After Orlando, there are few things that need to be said.

About the LGBT community.  The massacre at Pulse in Orlando was a hate crime.  It came as a shock to the LBGT community, which includes not only those who identify as LGBT, but also those who care about that community, whether because of family and friendship ties or because of their desire to live in an inclusive and ethical society.  The attempt to co-opt the grief and suffering that comes out of such an evil act for political purposes is despicable.  So, too, are the false flag condolences from those who helped create a climate of hate against the LGBT community. Thoughts, prayers, moments of silence are, at best, disingenuous from those who, in the days before Orlando sought to deprive the LGBT community of its civil rights and protections in this life while condemning them to horrors in the afterlife.

About gun violence.  

• Guns kill people.  
• Assault weapons are called that for a reason.  
• On the day of the Orlando murders, an additional 38 Americans lost their lives to gun violence and 8 more were wounded.  So far in 2016, there have been 24,087 "incidents" of gun violence which led to a total of 6,186 deaths and 12,616 injuries.  
• Here's a look at 330 mass shootings in 2015:

I am ignoring the voiceover at the end.  This isn't about politics.  It is about thinking that there is one "gun problem," one "solution," that the problem is only guns.  We need to broaden our thinking to look at all the issues with who has guns and why, not just the kinds of guns they have.

About extreme Islamic terrorism.  Is there a difference between the terrorism of one religious group over another?  Is there a difference between extreme terrorism and ordinary terrorism?  Did the men and women in the Pulse suffer more than the men and women of Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church?  Was their suffering less or more than the victims and survivors of the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting?  These were all acts of terrorism.  I am not intending to downplay one event to highlight another.  I am not denying the role that Islam seems to have played in the Orlando shooter's motives--or justifications.  I am not in any way meaning to be flippant or casual about the terrible crimes that have been committed.

I am, however, interested in the concept of terrorism as a tool to influence behaviors and attitudes, as a weapon of war.  The goal of terrorism is not just to kill or maim; it is first and foremost intended to create terror.  To instill a fear in those who survive, who witness, who somehow become aware of the event--and its justification--so that they become wary of doing anything that might bring such a horror down on their own heads.  LGBT men and women would then stop being who they are--or at least acting openly in any manner that might seem authentic to their identities.  Rather they will go back in the closet, stop demanding outrageous "rights," straighten up.  Black people cannot change the color of their skin, but they can certainly stop making such a nuisance of themselves, again demanding outrageous "rights."  They need to "know their place" and stay there.  Women must stop seeking to gain control of their own bodies and lives, become once more subservient to men, and take up their proper roles as baby makers and sex objects.  No more "women's rights" nonsense.

We have heard the response from the LGBT community:  "In hope and defiance, we dance."  We see from Mother Emmanuel Church days of commemoration and positive action with the reminder: "Let all that you do be done in love."  From Planned Parenthood--well, they're still busy fighting all those politicians to keep the doors open.  I'll just say for them:  "Oh, hell, no!"  

And leave it there for now.  There's more.  I missed my self-imposed deadline for a post this week, but I have certainly been puzzling my way through recent events.  Yes, there'll be more.

Do we need a poster for religious freedom?

Dunno.  Really reluctant to enter the religious freedom wars as they are currently being fought in the US.  It's always something, isn't it?  But this little image has popped up in my email a couple of times,

and someone in the chain of discussion quipped that "it looks like we have a poster!"  Mebbe so, mebbe not so much, but I--of course--have a thing or two to say about that.

First, I'd like to look at what "freedom of religion" covers.  And, first, I'd like to point out that freedom of whatever passes for religion in one's belief system ought to include a belief system.  If we support freedom of religion (as I do), then there's got to be something there to have any freedom of [it].  So I'd make the first bullet:

• Believing in any being(s) or ideal(s) as a focus of religious feelings and behaviors

This would allow for religious freedom for people who choose to believe in one or more gods/higher powers/deities or who choose not to believe in such beings but rather in one or more central idea(l)(s) which allows them to experience and express the functional benefits that are associated with "religion."  Whatever those benefits might be, I'm not going to speculate here (although I probably will do another day).  I'm just pointing out that freedom of religion should actually include religion.

Taking the counterpoint, consider the last bullet in the first section:  "Choosing not to participate in religion at all."  That could be a nice way to say that it's OK to be a "None" and not affiliate with any religious group or belief system.  But what about the "Nones" who flat out disbelieve in any being as a focus of religious belief, the so-called "atheists, agnostics, and skeptics"?  They are not "participating."  Is their lack of participation what is protected by religious freedom while their lack of belief is not?   Can freedom of religion include freedom from religion?

Personally, I think it should.  Rationally, I'm hung up on language a bit.  Those prepositions--"of," "from"--have distinct meanings which should not be conflated.  So how do we get "of" to include "from" here?  

"Atheism" is, I would say, part of the spectrum of religious belief.  Religious belief is something of a continuum.  On one end there is an extreme of belief (in whatever) that thoroughly consumes the believer in all aspects of life and attention.  The stereotype of the ascetic hermit who meditates or prays almost unendingly, leaving as much as physically and mentally possible the present world, in order to focus on/join with the object of belief (whether being or ideal) seems to fit the one extreme.  In this case behavior is reflective of belief--that a focus exists and that acting in such a manner is the best way to worship/experience/achieve the desired state in relation to that focus.  On the other end of the continuum, there is an affirmative disbelief, a denial, that any being exists that can or should serve as a focus of religious feelings and behaviors. That may be reflected in behavior that simply ignores--by word and deed--any being of religious focus.  It may be reflected in both word and deed that denies the existence of such beings and, moreover, demands that expressions of belief in their existence be removed from the secular environment.  The latter is more extreme than the former, I think, but both still can be considered--no doubt under great protest by those who find themselves on this end of the continuum--as religious beliefs.

Yup.  I'm actually saying that atheists actually have religion (just as they have some really fine music, the blues included).  They have looked at other belief systems, rejected them, and hold their own (varied) beliefs about the nature of the universe (including its origin), the nature of humankind (including its origin), their personal values, future, end-of-life--and on and on through the gamut of issues that are explained (or not) by assorted religious belief systems.  Their beliefs don't--won't--look like the beliefs of other more organized religions, but they are religious beliefs because they focus on the issues that religions try to resolve.  "Religion" is, after all, merely a word that labels a category of human behavior and thought, just as "kinship" is a word that labels a category of human behavior and thought.  

So I'm thinking I'd modify the new first bullet by adding a new second:

• Believing in a(ny) being(s) or ideal(s) as a focus of religious feelings and behaviors
• Believing that no being exists to serve as a focus of religious feelings and behaviors

I need to think about the "ideal" part a little more, so I'm leaving it out of the negative end of the religious continuum, for the time being anyway.

What do you think?  Are atheists on the religious continuum?  If so, does our "of/from" problem disappear, since I'm basically saying that freedom of religion should make the affirmative disbelief in a supreme being a protected religious belief?  Religious practice is another subject altogether--about which more another day.