Universal Life Church

Here at Universal Life Church Monastery blog, we have been paying close attention to the growing acceptance of women clerics, many of whom belong to traditionally marginalized racial, ethnic, and sexual minority groups. The Old Roman Catholic Church, a recalcitrant offshoot of the Roman Catholic Church, is no exception to this rule, and it is possibly the first church to permit the ordination of women in the unofficial Roman Catholic tradition. It also reflects an overall growing dissatisfaction with the doctrines of the Vatican.

Perhaps not unexpectedly, the church, which broke away from the official hierarchy in the nineteenth century in protest of the doctrine of papal infallibility, is in full co-operation with the Anglican Communion, a loose-knit federation of ecclesiastically independent churches in the Anglican tradition which commonly ordain women as priests. The woman in question, 35-year-old Sicilian Maria Vittoria Longhitano, was ordained at the Anglican All Saints Church in Rome but is also a member of the Old Catholic Church. In addition to the ordination of a woman, the ceremony featured a transgendered woman organist, Luana Ricci, who was excommunicated from the official universal church in Puglia for having gender reassignment surgery. As if a woman priest and a transgendered organist were not enough to provoke the Catholic hierarchy, Longhitano is married—a strictly forbidden act among Catholic priests.

While the first woman to become a priest was Teodora Tosatti, who was ordained in 2006 in Bonn, Longhitano was the first to be ordained in Italy, just blocks away from the Vatican itself. Explaining the rationale for admitting women into the priesthood, she argued, “I have opened the way. Catholicism means universality, and without women it is mutilated”, pointing out that Italy is “ready to welcome a female ministry” and that her fellow Sicilians had already asked her, “[w]hy don’t we have the joy of women priests?” Longhitano’s words are likely to create a rift (if there is not already one) between Anglicans and the Holy See, which recently began admitting into its ranks disillusioned Anglicans who left the Communion when it started ordaining women.

Despite the rancor of these old-fashioned Anglicans over the ordination of women, the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams—a leader in the English Church—defended in Rome several months ago the view that women should be allowed to become priests, possibly widening the rift between the Communion and the Vatican even further.

The views of Longhitano and Williams sit in stark contrast with the doctrines of Roman Catholics, who maintain that spiritual authority rests in the hierarchical institution of the Church, and evangelical Protestants, who place sole spiritual authority in the sixty-six books of the canonical Bible; for Catholics, Jesus bestowed this authority on the apostle Peter in a supposedly unbroken line of male apostolic succession, while Protestants point out that in the Second Epistle to Timothy, 2:12, Paul told Timothy, “I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence”. Conservative theologians generally argue that Paul was inspired by God to make this injunction against female authority over males.

So what?

Why should we believe that the pope is divinely inspired by God just because the pope claims to have succeeded by heavenly guidance down a line started by Jesus Christ, and why should we believe that the sixty-six canonical books are divinely inspired just because ministers say so, or just because the books themselves say so? Bias in favor of oneself is not exactly objective evidence. If this kind of faith is too fantastic to accept, and if divine inspiration also takes place through critical thinking, reflection, and mystical revelation, Longhitano’s words deserve serious consideration. What about women’s gifts, talents, experience, wisdom, and intelligence? How are these unfit for guiding men spiritually? What about fairness and the right to have an opportunity to realize these attributes fully? How can we believe that God wishes for us to exclude half the world’s population from roles of spiritual authority over men simply because they are biologically different? Traditional cultures around the world have benefited from the insight of priestesses, female shamans, and witches, many of whom wielded great authority in their societies. Indeed, by persisting in the attitude that women require men to serve as a conduit between them and divine wisdom, we ignore our potential and cripple the priesthood with arrogance and smug self-deception. We remain incomplete.

Of course, the Church is free to practice its religion as it sees fit, as are the many Protestant denominations which pepper the United States, relegating half its followers to the degrading role of stupid, wide-eyed dependants, but this does not mean that we cannot affect change peacefully by persuading people to challenge their long-held beliefs. With the ongoing debacle over child molestation by Catholic priests and the increasing disenchantment with papal authority (especially that of Pope Benedict), it will be interesting to watch the Vatican and see whether it adapts in accordance with new insight, or cracks and crumbles out of centuries-old patriarchal stubbornness.

Source:
The Guardian

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The struggle to preserve secular values is coming to a head in Europe, where a sudden surge in anti-fundamentalist Muslim sentiment has resulted in a crackdown on the full Muslim veil. Numerous jurisdictions across the continent have instituted or attempted to institute bans in an effort to stem what they see as a radical form of Islam which conflicts with the fundamental values of dignity and equality which European democracies stand for. Do these veil bans reflect a general fear of Islam, or a fear of a fundamentalist form of the religion which oppresses women? It seems to be a combination of both, but it is easy to understand the European apprehension towards the more radical elements of Islam.

The latest country to push ahead with a full veil ban is Belgium, where the Chamber of Representatives voted 29 April to pass a ban nationwide; the bill still needs Senate approval to become law. In France, which had already been mulling anti-veil legislation under President Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservative government, the National Assembly overwhelmingly proclaimed full Muslim veils as “contrary to the values of the republic”, in what lawmakers explained as a step toward a ban like Belgium’s. Similar anti-veil legislation has been proposed in the Dutch and Italian parliaments, reflecting the strong overall resurgence of European secular humanism in light of a perceived onslaught of religious fundamentalism.

But while the governments of France and Belgium are still attempting to pass such legislation, several local European jurisdictions have already succeeded in doing so, or in banning other symbols of Islam. Last November, the construction of minarets was banned in Switzerland, and Swiss Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf revealed that the Swiss government is planning a full veil ban as well (although, ironically, the rule will exempt wealthy Persian Gulf tourists, who spend a great deal in Swiss hotels and luxury shops). Meanwhile, in Novara, Italy, a Tunisian immigrant was fined $650 for wearing a veil on her way to a mosque.

One Muslim Belgian woman, who goes by the name Selma, argues that the proposed bans reflect a form of Islamophobia, especially since the vast majority of European Muslim women do not wear the full veil. It is easy to see how the Swiss minaret ban, which targets an architectural feature and not an actual form of oppression, could ironically constitute a form of oppression itself, and many liberals discouraged its passage. But maybe Europeans have good reason to fear radical Islam: after the Chamber approved the bill, a video was posted on the Internet threatening attacks on Belgium. It is such a propensity for violence which drives the fear of radical Islam among Europeans in the first place, and which they cannot help decrying without inciting further threat of violence, so it is hard to sympathize fully with Selma.

Then there is the principle underlying the veil. Selma insists that she will keep wearing hers in public, despite disapproval, out of respect for her “creator”, her “husband”, and her “modesty”. But it is exactly such conviction which grates against the rational sensibilities of modern Europeans, who believe that such dogma lies at the heart of social injustice. After all, why should females, but not males, cover their faces out of respect for God, their mate, and their modesty? To say that women, but not men, should respect God, their husbands, and their modesty suggests that men should be allowed to disrespect God, their wives, and their modesty, perhaps because they have a closer link with the divine and therefore hold the right to command such respect without giving it in return. It is an ugly, arrogant, and loathsome double standard to many Europeans, who value sex equality more greatly than the freedom to cover one’s face.

A final reason it is easy to sympathize with Europeans opposing extreme forms of Islam is the fact that European tolerance for the laws of fundamentalist Muslim countries is largely not returned by these countries. It is ironic that many radical Muslims demand that Westerners adhere to local customs when staying in fundamentalist Muslim countries, yet these same radicals do not feel obliged to adhere to local customs when staying in Western Roman Catholic, Protestant, or secular countries—in fact, they go a step further and coerce Western governments into recognizing radical Muslim customs, as is evident in the video threat against Belgium, not to mention the Muhammed cartoon debacle. It indeed seems unfair and arbitrary to make an exception to this laissez-faire approach for Muslims staying in Western countries.

Of course, it can still be argued that women who choose to wear the veil are not being oppressed or coerced, but this is hard to prove. At Universal Life Church Monastery, we encourage all of our ordained ministers to uphold religious freedom insofar as this does not impinge on other freedoms, such as the right to be treated as equal to the opposite sex. What is most important is to be able to identify when and whether the free exercise of religion actually restricts other freedoms. Despite the difficulty of the task, we should keep an eye out for the events in Europe to determine whether religion is being exercised without interfering with the rights of women.

Feel free to visit our Guide to Divinity to learn more about the tenets of Islam.

Source:
The Washington Post

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Exactly who would the “Prince of Peace” gun down if his congregation were under attack? And exactly who would attack a congregation of Christians who were doing nothing but worshiping in peace inside their own church? Well, there is bound to be a chimera out there somewhere in a land full of fear and delusion, where pre-emptive action is required to thwart a long list of imagined threats. Perhaps they are the homosexuals, or the feminists, or the Muslims, or the foreigners who make up a sizeable chunk of the United States population. For the pistol-packing usher, danger might be lurking in every corner.

This seems to be the mindset of many church-goers and lawmakers in the U.S. state of Louisiana, where a bill allowing pastors to permit guns inside church doors is currently being revived after a recent rejection. On Wednesday, 12 May, the Louisiana state House of Representatives passed the bill 74-28, sending it off to the Senate for consideration. Implementation of the bill is a “‘matter of choice’” for individual religious leaders, said Republican state Representative Henry Burns, who stated that every place of worship in the state of Louisiana will remain a gun-free environment unless the leader of that denomination elects certain certified individuals to carry guns on church property. But will it remain fear-free, and, if it does not, will it then remain gun-free?

Not all lawmakers share in the eagerness to get the bill passed by the Senate, however, and the difference in attitudes runs largely along partisan lines. Interestingly, what both Republicans and Democrats do is assume a sort of default Christian perspective on the issue, taking for granted that Christianity is the law of the land and their decisions are founded on its tenets. Republican state Representative Ernest Wooten invoked the Bible when he reportedly said, “I want to see in the Bible where it says you can’t bring a gun to church,” while Democratic state Representative Barbara Norton, an opponent of the bill, reportedly argued, “If God is looking down on us today I don’t think he is happy with us discussing how we can carry our guns to church . . . . The church is a place of peace. I don’t think God said it was OK to carry a gun in the house of the Lord.” Both lawmakers profess to base their decisions on the desires of God or the teachings of the Bible, as though these should automatically guide the legislative process. But in a country where religious belief and job duties are so subtly, inextricably intertwined (even though this is explicitly forbidden), public declarations on religious duties by on-duty government employees is mere custom. So we are stuck with differing Christian attitudes on weapons in places of worship.

But if we, in turn, can take it for granted that Louisiana is an overwhelmingly conservative Protestant Christian jurisdiction, and if we are able to ignore the fact that any discussion in that state’s legislature will, at least for a time, take place within an annoyingly inappropriate and presumptuous religious framework, then we must ask ourselves who is right—Christians who support guns in churches, or Christians who oppose it.

Rep. Wooten’s statement is clearly a strict, evangelical one which argues that the Bible allows for guns in churches simply because guns are not mentioned in the Bible to begin with. This argument raises many red flags. To say that the Bible validates a thing that did not exist when the Bible was compiled is nonsensical and illogical, because it is impossible to validate a thing—such as guns—that is entirely unknown in the first place; hence, it is absurd to argue that the Bible validates guns in churches simply because it does not mention them. The Bible did not fail to condemn guns in churches because it approved of them—it failed to condemn guns in churches because guns did not exist when it was written. Besides, there is always the age-old debate over Biblical inerrancy.

Much more plausible, and palatable, is Rep. Norton’s assertion that God is a powerfully peaceful, loving being. For Norton, church is a refuge from fear, violence, and conflict, a place to commune with something transcendent in the hope that we can quell our base instincts and help one another based on empathy. If a congregation worships in peace, if they conduct their prayers and sermons without provoking others, but rather to help and heal them, what have they to fear? Nothing—they have no reason to expect violence, because they have given nobody reason to commit acts of violence against them in the first place. Posturing violence only invites further violence, creating a vicious cycle in which one side constantly strives to outgun the other, whereas promoting and embodying harmony can only inspire greater harmony, and hopefully this is what we all strive for. Peace begets peace.

The vicious cycle of outgunning one’s hypothetical foe seems to be the norm in the American south, but this anxiety too easily transforms into paranoia, breeding the very violence people fear. This is highly ironic, given that the Christian religion, with its famous (and uncannily street-smart) “turn the other cheek” ethos, which is supposed to be so strong in this region, begs us to create peace by promoting it, not by disdaining it as cowardice. It remains to be seen which argument finally convinces the Louisiana Senate when it votes on the bill in the upcoming weeks. In the meantime, we would like to hear the views of our ministers on the matter—should Louisiana ban, or allow, guns in churches?

Source:
The Huffington Post

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The United States Supreme Court has seen much change since Barack Obama assumed the office of President, not just with the appointment of a Hispanic woman to the bench, but also with the expected appointment of a third Jew, also a woman, Elena Kagan. If Kagan is appointed, the Court will finally have shed its traditionally white, male, Protestant Christian make-up and succeeded in incorporating diverse racial and religious elements. As usual in American politics, however, conservative religious groups have spoken out against Kagan’s imminent appointment, brandishing a list of complaints regarding the values and agenda of the solicitor general, and questions about the “affirmative action” approach of the president and Congress remain.

Why the sudden grumbling over a female Jew’s nomination for a position in the highest court in the land? This may be a stupid question, given the obvious bias against women and non-Christians in American politics, but, as a former law professor and former Dean of Harvard Law School, Kagan seems to be a brilliant legal scholar. Nevertheless, the executive director of Catholic Families for America, Dr. Kevin Roberts, stated, “By nominating Miss Kagan to the Supreme Court, the president continues to demonstrate a brass-knuckles, Chicago-mobster mentality toward unifying our nation”; criticizing Kagan’s support for marriage equality and abortion rights, Roberts also argued, “[n]aming someone who has been so actively hostile to traditional marriage and to the unborn lays bare the president’s pro-abortion, anti-family agenda, in spite of what he says to the contrary.” Such adamant criticism seems to stem from a conflict in religious beliefs which Obama could have avoided by nominating another Catholic or Protestant for the position, and it is Obama’s presumed sympathy for Kagan’s own values that has incensed Robert and other conservative Christians.

Typical of religious reactionaries, Roberts’s lashing out appears rather irrational and steeped in rhetoric that distorts the logic behind Kagan’s position on marriage and abortion, and which paints a skewed portrait of the president. There are myriad questions we might want to ask Roberts. How does Kagan oppose traditional marriage or weddings? She supports marriage equality in addition to traditional marriage, not the dissolution of heterosexual marriage, so there is no reason to believe she opposes traditional marriage. Furthermore, how is Kagan anti-family? She supports a woman’s right to choose what to do with her own body, and she supports the right of same-sex couples to form strong and loving family units in addition to heterosexual couples, not in opposition to them, so it is absurd to suggest she is anti-family; if anything, she shows a pro-family attitude by supporting the expansion of potential family units, and Roberts seems to show the anti-family, anti-marriage attitude by excluding same-sex marriages and families. It is odd when beliefs which actually reinforce traditional institutions are seen as deleterious to them simply because the couples involved cannot procreate. But Roberts is a Catholic man, and Kagan, a Jewish woman, and with such a social rift in place, conflict is perhaps inevitable.

But is the President’s nomination a sign of reverse racism or “affirmative action”-style cherry-picking, and would the criticism of conservatives like Roberts therefore be merited? Mark Osler, law professor at Baylor University in Texas, argues that there should be “religious diversity on the court, and it should be a factor the next time there’s an opening”, while Princeton University’s Christopher Eisgruber, author of a book on Supreme Court nominations, counters that religious affiliation has nothing to do with carrying out the law. At first it would seem that such an approach pays too close attention to the nominee’s religious affiliation while ignoring her skills and qualifications, but, on second thought, such discernment in organizing an “interfaith” court might serve a function in its own right by helping prevent religious bias in the interpretation of constitutional law.

It seems that whenever Obama appoints or nominates a Supreme Court justice who is not white, male Christian, white, male Christians complain about it just because it is different, labeling the new justice as anti-family or anti-marriage even when he or she actually supports these things, or calling them a token used by the President to reach out to and earn the sympathy of minorities. But religious considerations in Supreme Court nominations might have very practical benefits with respect to preserving religious pluralism and representing more broadly the diversity of the people. Perhaps one day—it may take years, even decades—the appointment of non-Christian, minority women to positions of power will become a mere routine, and the outcry of old school purists, obsolete.

Source:
New York Daily News

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If it seems as though we have been discussing the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution a lot lately here on the ULCM blog, it is because a great deal is happening with respect to separation of church and state. Not only has Huffington Post contributor John Elerick suggested that scripture can be used to inform political decisions, as long as it is used “ethically”, but an atheist parolee was returned to prison recently for refusing to participate in a religious-inspired drug treatment program. Now, the federally recognized National Day of Prayer in the United States is expected to go ahead despite a federal court decision ruling it unconstitutional.

The annual tradition, which dates to 1952, was challenged by a group of atheists and agnostics from the Freedom from Religion Foundation, who filed a lawsuit in which they argued that it was inappropriate for the government to tell its citizens to pray. As a consequence, the status of the event came under question last month when U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb handed down her decision, writing, “[the event] goes beyond mere ‘acknowledgment’ of religion because its sole purpose is to encourage all citizens to engage in prayer, an inherently religious exercise that serves no secular function in this context”. The law, Judge Crabb asserted, violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment, which states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. It would seem, then, that government is promulgating religion by holding such an event.

A host of lawmakers and conservatives spoke out against the ruling and urged the Obama administration and Justice Department to issue an appeal, which they did, and, despite the ruling, the Obama administration went ahead with this year’s National Day of Prayer, which Judge Crabbs said was acceptable since the appeals were still pending. At the event, President Obama asked Americans to “pray, or otherwise give thanks”, declaring, “[t]hroughout our history, whether in times of great joy and thanksgiving, or in times of great challenge and uncertainty, Americans have turned to prayer,” and “[i]n prayer, we have expressed gratitude and humility, sought guidance and forgiveness, and received inspiration and assistance, both in good times and in bad.” When asked about Obama’s decisions, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said, “[p]rayer is something that the president does every day” and “the president understands, in his own life and in his family’s life, the role that prayer plays”. It would seem, then that Obama has sided with religious conservatives in carrying on the tradition.

But Obama’s position on the issue does not seem so partisan. For many conservatives, his version of the National Day of Prayer is merely a watered down, compromised shadow of its former self in the days of George W. Bush, who actually hosted an ecumenical worship service at the event. Despite Gibbs’s claim that the president prays daily, National Day of Prayer Task Force, a conservative group which strives to re-enforce America’s “Christian heritage“, is frustrated at the fact that no service has been held under Obama. Meanwhile, Franklin Graham, son of evangelical preacher Billy Graham and National Day of Prayer Task Force honorary chairman, reportedly stood protesting outside the Pentagon during the even for being disinvited after calling Islam “wicked” and “evil”. Rush Limbaugh has even argued that the exclusion of the worship service is evidence of Obama’s “authoritarian” control. Nor has Obama been able to please secular activists, it seems. Upon hearing of the Obama administration’s appeal, Annie Laurie Gaylor, of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, expressed her regret over the decision and, noting the president’s former career in constitutional law, said, “I would have expected something better from a legal scholar”. It seems as though the demands of the law on one hand, and the country’s strong evangelical voice on the other, have forced the President to play a balancing act between the two.

But exactly what should the President’s position be in light of the arguments made above by both sides? Gibbs argued that the President prays routinely, but so what? This is a private act of the President’s, not a function of his office. The fact that he prays in his own time in his own home or church does not therefore also mean that, at a federally recognized event, on behalf of the government, he should tell Americans to pray. His personal routine is not necessarily pertinent to his official duties. In addition, the National Day of Prayer Task Force, as well as the Obama administration itself, has argued that religion is a foundational part of American life. This is true. So what? It is also true that religion is a foundational part of American private life, not the administration of government; it is also true that the establishment clause of the First Amendment is a foundational part of the constitutional law which protects minority interests from majority nosiness. The fact that religion is a tradition in America does not therefore mean that it should also inform politics. On the other hand, secularists simply want the President to stop telling them to pray just because a majority of Americans do.

Even though it required a majority rule within each state’s legislature, the U.S. Constitution was ratified unanimously by every state and serves as a guideline of carefully considered, fundamental rights to be protected against the majority intrusion in minority affairs. Ideally, given that he is a legal scholar, President Obama would make a similar observation and desist with telling people to pray, despite any wrath he might incur from the religious right. This would allow secularists to be served by a sincerely secular government; meanwhile, those of us who wish to pray at home or church would be allowed to do so under the guarantees of the very same constitution. In such an event, should not everybody then be happy?

Source:
CBS News

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Social justice advocates are constantly striving to defend freedom of speech while protecting the freedom to live in peace and safety. At times this proves a daunting task, and not just for progressive, interfaith churches like Universal Life Church Monastery, but also for governments which struggle to strike a balance between the two and make everybody happy. A part of this challenge is making the distinction between hate speech and hate crimes, and establishing laws on how to treat these; occasionally, however, efforts to preserve order and harmony can threaten to chip away at freedom of speech. Of course, this latter idea can be said to vary greatly in importance from nation to nation, and, in fact, this appears to be the case with the United States and Great Britain.

This tug-of-war between freedoms saw a winner recently in London, when a police officer arrested an evangelical Christian street preacher for proclaiming homosexuality a sin. According to Al Webb of The Huffington Post, under Britain’s Public Order Act 1986, it is a criminal act to use “threatening, abusive or insulting words . . . tending to and causing harassment, alarm or distress.” In accordance with the law, the part-time officer arrested Dave McAlpine, a 42 year-old Baptist, when he recited a list of sins which included same-sex relations; McAlpine admitted telling a passerby it was “a sin in the eyes of God“, Webb reports. On 20 April, the preacher “was fingerprinted, given a DNA swab and retina scan, and was locked in a police cell for seven hours on”, and, ten days later, he arrived at magistrates court in Workington, where he pleaded not guilty and was arraigned for trial at a later date.

In response to his arrest, McAlpine expressed disbelief, seeking to vindicate his position and expose the absurdity of the charges filed against him. Referring to the officer’s reliability, he argued, “My freedom was taken away on the hearsay evidence of someone who disliked what I said”, Webb says. He not only insisted on the unreliability of the officer’s claims, however, but also the irrelevance of the Public Order Act to his case, stating, “I was charged under a law that doesn’t apply”. In addition, McAlpine maintained, “I am not homophobic . . . but sometimes I do say that the Bible says homosexuality is a crime against the Creator.”

Whether or not one finds McAlpine’s actions imminently harmful, it is important to consider his distinction between expression of a personal belief which might be disagreeable to others on one hand, and an act which constitutes a threat to their safety on the other. Presumably, both the Public Order Act and malicious harassment statutes in the U.S. seek to prevent threats to bodily harm, but the former law seems to impose greater restriction on speech than the latter. But we must then ask ourselves, is the statement “homosexuality is a sin” a malicious threat that causes reasonable fear for one’s safety, or is it simply an offense to the scruples of those who disagree? McAlpine’s words are repulsive to many of us, but it seems difficult to imagine how they suggest that he will harm anybody. Now, if he screamed out that homosexuals should die, it would be much easier to view him as a threat, and if he brandished a weapon, he should certainly be apprehended, but he did neither of these things—he simply stated that same-sex relationships were immoral. The point is that we need to be able to distinguish between those individuals whose behavior poses a reasonable threat, and those whose opinions simply differ in terms of theology.

Of course, it might be argued that the objective of the Public Order Act does not end with monitoring physical threats, but goes so far as to quell any language simply because it is obnoxious. After all, the Act bans words which cause “alarm” or “distress”, and not necessarily even because these suggest intent to do bodily harm, so even disagreeable notions are forbidden if they make the listener uncomfortable. It then becomes a slippery slope to banning perfectly odious, but perfectly harmless forms of self-expression. The problem is that a lot of philosophical and moral dissent can be argued to be ultimately harmless, and, so, to imagine a menacing chimera lurking behind every single offensive opinion or doctrine ends up being founded on nothing more than paranoid speculation. From here, it is but a small step further toward an Orwellian system of social control.

While Universal Life Church Monastery strongly supports freedom of expression, it also opposes hate speech and hate propaganda where these pose an imminent threat to personal safety or otherwise impinge on the rights of others. Finding out where such language and imagery pose a menace is a challenge, but in the case of McAlpine, it is possible to see where the law overstepped the boundary and made a tenuous judgement based on a mere hypothesis about the speaker’s intention.

Make your opinions on this topic known by joining the discussion on our “Hate is Hate” campaign page.

Source:
The Huffington Post

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News stories on religious attitudes have been cropping up a lot in the media lately; among those that the Universal Life Church Monastery blog has covered are the imprisonment of an atheist for his beliefs, as well as the relationship between religion and politics and whether the former should inform the latter. Despite the clear guarantee of religious freedom which undergirds the United States government, minority faith groups constantly fall under scrutiny in the United States, with its well-organized evangelical, Protestant Christian ethos.

In fact, plain old bigotry seems to be at the root of the backlash against religious pluralism. In Louisiana, the Livingston Parish Sherriff’s Office is keeping its eye on a pagan festival scheduled to take place at a local campground called Gryphon’s Nest. Perry Rushing, chief of operations for the Sherriff’s Office, shows the begrudging attitude of some law enforcement officials over a theology considered deviant, heretical, or blasphemous: “Obviously, we don’t like this type of activity”, Bob Anderson of Advocate Florida Parishes Bureau reports him as saying, “but if they are following all of the laws to the letter of the law, then we can’t do anything about it”. In essence, what Rushing is implying is that the law serves as an obstacle to suppressing such activities, and that if he had his way, he would stamp them out. Even though the proposed activities appear to be lawful, Anderson reports him as saying, “[w]e vehemently oppose this type of activity in Livingston Parish”. But if the activities are lawful, why would the Sherriff’s Office bother opposing them, except out of personal scruples? It should not, since its only concern is enforcing the law; such contrariety therefore seems inappropriate coming from an on-duty law enforcement official. What seems to be happening is that Rushing is using his office to speak on behalf of the general population and give voice to a private derision.

This derision seems to be directed at proposed pagan rituals which appear so malevolent to non-pagans that many of them even fear for the innocence of local children. Rushing echoes this fear when he says, “We will make sure they conform to the law, particularly as it involves minors”. One of the reader comments in Anderson’s article sums up this sentiment with a particularly fiery, evangelical zeal:

Its [sic]no longer about freedom to do as we will when we invoke the wrath of God for all of these [p]agan rituals. I am only quoting from THE BIBLE[;] nothing I said is from anywhere but THE BIBLE, the book that this country should be standing on as its savior, but all of the pagans and atheists have turned their back on God and have chosen to go their own way and worship a god which is no god. There is only one God, The God of The Holy Bible, and all of those who oppose Him according to The Bible will face the wrath of God. God said it not me. And true Christianity is not anything like what DMJ said it was. Read The Bible and get a clue and stop following these pagan religions that just allow you to fulfill your sexual and primal lusts and exposing [sic]it to children[;] you should be ashamed of yourselves, and you will be ashamed when you stand before God. God Help you. In Jesus [sic][n]ame, stop this, Amen.

Such unyielding conviction. But exactly what activities are scheduled to take place at the festival, which is described by its organizers as Louisiana’s only “dedicated pagan camp” and a “nationwide pagan fest”? According to Anderson, the event will feature “nightly drumming circles, bonfires, Celtic music, pagan spiritual music, belly dancers, fire dancers and authentic voodoo rituals” as well as guest speakers who will teach about Druidism, mantras, and other esoteric knowledge. How could children be violated by fire-dancing, spiritual music, bonfires, and drumming? Perhaps it is the thought of young eyes gazing on the uncovered flesh of belly-dancers which so discomfits Rushing and others from the Sherriff’s Office, but on its Web site, the event’s organizers state, “This is a clothing ONLY event”, so, again, we might wonder why the cause for concern; one might also point out that it is routine for mothers to nourish young babies by placing their mouths on their naked breasts, making a panic over partial nudity seem even more ridiculous.

“But what is the big deal?” the average reader might ask, “The Sherriff’s Office stated it will not interfere with the event if the law is respected”. The big deal is that local authorities have interfered with the free exercise of religion. In 2007, Livingston Parish actually passed an ordinance banning fortunetelling and soothsaying; Clifton Eakins, an ordained Wiccan minister under whose name the campground received its occupational license, sued the parish over the ordinance, arguing that the law should treat divine knowledge received through Wiccan ritual as equal with divine knowledge received through a Christian one. In federal court, U.S. District judge James J. Brady ruled that the ordinance violated the U.S. Constitution since it discriminated against a particular spiritual practice, arguing that an idea cannot be prohibited simply because it is disagreeable to others. The irony, then, is that it was the Livingston Parish government, not local pagans, which violated the rights of citizens.

Personal prejudices have certainly worked their way into government operations in Livingston Parish and sometimes even contributed to institutional discrimination, which is all the more reason to stand on guard against this trend, which is perhaps best achieved by taking a proactive approach and providing education. One way to do this is to join the discussion at the ULCM Facebook page “We Don’t Tolerate Hate“, where you can make your voice heard to promote understanding of marginalized faith groups.

Visit our Guide to Divinity to learn more about earth-centered religions.

Source:
The Advocate

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