Universal Life Church

In the United States, many fundamentalist Christians support teaching creationism side-by-side with evolution in public schools in order to provide a balance of perspectives. After all, they claim, it is only fair. The problem with this argument is that it is actually not fair to balance evolution with creationism in science curricula, because creationism is not subject to scientific enquiry. It is a matter of faith. Besides, some religions teach creation stories different from the Christian one, and it is unfair to teach Christian creationism but not, for example, Hindu creationism.

A similar argument was made in a recent editorial in Hilltop Views, a student newspaper published by the School of Humanities at St. Edward’s University, in Austin, Texas. In that article, the author, Bailee Perkins, gives at least two major reasons why it is unfair to teach creationism alongside evolution: first, creationism cannot be tested scientifically, because the concept on which it rests—God—itself cannot be tested scientifically; second, if Christian values and principles should be taught, so should the values and principles of Islam, Jainism, paganism, and other religions, but this may prove daunting and unrealistic.

With these points in mind, let us pretend we are conversing with a creationist who avidly supports the teaching of creationism in public schools. The conversation might go something like this:

“It is only fair to teach creationism alongside evolution in public schools, because this provides a balance of perspectives.”

But a balance of perspectives must be fair in order to be valid; otherwise, it is like comparing apples with oranges. It is unfair to teach creationism alongside evolution in public school science classes because creationism presupposes the existence of a divine creator or higher power, which is not scientifically testable, whereas evolution deals with natural physical properties which are scientifically testable. Creationism requires only faith to be believable; evolution, however, must satisfy the demands of the scientific method to be believable. It is unfair to compare creationism to evolution when the standard being used is the scientific method. Thus, comparing creationism with evolution is not a fair balance of perspectives.

In fact, religious faith allows a person to claim that something is true just because they have faith in it. It is a sophistic way of allowing a person to be right all of the time for no actual, provable reason. And that is not a level playing field. Religious faith may be a fair opponent on its own turf, but not on the field of provable hypotheses. After all, science classes are supposed to play by the rules of the scientific method.

Thus, we can see that using faith as a standard for truth gives an arbitrary, unfair advantage to creationists in a game that is not meant to be played by their rules in the first place.

“But that problem can easily be solved: we can teach the creation stories of other world religions and faith traditions alongside Christian creationism.”

But where does it end? How many religions must be included in a creationist curriculum? If we teach the creation story of one religion, we must teach the creation story of every other religion, because this would only be fair. But where do they all fit in? Allowing creationism to be taught in the classroom is a slippery slope: eventually, we would have to accommodate every creation myth under the sun, and if we include Hindu, Buddhist, and Hopi in addition to the creation story in Genesis, we would be forced to sacrifice class time devoted to core secular subjects that American students lag behind in—such as math, science, and logic. Public schools, in essence, would become more like seminaries or religious philosophy schools, and they would lack comprehensive coverage of all of the arts and sciences. It seems, then, that the most practical solution to this problem is to keep creationism out of public schools altogether.

Besides, if parents want their children to learn about creationism, why don’t they just teach it to them at home, or take them to a church sermon or Sunday school? Meanwhile, nonreligious students get to keep their right to freedom from religion in a secular public school domain. This seems like a fair compromise.

“But most people in American public schools are Christian”, the creationist will counter, “so the will of the Christian majority should rule out over the will of the non-Christian minority.”

First, this is a logical fallacy known as argumentum ad populum, which states that something must be right because it is popular. It is like saying that you should smoke just because all of your friends do. A scientific hypothesis gains privilege not because of how many people believe in it, but by how well it withstands the test of objective verification. If we do not yet know which hypothesis is superior, we must start out by treating them all as equal. For, in the end, the majority might have their facts wrong.

Second, the First Amendment of the United States Constitution was created largely with the intent of protecting minorities from tyranny of the majority (cf. Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptist Association). It is redundant to push for protection of the majority when the majority, due to their sheer numbers, do not need it. That is why constitutional rights are put in place—for those who need them. Christians are not being persecuted in America—if anything, Muslims are. Christians even get to put up the Ten Commandments in some Virginia schools (because, they say, most people in the community hold those values). There would be an uproar if a passage from one of the Quranic suras was placed on a public school wall. When Christians start to be persecuted, then they can invoke the First Amendment.

In summary, teaching creationism alongside evolution in public schools does not provide a fair balance of perspectives. The first reason for this is that creationism is not a testable hypothesis, whereas evolution is. This creates an unfair advantage for creationism over evolution in a field (science) in which all hypotheses are expected to be testable, in accordance with the scientific method. The second reason why it is unfair to teach creationism in public schools is that it largely reflects Christian beliefs (in the U.S. at least), and it is unfair to teach Christian beliefs but not other religious beliefs. And it is impractical to teach all religious beliefs. So creationists should stop arguing that teaching creationism alongside evolution in public schools provides a fair balance of perspectives. It does not. It is a shrewd and Machiavellian way of weaseling in an unfair preponderance of perspectives.

Source:

Hilltop Views

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You may think it odd that a person should describe his or her religion as Jedi, but a man who was arrested in the U.S. state of Florida listed his religion as “redneck”. The incident makes one wonder: exactly how far can the limits on the definition of religion be stretched?

The man in question, Joshua Lee Joehlin, was arrested in the town of Bradenton for “lewd and lascivious” conduct (he is accused of having sex with a minor), and when Bradenton police asked him his religion for the purpose of filling out a police report, he described himself as “redneck”. Perhaps more surprising than this is the fact that the police took Joehlin seriously, filling out “redneck” in the box under religion. According to Jeff Butera of ABC Action News, deputy chief J.J. Lewis said that officers writing up police reports put whatever religious denomination, faith group, or spiritual philosophy is given by the person being arrested, and it does not matter whether it is considered real.

This might be seen as an extreme case of religious open-mindedness. Surely, one might argue, there must be some parameters for defining religion. Hypothetically, a white supremacist might give “racist” as their religion in a police report. It may sound absurd, but if police have no authority to deem whether the religion given is just a tongue-in-cheek joke-religion, anything goes. If nothing else, it forces one to consider what parameters, if any, should exist for defining the religions and faith traditions of the world.

One almost cannot resist asking precisely how a redneck would practice his or her religion. What sort of doctrines or tenets would a redneck adhere to? What sort of deity would they believe in? What kind of sacred text or holy book would make up his or her religious literary canon? Perhaps theirs is an “oral” tradition. Perhaps they believe that it is good and moral to have sexual relations with minors. Perhaps dignity and self-respect, as well as respect for vulnerable young women, are not paramount virtues to uphold in the redneck religion. One wonders.

One explanation for such peculiar behavior—on the part of both the person being arrested and the police filing the report—is that religion is seen as hallowed ground in the United States. Unlike in France and other western European nations, where secularism is encouraged in the public realm, religion (like guns) is viewed as sacrosanct in the United States—especially in the south. Americans routinely cite free speech and free exercise of religion to protect religion from government restriction, so it seems reasonable to suggest that the police are wary of telling people what religion they can and cannot follow, even for something as mundane as a police report.

Give us your thoughts. Should people who are arrested be allowed to give “redneck”—despite the odious and laughable connotations of the term—for the purpose of filling out police reports, or should they be allowed to put their foot down at their own discretion when the religion given defies common sense?

Source:

ABC Action News

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As Britons in England and Wales prepare to complete their 2011 national census forms online, some of them are questioning the usefulness of the census altogether. Much of this apprehension stems from a debacle in the 2001 census in which a startling number of citizens described themselves as Jedi Knights—individuals who subscribe to the quasi-religious philosophy depicted in George Lucas’s science-fiction film franchise Star Wars. In the film, the Jedi are an order of knights who derive telekinetic power from an energy known as “The Force”. If some government officials have their way, 2011 could be the last census year in British history.

The 2011 census awareness campaign has already been launched, and, as with the last census, citizens will have the option of filling in a blank space under the question asking about their affiliation with one of the world’s major religions. If cabinet office minister Francis Maude has his way, though, 2011 could be the last census year in Britain.  Maude has argued that the census is inefficient and uses an arbitrary variety of databases, while others have argued that it is intrusive and most people do not take it seriously. For instance, in the 2001 census over 390,000 people described themselves as Jedi Knights—in Brighton alone, 2 per cent reported being Jedi—suggesting to some people that the whole routine has become a joke—especially with respect to affiliation with one of the world’s great religions. In that census, more people identified as Jedi than as Jewish, Sikh, or Buddhist.

The whole thing might elicit a chuckle or two, but should Jediism be taken more seriously than it is? In order to determine whether Jediism can be considered a real religion, we have to determine what it actually is. As it turns out, there is in fact a Jedi Church, which describes its belief system in the following way:

The Jedi Church believes that there is one all powerful force that binds all things in the universe together. The Jedi religion is something innate inside everyone of us, the Jedi Church believes that our sense of morality is innate. So quiet your mind and listen to the force within you!

In addition, like the Jedi, people of many religions genuinely believe in a pantheistic life-force or higher power pervading the universe and everything in it; others believe that paranormal phenomena such as telekinesis are real, and that it is only a matter of time before their existence is proven scientifically. It also has training and educational resources for potential members. (The ULC Monastery, being an interfaith church, also offers Jedi Knight certificates for its Jedi members.) At least by these criteria, then, Jediism can be said to be a real religion.

The Jedi Church is just one of many churches that have received scrutiny over their legal church status. Nondenominational online churches are another. While the Jedi are criticized for basing their beliefs on inspiration from a science-fiction film, churches like the ULC Monastery are criticized for allowing their ministers to get ordained online for free. But Jedi genuinely believe in the basic principles espoused in the films which inform their religion, and, likewise, churches like the ULC Monastery genuinely believe that everybody has the sacerdotal right to become an ordained minister online, because spiritual insight is not the province of seminary schools and other traditional forms of religious training.

Share your thoughts. Should Britain scrap its census because too many people are reporting affiliation with the Jedi faith, or should it keep its census and start taking young religions more seriously?

Source:

The Guardian

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For one Indiana church, there is no better way to convert young, “hell-bound” heathens than to ask what God thinks about what people do in bed? New Day Church, in the rural U.S. state of Indiana, has launched a new advertising campaign focusing on sex with the hope of gaining new, young proselytes. New Day and similar churches use deliberately edgy and provocative tactics in order to lure back young people who have rejected church and religion, and to strengthen religious faith in teenagers. But is such an approach disingenuous? After all, while these churches adopt novel, up-to-date ways of attracting young people, they tend to cling to the very theology which has turned off so many young people in the first place.

The campaign is centered in the town of Brownsberg, where one can find banners, posters, and even drink coasters featuring a man asking the question, “What happens when God gets between the sheets?” New Day’s pastor, Denis Roy, is using the saucy campaign slogan to promote a series of sex sermons in an effort to make church relevant to teenagers, and to demystify the church’s stance on sex, which, as Roy states, often incites a “knee-jerk reaction” of “shock and awkwardness” according to the Associated Press. Roy hopes to eliminate the taboo surrounding sex in church by showing how religious faith can inform sexual behavior: “Often there is a disconnect between people and the church”, the AP quotes him as saying, adding that “Sex is one of those issues that people are dealing with, and we believe God has the answers.” The efforts of New Day Church come as recent data reveal the growing population of young people unaffiliated with religion. According to a recent poll conducted by the American Religious Identification Survey, the number of nonreligious Americans nearly doubled between 1990 and 2008, from 8.2 per cent to 15 per cent.

Other churches have followed in Roy’s footsteps. Typically, churches designed to draw young people are located in retail businesses such as coffeehouses, concert halls, and even bars and clubs, where the desired congregants will feel more comfortable hearing traditional religious messages about sex and morality. Downing Fish Ministries is one of these young start-up churches. It holds its services inside a tattoo parlor on Sunday nights with a modern worship service that resembles a rock concert more than a religious chorus. According to the AP, Miller says that congregants range from “professionals in suits to the extremely pierced and tattooed to Goths, hippies and ex-cons”, adding that the modern church service attracts people who feel left out on the margins.

Then there is Gene Faesel, pastor and founder of Current Church in Franklin, Indiana. (Noticed a theme yet? Yes. That’s right. All of these religious leaders are male.) Feasel’s church is held inside an old downtown building which doubles as a music venue. “The best way people can experience the love of Christ”, the AP quote him as saying, “is on their level where they feel comfortable, so our music venue is our greatest outreach.” The AP also report him as saying that he does not actively advertise his church, because he does not want his congregants to feel duped into coming. Fair enough.

But exactly what is the agenda of these churches? What are their doctrines? Do they embrace the spiritual progressivism of many inner-city churches, or do they cling to the conservative theology of the suburban and exurban evangelical megachurches which dot the American landscape? Do they affirm the harmless and loving sexual relationships of today’s youths, particularly when such relationships have been vindicated by scientific research, or do they cling unthinkingly to Bronze Age mores? The answer is fairly straightforward. According to the AP, Feasel “doesn’t pull any punches with his message. He preaches straight from the Bible, a tradition he and most other ministers at alternative churches refuse to sacrifice.” In other words, alternative churches like New Day are really just conservative evangelical denominations in really hip sheep’s clothing. They still believe you will go to hell if you do not believe God became a man and killed himself to atone for your sins, since God needs blood to be drawn to be appeased, and there is nothing else you can do to appease him. For them, this is “Christ’s love”, and the Bible, the inerrant “word” of God.

If these “alternative youth churches” are really just “cool” versions of more dowdy Bible-based churches, what do they think God actually has to say about sex? According to the AP, Roy discusses God’s purported view “on topics such as intimacy, pleasure, sexual preference, pornography, adultery and even sexual healing”. Bill Payne, a parishioner at New Day explains the mission of his church to the AP: “We aren’t here to judge you or look down on you but to share the love of Christ”. But the conventional evangelical Protestant view is that homosexuality is immoral, that women should submit to men, and, even until a few decades ago in some denominations, that interracial sex was immoral. In addition, pornography is judged immoral, and polyamory—even if it is mutually consensual—is scorned as adultery. And, of course, it is necessary to believe in the human blood-sacrifice of Christ to redeem one’s sins and thus avoid eternal torment. More and more young people, however, are questioning the sanity of these beliefs, because, for them, such beliefs are just plain unfair and irrational. While the church will attract young people with rock music, it will continue to repel them with their ineluctably disapproving stance on same-sex affection, polyamory, and other expressions of human love, not to mention women’s rights and other social justice issues.

The real question is whether so-called alternative churches like New Day will accommodate superficial youth trends, but not the youth worldview—that is, whether they will pigheadedly stick to their Biblical dogma without an iota of self-criticism, or hear the voices of their young people and seriously re-examine their orthodox stance on the diverse array of human sexualities. This remains to be seen, but, either way, there is one thing we can hope for—youth discernment.  For young people are not stupid—they can spot an impostor, and dismantle his charade in the blink of an eye.

Source:

The Chicago Tribune

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How will religion affect women in post-revolutionary Egypt? Will the interim military government set up a theocracy based on Sharia law, or a secular civil government that upholds the principle of sex equality? The reality is perhaps more complex than we imagine: while some Egyptian women cling to the doctrines and tenets of the Muslim faith tradition, others have demanded a revolution that includes the dismantling of the old patriarchal order. The truly important question is not whether women in general will play a role in their own fate (although this is crucial), but whether conservative and liberal women will arrive at a common resolution. For, if anything is true, it is that women—especially mothers and daughters—do not all share the same views.

According to a recent Bloomberg news article by Caroline Alexander and Mariam Fam, Egyptian women have been clashing with one another after a Tahrir Square protest in which women challenged Sharia law and demanded equality. Fatma Emam, a 28 year-old woman who attended the protest, was accused by her mother of trying to be a man. Her mother also threatened to disown her if she attended the rally. Emam described the generational difference between more traditional mothers on one hand, and daughters who embrace modern feminism and secular humanist philosophy: “[t]here are so many women who like me defied their families”, she said, adding that “[t]he revolution is not only taking place in Tahrir, it is taking place in every Egyptian house. It is the revolution of fighting the patriarch.”

Echoing Emam’s observations, Alexander and Fam describe the precarious position of women during the current transition period, which may undo, or expand on, years of feminist achievements in the face of religious opposition.

Egypt has moved forward in some ways while stagnating in others. In 1957, it was the first Arab country to elect a woman to parliament, and it now has 64 parliamentary seats (created under Mubarak’s regime) for women, but until 2000, a woman could not leave Egypt without her husband’s permission, and until 1999 a rapist could escape punishment by marrying his victim. Thus, while the country may seem steadily progressive, it also shows signs of lingering tradition, and women like Emam’s mother are likely to cling to such traditions, thus influencing the fate of Egypt’s women.

In addition to this uncertain overlap of progress on one hand, and social stagnation on the other, Egypt remains more conservative than other democracies, although more liberal than other Arab countries. Most women still do not work outside the home, only 3 per cent of women in the workforce hold supervisory positions, divorced women are stigmatized, and women who remain single into their 30s are ridiculed as spinsters or pressured into marrying. In addition, hopes that secular democracy will prevail over right-wing religious fundamentalism seem tenuous. The most organized opposition group in the country contending for power is the Muslim Brotherhood. While the brotherhood claims to back democracy, it also backs Sharia law, and its members oppose having either a woman or a Christian as head of state. Some women support the brotherhood.

But these women are not always older—even some young Egyptian women still support Sharia law, describing it as freedom-loving. According to 21 year-old Asmaa El-Erian, the daughter of a Muslim Brotherhood leader, Essam Al-Erian, “[t]he Islamic Sharia does not conflict with freedom and democracy”. Essam added that while there should be more popular influence in government, the leader should always be male, because, in her mind, “men are more strict and firm”. In addition, Essam supports polygyny (a single man having many female sexual partners), because “God has allowed” it and “it is not religiously forbidden”. Her faith in the teachings of the Koran is unwavering: “[w]e cannot deviate from the basics of religion”, she said, explaining that “[w]hen there are clear religious texts about certain topics, then you cannot open the door for negotiations”. For Essam and other conservative women, government policy should derive from these fundamentalist religious doctrines, and these doctrines are simply not subject to reason or critical thinking—they are to be accepted with blind faith, no matter what the consequences. The motivations of such women are uncertain, however. In a country where it is so easy to silence a woman for contradicting the prevailing ethos, we do not know whether such women honestly believe in Sharia law in their hearts, or are compelled to show loyalty out of fear of retribution.

Alexander and Fam cover several other issues relevant to religion and women’s rights in post-revolutionary Egypt. These include lingering discrimination based on Sharia law, illiteracy among women, women’s involvement in political demonstrations, violence against women (i.e. female genital mutilation), and declining female representation in Egyptian politics. Political barriers still exist as a result of notions about proper womanhood—for instance, the notion that women are too emotional or too busy raising children to hold positions of power and leadership. The main question the article raises is whether or not, under a new democratic government, women will fall behind men, or make further headways toward equality—and to what extent the outcome is their choice.

If the Egyptian revolution does have a ripple effect across the Middle East, then the new government’s policies toward women will inevitably influence policies in other Middle-Eastern countries. Either way, the fate of women in Egypt seems to be hanging in the balance, and the outcome could depend on the attitudes of Egyptian women themselves. How do you feel about the state of women in post-revolutionary Egypt? Are they making progress, or falling behind? Should the views of fundamentalist Islamic women rule out, those of more progressive Westernized women, or a compromise between the two? Get ordained online for free and join the ULC Monastery Facebook page or our social network for interfaith ministers to express your thoughts.

Source:

Bloomberg

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A Christian astronomer who sued the University of Kentucky for religious discrimination spoke with the Associated Press recently about his motivation for carrying out the lawsuit. Some scientists have argued that the man in question, Dr Martin Gaskell, has promoted religious perspectives in science and public education, but Gaskell has retorted that science is not incompatible with religion insofar as the former is shown to illuminate, rather than refute, the latter. Perhaps the most important question to ask in the present case is whether the scientific community has acted out of scientific integrity, or prejudice.

The controversy arose when Gaskell attended a job interview at the university and was asked about a lecture he had given on the relationship between Christianity and science. He suspected the questioning was politically motivated, but was not certain on this point until a few months later, when one of his colleagues told him that he had not been hired, and that the department he was interviewing with had sought counsel from the biology department on the issue. Eventually, Gaskell decided to sue the university on the basis of religious discrimination, but before the civil case could be decided in court, Gaskell agreed to a $125,000 settlement with the university.

Some atheists and mainstream scientists have defended the university’s uneasiness over Gaskell’s religious proclivities and how these might pollute the integrity of the science he would teach. The Canadian Press quotes Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education, as saying that “[public research universities] can’t discriminate based upon religion”, but that they “can discriminate based upon scientific views”, explaining that it is “perfectly legitimate to discriminate against a candidate based on whether that candidate’s scientific views are acceptable to the discipline”. Oxford University biologist and God Delusion author Richard Dawkins went a step further and suggested that discrimination on the basis of creed does have some justification. According to the Canadian Press, the celebrity atheist, who has reviewed the Gaskell case, reasoned that “[e]ven if a doctor’s belief in the stork theory of reproduction is technically irrelevant to his competence as an eye surgeon, it tells you something about him”, and that it is “revealing” and “relevant in a general way to whether we would wish him to treat us or teach us”.

Gaskell challenged the rationale for rejecting candidates on religious grounds, insisting that science and religion are not necessarily incompatible and that the decision-making process should reflect this understanding. “That’s one of the things that people like myself really want to counter: is this idea of some sort of incompatibility between religion and science”, the Canadian Press reports him as saying to the Associated Press. Gaskell, who studies super-massive black holes and subscribes to the doctrines and tenets of the Christian faith while accepting the basic precepts of Darwinian evolution and the old earth theory, maintained that science can be a tool for shedding light on religious mysteries: “We believe that God has done things through the mechanisms he’s revealing to us through science” the Press reported him as saying, and that there are “significant scientific problems” with evolution as well as “unwarranted atheistic assumptions and extrapolations” in mainstream science.

But was the university’s decision to deny employment to Gaskell unfair? Prejudice consists of judgement fuelled by preconceived notions which may be inaccurate, and it certainly has no place within the scientific method; at the same time, scientists are obliged to winnow out any religious belief that does not withstand objective scrutiny. When confronted with new evidence, scientists are expected to make their hypothesis fit the evidence, not make the evidence fit the hypothesis, because the point of science is to confirm the nature of the external world, not re-affirm one’s internal bias. What really matters is whether faculty members at the University of Kentucky denied Gaskell employment because his scientific approach to God, life after death, and other spiritual concepts could not be verified objectively, or because they simply did not like his beliefs. If they rejected his beliefs because they had already been discredited, and he provided no new evidence to warrant a change in this position, they are simply showing respect for scientific integrity; if, however, they refused even to consider his beliefs in the first place because of the exotic, mystical, or apocryphal nature of those beliefs, they are just being pigheaded and dogmatic.

It is unclear based on media reports exactly what the terms were for denying Gaskell employment in the University of Kentucky faculty—the interoffice emails which served as court evidence are not circulating widely—but we can still apply the above standards to future situations. Get ordained online and share your views on our Facebook discussion forum or our social network for interfaith, nondenominational ministers. Should scientists be open to considering a theological explanation for the nature and origin of the cosmos if such an explanation has not yet been tested and refuted?

Source:

The Canadian Press

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Under a new bill being considered in the legislature of the rural U.S. state of Kentucky, Bible classes would be permitted to be taught in public schools. A similar bill on teaching the Bible in schools is being mulled in Arkansas. On the surface, it would seem that the bill does not constitute government endorsement of religion, but, if we think a little more critically about exactly what the bill allows, we realize that it only reinforces a provincial, Christian worldview on students who already know next to nothing about other nations, cultures, and belief systems.

At present, the measure, known as Senate Bill 56, is not yet law, but it has been approved by Kentucky’s Senate Education Committee Thursday, 3 February, but it has yet to go to the full Senate for consideration. The Associated Press reports that a similar proposal was “overwhelmingly passed in the Senate last year but died in the House”. It remains to be seen whether the House will again vote down the bill. According to the drafters of the proposal, the public school Bible classes would be optional—students would be able to take them as electives if they so chose.

While the bill seems to protect non-believers from religious imposition, it still reflects religious bias. Supporters of the bill will immediately proclaim, “See? The classes would be optional, so the government is not force-feeding religion to students.” True, but this is a red herring. The real problem is not with the fact that Bible classes would be available—it is with the fact that only Bible classes would be available. What about the teachings of other world religions? The bill does not outline any means of implementing curriculum development reflecting the tenets and doctrines of non-Christian belief systems, such as Buddhism, Judaism, atheism, Islam, paganism, or Hinduism—it only mentions Bible classes.

If civil government—whether national or sub-national—is, in good, rational theory, charged with the task of passing only secular, religiously neutral legislation, the Kentucky Senate Education Committee is moving in the wrong direction. The reason for this is that it provides only a Christian option for public school religious electives, and no other form of commentary on God and religion. Such an act clearly constitutes religious bias, in clear contravention of the principle of secular impartiality. In order to be fair, the Kentucky legislature cannot pass a law permitting only instruction in the Bible—it must pass a law permitting instruction in other sacred texts, too, such as the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, the sacred texts of Buddhism, the Latin Vulgates, pagan and Wiccan writings, and even atheist literature. However, because the bill as currently proposed offers only instruction in the Bible, the Committee fails to meet its legislative obligation to offer a fair and balanced selection of elective courses.

But blatant religious bias is not the only problem with the Kentucky bill—there is also a lack of respect for the purpose of education. The whole point of education is to learn new things, not just to hear what one wants to hear. Most Kentucky public school students already understand the core elements of the evangelical Protestant faith tradition, so offering them an elective which merely reaffirms what they already understand, but not an elective which challenges them to re-think their understanding, is pointless. If children grow up learning that the first woman was made out of the rib of the first man, they should also grow up learning that microbes develop resistance to antibiotics as the result of evolutionary adaptation. Students should, in short, be given a fair opportunity to compare the evidence critically. They do not have this opportunity when the only elective available to them is a Christian-based one.

What is the solution, you may ask? As hinted above, the Committee could recommend additional courses on other religious texts, but this might be a little impractical. There are just too many holy books out there and too few resources to offer a course for each one. We seem reduced, then, to two options: comparative religious instruction, or no religious instruction whatsoever. In a comparative religion survey course, different units would cover different religious texts in a purely objective manner. That way, students can get a taste of different religions—including non-religion—without being told that one is better than another. Then there is the “silent treatment”, as it were. Admittedly, even from a purely objective and scholastic standpoint, religion is a widely observed phenomenon of human nature—it informs much of history and literature—so it might seem a bit churlish to ignore it entirely. As a compromise, then, perhaps public school teachers might explain its influence when it is relevant to the subject matter, but from a purely detached standpoint. In short, the solution might be to treat silence as the default approach, and impartial analysis as the ad hoc approach. But isn’t this what we already normally do in schools? Why fix what isn’t broken, then?

As mentioned above, the measure has yet to gain full approval from both chambers of the Kentucky legislature, and a similar one failed in a previous vote, so there is still a chance this one will fail too. A strong belief in the secularism of civil government, as well as a pluralistic representation of all belief systems, has always been at the core of ULC Monastery’s ecclesiastical canon law, so we are watching the events in places like Kentucky and Arkansas with wary eyes. It is not good enough for the Kentucky Senate Education Committee to say, “Oh, students don’t have to take the Bible class, because it’s an elective”, because they still do not offer alternative electives on religious texts. If they must have their Bible classes, they must also offer electives that represent the tenets and doctrines of other belief systems, including non-religious ones.

Source:

Lexington Herald-Leader

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Here at the ULC Monastery blog, we have discussed virtually every type of wedding under the sun—from retail weddings and weddings performed by celebrity ministers to vampire-themed Wiccan weddings—but there is always something new to discover. Now, one minister in the ULC Monastery has taken the modern wedding ceremony to a new level—performance art. Like other alternative weddings, the concept illustrates how modern-day brides and grooms, as well as wedding officiants, have redefined the institution of holy matrimony to meet their own unique needs and interests.

David Tabor, a poet and performance artist from Phoenix, Arizona who became a minister in the ULC Monastery, decided to post an advertisement on Craigslist for a young couple to get married during a show at his performance space, Space 55. The Valentine’s Day-themed skit, called 7 Minutes of Love, is scheduled to take place 12 February. Acknowledging the concern couples have over wedding expenses, Tabor offered to perform the wedding at no charge to bride or groom—in fact, he went a step further and even offered to provide rice confetti and a homemade wedding cake at his own expense. A legal marriage license is the only thing the couple would have to pay for.

Of course, given the lingering but slowly dying controversy over prospective ministers who get ordained online for free, some people will wonder whether such a wedding is legitimate. Apparently, there is nothing to fear in this regard. As Tabor tells the New York Times, “I also asked around a bit trying to find a lead. It is totally legal. It was held up by the US Supreme Court a few years ago. In Arizona, as long as one person in the wedding party thinks that it is real, then it is.” Anybody who has questions about the legality of online ordinations can visit the ULC Monastery Web site to learn more. Those who are interested in Tabor’s offer can contact him via email at viviiv@cox.net.

Whether or not Tabor finds the couple he is looking for, the idea of turning a wedding ceremony into performance art is certainly a memorable, yet highly affordable, way for any young bride and groom to partake in the sacrament of marriage. In times when couples are cutting wedding costs by forgoing big, expensive weddings for smaller, cheaper ones, there are still ways to save money and make the event as memorable as possible. What are your thoughts on treating weddings as a type of performance art? Does it lessen the solemnity of the occasion, or does it make the occasion more special and meaningful?

Source:

Phoenixnewtimes.com

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A judge in Toronto has ruled against a church’s bid to use marijuana as a religious sacrament. Church members had argued that the prohibition against marijuana use impinged on their religious freedom, but prosecutors argued that allowing one church to use the substance would be a dangerous step closer toward legalization of marijuana. At the heart of the issue is the question whether a drug which is reasonably harmless, but which has spiritual significance, should be banned from church use.

Justice Thea Herman arrived at her decision after two members of the Church of the Universe were charged with drug trafficking. The church members, Peter Styrsky and Shahrooz Kharaghani, are accused of selling marijuana to undercover police officers posting as new church members in 2006. In their defense, the men argued that, in their religion, unrestricted access to and use of cannabis was a form of spiritual transcendence and communion with the divine, and as such it must be protected as the free exercise of religion under Section 2 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Prosecutors, however, argued that if the government legalized cannabis use for the Church of the Universe, it would be compelled to legalize it for all other churches within Canada, too. In addition, the Supreme Court of Canada rejected an application by the church’s founders to appeal a 2007 drug conviction.

For the Church of the Universe, there is a special relationship between psychoactive drug use and spirituality, and cannabis in particular has a holy and sacred quality. According to the Canadian Press, “the church refers to marijuana as God’s ‘Tree of Life’ and that God’s children have a right to use it as a sacrament in ‘their lives and worship.’” But for church members, the drug is not intended only for inhalation, but also for “wearing”, “growing”, “writing on”, and “eating”, rather like a consecrated charm, ward, or amulet.

Christian denominations have a similar tradition in the form of sacramental altar wine, consecrated anointing oil, and the Eucharist, or Communion. Certain substances are believed either to have an inherent sacred quality, or to have that quality imparted on them through a ceremonial blessing. Aboriginal peoples of the Americas also have a tradition of ingesting or inhaling certain substances as a form of communion with the divine, particularly in the use of peyote and ayahuasca in shamanic rituals or spirit-journeys. The problem, then, becomes whether cannabis should be treated any differently, given its psychoactive properties.

At first glance, the judge’s decision does seem to restrict the religious freedom of the Church of the Universe, but one might argue that at least this restriction applies to all of the world’s religions and faith traditions within Canada, without exception. At the same time, however, one might ask why the law should not simply permit all religions to treat marijuana as a sacrament. Marijuana use does not necessarily harm anybody, and if it does, it only harms the user, but that is the user’s voluntary choice as a self-sovereign adult. Meanwhile, it is also deemed a sacred act of spiritual transcendence in churches such as Church of the Universe. Thus, one might conclude, the law reflects a stubbornly irrational and miserly attitude toward spiritual seekers who use drugs to increase their awareness.

Share your thoughts as an interfaith minister ordained online. Should the governments of Ontario and Canada be spending money prosecuting church members for distributing a harmless religious sacrament?

Source:

CTV

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Recently on the ULC Monastery blog, we discussed the Freedom of Religion Conference in Madison, Wisconsin, and how it highlights the obsession with religion in the U.S. We also discussed the re-installation of the Ten Commandments on public school buildings in a rural school district in the U.S. state of Virginia. Now, the Virginia House of Delegates has passed a bill which would make it easier for public officials to pray on public property. The bill is an attempt to protect free speech within the public realm, yet it fails to remain religiously neutral, because it does not accommodate every group.

The new amendment to the Virginia state constitution was offered by Del. Bill Carrico, R-Grayson County, and it would supposedly permit prayers to be conducted on public property without implying government endorsement of a particular religious belief. It passed with a substantial margin of 61 votes to 33. According to Chelyen Davis of Fredericksburg.com, Carrico said that the amendment “strengthens the rights of an individual on public property to acknowledge God or their heritage”.

The bill was partly inspired by a case in which police chaplains were conducting sectarian prayers—based largely on the tenets and doctrines of the Christian faith—at public police events. A directive implemented under the state’s former mayor dictated that chaplains must avoid invoking any particular religious belief that would alienate anybody present. According to Davis, a federal appeals court “had ruled that Fredericksburg city councilman Hashmel Turner could not pray to Jesus Christ in prayers at open council meetings”, because “mentioning Jesus made the prayer sectarian”, and “public prayers should not emphasize one faith over others”. Although Virginia’s present governor, Bob McDonnell, repealed his predecessor’s policy, Carrico presented the bill to the House anyway with the hope of ensuring that free expression would have stronger protections.

Carrico’s reasoning behind the bill was that secularists were impinging on religionists’ freedom of expression by preventing public officials from conducting prayers on public property while on the clock. “No longer would the secular world be able to tell anyone that their beliefs would not be tolerated in public,” Davis quotes Carrico as saying. “I don’t think our forefathers wrote this language to tell us that you can’t pray. I believe that they wrote it saying that the government could not tell you not to pray”. In other words, for Carrico, preventing prayer in the context of civil government constitutes a form of religious intolerance, and the purpose of the bill is to guard against such intolerance.

But Carrico’s reasoning could be seen as deceptive, misleading, and unfair for at least three reasons.

First, any protection of belief regarding religion must also include protection of belief in no religion. This is only fair. If theists should be permitted to proclaim belief in God on public property while on the clock, so atheists should be permitted to proclaim belief in no god on public property while on the clock. But the bill provides protections for expression of theistic beliefs, and not for expression of atheistic beliefs.

Second, who is being intolerant? Prayer in public school (which would be made possible if such a bill were passed) exacts a penalty of exclusion on students who choose not to participate, and it still imposes a given religious belief on them. Even if a student does not participate, the prayer is still being presented to them—exposure to the religious character is unavoidable. (Clearly, a spoken prayer is intended to be heard and absorbed as a message.) Besides, even if the student sits out in the hallway during the prayer, this is alienating, and is a waste of time intended for education, to which all students have the right to have access.

Third, protections for religious freedom are traditionally intended for minority religions, not the majority religion, because the majority religion, being in a position of power given its numbers, hardly needs protection. (And yet, ironically, members of the majority religion are often the most vociferously defensive of it.) Del. David Englin, a Jewish Democrat from the Washington, D.C. suburb of Alexandria, made this clear:

I have great respect for the passionate faith of the gentleman from Grayson, [but] some of the supporters of this amendment don’t know what it means to be a religious minority…. Nearly every day in this chamber, the most public of public property, our session opens with a prayer that invokes Jesus’ name. You may not notice, because when you’re the majority it’s easy not to. But when you’re the one being excluded it’s hard to miss.

The reason such protections are put in place is that the “little guy” needs them, and in the U.S., the “little guys” are Judaism, atheist, Islam, Hinduism, paganism, Buddhism, and other world religions. Not Christianity. The day that Christians become the target of persecution in the U.S. (in the same way as Muslims are in Tennessee), the principle can be invoked to ease their plight, as well. Indeed, the very fact that persons who do not believe in Jesus are expected to sit through a Christian prayer in the Virginia House of Delegates, or else waste their time dawdling outside in the corridor when they could be doing real work, only attests to this claim.

It will be interesting to see whether the Virginia Senate approves the bill. According to Davis, it is not expected to be received as warmly there as in the House. On top of that, the bill must go through both houses a second time around, only to go before voters in a ballot initiative. At any rate, drawing the line between religious expression and religious imposition can be tricky. Tell us what you think. Should public officials have the right to hold prayers on public property, while on duty, or does their freedom of expression end where it forcibly and unreasonably inconveniences nonbelievers?

Source:

Fredericksburg.com

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