Remembering when cigarettes were so cool...

that even religious leaders trying to make religion cool and relevant would feature a cig on a book cover.

Here is the cover of the paperback version of Malcolm Boyd's 1965 Are You Running with Me, Jesus?

Boyd was an Episcopal priest active in the civil rights and anti-Vietnam war movements.  He became famous for his  religiously-themed poetry-reading sessions at the Hungry i nightclub in San Francisco and was labeled the "Expresso Priest".

Later, Boyd came out as gay.  He is still living and writing and, even, has a website.

Military Chaplains and Religious Discrimination

The religious right and their minions in the Republican Party seem hell-bent on denying rights and respect to the growing numbers of non-believers in the United States and in the U.S. military.  In so doing, they are not only showing contempt for the First Amendment, but also for our democratic society and the military, And, to top things off, they are undermining the chaplaincy which they claim to revere.

Stars and Stripes reports

Jason Heap wants to be a Navy chaplain. But he doesn’t believe in God.

Belief in a higher power, the 38-year-old humanist argues, has nothing to do with that work.

“I am aware there are many who would be reticent or militant against that,” he said. “But at the end of the day, my job is not to inculcate my viewpoints onto other people. My job as a chaplain is to be a facilitator, someone who cares for people, someone who is a sounding board.”

Heap submitted his application to the Armed Forces Chaplains Board earlier this month, in an effort to become the first humanist chaplain in military history.

He holds master’s degrees from Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University and Oxford University, and has almost finished a doctorate too. He has been teaching religious studies to teenagers in Britain for the last five years and has been conducting scholarly research on 17th century Baptist literature for longer than that.  ...

Supporters argue he would be a shoo-in to serve as a chaplain if he were a practicing Christian.

Until the Reagan years,  military chaplains, as a matter of policy were appointed from a cross section of Protestant and Catholic to roughly reflect the religious views of the nation. Since then they have been recruited disproportionately from conservative denominations which have active programs to train and place chaplains.

As a result

While just 3 percent of the military’s enlisted personnel and officers call themselves Southern Baptist, Pentecostal or a member of a denomination that’s part of the National Association of Evangelicals, 33 percent of chaplains in the military are members of one of those groups, according to Pentagon statistics.

Source: stltoday.com

 Jason Torby,  President of the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers notes that

“There are more atheists than any other single non-Christian group in the military. We deserve to be represented too.”

About 11,000 active duty military personnel identify themselves as atheist (military officials don’t include the term “humanist” on their forms) About 277,000 have no religious preference.

The MAAF has an instructive graphic and an insightful page on military religious demographics.

After an amendment to require the Secretary of Defense to appoint non-theistic chaplains was defeated in the House Defense Committee, Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) tried to get the amendment through without the support of the Committee.  It failed on June 14 by a vote of 274-150. Every Republican and 44 Democrats voted against it.

Not only did Tim Huelskamp of Kansas's First District, author of a Constitutional Amendment to ban gay marriage, vote against the amendment, he gave one of his typical bigoted speeches.

Huelskamp shows his contempt for  non-believers by referring to those "who claim to have no faith." He says that(so-called?) non-believers don't need chaplains; if they are having problems, they can go to a military counselor,  Only problem is that seeing a counselor, psychologist, or psychiatrist, rather than a chaplain, will get recorded on the service person's records and could be a negative factor is seeking promotions and even being retained at the end of a tour.  It is a way of institutionalizing discrimination against "nones," "atheists," "agnostics," and the like.

Even worse, Huelskamp invokes the memory of Emil Kapaun, who has killed by the North Korean regime which imposed a state-mandated atheism, in order to impose a state-imposed anti-atheist policy.

The fact is that non-believers, atheists, and agnostics make up  a significant and growing percentage of the American population and, even more so, among young people who are the dominant age cohort among military personal.  On  purely pragmatic grounds, the military should accommodate these soldiers. Enlightened miltaries and societies recognize this.  The Belgian, Dutch and Norwegian militaries already have humanist chaplains.* The Israeli "government employs civilian non-Jewish clergy as chaplains at military burials when a non-Jewish soldier dies in service. The MOI provides imams to conduct funerals according to Muslim customs. "** If military personnel are not treated with respect and sensitivity, their efficiency will suffer.

But military efficiency is not the sole criteria. Even more weight should be placed on democratic values.   If there are to be military chaplains, they should reflect and serve the diversity of society. An entirely Catholic chaplaincy would not be acceptable.  Nor a purely Protestant chaplaincy.  Nor a chaplaincy which excluded Rabbis.   Nor one that excluded Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, or Buddhists.  And, by the same measure, a US chaplaincy which excludes atheists or humanists is undemocratic and unAmerican--and anti-military.

Huelskamp and his allies seem to assume that there are no Constitutional  problems with military chaplains and oblivious to that fact that their barring of non-theists from serving as chaplains could undermine the  constitutionality of this service.

No less a Constitustional icon than James Madison (:"the father of the Constitution") thought that chaplains (legislative and military) were unconstitutional.

The issue  is likely to come before the Courts.

Wikipedia notes

Two Harvard law students brought a suit in 1979 arguing that military chaplains should be replaced with non-combat volunteers or contractors. In Katcoff v. Marsh (1985),^[14] The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit determined that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the suit and upheld the right of the military to employ chaplains. According to one analysis of the case, the court analysis described the First Amendment's free exercise clause and establishment clause as separate issues. It noted that only the wealthiest religious sects could provide chaplains for their adherents, effectively denying to other military personnel the "free exercise" of their religion.^[15] The court also established guidelines for the military's chaplaincy programs, emphasizing the constitutional boundaries governing the program's administration and operations, including accommodating the rights and beliefs of each service member, and the avoidance of evangelizing and involuntary participation in religious observances. (emphasis added)

Looks to me like the GOP-Huelskamp chaplaincy might be in some danger.  It chaplains are ruled unconstitutional blame them, not the ACLU.



*Wikipedia, Military Chaplain
**US State Department, 2012 Report on International Religious Freedom: Israel and The Occupied Territories

Is Religion the Enemy of Feminism?

Wichita NOW hosted a debate between Rev. Robin McGonigle and Amanda Knief on March 5, 2013. Wichita NOW President Vicki Stangl moderated. McGonigle is Senior Minister at University Congregational Church in Wichita. Knief is managing director and in-house counsel for American Atheists.

Commonweal on the new Pope, Catholicism and Capitalism

The liberal Catholic journal Commonweal has this to say about the new Pope Francis

Catholicism has never quite made peace with capitalism, for instance, and here all sorts of esoteric Catholic objections to modern liberalism merge with a rejection of the materialism and crass commercialism of American society and the hegemony of Wall Street. The Catholic critique of the modern economy may be needed now more than ever before, and Francis’s promise to make concern for the poor central to his papacy could confound the powerful in surprising ways. 

(ht: Lawrence Gulotta )

Quote of the Day

Russell Moore, dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary:

"There's really nothing conservative -- and certainly nothing evangelical -- about a laissez-faire view of a lack of government regulation, because we, as Christians, believe in sin. That means if people are sinful, if all of us are sinful, then all of us have to have accountability -- and that includes corporations. Simply trusting corporations to go about their business without polluting the water streams and without destroying ecosystems is really a naive and utopian view of human nature. It's not a Christian view of human nature." 

Hat tip: Right Wing Watch

Men's Day--Southern Baptists go politically correct

The Southern Baptist Church in my neighborhood seems to have gone politically correct. Instead of a Father's Day celebration they had a "Men's Day" celebration.

WSU panel on religion and homosexuality

	Thursday, October 22, 2009
	6:30pm - 8:00pm
	Wichita State University, RSC 203

Violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities are often exacerbated by fundamentalist interpretations of the Bible. The case becomes more nuanced for LGBT people of faith. The WSU Political Science Club invites you to an open dialogue around religion, faith, morality, and sexuality which will host three speakers that will explain their faiths understanding on these issues.

This event will feature 3 speakers:
Rabbi Moti Rieber, of Mid-Kansas Jewish Federation.
Father Eric Weldon, of St. Paul Newman Center.
Pastor Charles Claycomb, of East Heights United Methodist Church

I can't attend this program because of a conflict, but it looks interesting. Hopefully, someone will record it.

Taner Edis summarizes every book on Islam by a Muslim

I like this post by Taner Edis. It made my laugh. Having read a fair number of those books, though far less than Taner, it rings true.

Summary of every book on the state of Islam written by a Muslim

Here, as a public service, is a summary of every single book on the state of Islam ever written by a devout Muslim in modern times:

The Muslim world is in crisis. But none of this indicates any fault with my version of Islam, which in its core precepts is divine and perfect. Muslims, however, have misunderstood Islam, and have therefore fallen into unfortunate circumstances.

There. That should save you from having to read through an awful lot of books. You're welcome.

Why is this President different?

A Sever at Tapped

the first African-American president of the United States, who will be hosting the first
ever Seder at the White House.

Read the whole thing.

Bigotry in Kansas athletics

It's no longer our state Board of Education which is giving Kansas a black eye, now it's our sports teams which are giving the state a bad reputation.

First, a "traditionalist Catholic" high school refuses to play if a women serves as referee. ("Traditionalist Catholics" regard the Catholic Church as having gone the wrong track ever since Vatican II.)

Then, the winning basketball coach at Heston College, a small Mennonite college, is reportedly told that his team with seven African American players looks "too much like a community college team and not enough like a Mennonite college team." The coach is told his contract won't be renewed. There are 14 African American students among the 430 at Heston.

Brownback and Moran: what part of the frist amendment don't you undersrtand

According to an article in today's Kansas City Star, Senator Sam Brownback and Congressman Jerry Moran have gotten earmarks to give money to religious organizations.

Sam Brownback and Kit Bond used earmarks last year to direct about $1 million to an area group “empowering the un-churched urban poor for the kingdom of Christ.”
On the surface, the taxpayer-supported appropriations for World Impact Inc. raise constitutional questions about the separation of church and state.,,,

Brownback earmarked $850,000 to renovate the group’s Morning Star Ranch in Florence, Kan., and U.S. Rep. Jerry Moran, a Hays Republican, set aside $50,000 more. In the end, that money was whittled to $600,000.

The myth of Amazing Grace

A mini-essay on Amazing Grace which I posted on Everyday Citizen.

There's a good chance you'll learn something new about the famous song. I don't discuss the recent movie about William Wilberforce, which I found to be quite good, but which is less than historically accurate. Unfortunately, the critical review by Adam Hochschild from the New York Review of Books is not available free on-line. It appeared in the June 14 issue.

What secularists go wrong about Islam

Taner Edis has an interesting article on the Council for Secular Humanism website.

secular humanists have not been entirely clear-eyed about Islam. While supporting critical inquiry, many secularists have also been partial to simplistic representations of the Muslim world. Indeed, some popular secular literature opposing Islam is hardly distinguishable from Christian and neoconservative polemics. Secularists have been too eager to seek immediate doctrinal causes for Muslim problems. In doing so, many critics have been tempted to identify an essential “true Islam” that is antagonistic to reason and liberal values.

Here's the conclusion

Those of us who do not accept revelation, however, need not go in search of an idealized, true Islam. We should give up those habits of thought that prompt us to seek a well-defined true faith, now to condemn as barbaric rather than to endorse as divine. Religion is a human activity, and what deserve our attention are the varieties of faith revealed in actual practice.

Secular humanists have been very supportive of science and critiques of Islam; they have stood up for freedom of inquiry. And as a godless infidel, a scientist, and a critic of Islam, I am grateful for this support. But we secularists also have our blind spots, our episodes of intellectual laziness. Accepting the framework of a “true Islam” is one such mistake. We can do better.

Two reports on Taner Edis Talk on Islam and Evolution

Taner Edis, a physicist at Truman State University, gave a talk Tuesday night in Lawrence on Islam and creationism and related topics.

Josh Rosenau at Thoughts from Kansas

... science in the Muslim world is seen through the lens of technology. Improvements in living conditions and advancement of a people or a nation through technological advances are good. Connecting those technical advances to broader theoretical frameworks has always been seen as a dangerous and potentially heretical act. Islamic philosophers have would argue that the Quran provides the necessary overarching framework, and that attempts by the sciences to usurp any part of that role have always found resistance.

Thus, efforts to harmonize science and Islam have tended to focus on finding ways to show that particular scientific discoveries are explained by the Quran. The Prophet referred to the seven levels of the heavens, so exegetes seek to identify seven meteorological or astronomical layers. Vague descriptions of the formation of a fetus are presented as perfect brief descriptions of modern embryology. As Edis writes, "it is striking how little writers of the science-in-the-Quran genre know about science. … [T]hey conceive of science as a set of practical applications and concrete facts to be collected and organized like stamps. This view is not even medieval; medieval science at least enriched its stamp collections with an elaborate God-centered perception of nature."

Red State Rable, notes the contradiction between the efforts of the the Discovery Institute to globalize ID and statements like the following on prominent ID blogs

"Islam is a cancer growing on the planet. It needs to be killed not accomodated

Unfortunatley, RSR seems to accepts the myth of Islamic tolerance.

RSR promises more posts on the talk in coming days.

Meanwhile, take a look at The Illusion of Harmony, the latest book by Taner Edis.

Progressive evangelicals show strength

TAPPED has this very interesting item.

Some evidence this week that more progressive evangelicals are strengthening their position within the larger movement: The National Association of Evangelicals rejected a call from James Dodson, Gary Bauer, Paul Weyrich, and other prominent conservative Christians to maintain a singular focus on abortion and gay marriage and abandon environmentalism (which the movement calls “creation care”). Then, as part of the same meeting, the NAE board endorsed a strong anti-torture statement written by Evangelicals for Human Rights, a group with members who have vocally supported expanding the evangelical agenda beyond divisive cultural battles. “Our moral vision has blurred since 9-11,” the statement reads.

The NAE represents some 45,000 congregations nationwide, though it’s unaffiliated with powerful groups including Focus on the Family and the Southern Baptist Convention. But more and more, it seems that many Christians are as frustrated with the Bush administration’s record on the war and the environment as the rest of us. Are such evangelical voters more likely to sit out the 2008 elections than grit their teeth and vote for the pro-choice party? And how much compromise should Democrats make on social issues to win their votes?