Sandals at the Gate

If Christians all acted perfectly (an entirely silly statement) the cross would still be hated by many - that is my point; and the point Christ made. And, BA would probably still not want its employees wearing crosses in front of its non-Christian customers.

What has grown tired in the last few days for me is the notion that the history of Christianity is so dark and obnoxious that we just must expect the cross to be hated. That, is really, just not true.

Not to seem disrespectful, but you still misinterpret. I said nothing about Christianity's "dark and obnoxious" past. If anything, I am focusing purely on Christianity's public image TODAY.

Even divorcing the Church today from some of its mistakes in the past (a feat not easily done but we'll suspend disbelief for a moment) let's just look at today, the church on its own terms.

Christianity has become increasingly obsessed with untenable social stances for the sake of self-identifying in opposition to the prevailing culture.

• The distrust of global family planning;
  
• the oppression of women (see Baptist Convention's reassertion of the women as subservient to husband position)
  
• not to mention the women's ordination issue;
  
• the reproductive choice issue with NO exceptions for the life and health of the mother as passed by conservative christians in South Dakota;
  
• the continued exploitation of "reparative therapy" for GLBT people not to mention a host of other discriminations;
  
• the continued support of Israel's occupation and violation of human rights vis a vis Palestinian people;
  
• Continued propagation of virulent anti-semitism and racism as espoused by Revs. Falwell, Robertson, Dobson, Bauer, Bob Jones U., et al... all very PUBLIC faces of "Christianity;"

and here you have a very clear picture beginning to emerge as to why secular society might find the cross offensive when linked so overtly with divisive issues.

No matter where you stand on the issues above on the social or theological spectrum, there can be no doubt that these issues are divisive.

While the public faces of Christianity continue to spout rhetoric over the mass media on these issues (and I mean rhetoric in the clasic sense) there can be no doubt that it appears intolerant, unequivocal in the extreme, and leaves little room for secular culture to imagine room for dialogue on issues where it is supremely required.

Our lovely woman at BA, to whom we now return, has publicly admitted that her desire to wear the cross at work was not a matter of personal taste in jewelry or a matter of expression of her personal faith journey, but was intended to give the message to those who approached her (in a professional capacity) that the cross was there for their salvation... more de-humanizing of others than BA could possible have dehumanized her although some may be inclined to inappropriately romanticize this as evangelism.

The cross would be a whole lot more appealing to, and indeed would transform, the prevailing culture if the message it sent was that no matter where you were on your journey, God welcomed you. God does not exclude you, God does not hate you, God does not give a whit about imperial power, or divisive social issues that will eventually resolve themselves as the always do and as they always have (see women's suffrage, democracy, end of slavery, civil rights, human rights, child labor laws, etc.)

For all the blustering of men seeking to retain power, or reclaim it at the expense of whomever is most threatening to them today, they forget that the Gospel stands in opposition to this power.

If today, the cross has become a symbol of these power struggles, and the divisions they cause, why should secular democracies seeking to equalize power (and incidentally informed by the Gospel to this effect) not find the cross's identification with this misuse of power repulsive?

I still believe that Christianity holds tremendous relevance for culture today. But it risks losing it if it becomes so wrapped in self-righteousness that it ceases to be HEARD over the din of its own protestations.

Posted by Br. Karekin, BSG at 9:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You know this has become a bit old

In general, in the US (I do not know about England) Christians are at the center of the vast majority of NGO's providing for the poor on a day-to-day basis (and not just two days a year as some diarist around here said)

I am not ashamed of the crucifix around my neck, nor of the Gospel it represents - nor am I generally ashamed of my brothers and sisters in Christ. Whether BA wishes to keep its employees secular or not has nothing to do with the public face of Christianity in particular - it has to do with the secularization of Europe and England.

Do I care if BA de-humanizes its employees (removes any traits which distinguish them as human beings) in order to keep their profits higher? Not really. Just do not blame this on the Anglican Church.

Thanks for your comments. However, there is much you misread in this piece.

Firstly, this is not about Anglicanism in particular. While I do not question that many Christians are sincere, I simply question why any of us should wonder why secular society takes issue with us. We consistently fail to realize that we are responsible for our own bad reputation in secular society. We simply cannot get our act together or learn from past mistakes. This article is less about the acts of individual Christians than it is about a serious public image problem which we all need to take responsibility for.

Secondly, please do not imply or assume per your comment that I am ashamed of the cross or of the Gospel. The Gospel of Christ is my life and the cross is a deeply moving symbol for me. I am, however, often discouraged with my brothers and sisters in the faith who consistently fail to learn that Christ's church and his message were deeply contrary to the aribtrary exclusion of others from the grace and love of God as represented by the Church.

We consistently find people to exclude and even more consistently end up finding ourselves (as we will ONCE AGAIN) on the wrong side of history when it comes to our positions on who and who is not welcome at the Table.

You open your article by stating that this has all become "a bit old." You are entirely right... it has become old. And it stays relevant because we do not learn from past mistakes. The need to question to the Church on this issue will remain as long as the Church continues to designate outcasts who for whatever arbitrary reason are found unworthy to share in the grace of God... freely given.

Posted by Br. Karekin, BSG at 9:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On Friday the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams said: "If BA [British Airways] is really saying or implying that the wearing of a cross in public is a source of offence, then I regard that as deeply offensive."

Perhaps it is time for us to open a dialogue about why such taking of "offence" at public displays of Christian faith has become normative in our society.

The ABC would do well to recognize a broader pattern in these tussles. The public face of Christianity is increasingly suffering. Western societies are increasingly struggling to secularize culture... in the workplace, in civic life, in politics. There is good reason.

As a devout Christian, I lament this turn of events and I understand it at once. The rejection of public symbols of religious faith is the rejection of discord and an attempt to limit the possibility of offending.

Why should companies such as BA reject the cross? Why should it be seen as an offence? Because the church and her symbols are seen increasingly as complicit in discord around the world. While the Church is called to be a reconciling agent in the world, it is increasingly complicit in sowing division and strife. The Church cannot get her own affairs in order, cannot unite herself against her own internal divisions... how can the Church then be seen as uniting a divided world?

The public face of the Christian faith is one that is dour indeed. Fundamentalism is increasingly the loudest and most visible face of the faith today. In our own Anglican/Episcopal Church, the rise of fundamentalism in some quarters, the increase in rigid sectarianism, the exclusion of those who disagree through the attempts to break communion all point to the Church being an increasing part of the PROBLEM that ails society rather than the solution.

I am not surprised that any company seeks to limit public expressions of a faith that increasingly represents intolerance and an intractable rejectionism of non-believers... that leads to division among peoples.

The ABC and leaders of Christian denominations the world over need to ask themselves why the public expression of faith through the wearing of Christian symbols should cause a problem at all. +Rowan should be looking at his own complicity is these matters. With the moderates among us trying so hard to redeem the name of the faith and live out the gospel of God's redeeming LOVE, we need to accept responsibility for our public silence while radicals on the right and the left sow division in the world through a personal and corporate triumphalism and rejection of those with whom they disagree. Rather than helping in this matter, Rowan. through his own waffling and poor leadership, has complicated the matter greatly.

The cross in secular society has, sadly, become not a symbol of Christ's redeeming love, but instead a symbol of a faith that still rejects the other; rails against science and reason; spends more time discussing personal matters of sex than issues of poverty, the environment, and hunger; retreats into sectarianism to avoid the complexities of a global society; and represents a personal badge of salvation that excludes the unbeliever rather than a corporate invitation to a salvation freely offered to all lived out faithfully among believers confident in God's ability to unite us in love for the world. Even in our own Anglican tradition... love and a reasoned consideration of faith lived out in diversity have taken a back seat to a fundamentalism that is not a part of our heritage. Rowan allows the issues that divide us at the table (and the Table) to take precedence over those which unite us in common mission to feed a starving world. We cannot find our unity as a faith and as a Church by sacrificing the "other;" by excluding or threatening to exclude those with whom we disagree. The world will find no example to follow in this regard, will find no inspiration. Hence, the world and its agencies, for purely practical purposes, will reject the public display of a faith that has proven incapable of behaving itself in a manner that is not troublesome to others, particularly those outside its embrace. The rejection of visible expressions of the faith through these symbols should be seen in this light.

Christianity was meant to be troublesome to the world, but not in this way. It was meant to put lie to the divisions that keep us away from the love of God and love of one another. It was founded by outcasts and sinners around faith in a man who embodied love and compassion, as healing for a broken world and as an antidote for that which divides us.

I am a religious brother who wears a cross every day... to work, church, social gatherings. It is a heavy burden to carry in today's world because I experience first hand what the cross says to SO many I encounter. It is intimidating, not comforting to others because we as Christians have failed to fully live out its meaning. I understand BA's decision AND I am glad they are rethinking it at the request of the Bishop of London and the ABC. But +Rowan and other Christian leaders need to accept their own responsibility for why it has become an issue at all.

There is no humility in Rowan's quote that opens this article. His being deeply offended is naive and arrogant. He should not wonder, while his own house crumbles around him, why Christianity is no longer seen in secular society as a gift that inspires but an increasingly bitter cup that is largely responsible for much of what ails us.

technorati tags:britishairways, canterbury, christianity, punkmonksf, rejectionism, secularism

Posted by Br. Karekin, BSG at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Secret CIA Report: No evidence that Iran is trying to build nukes

It's Iraq all over again. Bush and Cheney just lied to us, again, about yet another country's irrefutable quest for weapons of mass destruction.

A classified draft CIA assessment has found no firm evidence of a secret drive by Iran to develop nuclear weapons, as alleged by the White House, a top US investigative reporter has said....

But the administration's planning of a military option was made "far more complicated" in recent months by a highly classified draft assessment by the Central Intelligence Agency "challenging the White House's assumptions about how close Iran might be to building a nuclear bomb," he wrote.

"The CIA found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear-weapons program running parallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency," Hersh wrote, adding the CIA had declined to comment on that story.

A current senior intelligence official confirmed the existence of the CIA analysis and said the White House had been hostile to it, he wrote.

And as an added bonus, Cheney now says he's willing to break the law in order to declare war on Iran.

A month before the November 7 legislative elections, Hersh wrote, Vice President Dick Cheney attended a national-security discussion that touched on the impact of Democratic victory in both chambers on Iran policy.

"If the Democrats won on November 7th, the vice president said, that victory would not stop the administration from pursuing a military option with Iran," Hersh wrote, citing a source familiar with the discussion.

Cheney said the White House would circumvent any legislative restrictions "and thus stop Congress from getting in its way," he said.

Republicans don't obey the law. They don't obey the will of the people. They do what they want to, to hell with what's right, to hell with the law, to hell with what the people want.

technorati tags:iranlies, WMDs

Posted by Br. Karekin, BSG at 4:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted Friday November 17, 2006 at 09:51 AM

Freelance journalist, videographer and blogger Josh Wolf was denied a request for a rehearing yesterday by a federal court of appeal, and refused to accept any morefilings in the case. This means that Wolf, 24, could be kept in prisonuntil the expiration of the grand jury in July. Wolf, who was jailedfor refusing to turn over raw footage shot at a protest in SanFrancisco in July 2005 and testify about its contents, has alreadyserved 88 days in jail. Wolf was subpoenaed by federal prosecutorsinvestigating charges of vandalism at the event.

Wolf was sentenced and imprisoned in August, was released on bail inSeptember, and then was sent back to jail when his bail was revoked bya panel of the Ninth Circuit Court. A hearing by the full court wasrequested by his lawyer, which is the request denied yesterday. Themotion to reinstate bail was "denied as moot." Thank goodness the courts are protecting society from this very, very dangerous 24 year old kid.

Wolf's lawyer has offered the court the full tape in exchange forrelease from testimony, but the US Attorney's Office for the NorthernDistrict of California has said no dice. And it's prison for you, JoshWolf, until you reconsider your silly little shield law. Civillitigation attorney and former public defender Stephen Kaus has been following the case on HuffPo, and noted"[w]hatever powers the government should have in the face of alegitimate terror threat, that is not what is happening here." Kaus also notesthat Wolf 's case has come before a Federal court rather than a statecourt, before which he would be protected by California's shield law.As we learned in the case of Judith Miller (a JoshWolf advocate), there is no federal shield law for journalists. Kausexplains why Wolf's case is particularly outrageous:

InWolf's case, the court required him to make the difficult showing thatthe investigation was undertaken in bad faith and then held that he hadnot done so. This is a far cry from balancing the importance of theevidence against the harm being done to the role of the press.

The fact is that the effectiveness of the press is substantiallydiminished if every reporter is turned into a "surveillance camera" asWolf has claimed. Perhaps with exceptions for genuinely "terrible"situations, the press cannot function if each crime related story couldturn into days of court testimony. The law in California that allinvolved on the government side have chosen to flout is designed toprotect this press function.

The reverse onus of requiring Wolf to prove that the request forinformation is in bad faith is a ridiculous inversion of therequirements that by law are put in place to protect a person'sliberty. This case is particularly egregious considering thatinvestigators are looking into the vandalism of a police car that Wolfclaims isn't even on the tape. In light of that fact, it seemsparticularly churlish for the DA's office to refuse to accept Wolf'soffer of tape and no testimony, since there seems to be the possibilitythat a simple viewing might make the whole request moot. Either way,the fact that jailtime is being used here as a punitive tactic ofcoercion rather than a legitimate punishment for actual lawbreaking isatrocious, particularly in light of the court's decision to shut thedoor on Wolf for the rest of the grand jury term while he languishes injail.

technorati tags:joshwolf, civilliberties, freepress

Posted by Br. Karekin, BSG at 8:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Br. Karekin, BSG at 7:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Assunta Femia, a gay male San Francisco poet, actor, andpolitical activist who admired nuns, died at a friend's home in Oregon onSaturday, November 4, from liver cancer, secondary to hepatitis B. He wouldhave been 59 next month.

Assunta was born Francis Thomas Femia in December 1947, theson of an Italian-American father and a West Virginia mother. After growing upin modest circumstances in West Virginia and Philadelphia, and later servingtime in federal prison for an anti-war protest, he arrived in San Francisco in1975.

Assunta started walking about the city dressed as a nun,which was a novel sight at the time, and began using the female pronoun forself-reference. Eventually, she changed her name to Assunta, which means"Taken Up," a title referring to the Assumption of the Blessed VirginMary.

Assunta loved the nuns and the Catholic liturgy that sheknew from childhood. However, she rejected the church's male-focused theologyand scorned priests and the pope. She created her own special spiritualitybased on a sense of service to the divine feminine, traditional Catholicveneration of the Blessed Virgin, and fierce independence of spirit.

Assunta's eye-popping spirituality struck a responsive chordin San Francisco's gay community in the 1970s and 1980s. She helped inspire thefounding of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group that continues to thisday. However, she was too independent-minded to spend much time with theSisters, and she never adopted a mocking posture toward nuns.

Assunta had made waves before coming to San Francisco. In1968, at age 21, she was arrested, along with two other Catholic peaceactivists, for pouring black paint on draft files in Boston, to protest the warin Vietnam.

As a consequence, she spent two years in federal prison inKentucky, where she came out as gay. She said she preferred prison life inKentucky to parochial high school in south Philadelphia: "Prison was a lotless brutal than high school. I never got beat up in prison."

Starting in the 1980s, Assunta spent much time in southernOregon, going back and forth between there and San Francisco. When in Oregon,she rented a small house in a wooded area outside the town of Wolf Creek, whoseowner lived in San Francisco. A local homophobe firebombed the house, butluckily Femia was absent at the time.

She became the butt of taunts and threats from redneck menin rural Oregon because of her feminine appearance. But her tormentors alwaysbacked off, sensing on some level that she was not someone to mess with. Theywere right. Tucked away in her colorfully knitted Guatemalan handbag, next toher favorite rosary, she carried a big handgun.

During Assunta's tenancy, the Wolf Creek property was oftenvisited by gay men seeking alternatives to urban life, and the land graduallytook on the nature of a country refuge. Eventually, a collective of RadicalFaeries from San Francisco, including followers of the late Harry Hay, cameinto possession of the property and turned it into a faerie sanctuary.

A bitter conflict soon developed between the swarm of newfaery landlords and the longstanding tenant. Things got off to a rocky startwhen Hay rebuked Assunta for including Catholic elements in her spirituality.The turning point came when one of the new faery occupants erected some stonephalluses on the land. Assunta regarded the phalluses as glorifications of malepower in a place sacred to the divine feminine. She destroyed them all with ahammer, celebrating the feat with an triumphant poem, "i smashed thephalloi."

Assunta proved to be too radical for the Radical Faeries,and a parting of the ways followed. She abandoned the land she had made safefor the new dwellers and the home that she and some friends had built toreplace the one that was firebombed. "It was easier with one landlord than200," she later quipped.

Assunta performed in plays and musicals in both Oregon inSan Francisco. In 1984, at the former Valencia Rose cabaret in the Mission, sheplayed the lead role of the god Dionysos in The God of Ecstasy, a rendition of Euripides's play Bakkhai. When asked at a rehearsal by other members of thecast how she landed the lead role, she announced to all, "I slept with thedirector" (which was true).

She was active in Bay Area Gay Liberation and also theButterfly Brigade, a civilian foot patrol organized to combat anti-gay violencein the Castro. When the AIDS epidemic hit, she spent much time caring for thedying, both in Oregon and San Francisco, drawing on skills she had learned froma stint in nursing school.

Although appearing to be in the peak of health, Assunta wasunexpectedly diagnosed in the winter of 2005 with advanced liver cancer. Thecancer grew rapidly, despite surgery performed at UCSF Medical Center inFebruary, in a last-ditch effort to save her life.

Her initial disbelief and anger eventually gave way toacceptance. "I'm ready for the transition," she said shortly beforeher death.

At press time, memorial plans had not been announced.

11/09/2006

technorati tags:assuntafemia

Posted by Br. Karekin, BSG at 7:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Interesting that this man has now been called to head the Department of Defense... just as Iran takes a front seat in the Bush Administration and Daniel Ortega is re-elected in Nicaragua. Kind of makes you wonder what his nomination is REALLY all about!

From Wikipedia:

Owing to his senior status in the CIA, Gates was close to many figures who played significant roles in the Iran-Contra Affair and was in a position to have known of their activities. The evidence developed by Independent Counsel did not warrant indictment of Gates for his Iran-Contra activities or his responses to official inquiries.

Gates was an early subject of Independent Counsel's investigation, but the investigation of Gates intensified in the spring of 1991 as part of a larger inquiry into the Iran/contra activities of CIA officials. This investigation received an additional impetus in May 1991, when President George H.W. Bush nominated Gates to be Director of Central Intelligence (DCI). The chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) requested in a letter to the Independent Counsel on May 15, 1991, any information that would “significantly bear on the fitness” of Gates for the CIA post.

Gates consistently testified that he first heard on October 1, 1986, from Charles E. Allen, the national intelligence officer who was closest to the Iran initiative, that proceeds from the Iran arms sales may have been diverted to support the Contras. Other evidence proves, however, that Gates received a report on the diversion during the summer of 1986 from DDI Richard Kerr.^[11] The issue was whether Independent Counsel could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Gates was deliberately not telling the truth when he later claimed not to have remembered any reference to the diversion before meeting with Allen in October.

Grand Jury secrecy rules hampered Independent Counsel's response. Nevertheless, in order to answer questions about Gates' prior testimony, Independent Counsel accelerated his investigation of Gates in the summer of 1991. This investigation was substantially completed by September 3, 1991, at which time Independent Counsel determined that Gates' Iran-Contra activities and testimony did not warrant prosecution.

Independent Counsel made this decision subject to developments that could have warranted reopening his inquiry, including testimony by Clair E. George, the CIA's former deputy director for operations. At the time Independent Counsel reached this decision, the possibility remained that George could have provided information warranting reconsideration of Gates's status in the investigation. George refused to cooperate with Independent Counsel and was indicted on September 19, 1991. George subpoenaed Gates to testify as a defense witness at George's first trial in the summer of 1992, but Gates was never called.

technorati tags:robertgates, irancontra, defensedepartment, bushnominations, wikipedia

Posted by Br. Karekin, BSG at 8:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)