What God Expects

A few notes on theology and history: the Catholic church has a long history of failing to separate church and state, while separating its orthodoxy from its parishioners’ felt faith. It amends the language of its worship rites, but seldom its broader vision of mercy and salvation and its own list of requirements for church connection beyond the Old Testament 10.

My own influences include Peter J. Gomes, professor of Christian Morals at Harvard Divinity School, and Howard Thurman, a Morehouse graduate, Florida-born, the grandson of a slave; an ordained Baptist preacher who became deeply engaged as a Quaker mystic, a mentor to Dr. King and others as the first major religious appointment of an African-American at a major college, Dean of the Chapel at Boston University. Dr. King had one of his books in his brief case when he was killed.

Thurman focused on the choices of the living journey rather than the questions of salvation as a function of faith and belief judged in an afterlife. He framed and explored the creative, critical process rather than proscribing a proper means of adoration. Simply put, Thurman’s faith was basing on knowing what we term good and evil will not have the “last word about the meaning of life or the nature of existence,” reminding believers that “God expects us to not only to choose our actions but our reactions.”

When the stone was turned, those women found not dread, but joy. That, and the evidence of a few facts, was all Thurman needed to know.

Comment: (Cape Cod) Peter Gomes was the president my high school class in 1961. He was already inspirational. What an exceptional human being.

When Is Lying Enough?

A new Democratic video contrasts 7 Romney and Obama statements, and begs a question: why do Romney, Ryan, et al. boldly lie? For them is lying a seditious moral flaw—-or an act of wyly success?

Those who lie do not view it as self-destructive. And lies have benefits: they attract attention, damage targets, and act as their own air bag to cushion their fall. We all know persons who set themselves up to fail; Romney, et al. are character types who lie to set up success—on multiple fronts, for multiple reasons. Is your opponent, by history, someone about whom people want to believe lies? Do false beliefs persist, pass on unchallenged, or defended? These lies offer a political wedge: lies have true believers who vote.

Political lies also avoid consequences. They shift or refocus debate, hide real intent, defend or defeat an opponent’s position, incite fear and dislike, protect and conceal weaknesses. Lies have a Pavlovian effect; repeated, they become easier to accept, tiring to chase. Mark Twain noted, political lies depend on active participation as much as they do mute support.

And of the persons who lie? Here lies offer a unique insight. Whether by social pressure or internal doubt, people who think the truth isn’t good enough seldom think themselves good enough. They deeply believe they are without honor, but can not admit this inner truth. The lie honestly signals their shortcomings; but they crave its acceptance. If rejected, nothing in their world or beliefs have changed. Rather, the lies are a means by which they confirm to us who they are.

Comment:
(Geneva, Switzerland) Create a social norm in which men and women must say things they cannot all possibly in good conscience believe and you will create a social norm of lying. Since we cannot control what we viscerally sense or believe to be true, if we are unfortunate enough to be a member of a religion that demands we override our conscience or common sense and say things out loud we do not really believe or else face eternal punishment and more immediately ostracism, we will unlikely reach adulthood without having acquired a certain adeptness at saying things with a straight face, even earnestness, that deep inside we know we do not believe.  Combine that with a political culture that confuses professions of metaphysical beliefs (of a Judeo-Christian variety only, thank you) with integrity ot ethics and you have the mother of all dishonesty amplifiers.  I am reminded of Jefferson’s quotation :  the more (a guest) spoke of his Sacred Honor, the more closely we guarded the family silver.