Recently in Religion & Spirituality Category

Leroy Jethro Gibbs is my favoritest television show character of all time. He's an asshole with a heart of gold, much beloved of his team in spite of whacking 'em upside the head and scolding "NEVER apologize! It's a sign of weakness."

Today's news shows this leftyloon priest apologizing. Fr. Michael Pfleger is renowned as a Chicago activist who once exhorted an anti-gun crowd to "drag" a gun shop owner from his shop "like a rat" and "snuff" him.

That's ballsy. I totally disagree with him in all ways, but, damn. That. Is. Ballsy.

How can that guy suddenly turn into a wimp?

Political satire, lampooning, mockery is a centuries' old honored tradition. Expressing political views -- even loud, radical ones -- from the pulpit is also an old, honored tradition. In Civil War days, preachers could be heard expounding with throbbing, poetic drama their views on slavery, or secession.

Pfleger's notions on what Hilary Clinton might be thinking seem way off base but, fuck sake, they're his notions to be freely expressed!

Apologize? What a wimp. Maybe someone oughta drag him from behind the pulpit like a rat, paint him yellow, and send him running to the nearest priest hole around so he can hide like the sniveling twit he is.

Hey. Don't get me wrong. I am aligned with the teachings of Christ. I am also aligned, for the most part, with the political philosophy that drives Big L Libertarians and I am more Right-leaning than Left.

But I've got issues with the message in the latest bit of e-mail spam I got from a friend. I'm quoting it below -- I have had mercy on you in that I cleaned up the pretentious fluffy formatting and added a link to Snopes tracking the veracity of the authorship of this piece. My commentary follows.

Since the Pledge of Allegiance and The Lord's Prayer are not allowed in most public schools anymore because the word "God" is mentioned.... a kid in Arizona wrote the attached NEW School prayer. I liked it.

Now I sit me down in school
Where praying is against the rule
For this great nation under God
Finds mention of Him very odd.

If Scripture now the class recites,
It violates the Bill of Rights.
And anytime my head I bow
Becomes a Federal matter now.

Our hair can be purple, orange or green,
That's no offense; it's a freedom scene.
The law is specific, the law is precise.
Prayers spoken aloud are a serious vice.

For praying in a public hall
Might offend someone with no faith at all.
In silence alone we must meditate,
God's name is prohibited by the state.

We're allowed to cuss and dress like freaks,
And pierce our noses, tongues and cheeks.
They've outlawed guns, but FIRST the Bible.
To quote the Good Book makes me liable.

We can elect a pregnant Senior Queen,
And the 'unwed daddy,' our Senior King.
It's "inappropriate" to teach right from wrong,
We're taught that such "judgments" do not belong.

We can get our condoms and birth controls,
Study witchcraft, vampires and totem poles.
But the Ten Commandments are not allowed,
No word of God must reach this crowd.

It's scary here I must confess,
When chaos reigns the school's a mess.
So, Lord, this silent plea I make:
Should I be shot; My soul please take!

Amen

If you aren't ashamed to do this, please pass this on.
Jesus said, "If you are ashamed of me,
I will be ashamed of you before my Father."

First, and foremost: smarmy, sniffy, uber-superior life-style comparisons on the part of self-righteous anybodies leave me cold. Sad to say we seem to see it more often from Christians than from other demographic groups, which is a smudge if you ask me.

I agree to an extent with the overall sentiment: I have long argued that outright banning any student from praying aloud at any time he or she feels like praying aloud (within certain social norms or classroom needs, mind) is wrong, wrong, wrong. I don't really care if Myrna gets upset because Kathleen mutters a prayer in her hearing. I could give a fuck if Lenny, whose father is a hardcore atheist, has to understand that other people do believe in a vast invisible meddling force from beyond. And, really, c'mon Moonspirit. You can argue that the deity is really Goddess all you like, but it's okay that Chris thinks God is the father, 'k?

And, really, if we can study the spiritual practices of other cultures, then permitting people to practice theirs (within, again, the boundaries of propriety) in an unobtrusive manner should be fine.

Here's my beef (apologies to my Hindu buddies):

a) There is nothing wrong with unnaturally colored hair, and how the fuck DARE you insinuate otherwise you sanctimonious little fart.
b) Ditto mode of dress. If someone wants to do the tacky emo or goth motif, or saggy jeans with more holes than cloth, or even if they're a muffin-top and insist on wearing low-riders and crop tops, there's nothing morally wrong with that. Jesus did not say "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Vogue and GQ", right.
c) ditto piercing/tattoos
d) pregnant whatevers. Societally difficult. Unwed 'rents aren't a good idea no matter what your religious beliefs. But, hello, the Bible itself warns about making judgments. Geddit? Can you say "WWJD"? Ya?
e) so first you bitch about the pregger peeps, now you think dispensing birth control and acknowledging that we're all imperfect is a bad idea. 'k. Guess everyone has to be perfect like you.

That's pretty much it. I am impatient with the unChristian stance so many Christians adopt.

While back on the newsfroup in which I participate, we all had one of our bazillions of fistfights over "indoctrinating" young people. The conservatives are all against the indoctrination of children in the "liberal" manifesto that they see going on in public skools. The libs are all unhappy about the "indoctrination" of youth in horrible religion stuff, when they get to see little Johnny pray before a test or have the teach say "Under God" or something.

It made me think about indoctrination, though. We do. Indoctrinate our young. In our ideals. How can we not?

My buddy PJ had a comment in her insightful and wonderful poast about Freedom on her blog (link below):

But still, even reciting the Pledge day after day after day didn't really make me think about what I was saying, or what it actually meant. I didn't feel patriotic reciting it, and it didn't prompt me to think about freedom. It prompted me to think about how I wished we could get it over with because I was bored. -- pj's place

The idea that repetition will indoctrinate one in an ideal is common, but PJ's right. That alone won't do much for you. Same with repeating the Lord's Prayer, something that goes on in mainstream Christian churches without thought. And the Apostle's Creed (or variations of same). We don't even stop to think about the words.

That was brought home one day when one of the pastors read an insightful commentary where the writer walked, line by line, through the Prayer, as though God had been sitting at a table across from him and helping him think about it.

We'll mouth anything we're fed, and give it no thought, and that kind of thing does nothing to indoctrinate us into whatever it is supposed to promote. We just say it and move on.

It isn't until something significant happens that those words might then hit home.

It's just prep work.

Letting Johnny pray in class isn't going to turn Hamad into a Christian. It isn't going to poison Libby Rawls away from her daddy's atheism. Reciting the Pledge isn't going to make Dick, Jane, or Spot believe any more firmly in what their country stands for and Jane just might grow up to want to bomb some building in East Bumfuck, USA.

So what are these recitative icons good for?

I happen to like both the Prayer and the Pledge when I stop to ponder them, because I have taken some time to know their histories, their stories, and what the lines mean when taken individually and then pasted back together into their context. That's the only way this kind of "indoctrination" will work -- if you also educate and have your students (young and old) stop and think.

To do that, they also have to know about the alternatives. They have to know what it means to be a student in a despotic nation (as PJ's wonderful post described) and they have to know what other people believe, and why this belief is what's being promoted as the "correct" belief.

Indoctrination is pfui. It's what the Nazis did. It's what those who fear do.

Education is what we, as Americans, should be all about.

The guy who told me this story is not particularly religious. He has spiritual leanings, of course, but doesn't really go to church or read the bible. He does know I'm interested in this kinda thing, though.

This is what he says happened to him this morning:

Interesting event on the way to work.

When I got to work, I handed one of the coffees to my friend, and then opened the envelope. Inside was a greeting card. On the front of the card was a beautiful drawing of an herb, and under it it was lettered, "PEPPERMINT". The inside bore a hand-written message that said, "Hi !! I just wanted to wish you a wonderFULL day - filled with happiness & smiles. God does love you !!"

Cue spooky music ... ooooeEEEEEEEEEeEEEEeeeeeeeooooOOooOOOeeeeeee!