Ruth Krall, "The Good Samaritan: Pious Parable or Subversive Instruction?"

Vincent van Gogh, "The Good Samaritan," original in the Kroller-Muller Museum in Otterlo, The Netherlands, uploaded to Wikimedia Commons for online sharing.

I'm privileged to be able to offer readers another set of essays by Ruth Krall, entitled "Compassionate Peacemaking: Healing the World's Wounds One at a Time." Part one of this series, which has the series title "Bearing Witness," consists of four essays. The essay I'm publishing today is the first in the "Bearing Witness" series. It's entitled "The Good Samaritan: Pious Parable or Subversive Instruction?"

Ruth's essays bear witness to the struggle to repair the world at a time in which that struggle seems overwhelming to many of us — and, for this reason, the essays strike me as timely and important. For those who observe Christian liturgical seasons, they seem especially appropriate during this Advent time, when people of Christian faith meditate about darkness and light, in hope that light will prevail and darkness cannot overcome it. 

Quote for the Day: Marilynne Robinson, "Shorthand Justice Is Not the Thing at All"

Marilynne Robinson speaking to Bill Moyers about her magnificent new novel Lila, which I've just finished reading:

Two More (Inspirational) Weekend News Stories: Drew Bartscher Speaks Out Against Homophobic Slurs, Brenda Konkel and Robert Bloch Defy City Orders Not to Shelter Homeless

More weekend news stories — these about people who move me by their compassion and courage:

Looking for Hope As Days Darken

"We want everybody to know that our hearts and prayers go out to them. This includes the family of the shooter."

Chris Hedges on Treatment of Least Among Us as Litmus Test for Morality

In a posting yesterday discussing the Affordable Care Act and the U.S. Catholic bishops, I stated that American Catholics are not likely to hear the moral voice in public discussion from our bishops these days.  And so we listen for that voice where we can find it--often, within other communities of faith, Christian or non-Christian alike.  Or coming from people of sound moral judgment and strong conscience who have no faith commitment at all, or who have even rejected religion altogether, because of the tendency of every religious group throughout history to do serious harm to people when it loses sight of the centrality of what Karen Armstrong calls practical compassion (click this label at the foot of the posting to find what I've posted on the topic).  

A Life Review, First Week of Easter

Some spiritual traditions (in the Catholic church, the Ignatian one; in Protestantism, Puritanism) emphasize a practice of ongoing review of life.  For Puritan strands of Protestant spirituality, this emphasis produced a strong tradition of daily journaling, in which one tallies up the good and bad one has done each day, and places it all in God's hands at the end of each day.

Easter Greetings: Hope, Resurrection, and Kindness

And so this, quite simply, was Steve's and my Holy Saturday celebration: before starting on our trip back home after our Good Friday meeting with my publisher and visit to the Crystal Bridges art museum, we go to Einstein Bros. Bagels for coffee and bagels.  My cousin Bill, who is collaborating with me on the book, comes along with us, as does his mother, a remarkable, spry, full-of-vim senior lady approaching 90.

Patriarchy, Violence, and the Battle for the Soul of World Religions: The Case of a Catholic Theologian and Jewish Rabbi

I read openly gay German Catholic theologian David Berger describing his experiences with some fellow Catholics after he came out of the closet in 2010, and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach talking about his similar experiences with fellow Jews after word got around that he had written a book with the title Kosher Jesus, and I realize I'm reading two versions of the same story.  One is Catholic, the other Jewish.  One chocolate, the other vanilla.

Quote for Day: Colleen Baker on Healing, Compassion, and Love as Goal of Spirituality

From Colleen Kochivar-Baker's Enlightened Catholicism blog: 

One would hope that eventually those of us who call ourselves Christian will understand healing is much more effective from a position of love, rather than randomness.  But healing is only one aspect of spirituality.  Compassion and love are the real issues.

The graphic is Ernst Barlach's 1919 woodcut "The Good Samaritan," from the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Adele Stan on Religious Right: Economic Downturn Equals Win for Right-Wing Religion

At Alternet today, Adele Stan notes the media's obtuseness when it comes to understanding the workings of (right-leaning) religion in the American heartland.  Her rather chilling conclusion: the path charted by the religious right in the final decades of the 20th century and start of the 21st may well represent the future of the U.S., politically, economically, and religiously, as economic misery becomes more pronounced:

Matthew 25 and Expectations of the End of the World

By the way: I read the strangest report yesterday morning.  Did any of the rest of you happen to see it?

It seems 284,000 empty shoes (all in pairs) were found Sunday morning around the world.  The people wearing them seem just to have . . . vanished.

Righteous Christians and Unrighteous Gays: The Educational Challenge Facing Churches Today

An update to the story about which I blogged Thursday, a story unfolding in my own state the past several days: Clint McCance, the vice-president of a school board in northeast Arkansas, who recently posted offensive anti-gay comments and horrific taunting statements about suicide of gay teens on his Facebook page, told Anderson Cooper on CNN Thursday night that he will resign his school board position.  He has not yet submitted a letter of resignation, however, and various watchdog groups continue to monitor this situation.

Andrew Sullivan on Bishop Eddie Long Case: One Way Out, To Love and Not Hate (But What about Minnesota Catholic Bishops?)

I find Andrew Sullivan's commentary on the affair of Bishop Eddie L. Long in Atlanta poignant and thought-provoking.  Long, who pastors the New Birth Missionary Baptist mega-church, and who has been a vocal anti-gay activist and friend of key Republican leaders including George W. Bush, is now credibly accused of having seduced a number of young men in his congregation.  The men's testimony is strengthened by the fact that several of them went public with their accusations independently of each other and without having even known each other.  And yet the stories the young men are telling are all remarkably similar.

Jim Martin on Glenn Beck's Bête Noire: Christianity in All Its Disturbing Fullness

Following his Saturday revival meeting for America, Mr. Beck continues his full-throated attack on the social justice teachings of Christianity--which is to say, on the Christian gospels themselves.  Beck is now adding to his broadside this spring against the strong social justice strands of Christian teaching and his attempt to co-opt and subvert the social gospel Christianity of Martin Luther King the charge that President Obama espouses liberation theology.

Mr. Beck's Great Awakening: Religion Pimped by Greed

Glenn Beck informed America yesterday that we have been wandering in darkness.

My recollection of the verses off which he is riffing (Isaiah 9:2, Matthew 4:16) is that they follow the walking in darkness with someone bringing a great light.

Jesse Kornbluth on Rumi as Islamic Spiritual Guide

I wrote last Sunday that Rumi and other Islamic mystics have taught Christians much about spirituality and love of the divine.  And so I was delighted to read Jesse Kornbluth's article about Rumi yesterday at Huffington Post, which makes a similar point.

Kornbluth notes that not only is Rumi the best-known Islamic poet in cultures around the world, but the is also he best-selling poet in the United States.  And he incarnates the confluence of the three religions of the Book rooted in Middle Eastern culture: at his death, Christians proclaimed him their Jesus, and Jews their Moses.

Update to Rekers Story: Anderson Cooper Will Interview Jo-Vanni Roman Tonight

At the end of a long day of reviewing grant proposals (God finds inventive ways to make me pay for my sins), a quick update to something I posted earlier today.

In my posting today about the latest installments in the story about Rev. Dr. George Rekers, I noted that Anderson Cooper would interview Jo-Vanni Roman, the young man whom Rekers hired for his European travels, on CNN soon.

I'm now reading online that this interview will (may?) air tonight on Anderson Cooper 360.  And that Rachel Maddow may also be doing a Rekers story tonight.

Mike Huckabee on Gay Adoption as Not Ideal, and the Churches' Need for Enemies

Former Arkansas governor (and Southern Baptist minister) Mike Huckabee told Rosie O’Donnell this week that permitting gay couples to adopt children is not “the ideal.”  This statement comes on the heels of a statement Huckabee made a few days back that equated allowing gay people to adopt with treating children as puppies.

The Haitian Earthquake: Links to Groups Offering Aid

As I know all of you are, I am deeply concerned as I read the news about Haiti.

At the Open Tabernacle site today, there's a news link to a World Council of Churches initiative to offer assistance.

At America blog, Fr. James Martin has posted links to Catholic Relief Services' initiative to assist Haitians, and to the Jesuit Refugee Service program.

Please consider helping in the practical way that works best for you.

My heart is heavy as I see the pictures from this country with so many people who already live near the edge. In my years of teaching in HBCUs, I taught a number of Haitian students who were among the finest human beings I have ever known. At the last HBCU at which I worked, a Haitian security worker exemplified the Christian values of that faith-based campus far more transparently than did any of its administrators. He was one the most compassionate and humane persons I met on the entire campus. All of these people, their families, and the nation of Haiti are in my thoughts and prayers today.

If readers know of other groups offering assistance to the people of Haiti, please post information in the comments section.

Update: Here's a link to a Huffington Post article with extraordinarily helpful information on groups offering aid to Haiti, which will appreciate our support. HuffPo notes it will be constantly updating this page.

News Roundup: Recent Articles of Significance to Religion-Culture Debates

This is one of those posts in which I try to gather links to articles and blog postings that have impressed me in recent days. Several of these offer perspective on issues about which I have blogged here in the past few weeks.

First, Jeremy Hooper at Good As You posted a link yesterday to new analysis of the Ugandan situation by Rachel Maddow at MSNBC. In the clip, Rachel speaks with Andrea Mitchell, focusing in particular on the role of the American religious right in creating the Ugandan situation, in which gay citizens of that nation may face the death sentence for being gay. Necessary viewing for those who continue to monitor what’s happening in Uganda.

Second, Karen Occamb reports at Huffington Post yesterday that American Foundation for Equal Rights, the group sponsoring the federal legal challenge to prop 8, has set up a new website. As she notes, it’s full of useful information for those interested in equal rights for gay citizens of the U.S.

Note that those seeking to keep prop 8 and its ban on same-sex marriage in California in place are now trying to ban televised coverage of the Olson-Boies case against prop 8. California law permits such coverage.

The trial begins 11 January, and until noon Friday (8 January), presiding Judge Vaughn Walker is accepting letters regarding televised coverage of the case. Please consider going to the Courage Campaign website and signing a petition on behalf of televised coverage.

It always strikes me as ironic (and telling) that many of those fighting tooth and nail to deny gay people our human rights claim that they are engaged in a preeminently moral struggle. And they so commonly want to hide their identity. As if their crusade is dirty work and not an ethically admirable crusade worthy of inspection by light of day.

Democracy works best when its deliberations take place in the light.

Third, I also highly recommend by a posting yesterday at Enlightened Catholicism by my colleague Colleen Kochivar-Baker about Karen Armstrong’s Charter for Compassion. Colleen’s posting links to a website for the Charter for Compassion.

I’m struck, in particular, by the Charter’s call for people of faith and of good will

to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion ~ to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate.

I’ve written before on this blog about how, as I try to find my own spiritual path, I look for those shining threads running through my experience, my inmost self, and the world around me. This statement will become a shining thread for me in the new year.

It is a statement that desperately needs to be heard, as some religious groups (and powerful political and economic groups) misuse the scripture to make the lives of some brothers and sisters susceptible to violence, suffering, and even death. I’ve noted previously on this blog a statement that will remain with me throughout my life, a statement made by a student in an undergraduate introductory ethics class I was teaching back in the latter part of the 1980s.

I had asked the class what norms they could formulate to help us know when interpretations of scripture had departed significantly from what scripture is all about. A young woman in class raised her hand and said, “The bible is always misused when it’s misused to harm others.”

I can’t think of a clearer, more apt, and more on-target norm for reading the scriptures accurately.

Fourth, I want to make note of a valuable, insightful article by Frank Cocozzelli to which I intended to link when I wrote my piece on Niebuhr and President Obama several days ago. With the birth of the new Open Tabernacle blog, my attention has been divided between this blog and Open Tabernacle, and I haven’t yet commented on Frank’s article.

Frank’s article is entitled “Reclaiming Capitalism Through Principles of Distributive Justice,” and was published by the Institute for Progressive Christianity last year. It explores the confluence of three streams of thought in American Christianity, all of which converge in their critical analysis of unbridled capitalism and their call for people of faith to create a more equitable and compassionate economic system than the one now in place. The three streams are the social gospel (represented by Walter Rauschenbusch), Christian realism (Reinhold Niebuhr), and Catholic social teaching (represented by Father John Ryan). For those wanting more (and admirably nuanced) information about Niebuhr and his significance in American culture, and politics, I highly recommend this article.

Finally, I find Tony Adams’ wry (and slightly wicked, in the best sense of that word) take on the canonization of Pius XII and how those of us critical of this step might best get the Vatican to listen to us wonderful. For theological wisdom wrapped up in humor (something I don’t do well at all, and a gift I envy), read his story of the longstanding . . . connections . . . between Eugenio Pacelli aka Pius XII and Francine Spellman of New York.