Concerned Women of America Are Concerned!

I've just listened to an audio clip of an interview with Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America. Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) interviewed her on 17 June (www.cbn.com).

Of course, she's on about gay marriage. To shore up her argument that legal acceptance of gay marriage may force people of faith to violate their religious beliefs, she cites the case of Catholic Charities in Boston.

As Ms. Wright notes, in March 2006, Catholic Charities of Boston closed its doors, rather than accede to legal requirements that it place adopted children with gay couples. Ms. Wright uses this case as an example of how churches and people of faith may increasingly be required to do what their faith forbids, if we permit gay marriage.

What Ms. Wright does not say--and what her organization must know, due to its high-profile position and its constant monitoring of the news--is significant. She does not note that in December 2005, the 42-member board of Catholic Charities in Boston voted unanimously to continue adoptive services to gay parents--services already being provided by Catholic Charities of Boston. Nor does she note that when the Massachusetts bishops drew a line in the sand in 2006 and forced Catholic Charities to stop providing adoption to gay parents, eight board members resigned in protest.

This is the worm in the apple of the argument of the religious right, when it comes to these purported clashes of religious freedom and legal requirements in a democratic society: some people of faith do not favor discrimination. Some people of faith are moved by their faith to build participatory democracies in which everyone has a place at the table.

It is not self-apparent to many people of faith that being a Christian requires demonization of gay human beings, discrimination against gay human beings, second-class citizenship for gay human beings. Or, for that matter, lying and cheating and employing banal legal tricks to foster hatred of gay human beings and to silence free, honest discourse about the lives of gay human beings.

On the day Ms. Wright appeared on CBN, Concerned Women announced a day of fasting and prayer to ask God to stop gay marriage . . . implying, of course, that they own God and that all believers stand solidly with them in their crusade to deny fundamental rights to gay persons (see www.protectmarriage.com/newsdetail.php?newsId=322). A California-based group calling itself Protect Marriage (which is endorsed by Concerned Women) has just announced a similar 40-day fast--see http://www.protectmarriage.com/newsdetail.php?newsId=322.

When I read about these fasts, I ask myself if these biblically-based groups that are so intent on following God's word literally have read Isaiah 58:6. Are they aware of the kind of fast their Lord approves, according to Isaiah?

Are they aware that the Jewish prophets lambasted those who thought they could turn God into a puppet--their puppet--through religious chicanery like fasts and rituals? Fasts and rituals disconnected from religious observance. Religious observance focused on living lives of mercy connected to justice.

The Isaiah text states, "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?"

When I hear of the concerns of Concerned Women of America, curiously enough, loosing the chains of injustice, setting the oppressed free, and breaking every yoke are not the first things that leap to my mind.

More's the pity. These Christians groups might convince us of the legitimacy of their crusade against gay human beings if they more transparently demonstrate a concern to be faithful to God's word and to fast in the way God chooses . . . . Somehow, when I hear the phrase "Concerned Women of America," I tend to think of laying yokes on folks' shoulders, rather than vice versa.

Gay Marriage and Revival of Theology of Hell

Fascinating news from California these days. It’s looking as if the implementation of gay marriage is going to usher in a new golden age of Christian theological discourse. About those inconvenient topics we keep in the dusty cupboard where old no longer convincing doctrines like limbo get stored.

Suddenly, people want to talk about hell again. And talk. And talk some more.

While reserving the right and privilege to send others there.

Yesterday’s Bilerico blog had a report by Storm Bear, who was on photographic assignment in San Francisco Monday, about the collapse of a musician playing outside City Hall as gay couples were married inside (http://www.bilerico.com/2008/06/god_killed_him_for_loving_fags.php).

It seems the musician was celebrating the historic occasion. Hence, when he collapsed, rather than seek to assist him, one of the “Christians” protesting the marriages chose to hover over the apparently lifeless body of the hapless man, chanting, "Satan got you!" and "What is the devil whispering in your ear about now?" The Christian protester then declared that his God had killed the musician for loving fags.

Fortunately, the final line of the story indicates that a priest in the crowd reported that the man was breathing when he was placed in an ambulance.

A revival of hell. Of language about hell. Who knows what might spring from this theological renaissance? Perhaps a renewed interest in the early Christian doctrine of apocastasis, the belief that, in the end, God will redeem the world and every creature in it? The belief that, since in Adam, fell we all, in Christ the new Adam, we all rise.

I’m intrigued by those who know so confidently that others are headed to hell. My own divinatory skills have never been so keen.

Oh, I’ll freely admit that there are times the baser angels of my nature entertain the fleeting thought that it might just be nice if there’s a good hot seat warmed up and waiting in hell for this vexatious soul or that one.

But no sooner do I entertain that thought, than a less-entertaining reminder pops into my head: if I pray each day that my trespasses be forgiven as I forgive those of others, what fresh hell am I hurling myself towards if I want anyone to be consigned to hell?

I’m inclined to follow the theology of 20th-century Catholic theologian Karl Rahner, who did, in fact, call for a revival of belief in apocastasis. In Rahner’s view, it makes no sense to talk about a God of love who desires the salvation of the entire cosmos, while hoping or wishing that anyone is in hell. Rahner chooses to believe that the love of God ultimately triumphs over all evil, such that the whole cosmos is caught up in the divine redemptive energy of God’s love.

The church—many Christian churches, though admittedly not all—has consistently taught that no one can know with certainty that anyone else is in hell. A corollary of that teaching is the insistence that we cannot call ourselves faithful followers of Christ and wish anyone in hell.

So that divinatory ability of some Christians to look into the souls of others and see that they are destined for hell: it really does interest me. If only God can see (and judge) the hearts of others, where does the skill come from?

Could it be . . . Satan?

We Apologize for the Interruption . . . .

Dear Readers,

As the old t.v. announcement used to say when there were technical difficulties, I apologize for the temporary interruption. I am having inexplicable new problems with posting my messages today.

Once those are resolved (I hope), I will resume posting as usual. Meanwhile, it will be interesting to see if this message makes it through.

Hmm. I wonder if this sudden new problem has any connection to the sudden listing of some of my postings on a porn site--something I discovered by googling the blog name yesterday? I do so very much appreciate the dissemination of my postings, but would welcome attention from people who are genuinely trying to assist with spreading the message--not impeding it.

On the other hand, if people think that what I have to say on the blog is worth trying to block, then perhaps the message is getting through?

Faith-Based Institutions, Ceasing and Desisting

As readers of this blog know, I see the development of blogs as forums for free discussion of political and religious issues around the world as an extremely positive development. For some time now, the traditional media have been selling us short, when it comes to telling all the stories we need to hear. The media (which are increasingly corporate-owned and corporate-dominated) decide who will or will not come to the table of public discourse—who has an official voice, and whose voice simply will not be heard, because it is not “official.”

Stories and voices we all need to hear, in order to be a more healthy human community, just don’t make it to the table, because of media censorship. As Scott Ritter’s dissection of the role of the traditional media in shoring up the government on today’s Alternet site indicates, the mainstream media all too often engage in self-censorship, when it comes to digging for stories that place the media crosswise with powerful political and corporate interest groups (see http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/87625/?page=entire).

Blogs serve an extremely important function in a human community seeking to foster participatory democracy. Blogs permit the airing of stories—of truths—that won’t be told in the mainstream media. They also elicit free discussion of information and decisions crucial to all of us, as we seek to build a more inclusive society, a society in which everyone has a place at the table.

As a question I asked on this blog on 3 June indicates, I’m interested not merely in political and corporate censorship of such free speech, but also in censorship emanating from religious bodies (see http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2008/06/and-pilgrimage-continues_03.htmlContinues). As that question notes,

And, finally, a question: if any readers anyplace know of instances in which churches or church organizations have ever sought to use legal threats to shut down blogs discussing theological issues and issues pertaining to social justice, I’d appreciate hearing about this attempt to suppress free speech. I’m gathering information about the claim of churches or church institutions that they have the right to buy the free speech of scholars, theologians, or citizens in general, and in doing so, to censor what a scholar, theologian, or citizen might write on a blog.

Given my research into these issues, I find a report on yesterday’s AMERICAblog both interesting and alarming (see http://www.americablog.com/2008/06/blogger-arrests-increasing.html). This posting cites a recent University of Washington annual report which indicates that since 2003, 64 people have been arrested for publishing their views on a blog.

In 2007, arrests of bloggers increased dramatically: in the last year, three times as many people were arrested for blogging about political issues than in the preceding year. These bloggers exposed government corruption or human-rights abuse. The University of Washington report sees the rising number of arrests as “testament to the ‘growing’ political importance of blogging.”

The majority of these arrests have taken place outside the global North—in nations without a strong history of democratic ideals or democratic institutions. I would like to submit, however, that the fact that such arrests aren’t frequent in “democratic” societies cannot give us cause to relax our vigilance about the free speech of citizen-journalist bloggers.

I remain particularly concerned about the attempts of religious groups in North America to seek to control or shut down open discourse about the intersection of religion and politics. In our nation with the soul of a church, such discourse is vital not merely for church life, but for our political life, as well. Churches and other faith-based groups wield an inordinate amount of influence on our political sphere. For that reason alone, churches and faith-based groups require careful monitoring—especially when they use covert legal tactics to suppress free speech.

If anyone believes that such attempts by faith-based groups to suppress bloggers’ free speech are not possible in our democratic society, I recommend a series of postings on Justin Watt’s Justinsomnia blog. In September 2005, Mr. Watt published a parody of a billboard that was then being placed in major American cities (Houston, Orlando, etc.) by the faith-based group Exodus International.

The website of Exodus International notes its religious affiliation. The website’s organizational purpose statement says, “Exodus is a nonprofit, interdenominational Christian organization promoting the message of Freedom from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ” (italics in original; see http://exodus.to/content/category/6/24/57/).

In February 2006, Mr. Watt received a cease-and-desist letter from one Matthew D. Staver, Esq., of Orlando, representing Liberty Counsel. This legal organization is affiliated with Liberty University, founded by Rev. Jerry Falwell. Anyone who doubts its deep ties to the religious right need only consult the homepage of the organization, and look at the glowing endorsement of the organization by “great Christian leaders” (see www.lc.org/index.cfm?pid=14096).

Liberty Counsel’s cease-and-desist letter demanded that Mr. Watt immediately take down his blog parody of Exodus International’s billboards inviting people to leave the gay lifestyle. Fortunately—for all of us who believe in free speech and who are monitoring any attempt of faith-based organizations to censor free speech about religious and political issues—Mr. Watt resisted.

In fact, he contacted ACLU, who assisted him in combating the threat from Liberty Counsel. And he prevailed. The story drew quite a bit of media attention that shone a spotlight on covert attempts of faith-based organizations to seek to suppress free speech about political and religious issues. For a summary, see http://justinsomnia.org/2006/03/my-first-cease-and-desist-letter/. Mr. Watt’s postings indicate that his was not the only blog to receive such a threatening cease-and-desist letter from Liberty Counsel at this time: Ex-Gay Watch also received one.

Why focus attention today on a story that is now several years old? I am doing so, in part, because Mr. Staver and Liberty Counsel are surfacing again, now that California is permitting gay marriage. On 12 June, Liberty Counsel filed a petition with the California Court of Appeal to stay same-sex marriage licenses in California. The petition was denied (see Jesse McKinley, “Same-Sex Marriages Begin in California,” NY Times at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/us/17weddings.html?scp=1&sq=liberty+counsel&st=nyt).

In my view, in the wake of yesterday’s re-implementation of gay marriage in California, we are likely to see more and more attempts of faith-based groups to use any means possible—including threats to suppress bloggers’ free speech—to try to turn back the California Supreme Court decision. It is a time for vigilance, particularly for those living in battleground places like Florida, the state in which Liberty Counsel is now based. Florida is a state in which the lives of gay human beings are still being used as political tokens by the religious right, which has succeeded in placing an anti-gay initiative on the Florida ballot this election cycle.

It is a time in which churches should also be vigilant, since the suppression of free speech is never really in the best interest of churches. What must be protected at the cost of chicanery and thuggery is of dubious value. One would hope that the churches’ formulation of their beliefs and values would be compelling enough on their own merits, and would not require unethical bolstering by the legal system to compel others to endorse these beliefs and values.

Churches should also be concerned about these initiatives, particularly in battleground states like Florida, because—well, isn’t it obvious?—human beings should never be used as a means to an end. When gay human beings are being used as political bargaining chips in political games, something is wrong.

And churches should be speaking out about that, not participating in it.

Shouldn’t they?

Just a Cock-Eyed Optimist

And, on this day when California begins permitting gay couples to marry, a sign of hope: the picture to the left is from Saturday’s (14 June) Boston gay pride parade, in which Governor and First Lady Deval and Diane Patrick marched with their daughter Katherine, who recently came out as a lesbian. Refreshing and inspiring to see authentic family values in practice.

I also take hope today from an article I happened on earlier in the day—Roy Reed’s “Nellie Forbush’s Hometown.” Reed summarizes the outrage of playgoers when Nellie Forbush, a character in “South Pacific,” said her lines on a Long Island stage in 1957, proclaiming that she was from Little Rock. The reaction was driven by the fact that a week previous, mobs of white racists had assaulted those trying to integrate Central High School in Little Rock (see
http://www.lctreview.org/article.cfm?id_issue=10106306&id_article=48191561&page=1).

Reed concludes his overview of the controversy by noting how much has changed in a half century:

Nellie Forbush's town, half a century later, is utterly American. Nobody takes any notice of the integrated restaurants, restrooms, water fountains, and schools. Some of the big evangelical churches are racially mixed. The worst fear of the white supremacists has come to pass without rending the national fabric: interracial couples are seen in small but growing numbers all over Arkansas, frequently with the dreaded proof of miscegenation, the mixed-race children, all walking the aisles of the Wal-Mart stores. And American democracy, despite the prophecies of doom, keeps shambling along. Even in Little Rock.

I have no doubt that in coming weeks, we’ll hear just as many dire predictions about gay marriage rending the social fabric of the nation. Just as in 1957, those trying to stand athwart history and scream stop may resort to every dirty trick in the book to create precisely the social disorder they predict to follow, when gay people are permitted to marry.

We may—God forbid—even witness the kind of violence that was practiced by some of the goons in Southern states in 1957 to stop integration.

They may have had their say, but they did not get their way. History has proceeded along, making a huge detour around them, and, as Roy Reed says, even some churches in Little Rock are now (miracle of miracles) integrated.

The world went on then, when whites and blacks were allowed to mix and even eventually to marry, and it will go on again, once gay people are married. And looking at the picture of the Deval family proudly asserting that love trumps hate, I’m inclined to be a cock-eyed optimist about the new social developments in California.

The Place of Gay Human Beings as a Church-Dividing Issue: Again

I’m thinking these days about a theme I discussed briefly back on 22 April in my posting entitled “The Church’s One Foundation” (see http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2008/04/churchs-one-foundation-homosexuality.html). This is the claim of some church groups that homosexuality should be placed on the back burner of church discussion, since the gay issue is not truly a church-dividing issue.

The Florida United Methodist Conference has just held a “Conference Table” to which anyone in the conference is invited. The headline announcing this conference table noted that this was a table at which everyone was welcome.

The topic of this roundtable public discussion was “In Defense of Creation.” A description of the conference table topic on the website of the Florida UMC Conference notes, “IDOC2, as it is called, is the church's attempt to engage public policy on issues that most affect the human race, according to Florida Conference Bishop Timothy Whitaker, task force chairman. The document addresses three areas: nuclear proliferation, global poverty, and environmental issues” (see http://flsite.brickriver.com/event_detail.asp?PKValue=1845).

Issues that most affect the human race: nuclear proliferation, global poverty, and the environment. From one standpoint, it’s hard to argue with the claim that this configuration of issues covers the terrain admirably well—these are, indeed, among the issues most affecting the human race, the ones churches most need to address in their preaching and ministry today.

From another standpoint, however, there’s something wrong with this picture. In the first place, search as one will through the entire Florida UMC Conference website for any mention at all of homosexuality, and one draws a complete blank. Scrutinize the program for the recent Florida UMC Annual Conference meeting for any mention of the term “gay” or “homosexual/ity,” and you’ll come away with the impression that any issues revolving around those terms must have been resolved.

Because the church is totally silent about them. The church is totally silent about issues relating to homosexuality as issues most affecting the human race today.

The implication of the church’s claim that nuclear proliferation, global poverty, and the environment are the key issues affecting the human race today is that the issue of homosexuality—the place of gay human beings within the human race and the churches—is a non-issue, a side issue, one beneath notice.

But if this is the case, why did the most recent General Conference of the United Methodist Church spend an inordinate amount of time discussing that very issue? Why have state conferences such as the Florida Conference almost come to blows about that issue, such that there are fears the church may split?

If the issue of where LGBT human beings fit into the human race and the churches is a non-issue, why has every UMC General Conference for almost a decade now battled through this issue? Why is the worldwide Anglican Communion in anguish over this issue? Why are almost all the churches in the world groaning through this critically important moment of human history in which, for the first time in history, LGBT human beings are claiming the right to a place at the table, as openly gay people affirming their own God-given identities and refusing to apologize for these identities as they approach the Lord’s table?

If the question of where gay human beings are to be “placed” within the human community and the churches is a non-issue, one about which churches can justifiably be silent while discussing issues of key importance to the human race today, why have some Anglican churches in the United States chosen to break communion with gay-affirming bishops, placing themselves under the episcopal jurisdiction of bishops far from their own dioceses? Why have bishops such as Peter Akinola in Nigeria bitterly resisted inclusion of LGBT people in the churches, while bishops such as Desmond Tutu have spoken out courageously about homophobia as the new apartheid of the human race and the churches?

If the issue of where gay human beings fit is a non-issue, one about which churches may justifiably be silent when discussing the important issues facing the human community today, what is one to make of the recent announcement of the president of Gambia that he wished to see all gay persons in his country sought out and beheaded?

If the question of how to fit LGBT human beings into human society and into churches is not a premier issue causing conflict within the human community today, why did the Human Rights watch send a letter to the president of Gambia—only days before the Florida United Methodist Conference held its discussion of “the” issues that most affect the human race—noting that the president’s violent rhetoric and actions towards gay human beings violates human rights covenants and “abdicates one of the most important responsibilities of political leadership: to respect, protect, and promote the human rights of all” (see http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/06/10/gambia19088.htm)?

If the question of how our gay brothers and sisters are to be included in our human and church families is a non-issue, why did the Pope announce immediately before new year’s day that he considers the issue of protecting the family (read: of resisting gay marriage) to be one of the premier issues confronting the churches today, one to which he intended to devote primary attention in 2008?

I sense more than a bit of flim-flammery in the claim of many church folks today that the question of how to place our gay brothers and sisters is not a significant, crucial, noteworthy issue for discussion—not truly a church-dividing issue. What is really going on with this claim is a dishonorable attempt to keep gay people in the shadows—and to keep in the shadows, as well, the shameful way the churches continue to treat gay human beings.

It goes without saying that nuclear proliferation, poverty, and the environment are among the most significant issues facing the human community today. It goes without saying that churches which wish to be faithful to the example of Jesus and to the gospels should be discussing and trying to deal proactively with these issues.

But these issues do not exist in isolation from issues of gender, from issues of patriarchy. The militarism that is at the root of nuclear proliferation is rooted in male domination and exploitation of women, of anything regarded as feminine. Exploitation and destruction of the environment is intrinsically linked to patriarchal systems of social order that give men unmerited dominance over women.

As feminist theologians have long noted, the social issues demanding the critical attention of churches are all interconnected in a web, all interwoven. One cannot understand and deal with militarism, economic exploitation of minorities, or destruction of the environment without understanding and dealing with patriarchy, misogyny, and homophobia. As feminist theologians have long noted, societies that are racist are also not coincidentally almost always societies that are misogynistic and homophobic.

Nor can one understand and deal with the key issues confronting society today without confronting the unjust domination of the churches by white males who profess to be heterosexual.

Part of the silence—a big part of the self-censorship of bishops and other church leaders today, when it comes to gay issues—is a tactic of keeping at bay critique of the ways in which white males who profess to be heterosexual still control most everything in the world, including in the churches. Or perhaps particularly in the churches.

The issue of how to fit our LGBT brothers and sisters into the churches is neuralgic because it casts a spotlight on church leaders themselves—an unwanted spotlight. It casts a spotlight (an unwanted one) on how the churches treat LGBT people.

The discussion unmasks the claim that everyone is invited to the table as a false claim—a shamefully false, starkly false claim. A lie.

Churches must find ways to keep at bay the discussion of the place of their LGBT brothers and sisters at the table, because that discussion will open too many doors to questions about how the church pursues its ministries, how it deals with money, what kind of alliances with powerful people drive the churches and their rhetoric and actions.

The question of how or whether to provide a place at the table for gay human beings should, of course, never have become a church-dividing issue. No church can justifiably claim to be church, when it excludes any group from the table. Every sinner has a place at the table of the Lord. Period. No questions asked.

That is, every sinner has a place at the Lord’s table if the church setting that table wants to claim to be following in the footsteps of Jesus.

No, the question of the place of LGBT human beings at the table should never have been made a church-dividing issue. We who are gay did not choose to make this an issue. Other forces in church and society have done so, and have done so with a vengeance.

That being the case, no church today can flim-flam around the gay issue, claiming it is not and should not be a church-dividing issue, or an issue of key importance to the human community. Indeed, it might well be argued that this question of how to set a place for gay brothers and sisters is the premier issue facing all churches today—the one with the most potential to test the fidelity of churches to the gospel, the one with the strongest ability to test whether churches intend to be church at the most fundamental level possible, the only level that counts: whether churches intend to set the Lord’s table for all sinners.

The church and its bishops don’t pay any price at all, do they—really now—when they take a stand on nuclear proliferation, poverty, and the environment? But the church and its bishops do pay a price, and a steep one, when they resolutely and without qualification announce that their table is open to all, including their gay brothers and sisters, and that their institutions will demonstrate this praxis of discipleship by resolutely and without qualification discarding all forms of discrimination within church institutions against LGBT human beings.

Perhaps Bishop Whitaker and other church leaders who are flim-flamming around discussion of the place of gay brothers and sisters at the table will make the topic of their next roundtable discussion of key issues confronting the churches the following excerpt from a sermon that retired Catholic Bishop of Detroit, Thomas Gumbleton preached recently on what the Catholic liturgical calendar calls the 10^th Sunday in ordinary time. The gospel for the day was Matthew 9:9-13 (see http://ncrcafe.org/node/1907):

There are so many other ways in which we must become a welcoming community, a community that is like Jesus, that is ready to welcome sinners, to be with sinners, to be with those who others would think as not worthy. We have to become a church of great diversity, where we welcome everyone regardless of race, sexual orientation, poverty, wealth. We have to be a church of diversity. We have to share our Eucharist, we have to share our banquet, with all who are out there in the world with us.

When we can reach out as Jesus did and welcome tax collectors and sinners into our midst without making judgment, simply welcoming everyone as God does, God says, "I want mercy more than sacrifice; love more than ritual," this is what is very important and this is what we must try to make happen in our communities, in our church, and in our civil society, so that we really become one beloved community, one family of God where everyone is welcome and everyone gives thanks and gratitude for the God who shows them such love through those who follow his son, Jesus.

This is what is very important and this is what we must try to make happen in our communities, in our church, and in our civil society: to welcome everyone regardless, to share our banquet with all who are out there in the world with us.

The Banality of Evil: Further Musings

Still struggling with the banality of evil topic. I realized in the night (a tossing and turning one) that what I wrote yesterday could be read as an attack on those posters at the NCR threads as if they are evil.

But that’s not the point at all. In fact, that’s the anti-point.

My point (the point I take from Hannah Arendt’s analysis of evil) is that evil is never so easy to pinpoint. When we identify evil with a particular person or group of people, we have vitiated the analysis of the banality of evil.

Evil ensnares and traps us precisely because we don’t see it coming—not clearly. It comes in all kinds of bland disguises, including the sleep-bleared face we see looking out of the mirror at us when we get up each morning.

We know evil, we can sense its presence, when we see no hope in front of us. Because it is banal, evil does all it can to cripple our imagination, our ability to project a future full of hope, to foresee a world in which the possibility of being more adequately human is offered to everyone, and not just to a few.

Evil is what wants to stunt our ability to dream together, work together, build together.

This is why I focus my analysis yesterday on the crippling of hope among right-wing religionists today. I am not seeking to identify those right-wing political-religious activists as evil.

I am pointing out that the path they wish to set before us—a path leading nowhere, since its only word for the future is no—might turn out to be the path of evil. And it may attract us, because it is simply easier to replicate the tried and true than to set forth to the unknown.

But it is hard to justify choosing the tried and true, when its shortcomings have been definitively exposed, and call oneself a person of faith. This is the rub for religionists today. To the extent that we identify the path of faith with going nowhere except where we’ve already been, we are betraying the very core of religious faith—even when (and perhaps particularly when) we clamor loudly that we alone represent the bastion of embattled orthodoxy and divine Truth.