Must I Continue?

Must I continue to argue that a woman’s body is her own?

That a woman has all the rights and dignity pertaining to her humanity, a full and complete humanity, standing on its own in the sunlight of God’s creation and God’s purpose?

Must I continue to argue that men in their pride, men in their ignorance, have no right whatsoever to dictate to the woman the course of her health, her pregnancy, her dignity, her purpose in life?

Must I continue to argue that a woman’s purpose is fully her own? That her purpose in life is to be fully herself, as God’s purpose and God’s love unfolds that purpose for her?

Must I continue to challenge those men, and those women, who claim that a woman’s personhood, her life and purpose, her being, her humanity, is determined solely and singularly by her biology? That a woman, then, needs men around her, above her, to make those decisions that pertain to her biology, that of a being capable of becoming pregnant, and bearing a child? That this element of her being is the only element worthy of her being? Worthy of a man’s determining desire?

Must I continue to challenge the sin of white male christian supremacy? In all of its horrid manifestations and hypocritical posturing? With its Bible in hand, lofty prayers and praise songs, exulting the goodness of God and the joys of heavenly reward?

Must I continue to defend the majesty and sacredness of a woman’s body, her body, her life, her being, her soul, her destiny, as that of her own will and purpose, as she sees fit, as she measures her being, if so inclined, in the light of God’s purpose and being, seems redundant. 

For the independence of being has been thoroughly determined for that of the male species, in theology and philosophy, song and poetry, literature and art. 

So, must I conclude that those men and women who clearly affirm that a woman’s being is determined by her biology, and yet understand the independent nature of the male species, have determined that the female species is less a human being? Less qualified to enjoy the rights and dignity accorded to the male?

While some might say, “only a different human being”? 

I then ask, how different? 

How different is a short man from a tall man; a man who can sing and dance and a man who can’t; a man who loves to paint and another who grows a flower; a man who walks a thousand miles to find a home, and a man who sits by his window dreaming great ideas.

How different we all are … but differences aside, no man would suggest that any of the men so described above would be less than human, less than deserving of the full rights and liberties and responsibilities of the human race.

To deny this for women requires a mental breakdown, a failure of nerve and intelligence, a complete misconstrual of reality, and likely a meanness of spirit, a foulness of soul, a willingness to condemn some to a lesser status of being, because of their “difference.”

Must I continue to engage in this struggle?

Yes, I must … and I will … for those who would take away the rights and dignity of a woman remain determined and full of self-righteousness, a heady mess of bad theology and twisted instincts.

Yes, and so I will … and to anyone reading this note, I encourage you to stand fast, to resist the cult of white male christian supremacy, to resist it for what it is, a script from hell, a deadly idea suitable to preserving the power of some at the expense of many.

If you’re a Christian, I’ll say it, loudly and clearly: white male christian supremacy is NOT the way of Christ … but rather the Tempter in the Wilderness, who offered to Christ the easy way out, appealing to easy answers, and all of them completely wrong.

Finally, whatever your faith may be, your stance on life, the same conclusions are clear in every soul. Those who resist the rights of a woman know they’re wrong, and thus continue their murderous ways by increasing levels of vehemence and vitriol, to cover up the cries of their own soul.

Keep up the good work, dear friends, and do not relent.

We must continue!

We Cannot Forget!

We cannot forget the momentous effort to roll back the tide of fascism that swept the world into chaos, a maelstrom of hate and horror, targeting the Jews, Communists, LGBTQ persons, and trade unions, and anyone else who didn't meet the Aryan standards of whiteness. 

Nor must we forget that powerful interests in the United States expressed sympathy for the leaders of fascism: for Mussolini in Italy, Hitler in Germany, Franco in Spain. There were many in the United States who shared Hitler's hatred of Jews and people of color.

We must not forget that Christians and their church officials across Europe welcomed these fascists dictators because they all returned the church to a place of prominence. 

Big Business around the world feared Communism (read: Worker's Rights) and were more than happy to do business with the Fascists who signed in blood their hatred of Communism and Atheism. And to this very day, such interests still use the term "Communist" or "Socialist" to fire the blood of those easily misled.

On this days, tens of thousands of young men stormed the beaches of Normandy, and nurses and staff and journalists were right there, too. Americans, Canadians, British, Free French, and nationals from the Netherlands and Poland, and the Scandinavian countries, fought for one another, for freedom, and for Democracy. 

January 6 of this year, the GOP incited hundreds of misguided people to storm the Capital and overturn a free and democratic election.Across the nation, even as I write, the GOP is dismantling our Democracy through voter suppression, reinstating capital punishment, bleeding to death our educational system, and more than happy to leave millions of Americans behind, so that the rich can prosper all the more.

I will never forget my visit to Normandy some years back - a sacred silence takes hold of everyone who strolls among the graves and reads the memorials. Silence, a testament to the magnitude of the Evil that confronted our world, and a testament to the good that rose up in concert and made the fateful decision to wrest the conquered nations from the grip of tyranny and restore the world. 

It's a battle that never ends, and I pray that women and men of good conscience will lead us in the struggle to resist fascist instincts, to sustain our Democratic principles - that all are welcome, everyone can vote, schools are safe and well-funded, with a decent social safety net  for all.

Is this too much for which to hope?

Not at all.

Anything less would be a betrayal of those young soldiers who stepped off the landing crafts into a hail of bullets to reclaim the lands of Europe. God rest their souls.

"The Second Founding" by Eric Foner

A little "book review" by way of an email: "The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution," by Eric Foner ...  

Dr. Foner,

Many thanks for your recent book, “The Second Founding.” Shedding light on the jurisprudence (or the lack thereof) surrounding, not only the Constitution, but the Reconstruction Amendments.

I’m a retired Presbyterian minister living in Pasadena, enjoying the sunshine, having survived, “just barely,” the Donald Trump years, and fully realizing now that Trump was an “illustration” of ideas long regnant in the reactionary elements of American culture. I knew this, but never had I read a book specifically on the three Amendments, and the promise they still hold, and how the Court has so consistently, frustratingly, been willing to walk them back, or at least to walk them into a few places 

never intended.

You have made a lasting contribution to America’s quest for social health.

I purchased the book from a local book dealer (not Amazon, ha!) in Pasadena, Vroman’s - you may have heard of them, after hearing Fareed Zakaria so favorably review it.

As of late, I have found two other books, by historians, now a part of my little pantheon: “How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America," by Heather Cox Richardson, and “Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation,” by Kristin Kobes DuMez.

Anyway, I remain both fearful and hopeful for the welfare of our nation - there are terrible forces guided by “Plantation Capitalists” … and still forces of hope, as well, pursuing the “better angels.”

All the best.

My deepest thanks.

Tom
The Rev. Dr. Tom Eggebeen
Pasadena, CA

If Kavanaugh Is Confirmed

If Kavanaugh is confirmed, and I'm sure it'll happen, and then, sometime in the not too distant future, Roe v. Wade will be overturned, then the great Southern hope will come true - that states' rights will prevail over national purpose and unity.

Of course, some states will allow for the rights of women to make their own medical choices regarding pregnancy. Others, of course, chomping even now at the bit, will pass draconian laws against all such rights and freedoms.

This is what the South has always wanted, in order to protect and promote its own racist "peculiar institution," and it's now the evangelical way, as well, to protect and promote their own religious "peculiar institution."

The antebellum Southern Gentlemen in his time, and today's evangelicals, are all too similar in their lack of interest in the welfare of the nation or the common good above personal interest. Both, in their respective times, perceive their own interests to be of such a godly and virtuous proportion as to merit supremacy over all other considerations of national good and personal freedom.

As in other times, so today, American continues to face the largest questions of the Union - what's needed to keep us intact as a nation, with high ideals of welcome and freedom of thought, expression and endeavor, versus a smaller version of nationhood, driven by factionalism and small ideas pertinent to local customs or religious camps.

Moving ahead, in fits and starts, sometimes falling backward into fear and bigotry, we'll continue to march on. I have no doubt that the "south" will again lose the war, but at great cost to all. It's a storm we'll weather, but like any great storm, there will be damage, requiring of us a mighty effort to build for a new day.

There Is Another America

There is another America.*
One gracious and kind.
Wise and giving.

With leaders who care.
And schools that excel.
And churches filled with hope.

Churches and mosques and temples.
Gatherings of those who care and love.
Who believe in God, or the gods, or the universe.

A land of vision and sorrow.
Sorrow for the buffalo.
And Indigenous Peoples.

Sorrow for slavery.
And sorrow for our greed.
And sorrow for our hideous ambitions.

And vision, too.
The undying vision of liberty, welcome and inclusion.
The vision of peace and wellbeing.

With strong government to keep in check:
The worst of our financial impulses.
To promote the sharing of wealth.

Women and men of integrity.
To walk the halls of congress.
And sit upon the bench.

To enact the common good.
To defend it's reach and breadth.
To build up and make good.

For all its people.
And all its creatures.
All the trees and all the birds.

Yes, there is another America.
It's my America.
And yours, too.

Let freedom ring.
Let truth be told.
Let our beloved Statue of Liberty be proud.

Of the America we are.
The America we must be.
The America of which we sing:

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

*Inspired by Kay Boyle's 1953 essay in "The Nation," "Farewell to Europe" ... from her book, "Words that Must be Said Somehow" ...

Immigrants, Talent, Future

Reading a novel about Berlin, 1939, and the shadow of hatred darkening the landscape of the nation, draping everyone in a curtain of fear and suspicion, with the doors and windows of life slowly closing on the Jew, and being locked.

The author, Jane Thynne, The Pursuit of Pearls, captures the insanity of it all - the plodding, determined, logical, reasonable insanity of the Nazis to refine the race and purify the nation, ridding themselves of anyone and everything that stained their collective sense of racial greatness.

It occurred to me, while reading, all the lost talent ... not that life and people is all about talent, as if human beings were simply a commodity to be traded upon.

But talent it is of which I'm thinking - the artist and the poet, the physician and the philosopher, the seamstress and the jeweler, the chef and the athlete, the writer and the musician, the comedian and the architect, and so much more - all of it lost to the ages, because of some insane desire to protect the nation from impurity.

In the hideous gas chambers of Hitler's regime, what inestimable treasure was lost - the children who once knew laughter, the families and the Sunday afternoon outing at the park, the books that now would never be written, the songs never sung, the ideas never born, the love never given and received.

I think of our times now, and those who so "reasonably" fear the "immigrant" - that catchall phrase that gathers up all the anger and fear of a nation undergoing tremendous demographic change, because of the Statue of Liberty guarding the New York Harbor. Welcome, it says, welcome to a land of hope and opportunity, a land wherein all have a chance to achieve their best intentions and realize their abilities to make this a better world.

And now, some would take millions of people and send them packing. These red-faced, pinch-eyed, politicians would gladly break up families, condemning children to endless terror and their parents to untold sorrow.

Who are these politicians that speak so harshly, and sound, at least to their eager fans, so reasonable, so logical, so patriotic?

And what will be our loss, if I may put it in computable terms?

The books that remain to be written ... the science that remains to be enlarged ... the thoughts and talents of millions that will enrich our nation, flavor our culture, energize our economy, adding depth and delight to our future.

These mean-spirited politicians drag out statistics to prove that our immigrants are terrible people, and there are those who are more than happy to denounce the immigrant as a job-stealer, a rapist, and a drug-dealer.

Sounds to me too much like Nazi Germany - the vilification of the Jew, the Gypsy and the Slav - all of them, and more, undesirable.

Well, what's gained in all of this?

As the Nazis found in the rubble of Berlin, nothing is gained, and the losses are unimaginably huge.

Those who would live in nation with windows and doors sealed shut will soon run out of fresh air, and lo and behold will quickly discover that all the "bad" things imagined or real about the immigrant are painfully present in those ensconced in their version of racial purity and national pride. That which they fear in the "other," is present within their own soul and mind, and thus there will never be peace, within or without.

And the loss is unimaginable.

Fundamentalism and Capitalism Are in Love

It's impossible to say who's using whom in the strange, if not demonic, alliance between fundamentalist christianity and hyper-conservative capitalism currently carrying such a big stick in our churches and in our national politics.

Each of them, by themselves, is dangerous enough, because both eliminate all ambiguity. For them, "truth" is clear, and clearly in their possession. Questions are not allowed and swift is their punishment of doubters and naysayers.

Together, they represent the very worst of human potential: repression of creativity, restrictions of freedom of thought and choice, mistrust of scientific exploration and education ... and the subsequent elevation and apotheosis of market forces, the reliance upon military means to harness the world and the love of wealth as proof of divine providence.

We live in fateful times, as we witness the coalescence of dangerous impulses, multiplying their effectiveness and threat.

It's happened before, so we know that it can't last. Sooner or later, the human spirit, the divine spirit, mitigates these demonic forces, raises up prophets who shed light upon their evil and call them to account, generates creativity, new choices and the unexpected breakthrough ... sooner or later, history corrects itself, but not without damage and sorrow.

On Bonhoeffer's Date of Execution, April 9, 1945

From his "Ethics" ... something I have relied upon since the early 70s ...

The responsible man acts in the freedom of his own self, without the support of men, circumstances or principles, but with a due consideration for the given human and general conditions and for the relevant questions of principle. The proof of his freedom is the fact that nothing can answer for him, nothing can exonerate him, except his own deed and his own self. It is he himself who must observe, judge, weigh up, decide and act. It is man himself who must examine the motives, the prospects, the value and the purpose of his action. But neither the purity of the motivation, nor the opportune circumstances, nor the value, nor the significant purpose of an intended undertaking can become the governing law of his action, a law to which he can withdraw, to which he can appeal as an authority, and by which he can be exculpated and acquitted. For in that case he would indeed no longer be truly free. The action of the responsible man is performed in the obligation which alone gives freedom and which gives entire freedom, the obligation to God and to our neighbour as they confront us in Jesus Christ. At the same time it is performed wholly within the domain of relativity, wholly in the twilight which the historical situation spreads over good and evil; it is performed in the midst of the innumerable perspectives in which every given phenomenon appears. …. … responsible action is a free venture; it is not justified by any law; it is performed without any claim to a valid self-justification, and therefore also without any claim to an ultimate valid knowledge of good and evil. Good, as what is responsible, is performed in ignorance of good and in the surrender to God of the deed which has become necessary and which is nevertheless, or for that very reason, free; for it is God who sees the heart, who weighs up the deed, and who directs the course of history.

Roman Catholics and Religious Freedom

Nope! Not buying this line of argument. It's not about religious freedom, as if this has ever been the concern of the Bishops' Club? 

Let's be honest, shall we? It's about control of women and their bodies, because women and their bodies are nothing more than incubators for little Bishops and Cardinals and Priests and maybe even a Pope, not to mention soldiers who were the cannon fodder of Catholic nations for centuries, as they fought one another and colonized the world.

And what a great way (someone is getting a raise on this one) to deflect interest from the plague of sex-abuse that has crippled the church and destroyed the lives of tens of thousands of Roman Catholics and their families.

Go to war with the President, and veil it as a defense of religious freedom. 

Women, kiss your hard-won freedoms goodbye if these silly boys with their flaming hats and lacy vestments win the day.

And to anyone who cares about truth and freedom, don't let these ploys turn the investigative spotlight away from the culture of sex-abuse that has long permeated the privileged Bishops' Club and their predatory priests.

Abortion

Just saw a pathetic, emotion-laded video on the "evils "of Obama and his stance on abortion.

Check it out if you will, right HERE. Check out all the related crap - amazing how some folks fail to think, and how they hide their bigotry behind religion.

A friend sent it to me ... sent to her by a "friend."

Here's what I wrote in response:

What about the 30,000 children who die every day from starvation, who die hideous deaths wrapped in filthy blankets, in part, because the Bush Administration fights family planning, has failed to even try to stop genocide, and has failed to help the world redistribute food stuffs to the most needy.

The right-wing turns a blind eye to all of this suffering and then goes all-out on abortions, most of which are done early-on, and most of which are done well.

Abortion remains a hard choice that belongs to every family, every woman ... not that every family or woman makes the best choice, but then not everyone with a driver's license drives well. In so many instances, the choices are not between good and bad, but between bad and bad. It's a hard world, and for millions of mothers, only hard choices.

It's about fundamental freedoms, and both as a Christian ("for freedom Christ has set us free") and as an American, we enjoy tremendous freedoms. At what price are we willing to forgo such freedom?

Since many unwanted pregnancies occur under harsh circumstances, dealing with poverty, sex education and improving people's circumstances will go a long way in limiting unwanted pregnancy.

We have to deal with the REAL issues rather than salving our emotions with emotional nonsense like the video.

We have to choose to think, and those who follow Jesus have to be comprehensive thinkers and doers, because God so loves the world. To ignore the 30,000 children who die every day from starvation brought about by war and disease, and to get all put-out about a very few late-term abortions here in America, is the highest crime against God and humanity.

Shame on Christians who turn a blind eye to the big picture and strain a gnat out of the cup - isn't that what Jesus said to the Pharisees? And getting spiritually uppity on a very small matter while ignoring the tide of death sweeping our world, now intensified by the economic collapse brought about the Reagan-Bush doctrine, will only intensify the power of death.

Just some thoughts ... pray that the hardened hearts of the religious right will be thawed by the grace of Jesus our Lord.

For Jesus ...

Hillary

I've slipped behind on this blog ... so much happening ... busier than a cat on a hot tin roof, or as my dad used to say, "busier than a one-armed paper-hanger."

But all good, and all good is the way I see our current political process.

I'm a Hillary guy, but how exciting to see both parties duking it out amongst themselves - the best way to clarify the issues and compel the candidates to speak their minds and their hearts.

Which Kerry failed to do. John Kerry's campaign failed at the point of honesty. He's a good man, but failed to speak his mind and heart - which gave rise to the suspicion that he had neither. Bush obviously had neither, but his willingness to speak a clear word convinced enough folks in Ohio to win the day of the Repubs.

I was a bit fearful for Hillary at this point - good rhetoric and confidence, but wanting to please too many by refraining from too much.

Her social vision is compassionate and compelling, and she needs to articulate it clearly and proudly.

As for Thompson, he's tanked. But who knows?

The Huck is history ... his oily smile and smooth talk Southern Baptist piety won't fly in this country right now. Maybe a few years ago, but the ruse of religion used by the Bush Gang has thoroughly soured millions of religious voters who have finally seen their callow and callous machinations for what they are - using "religious boobs" to foster their own agenda.

Dobson and Gang are old hat these days, their empty-headed ranting going nowhere fast. The tainted televangelists under investigation by the Senate is further revealing how corrupt and self-serving is the powerful TV-religion establishment. Millions of hard-earned dollars sent in the name of Jesus spent on jets, fast cars and lavish homes in posh neighborhoods. Ya, right!

But it's a great country, and our greatness is revealed in our freedom to plow through tough ideas, offer up thoughts and challenge one another in the Spirit of Democracy.

Hats off to the process, and may the candidates grow increasingly bold in stating their minds and hearts, dealing with the issues, offering policies and refraining from the ad hominem strategies that characterized so much the political debate the last few years, especially in the ranks of the "righteous right" and their lugubrious posturings.

I'm going to sit back and watch the fireworks ... great show that it is ... some will fizzle, some already have, and a few will reach high into the sky with glorious color and sound. And the winner is ....