Confronting Them and Us

Talking Cents,    Kevin McBride        February 2013

Talking Cents is an ecumenical group charged by the Anglican Diocesan Council to promote an alternative to current economic and political thought, and to encourage debate within the church. Ministry units are encouraged to distribute these articles. This article is contributed by Kevin McBride of Pax Christi Aotearoa-New Zealand

On the morning of Thursday 14 December, I was one of a group of delegates to a World Council of Churches (WCC) Working Party driving across the 38th parallel and into the Demilitarized Zone which still divides the Korean Peninsula into two vastly unequal countries. The Armistice which brought an end to the fighting in 1953 has, after 60 years, not resulted in a Peace Agreement, so in effect, the Cold War which led to the outbreak of hostilities, was resumed, not ended, by the armistice. Only the shooting stopped. This was dramatically brought home to us as we gazed across the border from the shelter of the public observation post into the bleak landscape to the North, aware that not too far away, North Korean observers were likewise gazing at us. In the -20C temperatures outside the building, it was not difficult to sense the continuing chilly division of the world into them and us, "good guys and bad guys", in an ongoing struggle for dominance.

The WCC Working Party had been called to develop plans for the next World Assembly which is to be held in Busan, South Korea, in October/November of this year. Its specific objective was to find ways to focus attention at the Busan gathering on the need to address ongoing issues relating to world peace and well-being arising from the continuing threats provided by nuclear arms and risky nuclear power. At the meeting, evidence was provided showing that a great number of the world's nuclear weapons are in the North-East Asia region together with the greatest number of operating nuclear power plants. This is a veritable time-bomb with the ever-present threat of both nuclear weapon use and, as the destruction of the Fukashima nuclear power plant showed, for damage from nuclear contamination. In spite of this, the situation is sustained by governments and corporations driven by what Pope John Paul II called "an overwhelming desire for profit and a thirst for power".

The sense of imminent danger has been intensified in the Asia-Pacific region over the first decade of this century by growing rivalry between US and China for dominance in the Pacific, by flare-ups over territory and resources (eg in the Spratley and Sensaku/Diaoyu  islands) and by increasing awareness of the dangers provided by nuclear power plants, particularly in earthquake and tsunami-prone areas. Newly-elected leaders in both Japan and South Korea have taken more aggressive approaches than their predecessors, deepening fears of descent into a new Cold War in the region. Meanwhile, North Korea has done little to lessen the tension by successfully testing a long-range ballistic missile capable of carrying its newly-developed nuclear weapons well into Japan and possibly further across the Pacific. This in turn, is used as an excuse to ship more US missiles into Japan and South Korea, the latter having 30,000 US troops to supplement the already extensive national military forces. "Immense resources are diverted from the basic needs of people to sustain armies and armaments on both sides of the demilitarized zone."

One of the issues which arose repeatedly at the Seoul consultation was the malign influence of outside interests on the lives of a nation of people. Some of the local people there had originated in North Korea and many had family and church connections across the artificial border. These families had lived through a history which saw an ancient, civilised and united nation invaded and dominated by Japan from 1910 until 1945 when it was divided between World War 'winners', US and USSR. Each of its competing dictatorial leaders, northern communist Il-Sung and southern capitalist Rhee, sought to re-unite the nation but only led it into a disastrous war, eventually halted by the 1953 Armistice. Following that, resources and support from the West developed the South into one of today's economic giants, whose 50 million people enjoy an advanced standard of living, with Seoul standing out as a thriving modern city. Meanwhile, as the USSR collapsed, China focussed on its own economic growth and international aid came and went, the 21 million people of the North have fallen into economic disaster, where harsh winters and famines have led to thousands of deaths and chronic malnutrition. What wealth has accrued has been diverted into countering a paranoic fear of attack by the West, particularly following US President George Bush including it in an "axis of evil" which, like Iraq and Iran, had to be excised. Currently, a nuclear-armed North faces a South "protected" by US weapons and troops and economically dependent on 24 nuclear power sites, some of which are considered beyond their use-by date. "In the midst of this insecurity, the people of Korea, in the North and the South, have stated their longing for a just and sustainable peace, normalization of relations on the peninsula, and the pursuit of peaceful steps to reunification." *

Somehow, all this 'us-them' confrontation was dramatically present on that chilly border on 14 December and brought to mind all the other 'us-them' divisions which rend and threaten our world. A recent visitor to Afghanistan brought back two quotations which illustrate this:"The powers will not let people live in peace" (Afghan elder in refugee camp 6 December 2012) and "Poverty is pushing people to take up arms" (member of Afghan Peace Volunteers). The experience of people from Africa, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific would say the same.

In confronting such issues in Seoul, the WCC Working Party had two main challenges to put to the coming Busan Assembly and also to member churches world-wide:        develop the concept of sang-saeng (living together in justice and peace)·         initiate a process of exodus from the dangers and instability of the nuclear regime; exodus to the safety and shared human security of a nuclear-free world.*

Specifically, this would mean:

Developing an 'Exodus' concept as part of churches' understanding of nuclear threats, with special attention to the NE Asia context: exodus from nuclear dangers, threats and false security (Korea, Japan, Taiwan, etc); exodus to a world free of nuclear contamination and the risk of annihilation; an exodus from over-consumption and from lifestyles complicit with abundant  energy production and pollution (widespread in Global North, growing in Global South); exodus to the freedom and responsibility of adopting safer, more just and more sustainable sources of energy; the need to abandon nuclear umbrellas and reject nuclear deterrence (Korea, Japan, Taiwan. Europe), while promoting cooperative security and advocating for more countries to join the growing nuclear-weapon-free zones. *

Currently, it seems that our churches too readily accept a world divided into us and them and thus condone the excessive expenditure on weapons and market values which promote profitable energy-production systems rather than utilising earth-and people-friendly options. We buy into the unsustainable status quo rather than seek alternatives which respect the integrity of Creation and the unity of humanity in all our diversity. If the recommendations of the Seoul Working Party are accepted, the coming World Council Assembly in Busan will challenge that position and lead us to take a far more proactive approach towards a nuclear-free, sustainable and peaceful world.

Maybe even to think of 'them and us' as 'we'.

*(WCC Nuclear Advocacy Consultation Working Party, Seoul 10-12 December 2012).

Received via Peace Movement Aotearoa

We have to care about this contempt for the public

Be it lip-synching or doping, deception abounds. The danger is that we'll soon stop feeling outraged over this erosion in trust

Gary Younge                         Guardian/UK                           27 January 2013

In the science fiction film The Matrix, all-powerful machines transform the planet into a huge computer simulation where humans exist only in a dream world. Among the few sentient "free" people left fighting the machines is Cypher, who abandons the struggle following a revelation: he actually prefers the simulation to reality. "I know this steak doesn't exist," he says "I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realise?" He chews the steak ostentatiously and sighs. "Ignorance is bliss."

Over the past few weeks it seems as though this dystopian future has come early. Whether it's Beyoncé lip-synching the national anthem at the presidential inauguration, British shops selling beefburgers laced with horse meat, or Lance Armstrong doping his way into the record books, what you see, taste or hear is not necessarily what you get. Authenticity and transparency, it turns out, are just two options among many. Worse still, we all too often actively collude in the deception on the grounds that the version of events that has been created for us is preferable to the truth.

These examples, it should be stressed, are not equivalent. Beyoncé mimed to the sound of her own pre-recorded voice; Armstrong broke the law, lied about it, and then choreographed his confessions; British consumers were given contaminated meat courtesy of foreign farmers, pliant retailers and lax regulations. Not all deceptions are equal; but they are all deceptions nonetheless. Indeed the only things they have in common are their brazen duplicity, contempt for the public, and the erosion in trust they engender.

Lip-synching is apparently common at big events, particularly when it's cold.  What's the big deal? Well, it makes a difference. The essence of a live performance is the understanding that the audience is experiencing the event in real time and anything can happen. It is that combination of synchronicity, spontaneity and frailty that gives live performances their edge – it's the one take that matters.

But all of this would have been insignificant if we'd been told beforehand rather than having to find out. Instead we were treated to Potemkin on the Potomac: the band members pretended to play, the director pretended to conduct, Beyoncé pretended to sing, and everybody involved pretended they didn't know for several days. Lip-synching may not be a crime, but the cover-up was definitely heinous.

Our expectations are so lowered that we reckon on being lied to and those in power reckon on lying to us. Indifference and scepticism become our default positions. When beefburgers may or may not contain beef, and all feats – sporting, musical or otherwise – are discounted for doping and lip-synchs, we should be concerned.

When Beyoncé sings at the Superbowl next month, we'll wonder. The next inauguration we'll wonder. Words we thought we understood – "live", "beef", "world record" – become depleted of meaning. What we see is no longer what we get, but what we're given and what we know is only what we're told. Ignorance may be blissful, but it's still ignorance.                    [Abridged]

Twitter:@garyyounge

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/27/we-ought-to-care-beyonce-faked-it

Godless Christians

New Lamps for Old         Posted by Arthur Palmer      1 Feb. 2013

There are some good Christians who are alarmed at what they see as a lamentable abandonment of age-old understandings of the faith. In my youthful days the Student Christian Movement was often patronised or dismissed as the “Slightly Christian Movement”, because it sought new metaphors and fresh ways of relating inherited concepts to the secular world we live in now. The resistance continues.

We owe a debt to writers like ian Harris who use modern language to give voice to concepts and stories that have Christian roots, and speak to our day and age.  Traditional Faith language still speaks to some, but few of our secular citizens find inspiration and energy for living in the language of yesterday.

Ian Harris’s writing will often appear on this blog.

         Godless Christians      Ian Harris     Otago Daily Times    Jan. 25, 2013

British actress Helen Mirren and Astronomer Royal Martin Rees are poles apart in their life paths and achievements, but they share a very modern trend in religion: they are Christians who don’t believe in God. Not so long ago such a perspective would have been unthinkable. Yet today many who regularly go to church (and many more who do not) would agree with Mirren and Rees. I know ministers who lean the same way.

           

For some it’s a position they’ve come to as they wrestle with their understanding of the world around them, in which traditional definitions of God no longer compute. Others have a lingering sense of being Christian, but it has more to do with cultural identity than theological perception.

Such identity appears uppermost for Mirren, who said this month: “I can't help being Christian because I was brought up in Britain and the morality of Christianity is part of the fabric of this country – but I don't believe in God. I do believe in treating other people as you'd want to be treated and being empathetic.”  That echoes the comment of Baron Rees, who describes himself as “a churchgoer who doesn’t believe in God”.  “I share with religious people a concept of the mystery and wonder of the universe and even more of human life, and therefore participate in religious services,” he said. “And of course those that I participate in are, as it were, the ‘customs of my tribe’, which happens to be the Church of England.”

Clearly, Mirren and Rees affirm a religious identity that has left behind a theistic concept of God.

That raises one of the key questions facing Christianity today: Can a person claim to be Christian if he or she doesn’t affirm the traditional Judaeo-Christian view of God as a personal being existing in a supernatural world, overseeing life on this planet, and intervening in it directly from time to time?

That, however, is not the only view of God open to us today. Religious ideas evolve along with everything else, and 21st-century Christianity doesn’t have to accept uncritically the formulations of past ages, though many Christians will continue to find security and purpose within them.

Before theism, different societies created a range of gods, each with its own niche in the scheme of things, to provide a sense of security in a world full of uncertainty and peril. Among them were gods of nature, such as the sea, weather and harvest; gods of tribes and nations, as of Israel and Rome; gods of peace, love and war. They met people’s spiritual needs and, importantly, were at one with the knowledge of the time.

Then came the monotheistic challenge, which reduced the many gods of polytheism to one all-encompassing deity. This God possessed all the positive attributes prized by people everywhere, with no restriction of space, time and mortality. Uppermost were infinite wisdom, infinite power, infinite love, and a supreme will. For hundreds of years this God met people’s spiritual needs and dovetailed with the knowledge of the time.

In our own era another shift in religious thinking is under way, and to many it is most uncomfortable. American Episcopal (Anglican) Bishop John Spong sums it up starkly: “The God we have defined theistically is simply no longer believable.” Traditional Christians will dispute that, but others will cheer him for saying what they have been groping towards. Either way, it is no wonder that millions in the West are quietly letting that theistic image of God go, with censuses recording a continual rise in those who tick the “no religion” option.

That is an inevitable trend, since church teaching over many centuries has identified God indelibly with theism. It leaves people who no longer find this persuasive with nowhere to go. Is it time, then, to rule off on God? Not at all!

Spong goes on: “As a human idea, theism can die without God dying.” There is a way of thinking about God beyond the real and objective being of traditional theism.

It would mean going back to basics and acknowledging that every idea of God is a human creation – and human creativity lives on. In the modern world it is therefore open to us to reconceive God as a powerful symbol – indeed the most powerful symbol we are capable of – in a way that reflects not only core elements of every major religion, but also a secular understanding of the world.

I shall suggest one way of doing that next time.

http://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/opinion/243543/christian-without-belief-god-no-problem

The UK Census

Ian Harris                    Otago Daily Times                   Jan. 11, 2012

How things change! Before the latest British census, taken in March 2011, humanists and atheists were loud in their protests about a question asking: What is your religion? They argued that the wording assumed people had a religion when in fact they might not –even though the first option offered was “no religion”. So the British Humanist Association ran a campaign urging those of no religion: “For God’s sake, say no.” Excuse me?

The humanists feared that if too many people answered “Christian”, this would be used to justify public spending on church schools, services and chaplaincies. That happened after the 2001 census (the first time a question on religious identity was included) recorded 72 per cent of the population of England and Wales as Christian. The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science devised a counter-strategy, commissioning a survey of people who had identified as Christian in the census to probe what they meant by that. It found a lot of fuzziness. Only 31 per cent of the Christian sample said they ticked the box because they tried seriously to follow the teachings of Christianity, while 50 per cent did not think of themselves as “religious” at all. Outside of a church service, 37 per cent never prayed, 15 per cent never read the Bible – and 49 per cent hadn’t been to church in the preceding year.

When the census results came out last month, those atheist forebodings turned to whoops of glee. The tally of Christians in England and Wales had slipped from 37.3 million to 33.2 million, while those of no religion had soared from 7.7 million to 14.1million. As a proportion of the total population, Christians had dropped sharply in 10 years from 72 to 59 per cent, and those with no religion had leapt from 15 to 25 per cent. Meanwhile Muslims almost doubled to 2.7 million, which is 5 per cent of the overall population – and 12 per cent of London’s.

Reactions have been predictable. The National Secular Society trumpets the data as “a major reverse for Christianity”. The Humanist Association notes “a major cultural shift”. Anti-religion crusader Dawkins is delighted, though he greatly overstates when he gloats that religion in Britain is “a spent force”. On his own survey, there’s a committed core of 10.3 million Christians among those who ticked “Christian”. And just watch those Muslims dig in!

Christian leaders found the figures “challenging”, which has to be a masterly understatement. The Catholic Bishops’ Conference commented: “Christianity is no longer a religion of culture but a religion of decision and commitment. People are making a positive choice in self-identifying as Christians.”

A similar shift is occurring in New Zealand, and faster than in Britain. Our census next March will probably reveal another rise for “no religion”, and for the first time since the 1840s Christians could drop below 50 per cent. Reasons for this are much the same as those being aired in Britain. There is the elementary issue of definition: What is religion? In self-identifying with a religion (or not), what part do belief, vision, family heritage, upbringing and sense of community play? Some people say they are spiritual, but not religious: what do they mean by that?

On the definition of religion as “a total mode of the interpreting and living of life”, the word could cover any or all of belief, orientation, practice, attending places of worship, notions of God, meditation, prayer. All of those vary widely from faith to faith, and within them. And where Dawkins’ survey unearthed different views of God among census Christians, research by the Christian think tank Theos found that 23 per cent of atheists believe in the soul, 15 per cent in life after death, and 14 per cent in reincarnation. It’s a very muddy pool.

Census responses could also reflect the revulsion that many people, and not only atheists, feel over reports of child abuse by paedophile priests, terrorist attacks by Muslim extremists, resistance to women as priests and/or bishops in Catholicism and in sections of the Anglican Communion, moral absolutism contending with secular tolerance, hostility towards homosexuals, an anti-scientific fundamentalism lurking in every faith, human interpretation promoted as divine truth.

Our age is marked by a growing suspicion and distrust of institutions – but religions need their institutions in order to survive and serve. Their slowness to adapt adequately to the new reality of western secular culture means that they struggle to communicate with society at large.

The British census shows where that is taking them.

     

The legacy of Martin Luther is recognised, lauded and celebrated around the world. In USA where he was born and lived he is honoured by having his birthday observed as a national holiday. But we are very selective about what we choose to remember and also about what we ignore; his anti-militarism perhaps being regarded as an idealistic hope of little value in these turbulent times.

We remember the courage of the non-violent protesters, inspired by King's passion for justice, who succeded in changing unjust racist laws, but pass quickly over his condemnation of militarism.

We have no excuse for such selectivity. History has proven him right. Glenn Greenwald reminds us of the prophetic words that were ignored during the Vietnam War, and are equally ignored today.

I'd be interested in your thoughts.

Arthur

 MLK's Condemnations of U.S Militarism are More Relevant Than Everby Glenn Greenwald                          Guardian/UK                                   January 21, 2013

The civil right achievements of Martin Luther King are quite justly the focus of the annual birthday commemoration of his legacy. But it is remarkable how completely his vehement anti-war advocacy is ignored when commemorating his life. By King's own description, his work against US violence and militarism, not only in Vietnam but generally, was central to his worldview and activism, yet it has been almost completely erased from how he is remembered.

King argued for the centrality of his anti-militarism advocacy most eloquently on April 4, 1967, at Riverside Church in New York City - exactly one year before the day he was murdered. In that speech, King called the US government "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today". He insisted that no significant social problem - wealth inequality, gun violence, racial strife - could be resolved while the US remains "a nation that continues to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift" - a recipe, he said, for certain "spiritual death".

Working against US imperialism was, he said, "the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation's self-defined goals and positions." For King, opposing US violence in the world was not optional but obligatory: "We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for victims of our nation and for those it calls enemy .

Obama will always be linked in history to King because his election (and re-election) as America's first African-American president is an inspiring by-product of King's work on racial justice. But this symbolic link has another, less inspiring symbolic meaning: Obama's policies are a manifestation of exactly the militaristic mindset which King so eloquently denounced. Obama has always been fond of invoking King's phrase "fierce urgency of now", yet ironically, that is lifted from this anti-war speech, one that stands as a stinging repudiation of the continuous killing and violence Obama has spent the last four years unleashing on many countries around the world’

 King bravely urged: "the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence" is it "helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves". King explained: "from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition."

King made the same argument about Communists: that western militarism is not a solution to that ideology but is precisely what drives people to embrace it. He quoted a Vietnamese Buddhist leader who wrote that "each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnames"; that "the Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies"; and that "Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat."

Citing the massive violence brought by the US to the world, King urged: "How can they trust us when now we . . . charge them with violence while we pour every new weapon of death into their land? Surely we must understand their feelings even if we do not condone their actions." Anticipating the predictable smears of him that he knew were coming from making this argument - from pointing out the US's own responsibility for the violence and extremism it claimed to be fighting - he said: "We must not call everyone a Communist or an appeaser who . . . recognizes that hate and hysteria are not the final answers to the problem of these turbulent days."
One of the best decisions the US ever made was to commemorate King's birthday as a national holiday. He's as close to a prophet as American history offers. But the distance between the veneration expressed for him and the principles he espoused seems to grow every year. [Abridged]

© 2012 Guardian News

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/21/king-obama-drones-militarism-sanctions-iran

Glenn Greenwald is a columnist on civil liberties and US national security issues for the Guardian.