Reaction to Obama speech shows decline of political discourse

‘Best political speech’ praise shows how ‘grievances’ have replaced reality as the basis for discussion

“Barack Obama this week gave the best political speech since John Kennedy talked about his Catholicism in Houston in 1960,” Nicholas Kristof wrote in the March 20 New York Times. He praised the way it acknowledged “complexity, nuance and legitimate grievances on many sides.”

The nuance part is indeed commendable. The ability to disagree firmly with extreme views while maintaining a cordial – even affectionate – personal relationship with people who hold those views might help restore some civility to public discourse.

On the other hand, I wonder about Kristof’s “legitimate grievances” comment. For instance, he notes “it has been shocking to hear [Obama’s pastor] suggest that the AIDS virus was released as a deliberate government plot to kill black people.” He goes on to note “Many African-Americans even believe that the crack cocaine epidemic was a deliberate conspiracy by the United States government to destroy black neighborhoods.”

Kristoff quotes a political scientist who says these are “real standard” beliefs, “pretty common beliefs.” They may be. But are these “legitimate grievances”? Are they the kinds of items that the political conversation needs to take seriously?

A generation ago, political opinions needed to be grounded in “reality” to be taken seriously. Some people once believed fluoridation was a Communist plot to pollute the water supply. No matter how widespread that belief was in certain segments of society, it was never seen as a “legitimate grievance” that deserved a place on the national agenda. People (rightly) saw it as a paranoid delusion that deserved neglect

Once, western society focused on truths that were validated by correspondence with reality. Now we seem to be willing to settle for various perspectives that are validated by how many people believe them and how intensely they hold them.

The Roman governor once asked, “What is truth?” Many today want to answer “truth is an oppressive construct; what’s more important is what people firmly believe.” It’s different, but it’s not an improvement.

Who is here to serve whom?

A different perspective on church property conflicts

Higher judicatories in the Episcopal and Presbyterian Churches have been locked in conflict – and sometimes in court – over the property and other assets of congregations trying to leave their authority. Judicatory officials explain this as protecting the interest of the larger church in the property of particular congregations. But this shows an unsettling attitude about the relationship between the congregations and the larger church.

It’s an attitude I saw many years ago, when an associate Presbytery executive explained the presbytery was only going to fund new church developments that were likely to grow quickly to 100 people attending services. It wasn’t practical for the presbytery to fund smaller congregations because they wouldn’t produce enough mission giving for the presbytery to get its money back.

This guideline has a kind of managerial wisdom to it. It’s important to invest money in enterprises that will produce a good return. That’s clear at an individual level: if I invest money in a CD or money market fund, it’s important to invest in one that will produce an adequate return.

But there are other expenses that aren’t measured by the income they produce. Buying a pair of pants or a dozen apples is not like buying a Certificate of Deposit. I expect the CD to produce an income stream, or at least to produce a satisfactory profit on the initial expense when I cash it in. But for the pair of pants, just having something to wear is enough. For the apples, just having something to eat is enough. I don’t expect to make a profit on selling them some day.

Further, the expenses are primary; the investments are secondary. Investments do not exist for themselves, they exist to provide income to fund expenses. Investments are the means to the end of providing for expenses. In terms of the examples, I buy CDs so I’ll have money for apples, but I don’t buy apples so I’ll have strength to buy CDs.

Church governing bodies have investment and expense items as well. There are things they legitimately need to show some kind of profit or return. Pension fund and endowment assets, for example. But there are other things they don’t expect to produce a return. For example, when a North American Presbytery sends mission support to Ekwendeni Hospital in Malawi, there’s no expectation of ongoing income. Just knowing it’s a place where people are finding healing and care is enough.

Presently, the Ekwendeni Hospital is a ministry of the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian. But if circumstances change and, say, the Roman Catholic church would have to take over running the hospital, the North American Presbyteries that supported the hospital wouldn’t require a payment or other settlement as a return on their investment in the mission. The years of faithful ministry there would be return enough.

Which is the proper relation between the Diocese of the Presbytery and the congregation? Is the congregation like the endowment funds, useful so long as it produces an income stream for the judicatory? Or is it like the mission projects, sufficiently useful because people find opportunities for worship and praise there?

Are congregations a means to an end, useful for the mission giving they send to higher judicatories? Or are these worshipping communities ends in themselves, the purpose for which the higher judicatories exist?

When a congregation leaves the sphere of a judicatory, the response is usually to seek some kind of payment or other property settlement. The rationale is usually something like to protect the interests of the larger denomination and the future work of the church. But what if the judicatory were to respond “the interests of the denomination were well served in the years this has been a vibrant worshipping community”?

To me, the latter sounds like a more fruitful attitude.

That's Not What We Wanted

The unintended outcome of the fight against violent media.

'Parent seminar examines violent media content' was not the headline in the paper the other day. Though by all accounts it probably could have been, and maybe should have been. The parents who went to the seminar came back challenged and motivated. The informative presentations opened their eyes to some important new challenges. They felt empowered to deal with them.

It was probably worth an article in the news paper, except it wasn't really news. Parent seminars have been examining violent media content for years. The parents who went to this seminar could have been the children and grand children of parents who had gone to similarly informative and challenging seminars years before them.

I am of an age to remember when Marshall Dillon was the dangerous character who needed to be reined in lest impressionable children get the idea that the best solution to problems is to shoot the bad guy. And to some extent the campaign worked. The Gunslinger Sheriff gave way to heroes who thought, talked, or charmed their way through conflict. This was not an entirely bad thing as television told artistic and creative stories about characters like Columbo, Banacek, and Rockford. (Movies made a similar transition.)

But there's still a market for violent media. And since it's no longer fashionable for heroic role models to be the physically aggressive type, other kinds of characters have filled the void. In the old days, the violence of the sheriff or soldier taught us the proper use of force was to defend others. The message was use your violence for a noble purpose, not for your own advancement but for the good of others. These are the sorts of people others admire.

In these new days, sheriffs and soldiers have given way to outlandish characters like those in the WWE. The "matches" staged under the WWE banner feature people showing precious little self-discipline. With what seems to be reckless abandon, they act out unrestrained, atavistic aggression. Observers are entitled to ask if civilization has really advanced much beyond the Roman Coliseum.

It has advanced at least to this extent: the performers practise and train to avoid any lethal danger in their combat. But even this is no real advantage, for the audience of impressionable children who watch don't see it. They just see one fighter pounding an opponent's face into the mat. And they get the message loud and clear: use your violence to do what ever it takes, by any means necessary, to get what you want and be the last person standing in the ring. Then you will receive the cheers of an admiring audience.

Now a new generation of parents must learn to cope with the violent images children face. But now it's a much more dangerous kind. Marshall Dillon could be persuaded to lay down his gun for the sake of the greater good. But for the new, nihilistic, impulsive violence, such appeals are literally nonsense. It wonders, How would laying down my gun help me get what I want? and dismisses the request. The new violence can only be restrained by someone using violence against it. Which society must figure out how to do, and quickly.

Maybe we need to welcome Marshall Dillon back to clean up Dodge…

That's my child… or is it?

It's all in the eye of the beholder — but should it be?

The lead from Sky News sets up the tragic disagreement:

A woman left infertile after cancer treatment says she feels "distraught" after losing a five-year legal battle to try to become a mother using her own embryos.

In 2001, Natallie Evans and Howard Johnston went through an in-vitro fertilization procedure and had six embryos created. Evans hoped to use the embryos to become a mother after she completed treatment for ovarian cancer.

Just a year later, though, Evans and Johnston had an irreconcilable split, and he was no longer willing to be the father of her children. Unfortunately, because of her cancer treatment, those embryos were her only chance to carry and give birth to her children. As a result of her loss at the European Court of Human Rights, the embryos probably will be destroyed within the month.

She said: "I am distraught at the court's decision. It is very hard for me to accept that the embryos will now be destroyed and I will never become a mother....
I would ask Howard to consider whether he could ever permit me to have the children I so dearly long for, and which he was happy to consent to when the procedure took place to create these embryos."

Johnston, on the other hand, was glad the court affirmed his argument. "I want to be able to choose when and with who I become a parent."

Evans seems to feel Johnston made that choice when he consented to create the embryos was a decision to become a parent. And there's a kind of logic to that. What did Johnston think he was choosing to do when he agreed to help create the embryos? What did he think the goal of the process was?

But Johnston is living within the letter of the current law in the United Kingdom: the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act requires consent from both man and woman at every stage of the process. Anna Smajdor, researcher in medical ethics at Imperial College, London, seems to think the letter of the law doesn't reflect real life:

No couple can guarantee an ongoing relationship, and both parties need to understand and accept that the creation of embryos together is a reproductive endeavour which cannot simply be revoked.
If this seems risky or unpalatable, consent should not be given in the first place.

Parenting, the act of creating and nurturing a child, is a project that can't be revoked. It is an unbroken flow of events extending across years. In the normal order of things, the only stage of parenting where consent can be given is at the beginning. After that, ongoing consent is not necessary — no matter how much a parent might complain "If I'd know this was what I was getting into, I'd have made some different decisions."

Only the intervention of science creates discrete "stages" at which consent must be reaffirmed. They are artificial in the most literal sense of the term: products of human artifice. For Evans, the embryos were the children she hoped for, children she was committed to bear and rear. For Johnston, those embryos were just a burden, binding him to a bad memory. Who is seeing reality clearly?

Science has created a new reality that encourages people there are places where the decision to become a parent can be revoked. Perhaps it's just the eye of this beholder, but that seems to be a rather more dangerous and uncertain environment for a growing child