Standing for Peace in a Time of War

It has now been nearly 11 weeks since the deadly rocket attack on Israel that began the Israel-Hamas war. Most of the military destruction has occurred in Gaza, and most deaths have been of Palestinians who were not directly a part of Hamas, an acronym for Islamic Resistance Movement, its official name.  

The destruction and death toll in Gaza has been horrendous. Make no mistake about it: the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel was an evil event. Wantonly killing more than 1,200 people, most of whom were civilians, cannot be characterized differently.

But I also see Israel’s revengeful attacks on Gaza as even more evil, for far more innocent lives have been taken. The latest figures indicate that around 20,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by the Israeli Defense Forces military. How much greater that is than “an eye for an eye”!

A large percentage of Palestinian deaths are of women and children, and as children (and others) dying of starvation and disease will increase in the days/weeks ahead, Palestinian casualties will continue to rise to ever more distressing numbers.

The U.S. government has clearly supported Israel from its beginning in 1948, and this support is even more distressing to me now.

As a U.S. citizen, I am highly displeased with the stance of the federal government. The U.S. has given Israel more than $260 billion of aid since World War II, more than to any other nation. In October, the Administration asked Congress to provide $14.3 billion of emergency aid to Israel.

I have been quite disappointed in President Biden’s public stance on support for Israel—but not as much as Thinking Friend Mike Greer, who on Dec. 15 posted his strong views on this blogsite:

Biden's role in the creation of a hell on earth in Gaza leaves me with little hope for the Democratic party here. I am wondering if he does not have a case of moral dementia . . . .

But I don’t think Biden’s position is any different from what any other President’s would be, including Hillary Clinton (who could well have been nearing the end of her seventh year as President if it had not been for her inexplicable loss in 2016).

Near Election Day in 2016 when I thought Clinton’s election was assured, I wrote “an open letter to Madame President.” Among other things, I implored her to ease up on her support for Israel in order to lessen the injustice being done to the Palestinians.

There are, though, voices for non-violence and peace, even among Palestinians. Despite all the violence that has been unleashed on Gaza by Israel since October 7, I am heartened by those who are still advocating peaceful responses.

Just last week, I learned about Ali Abu Awwad, a prominent Palestinian peace activist and proponent of nonviolence.*

Awwad (b. 1972) took part in the First Intifada as a teenager and was subsequently sentenced to 10 years in prison. During the four years before he was released, he read the writings of Gandhi, Mandela, and MLK Jr. and embraced their commitment to non-violence.

In 2016 he co-founded Taghyeer (the Arabic word for change), a Palestinian national movement promoting nonviolence to achieve and guarantee a nonviolent solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

On the other side, there is Jewish Voice for Peace in the U.S. Since its founding in 1996, it has been working for “a world where all people—from the U.S. to Palestine—live in freedom, justice, equality, and dignity.” (see here).

Also, Amanda Gelender, a Jewish American anti-Zionist writer, has also recently stressed (here) that “Israel’s massacre of Palestine is an assault on the Jewish faith.”**

So, in this war of Israel’s Defense Force against Hamas which, broadly speaking, is seen as a Jewish war against Palestinians, which side am I on? Without hesitation, I am on the side of those standing for peace and justice.

*****

Merry Christmas to all as people around the world celebrate the birth of one prophesied to be the Prince of Peace. 

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 * The theme of the January 2024 issue of Sojourners is “Nonviolence in a Time of War.” Their interview with Awwad is titled “Nonviolence in the Face of War.”

** Amanda Gelender is now based in the Netherlands. She has been a part of the Palestinian solidarity movement since 2006. Her Dec. 7 article begins, “I am a Jewish person who opposes the settler colonial state of Israel. This is not despite my Judaism, but because of it.”

Crises within Crises

For this blog post, I originally intended to write only about COP28, the international meeting dealing with the ever-growing environmental crisis. Then, I read powerful opinion pieces by Robert Kagan and became alarmed at the expanding political crisis in the U.S.

But how can we neglect to consider the crises in Gaza, Ukraine, and other countries where warfare continues, such as in Myanmar and Sudan that get far less press coverage? In addition, there are millions of individuals in our world who are facing personal crises of various sorts.

Indeed, there are crises within crises that threaten the well-being and even the survival of individuals, nations, and the world civilization as a whole. Please think with me about these crises, beginning with the outer circle that includes the whole world and moving down to the inner circle of individuals. 

The ever-growing environmental crisis was the central concern of COP28, which met in Dubai, the largest city in the United Arab Emirates, from Nov. 30 to Dec. 12.*¹ The first COP meeting, convened in Berlin, was in 1995 and there have been yearly meetings since then.

As I have repeatedly pointed out over the last two years, the current ecological predicament is a crisis that threatens the very existence of the world as we know it (TWAWKI). Some progress was made toward alleviating the global environmental crisis at COP28, but it’s probably too little too late.*²

There will be dire consequences for most of the world’s population if drastic changes are not made soon, which is highly unlikely. This is the existential crisis in which all the other crises exist.

The wars in Ukraine and Israel/Gaza are crises for people living in those areas of the world. But there is an ongoing possibility that they will expand into larger wars. In the worst-case scenario, either of these wars could conceivably escalate into World War III.

These crises are rather localized now, but they might conceivably enlarge to rival the ecological crisis as an existential threat to TWAWKI.

Within these two larger crises is the political crisis in the United States. While this crisis is only brewing at present, there is a real and present danger of democracy being replaced in the U.S. with a form of fascism.

I had not been aware of scholar and journalist Robert Kagan until this month, but he is an editor at large for The Washington Post (WaPo) and has been a foreign policy adviser to U.S. Republican presidential candidates as well as to Democratic administrations via the Foreign Affairs Policy Board.

During the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign, Kagan (b. 1958) left the Republican Party due to the party's nomination of Donald Trump and endorsed Hillary Clinton for president.

Kagan’s Nov. 30 and Dec. 7 WaPo articles were titled “A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending,” and “The Trump dictator-ship: How to stop it.” (These are long pieces, but well worth reading and reflecting on.)

Some Republican politicians are sounding the same warning. For example, former Congresswoman Liz Cheney's new book (released Dec. 5) is titled Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning. (Hear her talk about that in this Dec. 4 interview on NPR.)

On Dec. 10, Sen. Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate in 2012, expressed the same sentiment, although more mildly, on “Meet the Press.”*³

There is a lot that can happen between now and Election Day next November, but USAmericans must be aware of the danger of losing their democracy—and minorities, the poor, and the underprivileged are the ones who would suffer most under a non-democratic government.

We common people may not be able to do much about the ecological crisis or the crisis in Ukraine or Gaza, but we do have the power to vote and to encourage our friends and neighbors to be informed and to vote accordingly.

The inner circle is the crisis of individuals who are suffering from illness, poverty, discrimination, or personal tragedies. We pray that many of these people will experience new hope during this Christmas season. Who is one such person you can help between now and December 25?

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*¹ COP stands for the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. (Click here to access the UNFCCC website.)

*² Here is the link to a helpful summary of the mixed results of COP28 on The Guardian’s Dec. 14 website.

*³ See here; Romney’s discussion of this matter begins at about 7 min. 45 sec. into the program. 

In Honor of Ken Medema on his 80th Birthday

Today is Pearl Harbor Day, but since I have mentioned that event in several past posts, this one is about an outstanding man I consider to be a musical genius who was born on the second anniversary of that tragic attack. 

Ken Medema in 2019

Kenneth Peter Medema’s birth day was December 7, 1943. He was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and brought up in the Dutch Calvinist tradition of the Reformed Church. But he jettisoned his childhood faith and then as a college student at Michigan State University, he met Jane Ann Smith.

Jane’s father was the Baptist Student Union director at MSU and pastor of a small Baptist church in Lansing. In his discussions with Jane and her parents, Ken decided that “If this Baptist thing is what Christians are all about I want to be a part of it.” *¹

Ken and Jane married in 1965 and she has been Ken’s exemplary “helpmeet” and his partner in composition for all the years from then until now. Ken acknowledges that “without her input and perspectives his music would not begin to be what it is today.”*²

The Medemas currently live in the San Francisco Bay area, close to their two grown married children and four grandchildren.

From the time he was born, Ken Medema has been visually impaired. His sight has been limited to distinguishing between light and darkness and seeing fuzzy outlines of large objects.

As Ken says on his website, “I started banging on the piano when I was five years old, making up crazy little pieces on my mom’s piano. When I was eight years old my parents got me a wonderful teacher who taught me the classics with Braille music and encouraged me to play by ear.”

After college, he worked for four years as a music therapist at Essex County Hospital in New Jersey. It was while employed there that he began writing his own songs. Then in 1973, Ken left that work and began a career as a performing and recording artist—and he continues to do so.

I have had the privilege of hearing Ken perform two or three times and of meeting him personally. The last time was in 2005 when he was at the Sunday morning worship service at a Baptist church in the Kansas City area.

In my diary/journal entry for that day, I wrote “Ken Medema was…wonderful. He is one of the most talented people I have ever seen and met personally.”

Ken Medema is a radiant Christian in the radiant center. Although as a teenager and in his first years in college Ken seems to have been rather harsh in his criticism of others, he began to mellow after meeting Jane, and through the years he became a radiant Christian and winsome musical performer.

In the 1980s he and Jane became outspoken supporters of moderate or progressive Christianity, becoming ardent advocates of social justice for marginalized and oppressed people.

Jane studied at Union Theological Seminary and became the assistant pastor of Dolores Street Baptist Church in San Francisco. That church began accepting LGBT persons as members in the 1980s—and in 1989 their monetary gifts to the California Southern Baptist Convention were rejected.

But Ken has also been able to maintain an amicable relationship with conservative Christians. One of the recent YouTube videos is of the Easter Monday chapel service at Wheaton College.*³ Also, a few years ago he was repeatedly a guest at the Hour of Power telecasts. (See here, for example.)

At the age of 80, Ken still keeps a busy schedule. His upcoming performances this month include venues at Santa Ana, Calif.; Plano, Tex.; and Albuquerque, N.M.; and his January schedule includes Christ Cathedral, Garden Grove, Calif.; and the Jackie Kennedy Onassis Theater, New York City.

Truly, Ken is a radiant Christian who is a good example of being in the radiant theological center that I have commended many times. I encourage you to listen to some of his many YouTube videos—and to join me today in saying,

Happy 80^th Birthday, Ken Medema!

_____

*¹ From “Blind musical artist Ken Medema articulates his art form,” Baptist News Global (June 26, 2011).

*² From KenMedema.com website.

*³ Here is the link to that video; Ken first appears about 6½ minutes from the beginning.

** In 1977 a video was made portraying Ken’s early life, his meeting and marrying Jane, and his early musical career. If you have time, this is well worth seeing (here).

What Would You Do If You Had Only Seven ____ to Live?

What would you do if you had only seven seconds, seven minutes, seven hours, seven days, seven weeks, or seven years to live? Ponder with me a bit about those seven sevens and what you would say or do. 

If you had only seven seconds left to live, there wouldn’t be time to do much of anything other than say or scribble a final goodbye to the person(s) closest to you. More than anything, I would want to say to my beloved wife of 66 years, “Goodbye, June, I love you.”

If you had seven minutes to live, you could reach out to more people to share final words of love and appreciation—and perhaps even to apologize to some.

In addition to June, I would want to speak or write some words of love and appreciation to my four children and seven grandchildren. (Could I get that much done in just seven minutes?)

If you had seven hours of life left, there would be so much more you could say and do—and you might even want to spend some time resting, enjoying beautiful music and/or peaceful images. As for me, I would also want to spend some time talking about spiritual matters with family and friends.

If you knew you were going to live seven days more, that would seem like a lot of time (168 hours!) compared to seven hours. You might want to think through your will and maybe make some changes. There might even be time to do some small things on your uncompleted bucket list.

If I knew I had only a week left to live, in addition to seeking to write final and meaningful words to share with all my family and friends, I would also want to make some major gifts to charitable causes, knowing that my savings were not going to be needed for long-term health care or assisted living facilities.

Seven weeks of remaining life would mean 49 days, and certainly much could be done in that length of time. If you are still employed, how long would you keep on working?

Many who are still working would doubtlessly continue for much of this time. Most likely, there would still be bills to pay. Some say that we should live each day as if it is going to be our last. But no one can really live that way. Who would go to work if it were really going to be their last day?

If you had seven months of life left, compared to the sevens above, that seems like quite a long time. Most would likely continue living much as they are now.

Those who could afford it would perhaps use much of that time near the end to visit family members and friends who live at some distance, and perhaps they would also try to visit some of the places that they had always wanted to see, or to see again.

But wouldn’t you also seek to be involved in some service activities, using some of your remaining time and energy for the benefit of other people?

Seven years, compared to the sevens above, seems like quite a long time. And some of us might well expect that perhaps we have only about seven years (or less) remaining. In seven years (on Dec. 20, 2030), I’ll be exactly the same age as my father was when he died at the age of 92.

I thought a lot about these matters while reading Mike Graves’s new book Jesus’ Vision for Your One Wild and Precious Life, which I highly recommend.** Mike's point is that Jesus’ message to us is not just about life after death, but how to live meaningfully and joyfully now.

Graves cites the striking words of E.B. White: “I arise in the morning torn by a desire to save the world and a desire to savor the world. This makes it hard to plan the day” (p.77).

If we knew we had only seven—or even 27—years left to live, despite the challenge of planning each day, shouldn’t we seek to live our “one wild and precious life” seeking both to save and savor the world?

_____

** I have written a review of this book for The Englewood Review of Books, which will be posted on their website in a few weeks. For you who read this blog post, I have posted that review (here) for you to read, if you are interested, as I hope you are.

Who Are “My People”?

It has now been nearly six weeks since the horrific rocket attacks by Hamas on the nation of Israel and then the beginning of Israel’s retaliatory attacks on Gaza. There has been extensive death and destruction already, and there is no telling how long it will be before the violence comes to an end.

I have been grieving over this “war” from the beginning and finally decided to write this article, reflecting on the words “my people” and considering who are often, and who should be, designated by those words. 

Are contemporary Israelis God’s people? I have serious concerns about the primary stance of the U.S. government in relation to the current deadly conflict in Israel/Gaza, but I am dealing here primarily with religious rather than political aspects of this grave situation.

Online posts by conservative evangelical Christians, including some of my Facebook “friends,” indicate overwhelming support for the current nation of Israel, whose citizens are perceived to be God’s people just as the Israelites in Old Testament times were.

It is true that in the Old Testament God calls the Israelites “my people” over 200 times, and the words “my people Israel” appear over 30 times.

In Exodus 19:5-6, God says that the Israelites, who are being led to the “promised land” by Moses, “will be my most precious possession out of all the peoples” and that they “will be a kingdom of priests for me and a holy nation.”

Drawing from those words, I Peter 2:9 in the New Testament declares that now it is the Jesus-followers who “are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people who are God’s own possession” (CEB).

Partly on the basis of this highly significant verse, I believe God’s people today are not only, or primarily, the Jewish citizens of the modern nation of Israel or the Jews as an ethnic group.

And I am quite certain that the citizens of the nation of Israel today are not by any means the same as the Israelites whom God called “my people” in the Old Testament.

What does it mean for a Jewish rabbi to stand with “my people”? Recently, I had the opportunity to hear a local Jewish rabbi speak about the challenge that he and his congregation are facing at the present time.

There was, naturally, some reference made to the deplorable antisemitism that has increased in the U.S. since 10/7, which now has a very negative meaning to so many Jewish people as does 9/11 to most USAmericans.

At the end of his talk, the rabbi said, and repeated, “As for now, I stand with my people.” I took those words to mean that he was going to stand with (=support) the Israel Defense Forces in their retaliatory attacks on Gaza.

But a Christian pastor who knows the rabbi quite well took it differently. She thought he meant that he was going to stand with the people of his Jewish congregation who are incensed because of the Hamas attacks on Israel and perhaps grieving the death or injury of friends and/or family members there.

Certainly, a Jewish rabbi as well as a Christian pastor—and perhaps a Muslim imam—should be expected to stand by his or her congregants in times of stress, anxiety, and even anger.

Who should you and I consider to be “my people”? “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it (Psalm 24:1, NIV) is another single verse from the Bible that is crucially significant.

God may have called some people to a special task and referred to them as “my people.” But most broadly, shouldn’t all the inhabitants of the world be recognized as God’s people?

As Creator of “the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1), God surely sees all ethnic groups, adherents of all religions, and even all segments of society who have no religious faith of any kind as “my people.”

If we are God-believers, shouldn’t we be able to see that all eight billion people in this world are “my people”—God’s and ours—and seek to work tirelessly for the welfare of all, including the peaceful coexistence of Israelis and Palestinians? 

Remembering Martin Buber and the Importance of Dialogue

My previous blog post was about a contemporary Jewish woman who is an atheist. This post is about Martin Buber. a historical Jewish man who stressed the importance of dialogue between people and of the encounter with God, the basis of his philosophical thought and writings. 

Martin Buber was born in 1878 (145 years ago) to an Orthodox Jewish couple in Vienna. From 1881~92, he was raised by his grandfather in what is now Lviv, Ukraine. In 1899, while studying philosophy in Zürich, he met Paula Winkler, who was a Catholic, and they married in 1901.

Martin and Paula, who converted to Judaism, worked as a couple in the Zionist movement. Unlike most Zionists, though, the Bubers believed that that movement should focus on fostering cooperation between Jews and Arabs in Palestine, and they envisioned a binational state where both could coexist in harmony.

Buber was a prolific author, and Ich und Du, his best-known and most influential book, was published 100 years ago (in 1923). It was first translated into English in 1937 and issued under the title I and Thou.

A central emphasis of Buber’s book is the difference between the word pairs “I-It” and “I-Thou.” His philosophy centered on the encounter, or dialogue, of people with other human beings through relationships, which ultimately rest on and point to a relationship with God, “the eternal Thou.”

In 1938, when he was 60, Buber moved to Jerusalem where he resided until he died in 1965.

“I-It” is the primary stance of modern science. As Buber states in I and Thou, “the basic word I-It” is “the word of separation.”**

In the I-It realm, the natural world and everything in it is seen as something to be observed, examined, categorized. It is completely related to in an objective manner. Other humans, too, are often seen objectively. In that way, they, like natural phenomena, are experienced but not encountered.

When the physical world is considered an It, it can be used and manipulated for one’s own benefit without compunction. That, in fact, is one of the reasons for the ever-growing ecological crisis of the present time.

Unfortunately, when people are considered as Its, they too can easily be used, manipulated, and discriminated against without qualms. That is seen most clearly in the way enemies in warfare are always seen as Its who need to be destroyed.

“I-Thou” is primarily the stance of those who emphasize relationships and seek interaction with other people and even the natural world through subjective encounter rather than objective experience. 

The I-Thou (I-You) realm is one of dialogue, where there is mutual respect between people. Both the I and the You speak clearly and listen attentively, accepting both the uniqueness and the similarity of each other.

This I-Thou relationship can be enjoyed to a degree with even the non-human world, and that has been practiced by animistic religions such as that of traditional Native American peoples and of Shinto in Japan.

In the Handbook of Contemporary Animism (2013), Graham Harvey sees the animist perspective as similar to Buber's emphasis on "I-Thou." Animists relate to the world of animals, trees, and even inanimate objects in an I-Thou manner rather than in an I-It way.

And even in the present time, some modern environmentalists are called “tree-huggers” because of their desire to embrace an I-Thou relationship with the world of nature.

The distressing problem, however, is that modern industrial civilization and a world of eight billion people cannot be sustained by a worldview that relates to nature primarily in an I-Thou manner.

According to Buber, the basis of all I-Thou relationships is God, “the eternal Thou.” Through encounter with the eternal Thou, individuals are transformed and their understanding of the world and their place in it is fundamentally altered.

Buber believed that such encounter is essential to human flourishing and meaningful existence.

In my view, Buber was correct, indeed, and that is the reason I want us all to remember him and his emphasis on the importance of encounter with God and of having dialogue with other people.

_____

** The first (1937) English translation of Buber’s Ich und Du was by Ronald Gregor Smith. This citation is from Walter Kaufmann’s 1970 translation (p. 66 of the Kindle edition). At the beginning of that edition, Kaufmann has a helpful prologue of more than 40 pages. Buber’s book alone is only about 120 pages, but it is difficult reading and most of us need to read it more than once in order to fully grasp what he is saying. 

Does America Need More Atheists?

An opinion piece on the October 3 website of the Washington Post caught my eye and captured my attention. It was by WaPo’s contributing columnist Kate Cohen and titled “America doesn’t need more God. It needs more atheists.” 

Kate Cohen is a mother, an atheist, and an author. Her book, We of Little Faith: Why I Stopped Pretending to Believe (and Maybe You Should To), which was also published on Oct. 3, states that being a mother led her to “come out” as an atheist.

Cohen was raised Jewish and married a Jew in a Jewish wedding—but she explains that she never really believed “in that jealous, capricious, and cruel Old Testament God” (p. 12). But she never identified herself as an atheist until she began rearing her children.

In her book, Kate tells how she vowed to teach her children “what I truly thought about everything,” and she “did not let them decide for themselves,” for she strongly believed that “passing on one’s preference for reason, evidence, and honesty…is the truly moral choice” (pp. 13, 14).

Kate was born and reared in Virginia. She graduated from Dartmouth University and married in 1997. She is now in her late 40s, but I was unable to find out how old her children are. They are probably young adults now and it would be interesting to know how they have turned out.*¹

There are positive aspects of Kate Cohen and her book that should be recognized. She is honest in identifying who she is rather than seeking (any longer) to keep her lack of religious faith closeted. And she encourages others to be honest also as intimated in her book’s subtitle.

Even though I have spent most of my life seeking to help people become God-believers, I think those who don’t believe in God should be able to identify themselves openly rather than pretending to be and to believe, what they are not and do not. Honesty, indeed, is the best policy.

Further, Cohen seeks to remove the stigma from those who identify as atheists. She writes, “Like atheism, homosexuality is a difference that can be hidden. Sociologists call it a Concealable Stigmatized Identity” (p. 221), but she claims that that stigma is disappearing more rapidly for LGBTQ people than for atheists.

But as a God-believer—and because I am a God-believer—I certainly think that people need to be respected/accepted regardless of their religious faith or lack thereof. After all, that is what freedom of religion means.

There are also highly questionable aspects of Cohen’s book. While there are some nuanced places, she gives the impression that all atheists are largely the same, and “good,” whereas all who believe in God/religion are also largely the same, and “bad.” (See, for example, p. 228).

In strongly encouraging people who do not believe in God to affirm their atheism, she writes,

If you need a reason to let people know that you don’t believe moral authority derives from a Supreme Being, then I offer you no less than making America a safer, smarter, more just, and more compassionate country.*²

It is because of that belief that the WaPo article was titled “America doesn’t need more God It Needs More Atheists.”

On the previous page, she asserts, “…peel back the layers of discrimination against LGBTQ people and you find religion.”

She further contends that “control over women’s bodies,” as well as “school-library book bans, and even the backlash against acknowledging the racist underpinnings of our nation are motivated by religion.”

To such charges, I can only say “Yes, but….” Yes, there are Christians who are exactly such as Kate mentioned. But, there are Christians who are against discrimination and control as much as she is. And regarding climate change, note what Pope Francis said about in his 10/4 “apostolic exhortation.”*³

Moreover, if truth were known, my guess is that there is a large percentage of atheists who support discrimination and control as well as the (mostly) conservative evangelical Christians she uses as her foil.

So, no, Ms. Cohen, America doesn’t need less God and more atheists. It needs more intellectually honest and intelligent atheists (or whatever) as well as intellectually honest and intelligent God-believers to work together to make our society more compassionate and more just for all.

_____

*¹ In her book, Cohen says that her children are “engaged, informed, and savvy citizens” (p. 227).

*² These words are in a paragraph that begins with her saying that “anti-atheist sentiment is not a matter of life and death in America. But transphobia is, sexual violence against women is, forced birth is, climate change is, and global pandemics are” (p. 230).

*³ I wrote about this in some detail in my Oct. 13 blog post (see here).

 

Praise for the Pope

Like most of you who read this blog, I am not a Roman Catholic, but I have considerable appreciation for Pope Francis. Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born in 1936, ordained as a Jesuit priest in 1969, and elected Pope in March 2013. He chose Francis as his papal name in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi. 

Pope Francis speaking at the Vatican on 10/4/23]

There are many reasons to praise Pope Francis. For example, just nine days ago (on 10/4/23), the Pope issued an “apostolic exhortation” under the title Laudate Deum (=Praise God). That document, which can be read in full here, was directed “to all people of good will” and was “on the climate crisis.”

Last month, I read much of Fratelli tutti, Pope Francis’s encyclical officially published by the Vatican in 2020 on October 4, the feast day of Francis of Assisi. While there was much good and important content, I was somewhat critical of it as it seemed to be lacking specificity or concreteness.

This month’s new document, however, which is a commentary on Laudato si' (=Praise Be to You), the Pope’s major 2015 encyclical on the environment, is generally quite specific and concrete. In the second paragraph of this recent “exhortation,” the Pope says:

…with the passage of time, I have realized that our responses have not been adequate, while the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point.

Over the past twenty months, I have cited Michael Dowd and others who have spoken warningly about collapse, but here is a clear statement about that fateful future by the Pope.**

Also, an Oct. 4 Vatican News article (see here) states that in Laudate Deum the Pope “criticizes climate change deniers, saying that the human origin of global warming is now beyond doubt.”

Early this month, the Pope convened the three-week General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops at the Vatican, sometimes called the Super Bowl of the Catholic Church. It drew bishops from around the world to discuss hot-button issues.

Some of those issues are whether priests should be allowed to get married, if divorced and remarried Catholics should receive communion, whether women should be allowed to become deacons, and how the church will handle matters around the LGBTQ community.

It remains to be seen how, or when, these contentious matters will be resolved, but for those of us who are egalitarians, the Pope’s willingness to consider such matters is certainly praiseworthy.

Sadly, many USAmericans have little praise for the Pope. Politics takes precedence over their religious faith. Or for others, they hold to an outdated, conservative Catholicism and are, literally, more traditionally Catholic than the Pope.

According to an Aug. 28 APNews.com post, “Many conservatives have blasted Francis’s emphasis on social justice issues such as the environment and the poor,” and they have also branded as heretical his openness “to letting divorced and civilly remarried Catholics receive the sacraments.”

As an example of politics taking precedence over the position of the Pope, consider the contrast between Francis’s recent “exhortation” regarding global warming and U.S. Catholics.

The Pope, as well as the preponderant majority of climate scientists around the world, emphasizes that “the human origin of global warming is now beyond doubt.”

But last month, Pew Research Center (here) reported that only 44% of U.S. Catholics say Earth is warming mainly due to human activity—and of U.S. Catholics who are Republicans or lean Republican, only a strikingly low 18% think that global warming is human-caused.

In response to such criticism, the Pope has called the strong, organized, reactionary attitude of some Catholics in the U.S. Church “backward,” and has stated that their faith has been replaced by ideologies.

Francis reminds these people that “backwardness is useless, and they must understand that there’s a correction evolution in the understanding of questions of faith and morals” that allows for doctrine to progress over time.

Such progressiveness is one of the main reasons I have praise for the Pope. His deep concern for the future well-being of all people around the world has led him to claim that a correct understanding of Catholic doctrine allows for change over time.

Would that all Catholics, and all Protestants as well, could embrace these progressive ideas of the forward-looking Pope.

_____

** With considerable sadness I am sharing the news that Michael Dowd (b. 11/1958) died on October 7 as the result of a fall in a friend’s home. More information about his death and memorial service is available here. 

Remembering Alvin Toffler and “Future Shock”

When I happened to see that Alvin Toffler was born in October 1928, I thought that today, the 95th anniversary of his October 4 birthday, would be a good time to write about him and his book Future Shock. 

Alvin Toffler, who died in 2016, was an author, futurist, and businessman who, with his wife Heidi, wrote Future Shock, which became a worldwide best-seller. It is considered to be one of the most important and influential books about the future ever written.

Toffler was raised in Brooklyn and graduated from New York University in 1950, the same year he and Heidi Farrell married. During the last half of the 1960s, the Tofflers did research for Future Shock, first published in 1970.

According to the Tofflers' website, over 15 million copies of Future Shock have been sold worldwide. It has been translated into more than 30 languages and has never been out of print.

The second book authored by the Tofflers and issued in 1980, was titled The Third Wave. Following the agrarian revolution, and the industrial revolution, the “third wave” is the information revolution.

Powershift (1990), their third major book, deals with the increasing power of twenty-first-century military hardware and the proliferation of new technologies.

The later books continue the Tofflers’ exploration/development of ideas first introduced in Future Shock.

Alvin and Heidi Toffler coined the term future shock to describe the emotional distress that individuals and societies experience when facing rapid technological and social change.

Early in the first chapter of their book, the Tofflers referred to “culture shock,” explaining that it refers to “the effect that immersion in a strange culture has on the unprepared visitor.” They then go on to say that

culture shock is relatively mild in comparison with the much more serious malady, future shock. Future shock is the dizzying disorientation brought on by the premature arrival of the future. It may well be the most important disease of tomorrow.

In 2020, a massive book titled After Shock was published with the subtitle, “The world’s foremost futurists reflect on 50 years of Future Shock and look ahead to the next 50.” (I wish I had been able to read much more of it.)

Rather than writing more specifically about the books just mentioned, though, I will now share only some of my personal reflections about Future Shock and how I was influenced by it.

Reading Future Shock in my early 30s was instructive and formative for me. Early in 1970, I somehow heard about “future shock” and that Toffler had written about that concept in an essay published in the March issue of Playboy magazine, of all places.

As I was living in Japan at that time and there was no other way to read Toffler’s essay, I bought a copy of that Playboy magazine at the excellent English bookstore in Fukuoka, the city where I lived, and read his article with great interest.

(Memories from 50+ years ago are rather unreliable, but as far as I can remember, that was the first and probably the last time I ever bought a Playboy magazine.)

After several months I was able to get a library copy of the book, and it took a few weeks to read it as I was stretched by the challenge of teaching university classes in Japanese. I also remember taking rather extensive notes, but alas, they weren’t included in what I brought back to the U.S.

Partly because of reading Future Shock, sometime in the 1970s I joined the World Future Society (WFS), founded in 1966, and read The Futurist, their bimonthly magazine. I never was a futurist as such, but through the decades I was deeply interested in thinking about the future.

In July 1989, I flew from Japan to Washington, D.C., to attend the WFS’s annual assembly, and at one of the study group sessions I presented a paper titled “Religious Faith and World Peace in the 1990s and Beyond.”

Perhaps it is not a direct quote, but Toffler is widely credited for this aphorism: “The illiterate of the twenty-first century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

Much has changed since 1970, and the likely future of world civilization is more shocking now than ever.

The challenge for us now is to unlearn much of what we think we know, to learn what the world actually is at present, and to see and act upon the new knowledge of what it is likely to become in the near future.

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** The underlying notion of future shock existed many years before the Tofflers’ book was published. In 1949, an issue of the Saturday Evening Post included the poem (not by Toffler) titled “Time of the Mad Atom,” which I remember reading, and quoting, in the mid-1950s. Here it is in its entirety:

This is the age
Of the half-read page.
And the quick hash
And the mad dash.

The bright night
With the nerves tight.
The plane hop
With the brief stop.

The lamp tan
In a short span.
The Big Shot
In a good spot.

And the brain strain
The heart pain.
And the cat naps
Till the spring snaps

—And the fun’s done!

Enjoying the Present, Extending the Future

Since early 2022, I have posted several times about the disturbing matter of the likely collapse of the world order in which we now live. Many of you are probably tired of hearing/thinking about that. So, here I am focusing on enjoying the present as well as extending the future of our civilization. 

We humans are prone to embrace extremes. There are many people who focus so much on the present that there is but scant consideration given to future perils. Of course, many such people are so busy with work and family there is little time to think beyond the press of daily affairs.

On the other hand, others think/worry so much about the future in light of the current ecological predicament, their present happiness is stifled. This is especially true for those who realize that TEOTWAWKI (the end of the world as we know it) may soon become a reality.

Eco-anxiety is a current psychological problem for many, and especially for many younger people—and I encourage you to read this Sept. 16 article posted in the New York Times, which Thinking Friend Anton Jacobs sent me last week.

Is it possible, though, to be keenly aware of the likelihood of TEOTWAWKI in the near future and still live with joy in the present? I think so.

As in many other situations, we must seek to be firmly established in a position between the poles—in a radiant center, if you will. At the very least, we need to learn how to “toggle” between the opposites.

How can we live with enjoyment of the present while being aware of the collapse that lies ahead in the not-too-distant future?

I asked Bard (Google’s AI chatbot) for suggestions about how to live joyfully in light of the current ecological predicament.

I fully agreed with the beginning of their response: “The ecological predicament is a serious one, and it is important to be honest about the challenges we face. However, it is also important to find ways to live joyfully in the present moment.”

Indeed, that’s what we must seek to do: both to be honest in assessing the world’s ecological challenges and also to learn how to live now with a sense of joy.

Bard’s suggestions regarding how to do the latter were not bad. They included “spend time in nature,” “connect with loved ones,” “be grateful,” and “give back to others.”

(They also suggested, “do things that you enjoy,” but it didn’t seem very intelligent for AI to say the way to live joyfully in the present is to do things that you enjoy.)

Enjoying the present largely depends on not allowing the fears of the future to dominate our thinking. Rather, we must be fully present in the present for much of the time.

Knowing that industrial civilization will at some point collapse—and sooner than most people are willing to consider probable—doesn’t mean we can’t live with enjoyment in the present. We individuals, especially we older adults, know that death is coming, but we still can experience much joy now.*

But it is imperative that as we enjoy the present we don’t jeopardize the future by damaging the environment. Or, more positively, our goal should be living joyfully in the present and also doing all we can to extend the future for the coming generation(s).

While TEOTWAWKI is most likely to happen sooner than any of us want to think, human action now can push that collapse further into the future. Twenty years from now is far better than ten years, and collapse in 40 years is much to be preferred over 20 years.

What can we do to extend the future while enjoying the present? Here, very briefly, are three important things we can do in this regard:

1) Seek increasingly to practice simple living.**

2) Continue to develop good environmental practices and to encourage friends and acquaintances to do the same.

3) Work actively for the election of Senators and Representatives who have a good understanding of the current ecological predicament and who will work to enact public policies that will, indeed, help to extend the future.

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* I have already dealt with this matter to some extent in “Memento Mori,” my 1/28/23 blog post, see here, and I encourage you to read that post (again).

** A helpful book in this regard is The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Simple Living (2000). This book is now out of print, but several used copies (reasonably priced) are available at Abe Books. I also encourage you to read “The Shakertown Pledge: Nine Ways to Make a Difference,” my 5/5/11 article on the GoodFaithMedia website (here). 

"Windows to God": Introducing Kelly Latimore

Perhaps many of you haven’t heard, or don’t remember, the name Kelly Latimore, but he is a man who deserves to be known because of his work as an iconographer. I am posting this article to expand the circle of those who know & appreciate Latimore’s outstanding artistic creations and what we can learn from him. 

Ruth Harder, my pastor, is finishing her work on “Stained Theology,” the name of her pastoral study grant project funded by the Louisville Institute (which you can learn more about here).

Her project grew out of concern at Rainbow Mennonite Church regarding the large stained glass window in our sanctuary, which I wrote about in my 10/10/20 blog article titled “What To Do about a White Jesus?”.

Pastor Ruth’s meticulous study has been not only about stained glass windows but also how images of Jesus in such windows and elsewhere have stained, in a negative way, theological understanding and has abetted racism and attitudes of white supremacy.

In her research, she visited Kelly Latimore in St. Louis, and while he is not directly involved with stained glass windows, he has produced many striking images of Jesus (and his birth family).

This past Sunday (Sept. 10), Kelly was the guest speaker at Rainbow Mennonite Church.*

Kelly Latimore is a youngish (b. 1986) artist who grew up as a PK (pastor’s kid) in a conservative church in the suburbs of Chicago and graduated from Greenville College (now University), a conservative Christian school in central Illinois. And then his religious viewpoint/understanding expanded.

From 2009-13 he lived/worked on the Good Earth Farm in Ohio as one of the Common Friars, affiliated with the Episcopal Church. It was there in 2010 that he painted his first icon.**

After Trump was elected President in 2016, the first icon he drew was “Refugees: La Sagrada Familia,” in which Latin immigrants crossing the desert depicts the holy family’s flight to Egypt. A picture of that icon is on Pope Francis’s 2018 book A Stranger and You Welcomed Me.

Kelly’s most widely known (and in some circles infamous) icon was the one titled “Mama” (pictured above). It was painted in 2020 in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Kelly and this icon, among others, was featured in a 5/5/21 Christian Century article (see here).

These two icons elicited hate mail and even death threats. Kelly says, though, that such opposition is confirmation that his “icons are preaching as they should.”

In his Sunday talk at Rainbow Church, Kelly referred to icons as “windows to God,” and his icons mainly show God and God’s actions in the world now, not in the past.

He emphasized that as an artist he must “pay attention,” and that all of us “must practice seeing.” Kelly’s icons help us to see, to engage in what he calls “holy pondering.” He also challenged us not only to see, but to become “living icons,” acting for peace and justice in this needy world.

The icons of the past, most prominent in the Eastern Orthodox Church, always portray the holy family or recognized saints with halos. Kelly’s icons are of contemporary people who have not been formally designated as saints by any Church, but they are “saints” nevertheless because they are windows to God.

His modern-day “saints” include several African Americans, such as MLK Jr., James Cone, and John Lewis. But there are also notable White saints as well: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Henri Nouwen, Mr. Rogers, and Mary Oliver, for example.

Although he didn’t mention it Sunday, one of Kelly’s recent and publicized paintings is of Matthew Shepard. It is now in the Washington National Cathedral. Their website explains:

On Dec. 1, 2022, on what would have been Matthew Shepard's 46^th birthday, the Cathedral dedicated a devotional portrait of Matthew Shepard by acclaimed iconographer Kelly Latimore.

I encourage you to open this link to see a picture of that portrait and the story about it.

My prayer is that we all will learn from Kelly how to see God more fully through the icons, the “windows of God” around us, and that we, too, can more and more become living icons.

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* The YouTube video of that worship service is available for viewing by clicking this link, and Pastor Ruth’s introduction and Kelly’s talk begins at the 18:50 mark.

** Kelly tells about painting his first icon in this article.

NOTE: Learn/see more about Kelly’s icons by clicking this link to his website. Reproductions of his icons can be purchased by linking to “store.”  

LKS posing with Kelly on Sept. 10