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“This week has become a grotesque object lesson in gun culture”

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This week has become a grotesque object lesson in gun culture, one that points to a conclusion that we could have and should have drawn long ago—that the surfeit of weapons at our disposal and the corresponding fears that they induce create new hazards. There is no telling how any of these specific horrors will be resolved. But here is what we do know: we live in an age of open-source terrorism. Our inability to respond to mass shootings has meant that, eventually, even law enforcement would fall victim to one. The context of the conversation about police accountability has been irrevocably changed. Black lives matter, but reports that those words were uttered by a gunman in Dallas mean that any movement under that banner may well have met its end. And realism, in the face of tragedy, tells us that there is more ugliness in the offing.

Jelani Cobb, Three Terrible Days of Violence.

Elie Wiesel has died.

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One of the most profound and powerful voices of our time is silent; though his words and witness will challenge humanity for the rest of history.

His prayer for “The Days of Awe” is available at the New York Times:

Where were you, God of kindness, in Auschwitz? What was going on in heaven, at the celestial tribunal, while your children were marked for humiliation, isolation and death only because they were Jewish?

These questions have been haunting me for more than five decades. You have vocal defenders, you know. Many theological answers were given me, such as: ”God is God. He alone knows what He is doing. One has no right to question Him or His ways.” Or: ”Auschwitz was a punishment for European Jewry’s sins of assimilation and/or Zionism.” And: ”Isn’t Israel the solution? Without Auschwitz, there would have been no Israel.”

I reject all these answers. Auschwitz must and will forever remain a question mark only: it can be conceived neither with God nor without God. At one point, I began wondering whether I was not unfair with you. After all, Auschwitz was not something that came down ready-made from heaven. It was conceived by men, implemented by men, staffed by men. And their aim was to destroy not only us but you as well. Ought we not to think of your pain, too? Watching your children suffer at the hands of your other children, haven’t you also suffered?

Bishop Miller (Episcopal Diocese of Milwaukee) urges clergy and laity to support Senate action on gun control

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Here”s his letter to the Diocese:

June 17, 2016

Dear Friends in Christ,

Yesterday the members of Bishops United had our monthly phone conference. Our discussion had a renewed sense of urgency because of the Orlando Shootings and renewed efforts to pass common sense gun legislation by member of the Senate.

If you haven’t had a chance to keep up with recent developments, including Senator Christopher Murphy’s 15-hour filibuster that stretched until about 2 am and produced an agreement to get gun violence prevention legislation onto the floor of the Senate, here’s an New York Times story with details: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/17/us/politics/senate-filibuster-gun-control.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=photo-spot-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

This is perhaps the best opportunity we have had since the defeat of Mancin-Toomey to move gun violence prevention legislation forward a peg or two on the federal level. The horrific massacre in Orlando has changed the climate in which this legislation will be considered.

Today, I write you to ask to contact Senators Ron Johnson and Tammy Baldwin before Monday at noon asking them to support legislation that will

  • Make it illegal for people convicted of violent hate crimes to buy or possess guns
  • Make it illegal for suspected terrorists to legally buy guns
  • Require a background check for every gun sale, no matter where you buy a gun or who you buy it from

In particular what we are asking is for Congress to pass what is being referred to as Brady Bill 2.0, (S 2934) which would require a background check for any gun purchase and S 551, which would prohibit individuals on the FBI’s terror watch list from buying weapons. (The shorthand here is No Fly, No Buy.)

There are a number of ways to find your senators’ contact information. Here, for instance, is a directory of phone numbers and links to email forms: http://www.senate.gov/senators/contact/ However, probably the best way to be in touch with senators is through the website of one of the large gun violence prevention groups such as the Brady Campaign: http://www.bradycampaign.org/close-the-terror-gap-tell-senate-to-vote-yes-on-brady-bill-20-terror-gap-bill or Everytown: http://act.everytown.org/sign/orlando-congress-petition/?source=etno_ETHomepage&utm_source=et_n_&utm_medium=_o&utm_campaign=ETHomepage.

Both of these pages provide a little coaching instructions for those who would find that helpful. One of the advantages of placing the call with the assistance of the Brady Campaign or Everytown websites is that they are able to estimate the volume of calls they have generated, and those numbers, if they are large enough, can help to change wavering senators’  minds. Additionally, you can sign up for text alerts so you know when it might be helpful to make another call.

If you find that a senator’s voice mail or inbox is full, you can fax them at:  https://faxzero.com/fax_senate.php.  You can call one of the senator’s offices in your state during office hours.

One important point: it doesn’t matter whether you already know how your senator is going to vote on these bills. Volume is important. So please be in touch with those who are co-sponsoring the bills (to thank them) and those who will never vote for it (just so they will know you are out there).

Thank you for joining me in this important work.

Yours in Christ,

The Rt. Rev. Steven A. Miller

Bishop of Milwaukee

 

“And God is gay”: A new poem by Carol Duffy in the wake of Orlando

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This writer is gay,
and the priest, in the old love of his church,
kneeling to pray.
The farmer is gay, baling the gold hay
out in the fields,
and the teacher, cycling to school each day.
The politician is gay,
though he fears to say,
knotting his tongue, his tie;
and the doctor is gay,
taking your human pulse in her calm way.
The scientist is gay,
folding the origami of DNA,
and the judge, in his grey wig, is gay.
The actress is gay,
spotlit in the smash-hit play;
the butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker,
our children, are gay.
And God is gay.

source: The Guardian

Praying for America in a time of hate and fear

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I’m on vacation this week but I’ve been horrified by the Orlando massacre and felt helpless and impotent. That a deeply troubled young man, suspected of sympathizing with terrorism, can easily purchase weapons and express his anger by killing dozens, is beyond my comprehension. That his actions will contribute to the spiral of hate, fear and violence in which we’ve found ourselves over the last fifteen years leads me to despair and lament.

What can I as a religious leader do? The ritualized response of politicians, clergy, and ordinary people expressing their “thoughts and prayers” is vacuous in the face of collective belief in the redemptive power of violence and our national worship of guns.  

When I heard that Franklin Graham was coming to Madison, I wanted to offer an alternative witness to his vision for America and Christianity. Bearing witness to that alternative is even more important now in the wake of Orlando, in the context of the presidential campaign, and the hatred and fear that consume us.

 
Tomorrow, Franklin Graham will bring his “Decision America” tour to Madison, the latest stop on his tour of all 50 state capitals in 2016. He will lead a rally on Capitol Square to urge Christians to pray for the United States to return to Christian values. Graham is the son of renowned Evangelist Billy Graham but his tour is much more similar to the tactics and message of the late Jerry Falwell than of his father. In recent months, Franklin Graham has advocated a ban on Muslims traveling to the US as well as the internment of Muslim citizens. He has gone further to suggest stopping all immigration to the US. He is a vocal supporter of North Carolina’s HB 2, the so-called “bathroom bill,” which forces transgendered persons to use the restrooms of their birth gender.  

Graham claims his tour is non-partisan (he resigned from the Republican Party last year) but most of his political positions conform to the positions of the most conservative of Republicans. Graham also asserts that his goal is to bring America back to the Christian values on which it was founded. There is no evidence to support his claim that America was founded as a Christian nation, and even if that were the case, we live now in a multi-cultural, multi-religious society. Christians must welcome members of other religions and no religion into the public square. Sadly, in the so-called Christian values that Graham advocates, there is klittle that is in keeping with the biblical tradition, the teachings of Jesus or the ethical perspectives of traditional Christianity. 

I do agree with Graham on one matter. Our nation needs our prayers. We live in a deeply divided culture with a fractured political system. We face significant problems as a nation, a state, and city that require creativity, hard work, cooperation, and sacrifice to address. I hope to join with my Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, and Jewish brothers and sisters to pray for a nation in which all are welcome, all religious traditions are allowed free expression, and where all people, of every national origin, whether heterosexual or LGBTQ, of every religion or no religion, can find a home, a welcome community, and an opportunity to flourish as human beings. I am praying for that vision of America to become a reality and I pledge to join with others who share that vision, of any religion or no religion, to work for its realization. 

Racism, the university, and the “progressive” city.

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Sis Robinson, Associate Professor at UW-Madison’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication, has written an essay about her research on five “hyper-liberal” cities: Madison, Evanston, IL, Cambridge, Chapel Hill, and Ann Arbor. Her conclusions:

My research shows that one reason is white people’s separation from the lives of people of color.  White professionals in these cities can go entire days without seeing any black or brown people. As a result, they don’t see or hear overt racism in their own daily lives, and it becomes easy to believe that it isn’t actually happening anywhere.

Also, many of us white, liberal-minded people consider ourselves “post-racial,” and accept no responsibility for racism in our community.  We understand racial disparity as a systemic issue, but feel powerless to do anything about it.

Indeed, we have also staked our identities on the belief that we live in communities that are open and fair to all. The idea that we need to change the very systems we have been invested in nurturing threatens our very sense of self.

I look forward to reading her book: Networked Voices: Race, Journalism, and Progressive Voices.

Descending Theology: The Resurrection by Mary Karr: Poetry for Easter

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Descending Theology: The Resurrection

BY MARY KARR

From the far star points of his pinned extremities,
cold inched in—black ice and squid ink—
till the hung flesh was empty.
Lonely in that void even for pain,
he missed his splintered feet,
the human stare buried in his face.
He ached for two hands made of meat
he could reach to the end of.
In the corpse’s core, the stone fist
of his heart began to bang
on the stiff chest’s door, and breath spilled
back into that battered shape. Now
it’s your limbs he comes to fill, as warm water
shatters at birth, rivering every way.

Poetry for Easter: Seven Stanzas for Easter by John Updike

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Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that–pierced–died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mâché,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

John Updike, 1960.

Can Evangelicals, Mainline Protestants, and Catholics come together on poverty issues?

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The Wisconsin Council of Churches has sponsored a series of poverty forums across the state. The intent is to bring Christians (and other people of faith traditions) together to look for areas of common ground on issues of poverty. Madison’s first forum was held this past Sunday at High Point Church. Ken Taylor of the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families led off the evening by presenting national, state, and local statistics on poverty. Following that, Pastor Nic Gibson of High Point, Bishop Harold Rayford of Faith, Hope, and Love Family Church, and I offered theological perspectives on the issue of poverty and responsibility. (While no Catholic speaker participated, a number of Catholics were in attendance). Scott Anderson, Executive Director of the Wisconsin Council of Churches worked hard to bring this program together and will be convening those of us who were on the program to discuss next steps.

It was a remarkable opportunity for coming together across confessional lines. Madison is a deeply polarized city in a deeply polarized state and nation. That’s true politically, but it’s even more true of Christianity in this city. There are few structures in place for Christians from different denominations to meet or connect. Although we live in the same city, we inhabit different cultural and religious worlds. It is my hope and prayer that this initial conversation will build relationships that cross our partisan political divisions and our theological disagreements.

After the jump, the text of what I presented (video of the evening will be available very soon) Continue reading →