What if my sermons got subpoenaed? Reflections on Religious Liberty in post-Christian America

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When I first came across the story from Houston about lawyers for the city subpoenaing communications from clergy in connection with the ongoing conflict over Houston’s equal-rights ordinance, I was amazed. A facebook friend who is of a more conservative bent posted it on his timeline. I had come to expect such outrageous stories from him that didn’t hold up under closer scrutiny. So I succumbed to the click-temptation, read about it, and still wondered.

On the one hand, I suspected that all of the subpoenaed pastors provided public versions of their sermons (either text, or more likely, video), so lawyers ought not need subpoenas to read them. On the other hand, I immediately wondered what might happen if this practice became widespread. I could readily imagine mayors using subpoenas to suppress the prophetic voices of clergy speaking out on racism, police brutality, or presidential administrations using similar tactics against clergy who speak out against their military adventures overseas.

What has surprised me is the response from the mainstream (progressive?) press. Media Matters for America (a progressive media watchdog) assures us: “No, The City Of Houston Isn’t Bullying Anti-Gay Pastors – This Is Basic Lawyering.” Eugene Volokh takes a somewhat more nuanced approach at the Washington Post. He provides some hypothetical situations when a subpoena might be appropriate and legal, but argues that this effort is far too broad.

On one level, this dispute seems to me another example of the contested territory of religion in contemporary America. When is a pastor or an imam, or a rabbi, or whoever, communicating religious convictions or engaging in political advocacy? And when might she be doing both at the same time? Is it wrong for a pastor to express his opposition to a city ordinance from the pulpit and to urge his congregation to oppose it?

We may find the pastors’ arguments, political opinions, and theology wrong, even repugnant, but do they have the right to hold those opinions and to share them with their flocks? And who has the right to be the arbiter of such questions? Local governments? An attorney general? The Supreme Court?

One of my discomforts with the Hobby Lobby case was precisely that issue. Supporters of the contraception mandate were critical of the position taken by the owners of Hobby Lobby arguing in essence that their arguments about religious conscience weren’t valid. But who is to judge whether a position is religiously valid? As Queen Elizabeth I famously said, “I have no desires to make windows into men’s souls.”

I’m also uncomfortable with efforts to force small businesses to, for example, make wedding cakes for same-sex couples. Aside from wondering why such couples would want their cakes made by people opposed to their marriages, I think it really does impinge on religious freedom, just as in an earlier age, the US court-martialed those who refused in conscience to serve in the military. Does the state have the right and power to force a photographer to take pictures at a same sex wedding if his religious beliefs oppose such rites?

I suspect that the initial subpoenas were a fantastic and misguided over-reach. I suspect also that the mayor and her attorneys were playing to their base, just as the pastors play to theirs. Whatever the case, this is so hamfisted an attempt that it will likely end in utter failure and probably contribute to the ultimate revocation of the ordinance in question.

Still, it should put a chill down the spine of every religious leader.  Undoubtedly there will come other cases that have universal popular appeal and more skillful lawyers and politicians who will find a way of limiting the speech of clergy, if not conservative Christian pastors, then progressive ones, or more likely, Muslims.

Fortunately, the backlash is coming not just from conservative demagogues. It is also coming from Houston clergy who are supporters of the ordinance at issue. Chris Seay of the Ecclesia community in Houston has written an eloquent open letter to the mayor:

I see you as a friend, so I choose to speak to you in the context of friendship. You lead the city that I love, and I want my church, Ecclesia, to continue working alongside you to make our city better. I’m a native Houstonian and a self proclaimed Houston Geek. I love our diversity, food, sports teams, history, entrepreneurial spirit, and most of all I love the people. I know we agree that all Houstonians are made equal in God’s eyes.

Despite our common aim to better this city, your administration’s actions over the last 30 days confirm that we are now formally at odds. It doesn’t have to be this way, but your decision to subpoena the sermons and communications coming from Christian churches in our city requires a clear and unequivocal response. These actions impede on the historic religious freedoms of America’s churches, mosques, synagogues, and temples, while equally being a breach of the relationship we share as citizens of this city. These efforts will only create further division and mistrust, bringing harm to the greater good of Houston.

Oh, and it seems the mayor’s actions have resulted in a miracle: unity among Texas Baptists

On love and dignity and dying

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In the end, we couldn’t take away Tony’s suffering, or my dad’s. The sadness
and grief still weigh heavily on me and my mom. I’m not sure I can say that Tony’s suffering and death were beautiful. In fact, it was messy sometimes. Yes, there was pain; it was painful for him even though we did our best to manage it, and it was painful for us who loved him.

But his dying was never without dignity. I asked Tony to let us love him through his sufferings, and we were able to love him all the way through to the end. And in letting us do that, he showed us courage and heroism, and embodied real dignity. Tony’s journey through his own illness, suffering and death was nothing short of courageous; but that he did all this and cared for my dad in his illness and death is simply heroic. Courage and heroism aren’t born in complacency or contentment, nor are they the hallmarks of fearlessness and ordinary strength. They are created in response to trials and suffering, and they’re evidence of the triumph of hope over despair. Dignity too is made possible through courage and heroism, but love makes all of these possible; love in time of affliction is the condition that makes dignity a reality.

No, dignity isn’t opposed to suffering; sometimes in suffering dignity reveals its truest face.

By Jason Welle, SJ

Teresa of Avila, 1582

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Today is the commemoration of St. Teresa of Avila, who died on October 4, 1582. I share one of her poems:

In the Hands of God

I am Yours and born for you,
What do You want of me?

Majestic Sovereign,
Unending wisdom,
Kindness pleasing to my soul;
God sublime, one Being Good,
Behold this one so vile.
Singing of her love to you:
What do You want of me?

Yours, you made me,
Yours, you saved me,
Yours, you endured me,
Yours, you called me,
Yours, you awaited me,
Yours, I did not stray.
What do You want of me?

Good Lord, what do you want of me,
What is this wretch to do?
What work is this,
This sinful slave, to do?
Look at me, Sweet Love,
Sweet Love, look at me,
What do You want of me?

In your hand
I place my heart,
Body, life and soul,
Deep feelings and affections mine,
Spouse—Redeemer sweet,
Myself offered now to you,
What do You want of me?

Give me death, give me life,
Health or sickness,
Honor or shame,
War or swelling peace,
Weakness or full strength,
Yes, to these I say,
What do You want of me?

Give me wealth or want,
Delight or distress,
Happiness or gloominess,
Heaven or hell,
Sweet life, sun unveiled,
To you I give all.
What do You want of me?

Give me, if You will, prayer;
Or let me know dryness,
An abundance of devotion,
Or if not, then barrenness.
In you alone, Sovereign Majesty,
I find my peace.
What do You want of me?

Give me then wisdom.
Or for love, ignorance,
Years of abndance,
Or hunger and famine.
Darkness or sunlight,
Move me here or there:
What do You want of me?

If You want me to rest,
I desire it for love;
If to labor,
I will die working:
Sweet Love say
Where, how and when.
What do You want of me?

Calvary or Tabor give me,
Desert or fruitful land;
As Job in suffering
Or John at Your breast;
Barren or fruited vine,
Whatever be Your will;
What do You want of me?

Be I Joseph chained
Or as Egypt’s governor,
David pained
Or exalted high,
Jonas drowned,
Or Jonas freed:
What do You want of me?

Silent or speaking,
Fruitbearing or barren,
My wounds shown by the Law,
Rejoicing in the tender Gospel;
Sorrowing or exulting,
You alone live in me;
What do You want of me?

Yours I am, for you I was born:
What do You want of me?

(translated by Adrian J. Cooney, OCD, from The Collected Works of Teresa of Avila, Volume Three, 1985)

The county plays hardball over the day shelter and the homeless community loses

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So this bit of news came out today. Dane County is threatening to sue the Town of Madison over its continued legal efforts to prevent the County from opening a day shelter.

“The Town of Madison continues to stonewall the operation of a day resource center at the exact location where services to the homeless have been provided for ten years,” Parisi said in a statement.

Several observations:

1) It sounds like it’s getting personal
2) The Town of Madison has 120 days to respond, delaying the timeline even more
3) what a great way to gain local support for the facility!
4) I wrote weeks ago that I thought the county should abandon this location and find alternatives, but anyone watching this whole process will think twice about having the county as a neighbor.

Debating God: Gary Gutting questions Gary Gutting

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Gary Gutting at The New York Times Opinionator has been exploring philosophers’ approaches to the question of the existence of God. In his final post in the series, he questions himself about the views of those philosophers and his own answer to the question, “Does God exist?” (following the link will get you to all of the articles in the series).

Among the most interesting bits:

His criticism of “naive” atheism:

The weakest intellectual aspect of current atheism is its naïve enchantment with pseudo-scientific biological and psychological explanations of why people believe. There are no doubt all sorts of disreputable sources for religious belief, and the same goes for rejections of religion. But it’s just silly to say that there’s solid scientific evidence that religious belief in general has causes that undermine its claims to truth. Here I think Antony in her interview was right on target: “Theists are insulted by such conjectures (which is all they are) and I don’t blame them. It’s presumptuous to tell someone else why she believes what she believes — if you want to know, start by asking her.”

 

That one’s rational reasons for belief do not permit the labeling of one’ opponents beliefs as irrational:

Here what I’m saying about religion is what many rightly say about other strongly disputed areas such as ethics and politics: people on both sides can be reasonable in holding their positions, but neither side has a basis for saying that their opponents are irrational. This, I think, was what Keith DeRose was getting at when he said that no one knows whether or not God exists.

How he can be an agnostic and a Catholic:

Because, despite my agnosticism, I still think it’s worth pursuing the question of whether God exists, and for me the Catholic intellectual and cultural tradition has great value in that pursuit.

And, the crucial role played by critical reason in preventing fanaticism:

That’s because religious faith without a strong role for critical reason readily falls into fanaticism. I thought this was one lesson of my interview with Sajjad Rizvi. He showed the historical connection of Islam with traditions of philosophical reflection that have tempered excesses of blind faith. Although such traditions are still effective in many parts of the Muslim world, it’s undeniable that there are places where they have failed and a fanatical mutation has gone out of control.

Who brought us out of the land of Egypt? A sermon for Proper 23, Year A

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Tomorrow is our nation’s commemoration of Columbus Day. I remember from my childhood that it was a day on which we remembered Columbus’ discovery, so to speak, of the New World, though as everyone knows now, he did not actually set foot on the mainland of North America and to his death believed that he had landed on the western edge of Asia. But Columbus Day was a day when we acknowledged our immigrant past, remembered the story we tell ourselves of how we came to be a nation and to possess this land. Continue reading →

What will the Landowner do? Questioning Matthew, Questioning Jesus: Proper 22, Year A

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There are parables and there are parables. There are parables like the Prodigal Son or the Good Samaritan that grab us as stories and shape our experience of God and our life of faith. There are parables that are simple and seem obvious, like the Sower. There are parables that puzzle us and seem to elude any definitive interpretation, like the Laborers in the Vineyard, or the Dishonest Steward. And there are parables that seem either totally alien to our lives and experience, or so clear in their intent and purpose that we are inclined to pass over and ignore them. Continue reading →

The Feast of St. Francis

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jesus-san-damiano-cross

 

The brothers shall appropriate nothing to themselves, neither a house nor place nor anything. And as pilgrims and strangers 1 in this world, serving the Lord in poverty and humility, let them go confidently in quest of alms, nor ought they to be ashamed, because the Lord made Himself poor for us in this world. This, my dearest brothers, is the height of the most sublime poverty which has made you heirs and kings of the kingdom of heaven: poor in goods, but exalted in virtue. Let that be your portion, for it leads to the land of the living; 2 cleaving to it unreservedly, my best beloved brothers, for the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, never desire to possess anything else under heaven.

And wheresoever the brothers are and may find themselves, let them mutually show among themselves that they are of one household. And let one make known his needs with confidence to the other, for, if a mother nourishes and loves her carnal son, how much more earnestly ought one to love and nourish his spiritual brother! And if any of them should fall into illness, the other brothers must serve him as they would wish to be served themselves.

–From the Second Rule of St. Francis (read it all here)

It’s all about grace: Marilynne Robinson’s Lila

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Early reviews and essays are coming out.

Leslie Jamison in The Atlantic:

Robinson’s grace is all the things we don’t have names for: the immortal souls we may or may not have, a doll with rag limbs loved to tatters. It’s sweet wild berries eaten in a field after a man baptizes the woman he will someday marry. Grace is money for a boy who may have killed his father; it’s one wife restoring the roses on the grave of another. Grace here isn’t a refutation of loss but a way of granting sorrow and joy their respective deeds of title. It offers itself to the doomed and the blessed among us, which is to say all of us. “Pity us, yes, but we are brave,” Lila realizes, “and wild, more life in us than we can bear, the fire infolding itself in us.”

Ron Charles writes in The Washington Post:

In a way that few novelists have attempted and at which fewer have succeeded, Robinson writes about Christian ministers and faith and even theology, and yet her books demand no orthodoxy except a willingness to think deeply about the inscrutable problem of being. Her characters anticipate the glory beyond, but they also know the valley of the shadow of death (and they can name that Psalm, too).

Michelle Orange in The Book Forum:

Robinson’s genius is for making indistinguishable the highest ends of faith and fiction, evoking in her characters and her readers the paradox by which an individual, enlarged by the grace of God, or art, acquires selfhood in acquiring a sense of the world beyond the self—the sublime apprehension that other people exist.

Which is to say that Robinson’s animating theme—grace—is also central to her genius. Described as “a sort of ecstatic fire that takes things down to essentials,” grace is evidenced in both the particular and the abstract: as laughter, a beloved face or voice, or as “playing catch in a hot street . . . leaping after a high throw and that wonderful collaboration of the whole body with itself”; but also in forgetting “all the tedious particulars,” in feeling the presence of a “mortal and immortal being.” “A character is really the sense of a character,” Robinson has written, and hers suggest, above the particulars, how the mysteries of grace persist in human beings, those wanting creatures who move Ames with their incandescence, the presence “shaped around ‘I’ like a flame on a wick, emanating itself in grief and guilt and joy and whatever else.”

Wyatt Mason offers a compelling profile of Robinson in the New York Times Magazine

Making Sense of the Mess at General Seminary

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I’ve got no wisdom on this awful, heartbreaking, embarrassing situation, knowing almost nothing about GTS except being acquainted with several alums. But I’ve been asked about it by some folks, so I thought it might help to point people to pieces that have helped me understand something of the situation. The first, most important, and perhaps only necessary thing to read is Crusty Old Dean’s ruminations.

Crusty reminds us of several important facts: 1) That even in the seemingly stable and everlasting Episcopal Church, institutions come and go, including seminaries. It may be that General is simply not going to survive. 2) That this conflict comes at the nexus of two significant transformations in our society–the changing role of religion, especially mainline Christianity and the transformation of higher education. Seminaries are caught up in both of these larger cultural forces.

3) (Although Crusty doesn’t explicitly say this)That this conflict, and the quick escalation to “firings” or “resignations” reflects the corporatization of the church and the academy (see the discussion of the Task Force on Reimagining the Episcopal Church for more of the former). In the place of conversation, prayer, and discernment, we have lawyers (on both sides).

I agree with Crusty’s assessment that General may not survive this and that there will be repercussions throughout US theological education for years to come.

Derek Olsen discusses the significance of the changes in corporate worship and daily prayer for the overall life of the seminary and the formation of the students.

The faculty have put up a website that offers some of their perspective.

And The New York Times has an article providing background, including the news that the Seminary Board of Trustees will meet with the faculty.

Oh, and by the way, according to the GTS website, Bishop Miller of the Diocese of Milwaukee is a member of the Board of Trustees.