basic contradiction

On my walk home, contemplating Manuel Castells' brilliant analysis of al-Qaeda in The Power of Identity, I started thinking about basic contradictions in cultures, and the way they instigate crises. Al-Qaeda's main ideological origin is the contradictions in Middle East political and cultural life - the accumulation of wealth and power by those who own the means to access petroleum reserves, versus the essential piety and humility of Islam.

We have a very similar contradiction in the US, and it's odd that hardly anyone seems to notice. The majority of Americans regard themselves as Christian, and yet do not see that our society's official reverence for market capitalism is totally at odds with the values of the teachings of Jesus. It's pretty plain, though, it seems to me: "love your neighbor" is really contrary to "screw your neighbor," the official competitive motto of capitalist economies. Jesus taught that the poor are blessed and shall inherit the earth; the capitalist faith claims the poor deserve to be poor because they're lazy or talentless.

And yes, I know there are evangelical contortionists who twist the beatitudes into knots in order to rationalize the view that the poor have earned their poverty as punishment for their sins. I just don't see how that could be truly compelling in the face of the Gospels. (Then again, I'm neither a student of the Bible nor a Christian, so this is all external critique, natch.)

I mean, you could at least prettify the situation by saying that capitalism is a kind of unfortunate state of nature - original sin as economic reality. That would at least save some of the fundamental tenets of Medieval Christianity. Then Christian faith could take the role of how one cleanses oneself from the wages of sin (pun intended).

Another interpretation would be that either the faith in capital or the faith in Christ are hypocritical or cynical. In that case, the faithful would use their expressions of faith to assuage their consciences (assuming), their god (assuming), or their bankers (well, those, at least, do exist). I'm less inclined to this view, mainly because it's less kinky, and I do like kink in my theology.

Anyway, one might wonder whether, or when, this basic contradiction in American social and cultural life might express itself in violence. If so, one would obviously have missed the past 20 years or so of domestic terrorism, the rise of the militia/patriot/tea party movement, and, not to put to fine a point on it, the Bushes.

You know that old saying, "There are no atheists in foxholes"? I always want to know if there are any Christians in potholes.

spreading the good nooz

There is a rather polite evangelist* on campus today, urging people to come and pray with him for peace, tranquility, etc. One of his promptings was that people should come and talk to him if they wanted to "learn more about this Jesus."

I suppose it's part of the traditional patter of evangelists, the pose of being an apostle and bravely trekking out into unknown territory with an unheard-of message, that leads them to make ridiculous statements like this. You can't really be part of US culture without knowing who "this Jesus" is, or what Christians believe about Jesus. And this campus is in the Central Valley, in one of the most Christian and church-going regions in the US.

This also seems to presume that the primary reason people don't believe in Christian faith is lack of exposure. Most atheists I know were raised Christian. They didn't fail to hear about it, they failed to have faith in it.

Nor does it strike me as particularly likely that this will sell Christianity to religious non-Christians, though I can't be certain of that.

It's just odd, to me, to think of someone having the - I dunno, chutzpah? - to believe that he can just walk onto a campus and inform people about a 2000 year old religion, as though they've never heard of it, and sell it to them.

Plus, I'm always tempted to walk up to the guy and say something like, "oh, that Jesus! I thought you meant Jesus Gomez, and I was thinking, geez, I thought he was just a pharmacist!"

* As far as that goes. Some people would consider any evangelist to be rude as hell, because they believe religion is private and not something you should be yelling at people about, or even speaking calmly through a microphone at people about. I don't know from rude. I do, however, markedly prefer the obnoxious fire-and-brimstone screamer types, because it's so much more volatile and dangerous when they come around. There's a little bit of Nietzsche in me, too, that says "Yep, that's what it's all about" when they scream about everybody going to hell.

a whole new meaning to being stoned

A new study by an Israeli psychologist suggests that the ancient Israelites were high as kites, which would explain the burning bush and blaring trumpets all right, but wouldn't it also explain a lot of what went on in Leviticus, too? Just a bit?

In any case, it's good to read that, like most other reputable world religions, Judaism apparently based some of its theological insights on hallucinations. Really, what better source of moral law could there possibly be?

a brief report from the paranoia-incompetence frontier

I don't often mention religious affairs in this space, for a variety of reasons. This morning the feed from the New York Times included a story about federal prisons purging religious books, that says a lot about the Bush Administration's approach to just about everything, and of these days.

It seems that since September, 2001 (which in the Bush Administration's timeline is yesterday, always), the Bureau of Prisons has been eliminating select religious tracts, allegedly on the basis of their being inflammatory of the kind of religious fervor that would lead someone to become a terrorist. How do you decide something like that?

[Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Traci (with an i)] Billingsley said, “We really wanted consistently available information for all religious groups to assure reliable teachings as determined by reliable subject experts.”

. . . which turns out to mean throwing out anything published by 9 publishing companies. (There's no word in the story about whether these companies somehow failed to donate to Bush's election campaign.)

How do you become a "reliable subject expert" on religion? And what counts as "reliable teachings"? And, as one interviewee in the story puts it, since when does the government have a role in determining this?

I'd love to say this is some kind of faith-based initiative, but I don't have the heart.