Religion and Freedom

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”  First Amendment of the United States Constitution (emphasis mine)[i]

“re·li·gion  [ri-lij-uhn] 

noun

1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.

2. a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion.

3. the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices: a world council of religions.

4. the life or state of a monk, nun, etc.: to enter religion.

5. the practice of religious beliefs; ritual observance of faith.

6. something one believes in and follows devotedly; a point or matter of ethics or conscience: to make a religion of fighting prejudice.

7. religions, Archaic. religious rites: painted priests performing religions deep into the night.

8. Archaic. strict faithfulness; devotion: a religion to one's vow.”[ii]

“If young people continue to be more interested in how we treat others and what we do to make the world a better place, rather than equating morality with religion, then we will finally realize an America that values freedom of and freedom from religion.”[iii]

Let me begin this essay with a direct refutation of the last quotation above.  Simply put, America never has and never should have a value of a “freedom from religion”; such a value runs directly contrary to the free exercise clause of the first amendment.  In stating this assertion and thesis for this exploration, let me be clear also in saying that no American should ever be forced to follow a particular religion, nor should it be an American value to do so.

In the last several weeks, the Washington Post has put forward numerous articles on the relationship of religion and the public sphere.  This is not solely to report the news, but also has been featured prominently over several months in its weekly column/section “On Faith”.  I, for one, am happy for the exchange of ideas and forthright positions put out by the authors of these articles, even though I question the apparent truncation of the spectrum of ideas that the Post has included in the weekly column in the past several months.

Two very recent articles are the catalyst for my writing at this juncture.  The first, “Is atheism winning the culture war?” written on 23 October 2013, is the source of final quote above and the second is “Supreme Court to hear new case on religion in public life”[iv], written on 1 November 2013, is certainly also a catalyst for this flurry of discussion on religion’s place in our public life.  It might be good for you to first read those two articles prior to continuing with this discussion.

Now that you are back from reading these articles and the case before the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS, and perhaps taking off on a bit of a Wikipedia/web self-discovery based on the themes expressed in each), I come back to my above two statements about religion in American public life (or any freedom loving society).  As is done in a very concise way, the first amendment makes two very critical and poignant clauses about the place of religion in public life.  First it defines an “Establishment Clause” forbidding the establishment of “religion”, second it puts forward a “Free Exercise” clause regarding “religion” (actually using the phrase “thereof” but clearly the object is “religion” and clearly means “of religion”).  Now this seems rather elementary, one phrase, two clauses, and off we go.  But these two clauses have, from the time of their passing, been at utter odds with one another.  How is it that you can never make a law establishing “religion” without restraining one religions “free exercise”?  Likewise, how is it possible to stop any kind of law that protects religious expression (if you will, ensuring “free exercise”) without “establishing religion”?  Nowhere, however, is offered a “freedom from religion” as defined value in American public life.

I think much of this comes down to how one defines “religion”.  I offer one set of definitions in the above set of quotations, from Dictionary.com.  Note that for the noun “religion” there are 8 definitions offered, some of which are shades of difference from each other, others are altogether unrelated.  The question at the core of this discussion turns on what was the intended meaning of this term and what is the meaning now that applies to how we look at this today.  So, we thus need to explore two understandings, the one in context in which it was written and the one in the context of where things have evolved to our modern day.

When looking at the historical context, we must understand the religious landscape of the day.  From the early 17^th century through to the Revolution, people, as one of the primary reasons, had been making there way to the American colonies for religious freedom.  And this religious freedom that they sought was not to be free from religion (to escape or remove religion from their lives), but to believe in the manner that moved their conscious (to be able to practice or freely and openly express their faith without persecution).  The tale of the pilgrim’s Mayflower journey and the establishment of the Massachusetts Bay colony alone bespeaks this factual situation, never minding we have a state called “Maryland” originally as a refuge for Catholics and large enclaves of “Pennsylvania Dutch” which come from German extraction to this day.  The crux of the issue was that Europe, the ancestral home of the American Founding generation, had been ravaged by wars of religion since time immemorial, and especially since 1517 when the Protestant Reformation caused a tectonic shift in the religious landscape unleashing hellish pogroms and retributions that made all past strife seem passive in comparison.  Simply put, and to move forward apace, the Founder’s did not want to have the same strife characterize their new nation.  Thus, they didn’t want the foundation for public life centered on one creed, one way of believing, and knew that the already pluralistic society in the colonies wouldn’t tolerate such religious conformity in any event.  But they also recognized there needed to be a basis from which morality could derive and that a just society could exist; meaning they had to allow for each person to find that through their own manner.

So in looking at a late 18^th century definition of religion, in the context of a founding document for a new nation in their context, it is clear that the best definition of “religion” in the first amendment most closely hews to “a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion” and “the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices: a world council of religions.”[v]  If you will, this is talking about “established religion”.  Thus, as it is classically understood, the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses pertain to enabling groups and individuals to practice their commonly held beliefs openly in society without government endorsement or hindrance in doing so.  It recognizes as its core underlying principle, that people have beliefs (and such beliefs certainly included a belief that there is nothing to believe in), and these should be fully allowed to be broadcast in the public square.  It also says that the public square, being a place that government is in charge of maintaining and regulating, cannot become a camp site for one sect or another nor can government play referee on what group can or can’t be able to make an expression and exercise of its beliefs.  With this said, we must now turn to the fact that it has been a long time since we all gathered at a public square to hear the hourly update from the town crier.

If nothing else, it is clear that our phraseology and language has changed in the over two centuries of time since the ratification of the First Amendment.  So a word like “religion” has been reshaped by time and our context.  As seen in the spectrum of the definitions above (and beyond from other sources and references), this term, this word has expanded and often developed idioms of its own.[vi]  And, as we look to the First Amendment, its meaning has also been morphed and changed for how we think of “religion” in our public life.  None was or is more striking to me, in this discussion, than the change in understanding of “religion” than the SCOTUS decision in Engel v. Vitale where Justice Black wrote that “it is no part of the official business of government to compose official prayers for any group of American people to recite as part of a religious program carried out by the Government.”[vii]  This strongly held decision (6-1) by the SCOTUS shows that the word “religion” no longer was simply defined as one sect or group but a body of expression made.  And no longer was the anti-establishment provision being used to protect from having the Catholic faith (or any other you can name) adopted as the creed all American’s were obligated to follow, but instead any measure that the state might take to define or otherwise introduce an expression or practice of religion was seen as an establishment of “religion”.  Now I must admit that I don’t disagree with the SCOTUS decision that teachers (agents of the state) leading a prayer or compelling the recitation of a prayer that was drawn up (even as innocuous as the prayer was in the case that is cited) is not appropriate, and while not “establishing religion”, in my mind, does create a state sponsorship of belief.  That said, what has now come to the fore as a meaning for “religion” is closer to “a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.”[viii]  This much wider definition of religion, is partially why I reject the notion of a “freedom from religion”.

While I must applaud the author of the article “Is atheism winning the culture war?” for his apologetics of atheism (and largely support his discussion of how atheism needs to get its message out freely), I can’t subscribe to a core belief that we as American’s have a right to push out of the public square any ideas, any discourse, because we don’t like it.  For my part, it is not about “winning” or “losing” a “culture war”.  What the core of our American freedoms are about, is that the battle of ideas about who we are, where we go, and how our society is shaped needs to be a raw, open, and frankly resolved debate that leaves out nothing in our deliberations.  I actually think that atheism (and its related isms of rationalism, humanism, and so forth) is getting quite a bit of its due in society today (in schools, the open willingness to hear such voices, and not to mention their place in a column like “On Faith” in a major media outlet).  I am glad for it, as those voices must be heard.  But so too with those that profess faith and religious based beliefs.  At its core, however, it matters not if Mr. Silverman wishes that young people divorce morality from “religion”, because if one asks “from where do morals derive?”, one circles back historically and philosophically that morals have their derivation in a sense of belief, the core of what the definition of religion is (and we don't get to choose the commonly held definitions of the words we choose).  And what concerns me with the notion of creating a “freedom from religion” is that what is being created is accepted ignorance of a whole body of thought that has much to say about morals, ethics, and social norms that have been at the foundation of societies and social structures since civilization began.

And going back to definitions for a moment, this concern comes rightly out of the fact that the understanding of the amendment at its beginning to now has changed.  No longer is it about avoiding the establishment of one creed on the part of the government, it is avoiding having to hear about or exposure to any belief in “personal, judging gods.”[ix]  We have to accept that our language has changed and been shaped by our present context, and as such arguing for a “freedom from religion” no longer means simply avoiding compulsion into becoming Episcopalian, it means expunging religion from our public life.  To me, such a premise goes well beyond the Establishment Clause and simply searches to undermine the Free Exercise clause (e.g. “its fine to practice your religion so long as you: never speak of it publicly, don’t have my children get exposed to it in any part of their education or public places, and you do it only in your own space, at your own time, and hide it from all of us through your own expense (even though you pay taxes into a government just like everyone else)).  At its core this takes aim to remove from us as a people any centering morality, any centering ethic for how our society is to run and operate.  I am clearly taking this a bit to an extreme, and I am not certain that this author is trying to achieve this total end.  That said, this is the inevitable conclusion of this line of thinking and goal of having a “freedom from religion”.  As a student of history I take the following words of Edward Gibbon as operative to this point as a word of warning in regards to morality, civic virtue and moderation:

"[T]he decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the causes of destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight.”[x]

To conclude, I am not trying to say that I want atheism to be blocked from its pulpit in the public space, rather the opposite.  My thesis is that America never has and never should have a value of a “freedom from religion”.  Theists and Atheists alike should be and are entitled to their beliefs and the expression of them without endorsement or hindrance from the government.  Weakness is shown in either side’s intent and character when they choose to focus on eradicating the other’s right to speak and express themselves instead of enabling their counterpart the right to present their case nakedness of the public square and public criticism, writ large.  This means that we have to tolerate and accept that we cannot have freedom from religion, especially as we now define and understand religion, any more than we can have freedom from speech or from the press or from any positive right we have been given, not merely in the constitution, but in natural law.  Denial of the right of free expression, or free exercise that does not derive from the need to protect said exercise or expression for all/others, is against the core of our societal fabric.  Further, it is an American value that we honor and respect not only each other and our beliefs, but also the underlying construct of how we are able to work together as a society to protect these same freedoms for ourselves and our progeny.

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[i] US Constitution, adopted 15 December 1791, retrieved from http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment, on 2 November 2013

[ii] Definition as found on Dictionary.com, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/religion?s=t retrieved on 2 November 2013

[iii] Silverman, Herb, “Is atheism winning the culture war?” Washington Post, On Faith, 23 October 2013

[iv] Barnes, Robert, “Supreme Court to hear new case on religion in public life”, Washington Post, 1 November 2013

[v] Definition number 2 as found on Dictionary.com, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/religion?s=t retrieved on 2 November 2013

[vi] See the Dictionary.com website, “get religion” being one of many such idioms.

[vii] “Establishment Clause”, under the section called “School-sanctioned prayer in public schools”, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Establishment_Clause, retrieved on 2 November 2013

[viii] Definition number 1 as found on Dictionary.com, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/religion?s=t retrieved on 2 November 2013

[ix] Silverman, Herb, “Is atheism winning the culture war?” Washington Post, On Faith, 23 October 2013

[x] Gibbon, Edward, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter 38.

The Makings of a Storybook Season

With the move-up of Ollie Kolzig as the Goal-tending coach this past week amongst the cadre of coaches for the Washington Capitals, a true fan's mind quickly goes to the best season to date.  Adam Oates now serves as head bench boss with Calle Johansson and Kolzig, members of the oh-so-close 1997-1998 season, that nearly got the Caps to the Holy Grail of Hockey, the Stanley Cup.

As a fan myself, over the last several seasons an ardent one, it would be great to finally see the Alexander Ovechkin Caps make it to the final dance, and get the Cup.  But this season is the first, that I can remember, that the story is so ripe, so full of narrative that it would simply be a bit of a fairy tale come true.  Hear it now:  a reunion of former players now coaches who almost got the Cup, mentoring and leading the talented team that just hasn’t gotten over the hump, breaking the curse, and bringing home Lord Stanley to the nation's capital.  It simply sounds capital, does it not?

Perhaps I wax poetic, but in essence a highly rated franchise that has made getting to the playoffs a standard practice, now has a harder road ahead with the reorganization of the league.  The challenge is great, the metal and fiber of everyone will be tested.  You have the same highly rated team of the past, in essence, now simply called an also-ran at the beginning of the season.  The “young guns” of a few seasons ago, now have experience.  And the one thing that both players and coaches long for, which has been and was denied them, is the thing all hockey fans, players and coaches chase year-in and year-out.  There has to be a longing, there has to be passion, there has to be an attitude that “we have to get there, and we will!”

While I can’t foresee the future and say that this is the season that it will happen for the Caps, I can offer that this is a story that is worth telling if it is so.  The greatest of sports tales starts with a common theme, the underdog, the spoiler, the guts it takes, and the ultimate victory; and its all done as a team from bottom to top, side to side.  I really long for these kinds of stories, lets just hope this season can deliver it again.

God isn't a Placebo nor is Rationalism the only Source of Truth

This post relates to an article/blog that was featured in "On Faith" in the Washington Post on 28AUG13:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/post/is-faith-the-worlds-most-effective-placebo/2013/08/28/b4e3958c-0ff1-11e3-a2b3-5e107edf9897_blog.html?wpmk=MK0000205

Interesting. He states that, " I just happened to find that when I started talking to an imaginary friend, certain struggles began to evaporate. It became easier to act according to my conscience." Yet he doesn't believe in the supernatural (ironically things just mysteriously got easier?).

I am no expert on Atheism. That said, at some point, perhaps we need to move beyond God, faith, and religion as being all about the boogie man and science is the only truth that has any real meaning. God isn't merely placebo any more than having an ethical conscious is merely a chemical action in the brain. Praying to a non-existent God is akin to doing a scientific experiment to measure the weight of the soul.

God exists, and the proof is that we believe he does. Does that mean that belief is merely a psychological condition that the human mind is geared to exhibit by default? That sounds reasonable. Likewise, should our exploration of how this universe works be ignorant of what human intuition has taught through the centuries, because its not "rational"? Perhaps we have to recognize that religion and faith has been a construct to explain phenomena that passes our understanding and is the key to opening the doors of deeper exploration.

I am a Christian, so I certainly have a faith bias. I am also an Engineer who depends on cold hard science, so I have a rationalism bias. So when I hear Christ say "I am the vine, you are the branches" I get that he is speaking in his religious context, but because I believe he is God, I can jump to the understanding that what he was also talking about is the immutable portion of the human mind that has been constructed to enable prayer to be an effective psychological tool. And when I do structural analysis and contend with gravitational, seismic, wind, and other forces and how, even after of millennia of human knowledge, experience, and experimentation, that there are point in which we still have to "approximate" because the precise and absolute performance of the structure to any scenario is still a mystery (a big enough mystery that "acts of God" still can knock down many a resistant building).

God isn't a placebo nor is rationalism/science the only source of truth, so lets get serious and stop with the non-sense that I see both in this article/post and the criticisms that he has received to his original article.

Being rational means believing. You believe in the power of science. Being faithful means questioning and exploring. You know that the power of faith is found in the crucible of facing hard realities. We can dispense with blind faith and ignorant rationalism, lets coalesce on the ultimate truism that both explain the world and neither completely so.

Recent Developments in Egypt (last post reprised)

Before I begin, I wish to offer a word of prayer and concern for someone that I know is in the midst of the strife in Egypt. Mohamad Elbardicy was an intern that worked for me (partially) at Facilities at George Mason University.  I ask that we all reflect and think about the real human of the situation in Egypt as well as several others in the world inclusive of Syria.

Offering this note, I want to put forward two posts that I recently made in response to a post by my good friend Brian Farenell on Facebook:

“El Baradei's being charged will get international attention and pressure. While I hate to admit agreeing with Chris Christie, being a voice yelling in the air isn't going to get you anywhere. The Egyptian liberals needed to tie their ship to one side or the other, and the Muslim Brotherhood was not the one to hitch on to. Sadly the military is turning from their normal moderating influence to one of autocratic rule. This indictment is a significant step that's going to get a lot of attention in the West, especially given El Baradai's notoriety and work in the IAEA."

“…, you propose that a third way was a practical option for the liberals in Egypt. Having spent some serious time in the Middle East, I can tell you that unless you have some strength of might, there is little chance that you can effect political outcomes. Simply put the liberals don't and didn't have a way to make a difference in the political situation of their own accord, so they needed to choose one side to latch onto. I too wish they were able to create a third center of gravity, but this is a very bi-polar situation.

As for the military, I did a post on this a few weeks ago on my blog. As I stated, so long as the military hewed to a course supporting the rule if law and just society, we needed to uphold our commitments. I stand by my comments, but the ElBaradei arrest and, now, the Mubarek release bespeak that the Military is not living up to its side of the bargain. It may now be time to re-evaluate our aide. So long as they act with impunity to the lessons we have taught them and the relationships we have built, we need to be serious about delaying if not cutting aide.

This all said, there is still the rub that there are scant possibilities we are going to see an Egypt that emerges as a liberal democracy in the near/long term. And beyond that there is probably little we can do to change that fact. If nothing else the great American neo-con experiment in Iraq proves that we can't wish our way to democracy in the Middle East.”

I post these to my blog as a footnote to my previous post. As I articulated before, I felt and still feel those that were critical of America’s continuance of foreign aide to Egypt during the Morsi era were misplaced in their criticism. Here I am putting forth that we now need to make a re-evaluation. I am not saying that we ought to cut off aide now, but I am saying we need to seriously consider options as it relates to that aide. As I articulate above, the point of our aide and relationship has been to enable the military to be an agent to push forward Egyptian rule of law and democratic institutions. To the extent that they are not following that objective, we need to think about our support of the military. In doing this however, it needs to be surgical, as we need to recognize the larger geopolitical implications, especially with our other allies in the region. As has been implied in several venues, it may be that it is better that the US hitch its support to an oppressive autocratic regime rather than one that seeks the destruction of the US itself (two really bad choices, but sadly ones we may have to choose between). This isn’t going to be clean, and we need to think through this carefully, lest we create a larger problem than already exists or will exist in the future (e.g. we don’t want to create a Mussolini). That said, choosing sides, much like I comment about the Egyptian liberals needing to do, is part of the challenge of this situation.

So in conclusion, we all need to soul search on this. Lets not jump to quick answers, and instead enable time and space to help us make better decisions and policies going forward.

Thoughts on American Foreign Policy regarding Egypt in the last 12 months

Some months ago, when Mohammad Morsi was elected President of Egypt, I saw post after post on Facebook and other social media sites, heavily criticizing the Obama administration for its continued support of the Egyptian military in accordance with the Camp David Accords signed and supported by Republicans and Democrats since the late 1970s, and then implimented during the Regan administration during the 1980s.  Statements such as "Obama is selling warplanes to terrorists!" were prevalent in those days.  These statements easily come from a overtly simplistic analysis of events as they had occured.  The Egyptian military, having wrested power from President Hosni Mubarak, had guided a path toward and including "free and fair elections" for a Parliment and President.  The result was that the Muslim Brotherhood, a historic terrorist organization, and one that tended to Islamic extremism, was seated in power.  So, the aforementioned critics, seeing this, saw that now Egypt was in the hands of the Brotherhood, ergo the military was under the control of "terrorists"; not so fast, say I.

Events of the past weeks, with the Egyptian military staging, essentially, a coup of the Morsi government, show that the earlier analysis of these critics is ignorant of several critical elements, and, thus, their calls to unseat a long standing peace agreement that has kept peace between Egypt and Israel, were simply wrong.  What is clear to me is that these critics know little of Middle Eastern culture, history, and politics.  It is also clear that their criticism belies the fact that they speak from what is essentially an ethnocentric American point of view, not recognizing that the world operates very differently outside of the confines of the borders of the US of A.

Let me start with a quote from Thomas Friedman from this past Sunday on Meet the Press: "We are freaks".  First and foremost, we have a distinct version of democracy here in the USA that is abnormal to the rest of the world's experience.  We have now successfully transitioned power between various poles of the political spectrum, without a shot being fired, for just under 150 years (the Civil War representing the last time we could not resolve our differences peacefully).  And in an even more amazing stripe, we have made these transitions without having the winner use power to decimate the losing party overtly (surely redistricting and targeted campaign funding has been used in some cases, but we have yet to see round-ups of Democrats after Republicans controlled the Legislature and the White House).  So we don't just allow the winner to take power, we also respect the rights of the minority to exist and, more than that, we continue to power broker between the various poles of thought and politics, such that "extremes" rarely can do more than have voice, and simply can't run roughshod on the whole of government/our country.  It is clear that in the Middle East, this level of sophisticated power sharing and ebb/tide process of power exchange is beyond foreign (and for much of the world it is clearly foreign as well, excepting where a monarch/sovereign was the catalyst for such a system to develop).  In a strong sense, this kind of secular government is antithetical and will require strong guiding hands to develop over years if not decades/generations in order to take hold.

Next, we are freaks in that the military is really controlled by our civilian government.  Nothing about this is more iconic than the oil painting in the Pentagon of George Washington returning his sword, the sign of his authority and power, to Congress at the end of the Revolution.  When the President orders us, and when Congress approves the action, we march.  When they say stop, when they say retrograde, they say come home, we do.  We don't act independently of the civilian authority and we certainly cannot realistically even contemplate unseating the institutions of our republic through unified force of arms.  Not only this, but as my good battle buddy Ryan McDavitt reminds me, the concept of soldier that we have as Americans (an honorable, disciplined, servant of the people, called to arms, but also benevolent in action where called to be), is often unheard of elsewhere in the world.  Most of the world hears that soldiers are coming, and they tremble in fear; we walk outside for the parade.  In most of the world, Lincoln's premise that "right makes might" is turned completely around.  The military in many places stands either behind or along side civilian government as a separate "branch" of government, if you will.  In some societies, there is a distinct military class that stands apart, has different rights, and acts above and often is the arbiter/enforcer of any laws that effect all other classes of citizens.  So, those that were quick to judge negatively our continuance of the support of the Egyptian military after the election of the Muslim Brotherhood to civilian leadership of Egypt, for instance, greatly misjudge how that military operates within Egyptian society.

Basically, it was and remains ignorant to think that Egypt's military is subservient to and directed by, the civilian government.  A more astute understanding is that the military is a partner organization to the civilian leadership.  The partnership formed is one of mutual support, in the sense of establishing stable political will and meeting mutually agreed upon foreign policy objectives.  When the relationship becomes such that one side or the other is out of kilter, the civilian government is changed or the military sees a leadership rehash.  This happened with Nasser post the 1967 war (with a major retooling of the military), it happened to install Sadat (remember he was an Army officer), it happened to remove Mubarak, and it has happened again, now, with Morsi.  American policy, through several administrations, has been to develop, wisely, a strong relationship with the Egyptian military, mainly to enable stability, restraint in extreme politics, and as a hedge against threats to our other regional allies, especially Israel.  And, I note, this relationship between our military forces isn't just about sharing how to use their aircraft and preferential sales and how to shoot your rifle better, its also about how a military operates in a civil society, what human rights are all about, and what a functioning democracy looks like.  Not being a pure expert in all of this, I will tell you this is partially why the situation in Egypt has yet to spiral out of control and go into utter chaos; it also is why the military has consistently worked to turn control of the civilian government back over to a group of civilians as fast as possible.  This has worked, partially because, if you look back in history, it has worked in Turkey.

Turkey, what about Turkey?  Lets reflect on the last 100 years in Asia Minor.  If we look back to 1913, the Ottoman Empire was on its last legs, and 6 years and the end of the Great War brought its end.  With the rise of the Young Turks and Ataturk came the rise of a modern, secular Turkey (remember that the Ottoman Sultan's power derived from his holding and preserving the holy places of Islam and the titular role of Caliph), came a nascent democracy.  While America retrenched in many ways after WW I, there was a Turkish exception.  While it is probably overstating it, there developed some key relationships that developed before the German's swallowed Ankara into its sphere of influence (although Turkey remained officially neutral, it signed a non-agresion pact with Nazi Germany in 1941 and when Axis destruction was assured, then declared war on Germany in early 1945).  Once WW II was settled, and British and French influence sunk in the Middle East region, America made it a mission to reinvigorate our relationships with Turkey and made it a mission to join ourselves at the hip with the Turkish military (mainly as a hedge against Soviet influence in the Middle East).  When you look at, then how the government post Ataturk developed, was consistent democratic elections, then corrected by military coup when the parliament/civilian leadership went too far in one extreme or another, then returned to civilian leadership, and so on.  In the 1980s, this cycle more or less closed, and dedication to secular democratic government has been the hallmark of the rise of Turkey in the greater Middle East.  While the Turkish military still stands along side the civilian leadership (rather than under it), the relationship continues to grow closer to a western European/American model, even with the rise of some more Islamic parties in Turkey.

So in writing this entry, I am trying to point to the fact that when it comes to foreign affairs, especially the further you go from western European/American cultural backgrounds, one has to first understand the context, culture, history and societal make-up before commenting on how we approach going forward.  The current Egyptian example proves this point perfectly, in that if you live only in a fairly ignorant American construct of how a military and its government inter-relate, you will miss how we ought to pursue our national objectives in other countries, cultures, and regions.  I can't speak to the full rational of those critics that were so vocal about abruptly ending our military support to Egypt when Morsi and the Brotherhood rose to civilian leadership, but I can say that to have listened to them and acted as they desired, would have been a critical failure.  While I am not happy that a democratically elected government was overthrown, I can say that the Egyptian military keenly understood that the government that was going forward was not just and was not serving the interests of the people of Egypt, at least from their point of view.  Without question, democracy is a good thing as a government form, but it first requires a society that respects rule of law, plurality, and equal rights for those in power as well as out, in order for it to truly work.  Saying this another way, one has to ask is a good thing to have an elected government that terrorizes its own citizens (e.g. Charles Taylor of Liberia) or is it better to have an un-elected government that lives by the rule of law (e.g. King Abdullah II of Jordan)?  Really you want one that is elected and lives by the rule of law, but that is not always possible nor present in any given society.  That said, it requires a culture that has developed that can understand, and make sacred these values, and it may not work in all places at all times.  Clearly, the military in Egypt recognized that the civilian government was not getting them to this goal, but going the opposite direction.  It heard the people and acted.  If we didn't support the military, there wouldn't have been this agent to modulate and guide Egypt to its much brighter future.  When it no longer is that agent, I will concur with the earlier critics, but I will do so knowingly and aware of the context on the ground.  I only pray this helps us all take time to pause and think, before we spout off on the challenging task of guiding American foreign policy generally, but especially in Egypt.

Willful or Willing; Which should we be?

To open, the title of this blog post creates a false choice.  The dialectic device I am want to use is to build two cases (straw men) and then banter about to a conclusion on how I feel on this general topic.  Luckily, TED (Technology, Education and Design), has two preemminant scholars to do the task for me:

Barry Schwartz: The paradox of choice.  http://t.co/Zp7PI3FTLH

Malcolm Gladwell: Choice, happiness and spaghetti sauce.  http://t.co/L5Xvww9SjE

For those that are not familiar, TED is an information and idea-sharing venue that is supported by the likes of Goldie Hawn, Bill Gates, and other “big thinkers” and “doers” in the world from all walks of society.  Since I have discovered the online posting of the talks, I am more or less addicted.

But, back to this topic of choice.  Listening to these two videos from back in 2006, I was struck by how closely they hewed to a debate between two giants of the 16^th Century:  Erasmus and Luther.  Desiderius Erasmus was a Dutch humanist and Catholic theologian who debated Martin Luther, the father of the Reformation.  In his De libero arbitrio diatribe sive collation (“Diatribe on free will or contribution”), Erasmus defends the doctrine of “free will” that was held by Roman Catholicism at the time; eschewing on both sides of the argument (at his core Erasmus was always trying to find a middle way).  Erasmus, for his part, was simply saying that humans have the freedom of choice.  This being a theological/religious debate, Luther responded with De servo arbitrio (“On the Bondage of the Will”) saying as humans we are unable to work our a way through to salvation, but are utterly dependent upon God and his grace to accomplish this goal.  Luther, somewhat missed Erasmus’ point, but was pointing out that, at its core, a power to choose, that can result in nothing more than the power to go counter to goodness, is not a good in itself.  He did his mighty best to show that in his religious context (and those in the Christian one) its about surrendering the will we do have, to that of God, the ultimate good; making us one with it.

After listening to the videos and then reading the above, I am struck in the similarities.  Schwartz convincingly says that a plethora of choices leads to paralysis, unhappiness, and depression.  Gladwell argues well that fixating on a singular ultimate perfection is wrongheaded and we need to embrace diversity and variation.  One is arguing that having the power of choice/variation is a good thing, the other that choice can result in the opposite (Schwartz allows that we need some choice, but the problem lies in having too much).  So, in secular terms, the argument/debate is the same as Luther and Erasmus (and even further back in history; Aristotle and Plato); is the will or choice a good or an ill (and do we really have it)?  Alternatively, as I have titled this, is it good to be willful (to have/use choice) or is it better to be willing (to not have/use choice)?

I opened this post with the statement that these are somewhat false choices, and I contend both perspectives are fully right and fully wrong.  I will say that at my theological/philosophical core, when it comes to the ultimate facts of life and death, I fully concur with Schwartz/Luther/Plato in that we are simply without choice and dependent on God's grace.  But because we can't choose the circumstances of our ultimate demise (and salvation), does not necessarily mean that we have no choice nor should it be seen as good to not engage in making choices in life.  Similar to Erasmus, I want and believe in a middle way.  There is merit to Gladwell’s/Aristotle’s thought frame within the world we live, so long as we recognize that getting the “golden mean” requires us to have boundaries, boundaries we are not willful about, but willing to accept.

Mainly because we see throughout history that the road to tyranny can easily be paved by the denial of any choice, one has to accept Gladwell’s argument that we need to embrace diversity, accept difference, and trust that enabling choice is a good thing.  But, I contend, diversity does not negate universality or unity.  I come at this from my life’s experience, especially that in the American military that I have now been a part of for over 16 years.

First and foremost, every single person in uniform today, is there by a choice.  No matter how incentivized, they made a decision to serve; and that point cannot be under emphasized, especially given the last 12 years have been in a state of constant readiness, combat, and war.  Many from the outside presume that the soldier-ization process (or creation of sailors, or marines, or airmen) is one that squelches all diversity, that seeks to make replicated robots out of men and women, and amounts to brainwashing into a singular mindset.  Having served at all ends of the process (Basic Training through to the Army Staff), I can tell you diversity is alive and well in the Army and Joint force, and the battle of ideas at the Pentagon and elsewhere rages from day in to day out.  What being a part of the military does do, is put a fence around this rage.  It centers the individual on the common purpose (defense of the nation) an enables a respectful process, while messy at times, to refine ideas to a useful and much more powerful purpose.  I will admit that this can have the effect, sometimes, of having such a tempering effect that good ideas do not rise to the top and are lost; but with persistence, drive and determination nearly any good idea eventually gets its day in the sunshine.  Being a soldier isn’t about giving up being willful and driving to be the best (actually is quite the opposite, we are encouraged to excel and drive hard), but it is also about being willing to obey orders, respect the chain of command, and knowing when to argue and when to salute and put your energy into the common good.

I have been in leadership environments that have fostered a great understanding of this and others that have failed.  In my first tour in Iraq, our Battalion Commander (for most of the tour, the first one was relieved for not respecting boundaries) simply acted as a deterministic bureaucrat less than a leader.  He did not respect Gladwell’s argument that there was more than one way, his way, to do things.  He did not assume operational risk and seek out those opportunities presented to him to step outside of the box and make those large impacts that were needed to build moral, empower subordinate leadership, and maximize our potential as an organization to have a dramatic effect on the battlefield.  Some of these things happened, but despite his command climate and not because of it.  During the surge, on my second tour, however, the commander of our Brigade clearly understood the balance, the middle way.  He knew he needed to encourage a command climate where the battle of ideas could rage and subordinate organizations and leaders could try other things.  He had boundaries, he employed coercion (oft times using his leading non-commissioned officer), but he also allowed people to get to those boundaries before he yanked on their collar and pulled them back.  Consequently, we did much, much more than we could have ever thought to have done; and we strove harder and harder to make the difference needed to win.  There were choices, but unlike in Schwartz’s presentation, these were not overwhelming.  It was about being willfully willing.

I think the best example of this has to be in one of my favorite fantasyland worlds, the world of Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek.  Again, the construct is that of a military culture, one that has a strong chain of command and a common purpose.  However, throughout the various episodes in all of the various series, there are examples of willfulness and willingness.  You see episodes where beings become mindless replicas willingly and blindly following for supposed good but mostly for ill.  You see strongly willful being and leaders that overstep and their hubris leads them counter to the boundaries of society, science, and the universe itself.  And then you see the protagonists that are willing to sacrifice, submissive to the will of leadership and something greater then themselves, with a strong understanding that their fate is not ultimately their choosing, willfully pressing to accomplish the mission, challenge the norms, and push beyond themselves and achieve something very much the echo of making the ultimate choice for good.*  Traditions are valued and innovation is encouraged.

Therefore, to sum up this short treatise, I think both Schwartz and Gladwell make really good point about choices; it is in paradox we find truth.  We need to understand that chaos and too many choices can be just as bad as no choice what so ever.  We need to be willing, to sacrifice and to be bound by norms and understandings, and these are good things.  Nevertheless, just as good and not taking exception, are the needs to assert your place, to challenge what has been, to invent for ourselves a new tomorrow.  It’s about willful willingness.  It’s about engaging the world as Aristotle tells us, but acknowledging that we live in Plato’s cave.  It’s about trying to work things out as Thomas Aquinas did in his Summa Theologica but recognizing that Augustine was right in the end, and calling it nothing more than a pile of straw.  It’s about acknowledging we have free will, so long as we understand that the will we have is ultimately a tool that can lead to ill, so we have to be bound by the ultimate realities of the universe.  It’s about being willing to be willful and engage the world without forgetting our purpose in it.  With that mantra, one can go about settling on, perhaps, a middle way.

*For a good look at this, watching the episodes “Chain of Command” in Star Trek the Next Generation, and comparing the leadership of Picard vice that of Jellico, you get a taste of my foregoing leadership experiences in Iraq.  Further, I recommend Make It So:  Leadership Lessons from Start Trek the Next Generation by Wess Roberts and Bill Ross, especially the chapter related to this episode entitled “Intellectual Honesty”.

Good Violence

This morning I awake the day after Patriot’s Day, a day again after a well publicized and gripping tragedy that has taken lives here on the American home front.  I hear, as always, the call of the oath I swore several years ago to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States, against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”  And I contemplate the statement of Senator Marco Rubio of Florida when he said on two talk news shows this past Sunday that America has a “violence problem”.  Like the Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown, CT, this bombing in Boston at the very end of the marathon route, brings to specific relief the question of how we treat and entreat ourselves, our neighbors, and the perfect stranger around us.

My initial reaction to Senator Rubio’s comments was less than favorable.  Whenever I hear those who rail against violence as an innate evil, something that in itself is wrong, I wince.  For anyone who has been on an airplane and encountered turbulence, or on a ship when it sails through a gale, or even simply rode out a hurricane or tornado, you know that nature is violent.  A significant part of the created universe is all about the clash of one body or one force opposing one another.  Any scientist or engineer of good repute will remind you of Newton’s law that states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  So, we have to reconcile that violence is an inevitable part of our lives; a part that we can’t and shouldn’t ignore or try to remove, but instead contend and wrestle with in an honest and open manner.

Then I thought more on Rubio’s comments that we have a “violence problem” here in our country.  From that thinking, I warmed to my long held thought that we do have a violence problem, but not the one that perhaps many want to think about.  The problem is that we lack, and continue to ignore or berate, models of and emphasis on what I call “Good Violence”.  To this end, reflecting on yesterday’s violent act, we have yet another example of the opposite of what I am getting at with this concept of good violence.

Much of this principle of “Good Violence” that I have somewhat cloudily constructed in my head, comes from my cultural and religious heritage and context.  Let me first begin with the fact that I am a global “westerner”.  This means I come out of the euro-centric notion of western civilization, beginning to some extent with the cultures of the ancient middle east, through the Greco-Roman incubator and foundation, through the medieval period, the enlightenment/Victorian/industrial revolution, to the modern era.  I mention this context, as I am greatly informed as a soldier and in things related to morals in regards to violence by such models as the Spartan martial code, the Greek citizen-soldier, the Roman centurion, the Code of Chivalry, and the notion of being a “Gentleman” in Victorian parlance.  Each of these speak to defense of the weak, the well-being of body, mind, and soul, the suffering of the strong for the goodness of all, the notion of valor being about daring to enter into a place of extreme potential harm as a means to create a better good, and so forth.  These pre-spoke and are spoken in the Law of Armed Conflict today.  Violence in these constructs, recognizes the existence of evil in the world, and seeks to counterbalance that force through an equal, opposite, and judicious force of goodness.  This goodness is not one that is pacifistic; it is one that is often violent in its own right.

This brings up the moral question that has pervaded regarding violence in any society, how can it be used for good when it is a primary weapon of those doing evil?  To this I return to my Lutheran, Christian roots.  One of my favorite treatises on this topic is “Whether Soldiers Too Can Be Saved” by Martin Luther.  This is superior reading on this topic, and stems from many of the cultural sources I have already mentioned as well as early Christian writers/philosophers such as Augustine of Hippo.  This is probably one of the best pieces to talk through “just war” philosophy and the moral construct for the use of force.  It delineates when and why force of arms should be employed and when it is abhorrent to do so.  It even goes so far as to speak to why pure pacifism can be a moral wrong when it results in the unjust suffering and oppression of innocents in the face of an objective evil.  Luther, as well as many other Christian and religious writers, is an advocate for “Good Violence” that results in the pacification of evil, the undoing of wrongs, and the relief of the weak/downtrodden/poor.  He doesn’t just say its “OK” to use force, he insists that it is a moral obligation to do so in several instances; stipulating in a strong sense, that passive inaction is wrong when we have the power to overwhelm and overcome the evil around us.  And much of this stems from the witness of Christ himself turning over tables in the temple, praising the faith of the centurion, and warning of the coming suffering that his followers were to endure for the good of those less fortunate.

Now, I do not believe that my western context is exclusive of general human witness.  The ancient and time honored code of Bushido, for instance, can lead one to identical conclusions.  Nor is this a simple Christian set of virtues, as numerous faiths (Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Shintoism, etc.) share the values of using ones means to aid others and overcome the presence of evil amongst both believers and non-believers.  Lastly, nor can I believe that my innate masculine bias makes my view unique, as there are numerous examples of the employ of force by female legendary heroines and deities the world round.  And I believe there is a universal fiber that all humanity shares when it contemplates “Good Violence” in such things as the widespread value of the martial arts (typically of eastern forms, but others as well) and the popularity of theatrical performances and movies where the weak overcomes the strong, the oppressed over the oppressor.  It also is reflected in the natural world, our core instincts, as we seek to protect young, to defend our homestead, strike out when cornered.  At our best, we recognize that while force is never the preferred course, there are times that it is the right thing to employ violent action to produce the good and/or overcome the evil.  If nothing else, our experience in World War II should have been evidence enough that one has to fight for what is right in the face of dominating evil forces (and to this, Dietrich Bonheoffer's example is specifically compelling).

So this brings me back to yesterday, and the violence wrought then.  There was nothing noble or good in that violence.  It was cowardly, it was meant to attack the innocent, it was brutal without regard for minimizing harm.  To this point, so were the attacks at Sandy Hook, at Columbine, on September 11^th, at Oklahoma City, and on and on.  The news is replete daily of bad violence, the wanton use of force for purposes other than protecting, defending, and a higher good.  So again, in part, Marco Rubio is right, we have a violence problem.  The problem, isn’t the fact there is violence, it is that the violence is coarse, it is unwarranted, it is without regard for innocence or guilt, it is graphic, it is gratuitous, it is more often evil.

To me the prescription isn’t to merely do what we can to minimize these forms of violence through study, through passive means, but to also re-inculcate in our society the virtues of “good violence” for the right purposes.  We have quickly cast away from some of the historic constructs of the virtuous warrior I describe above for some good reasons: a) they were and often are overtly male, b) the historic record provides a smaller number of individuals than advertised that actually lived up to those principles, c) we have instantaneous knowledge and thoughts about events that doesn’t allow legend to form, d) our media has increasingly chosen to highlight the story of bad violence compared with the do-gooder because of the incentive structures they inherently live within, and e) we live in a very multi-cultural society that is increasingly linked with every other part of the globe so having an ethno-centric model (from whatever it comes from) is often distasteful and creates distance.  We simply cannot throw out the baby with the bathwater, however, in my belief.

What I am proposing is a new virtuous code of honor that promotes “good violence” and the person using that violence as a person to be followed.  We need leadership that doesn’t try to do the impossible (remove violence from our existence) but try to curb us to a higher calling, to rise above and thwart the evils around us; peaceably if we can, by force if we must.  We need to have stories and examples shown to us of the nobility of person overcoming the odds, fighting for virtue, discarding the bad.  Why shouldn’t we see the police officer taking out a mass murderer?  But at the same time seeing the family of the victims and the assailant healed in common purpose to prevent the causes for one to choose to kill other innocents.  Why can’t we see the soldier fighting her way in to rescue a woman in labor in Afghanistan who has been held captive by a local war lord?  But also at the same time see the brave Afghan sheik work night and day to bring education to his rural village for both his daughters and sons.  Why can’t we believe that if a nation is oppressed by a tyrant that we should take action to remove that leadership?  But at the same time we see the need to not just topple a corrupt government, but to lend the aid needed, when we take such action, to rebuild that society in the way that works for them and not us.  This modern day chivalric code isn’t about knights in shining armor, but it is about encouraging service, loyalty bound by virtue, bravery in the face of inestimable odds.  This is not being afraid to pick up the club, and do the violence to upend the wrong.  It is also not being afraid to pay the sacrificial effort to heal the wounds before and after.

To me, we do have a violence problem in America.  It is agreed that we have too much “bad violence”.  I am not calling for more violence, but what I am saying is for us to realize that there is a calling to use virtuous violence when it is applicable and accept its consequences.  I am one who thinks about this very problem every July 20^th, the anniversary of when I first sent a person home who was within my command.  Thankfully this soldier is still with us, and is doing well.  But as an officer I think on the orders that I give that put my soldiers in harm’s way; and the key question for me in this application of violence is, what is its goodness?  I am called to defend, and I will.  To that end, we all need to think on what and how we defend that is good; who is our neighbor, and how we deal with them and the world is critical.

My God, My God why have you forsaken me?

“My God, My God, why have you forsaken me …”  Psalm 22:1 (used by Christ on the Cross)

I am always struck by the conclusion of the Maundy Thursday service each year.  In most liturgical traditions (Catholic, Episcopalian, Lutheran, etc.), the service concludes with a ritual stripping of the Altar.  People from the mass of the congregation come forward and pick, piece, by piece, a removal of each vestment, each vessel, and each item from the place where the high point of the mass/service is celebrated in the Eucharist.  Fresh with the inborn remembrance of the self sacrifice and giving of his utter self, we see the table removed of all adornment, all purpose, and laid bare, naked, and devoid of any useful purpose.

Just before my participation in the service at Hope Lutheran here in Annandale, VA, I read an article posted by a friend on Facebook about how Pope Fancis broke with tradition and not only washed the feet of a woman, but went so far as to wash the feet of two of them; one of which was Roman Catholic, but the other a Serbian Muslim.  I can only say as I said yesterday, “this is awesome on so many levels!”  In his short pontificate, from my humble place, Francis has managed to preach louder than his predecessor about the core message of the Gospel in the small gestures and physical acts without even penning an encyclical.  I pray that he continues in this, and continue to be a model of true Christianity that is all about the downtrodden, the separated, and the socially forgotten or shamed.  As a Lutheran, I have always prayed that the Church be one and is one, not through force of will, or arms, or doctrinal convergence, but by our witness to the world of how we love one another and our neighbor, after all, this was Christ’s new commandment cited in last night’s service, “… love one another as I have loved you.”  John 15:2.

So in relaying these two things, what am I getting at?  What is so striking is the absence of hubris, absence of selfishness, the absence of power in both the naked altar and the unbound gift.  I commit to you that I am a sinner, and I fall short of the witness that both Christ and, to a lesser extent, Francis have embodied.  I am selfish, and I am centered too much on my material satisfactions.  My sin and our sin together is thinking that success is to be an achievement that we earn and can acquire.  US culture, capitalistic, and contractual, and commercial, while an engine for good (and often providing good to the rest of the world) can just as often pull us into the sin of greatness, and power, and earthly rationalism in every measure.  I am not trying to say we become the pauper of the world, or give up our capabilities as a nation, but it needs to give us pause to think on the power of laying ourselves bare and giving to the unworthy.  What made and continues to make us great as a nation is not our strength of arms to destroy, but instead the strength of arms to build up.  To me this is the difference between bombing Khartoum and deploying to Haiti.  While the first was necessary to cripple Al Queada, the second won us more than any pyrrhic victory in combat.  To me we can’t give up the altar of freedom and goodness and protection; it is ours to sacrifice on as the world’s greatest power and nation.  But, it is the need to sacrifice that we forget, and we, especially as individual affluent Americans, have become comfortable in paying others to do.

We all need to get back to the place the Psalmist was at, trusting in goodness but suffering the pains to unworthily receive it.  This isn’t masochistic, it is the burden of true greatness and the oxymoronic path that leads to even more than we can imagine.