Robert Ingersoll in his own time

1. A portrait of the famed anti-religious orator at middle age, circa 1880, taken by famed Civil War photographers Matthew Brady and Levin Handy. The Library of Congress title for the portrait is "Robert Ingersoll (The Infidel)":

2. A recording of Ingersoll -- of of the few -- on the subject of hope.

The prejudiced priest and the malicious minister say that I am trying to take away the hope of a future life. I am not trying to destroy another world, but I am endeavoring to prevent the theologians from destroying this. 

The hope of another life was in the heart, long before the 'sacred books' were written, and will remain there long after all the 'sacred books' are known to be the work of savage and superstitious men. Hope is the consolation of the world.

3. The New York Times on Ingersoll's courtroom defense of an ex-minister against allegations of blasphemy. C.B. Reynolds, chairman of the American Secular Union, had distributed pamphlets entitled "Blasphemy and the Bible," which said that the Bible was blasphemous in depicting God as a bloodthirsty monster. The news report was headlined "Blasphemy in New Jersey," and read:

For six months no topic was so interesting to the public as this. It monopolized attention at the stores, and became a fruitful subject of gossip in social and church circles. Under such circumstances it was to be expected that everybody who could spare time would go to court yesterday. Lines of people began to climb the court house hill early in the morning. At the hour of opening court the room set apart for the trial was packed, and distaffs had to be stationed at the foot of the stairs to keep back those who were not early enough. From nine thirty to eleven o'clock the crowd inside talked of blasphemy in all the phases suggested by this case, and the outsiders waited patiently on the lawn and steps and along the dusty approaches to the gray building.

Eleven O'clock brought the train from New York and on it Colonel Ingersoll. His arrival at the court house with his clerk opened a new chapter in the day's gossip. The event was so absorbing indeed, that the crowd failed entirely to notice an elderly man wearing a black frock suit, a silk hat, with an army badge pinned to his coat, and looking like a merchant of means, who entered the court house a few minutes behind the famous lawyer. That last comer was the defendant.

All was ready for the case. Within five minutes five jurors were in the box. [....] Colonel Ingersoll induced the Court to let him examine the five in the box and promptly ejected two Presbyterians.

Thereafter Colonel Ingersoll examined every juror as soon as presented. He asked particularly about the nature of each man's prejudice, if he had one. To a juror who did not know that he understood the word, the Colonel replied: 'I may not define the word legally, but my own idea is that a man is prejudiced when he has made up his mind on a case without knowing anything about it.' This juror thought he came under that category.

Presbyterians had a rather hard time with the examiner. 

4. Ingersoll, as represented on the cover of The Truth Seeker, the most successful freethought paper of the Gilded Age:

5. Robert L. Taylor, the Democratic Governor of Tennessee who once famously campaigned against his own brother, eulogizing the late Great Agnostic upon Ingersoll's death in 1899:

I saw him, like the serpent of old, worm himself into the paradise of human hearts, and by his seductive eloquence and subtle devices of sophistry inject his fatal venom, under whose blight its flowers faded, its music was hushed, its sunshine was darkened, and its soul was left a desert waste with the new-made graves of faith and hope.  

I saw him, like a lawless and erratic meteor without orbit, sweep across the intellectual sky, brilliant only in its self-consuming fire, generated by friction with the indestructible and eternal truths of God. 

That man was the archangel of modern infidelity, and I said: “How true is holy writ, which declares that the fool has said in his heart: ‘There is no God!’”

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Howard Phillips, 1941-2013

Howard Phillips, a leader of the religious right who spent more than 30 years pushing conservatives to be more true to their anti-government principals, has died at the age of 72.

He worked for Richard Nixon in the 1970s, dismantling welfare programs, but resigned when Nixon failed to stop funding programs he had promised to slash. Phillips was a key player in the founding of the Moral Majority and the politicization of evangelicals in the 1980s, and then founded a religious right party as an alternative to the Republicans in 1991. Phillips ran for president three times on the U.S. Taxpayers' Party ticket, in 1992, 1996, and 2000.

He embraced Christian Reconstructionism and libertarian economics, and was particularly interesting as a radical figure who refused to compromise. At his most politically successful, in 1996, Howard got .19 percent of the vote.

In 2000, during his last presidential run, he devoted some of his campaigning to attacking George W. Bush, a politically conservative evangelical Christian embraced by much of the religious right. Phillips, however, called Bush "a pretty new face to mask the ugly old policies" of "America's permanent power structure."

On the stump that year, Phillips said,

In this century, three Presidents in particular, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson have successfully launched fundamental assaults on America's heritage of Constitutional liberty. None of their successors altered the course on which these Presidents directed us.

Neither Harding, Coolidge nor Hoover undid the damage done during the Wilson presidency. Eisenhower consolidated and extended the systems put in place under FDR's New Deal and carried forward the institutional policies of the Truman presidency.

When Richard Nixon became President, instead of challenging the neo-Marxist revolutionary agenda of LBJ's Great Society, he consolidated it and extended it, while providing increased funding for its activities.

Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton all operated in the context of LBJ's Gramsci-esque political reality which was, in essence, a Federally funded war on the Constitution, on the culture, on the military, on traditional educational policy, and on the family.

Instead of e pluribus unum, America has become 'a house divided,' with its citizens defined on the basis of gender, ethnicity, race, and sexual orientation.

A runaway Supreme Court has, without serious challenge, asserted legislative claims never intended or granted by the Framers. Religious liberty has been assaulted, respect for the sanctity of human life has been abandoned, local control of crime has been undermined, and private property rights have been jeopardized. 

[....] 

But the real reason for the pro-Bush dynamic of the Year 2000 election is the overriding disgust with Bill Clinton and the desire to end the Clinton era.

Moreover, America's permanent power structure needs a pretty new face to mask ugly old policies.

That is the reason 'Dubya' is the clear favorite.

Once disgust with Clinton is, a few years hence, superseded by a new political reality, with Dubya having been in office for one, two, or three years, sensible conservatives and Christians will discern that, in GWB, they have installed Clintonism without Clinton.

Phillips got more than 98,000 votes cast for him that year, about .09 percent of the total vote. He finished in sixth place, behind the Green Party, Reform Party and Libertarian Party candidates. Despite his electoral failures, though Phillips was a real force for radicalization on the Christian right.

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A candidate for the mind of God

Talking about the theory of an 11-dimensional mulitiverse, the physics popularizer and string theory theorist Michio Kaku says that science now has "a candidate for the mind of God."

Kaku explains "how we physicist's view things" by talking about Albert Einstein's belief in God, and that phrase, "the mind of God." According to Kaku, Einstein didn't believe in a personal or interventionist God, but "he believed in the God of order, harmony, beauty, simplicity, and elegance .... because he thought the universe was so gorgeous. It didn't have to be that way. It could have been chaotic. Ugly. Messy."

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Judges seem skeptical of homeschoolers' persecution claims

The three judges set to decide whether a German homeschooling family qualifies for asylum in the United States seemed skeptical during a court hearing Tuesday in Cincinnati, Ohio, according to news reports.

Uwe and Hannelore Romeike are arguing that homeschoolers ought to be considered a "particular social group" persecuted by countries that have laws requiring all children attend public or state-approved private schools. According to U.S. law, people persecuted because they belong to a "particular social group" are granted asylum. The law does not define the term, but federal courts have generally interpreted it as meaning a group that has some immutable characteristic. A lower court found that the family could not be considered religious or political refugees. If the Romeikes lose the appeal, they will not be required to return to Germany, but they will have to leave the U.S.

One of the three judges who will decide the case asked pointedly whether any German law is targeted at homeschoolers specifically, or if the law is not rather of general applicability. He also said that it's entirely possible for children to attend a public school and still receive additional private training from their parents, the Associated Press reported.

"Germany is not forbidding home-schooling ... It's not like saying you can't teach them at home in the evenings," said Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton, a George W. Bush administration appointee.

A second judge said that ruling in the Romeike's favor would mean "opening the door" to many, many asylum seekers. The judge speculated that such a precedent would possibly mean anyone in any country being punished under a law not supported by the United States would be entitled to refugee status.

The third judge on the panel said that Germany's rules about mandatory education do not seem designed to suppress Christianity or oppress homeschoolers, but to integrate minorities into society and teach tolerance.

Michael Farris, the Romeike's lawyer and the head of the homeschool organization that encouraged the family to emigrate to America when they were facing legal trouble at home, rejected the idea that public schools might be socially valuable by teaching tolerance. He said, "If that's tolerance, it's tolerance unknown in a free society," according to the Baptist Press.

After the 38 minutes of oral arguments and judges' questions, the Baptist Press' reporter concluded that "the judges suggested that they may not grant asylum, arguing that mistreatment by the German government is not tantamount to persecution and not necessarily a ground for allowing the family to remain in America."

That is exactly what the Justice Department lawyers are arguing.

In court, the Obama administration representative said the German law "is not a great law." But that's not the same as persecution, he said, and isn't grounds for considering those in violation of that law a protected, "particular social group."

Farris, for his part, was holding out hope on Tuesday afternoon that the judges would decide in favor of the homeschoolers. In a statement he said "tough questions were asked on both sides, and it's hard to predict the outcome," but "God can intervene."

The German homeschoolers have may supports on the American right -- including Glenn Beck and Mike Huckabee -- who are hoping for divine help. As Hannelore Romeike noted outside the courthouse after the hearing, "there are so many people praying for us."

In addition to prayers, supporters have also organized social media campaigns calling attention to the case and accusing the Obama administration of siding with Nazis and harboring Latin American criminal immigrants while deporting good homeschooling Christians. To date, more than 120,000 people have signed a petition stating that the "Romeikes hope for the same freedom our forefathers sought. Please grant the privilege of liberty to the Romeike family."

According to the Home School Legal Defense Association, the federal courtroom overflowed with supporters during the hearing. The Associated Press put the number of supporters in attendance at about 50 or 60.

It could be several months before the appeals court judges rule on Romeike vs. Holder.

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America's religious regions, according to geo-coded data

A map of the Christian denominational landscape of the United States, as represented by internet-user-generated data. 

The creators, Matthew Zook and Taylor Shelton from the University of Kentucky and Mark Graham from Oxford, use a software program to mine online, geo-coded data -- Google Maps placemarks, Flickr and Instagram photos, tweets, etc. -- and produce maps such as the above. They write that the internet 

serves to represent and reproduce society in a variety of ways [....] Particularly compelling are the new types of linkages made between online activity and offline locations in which Internet users associate meaning -- ranging from the prosaic to the profound -- to specific sites in the material world. These novel phenomena, commonly referred to as geotagging (also georeferencing or geocoding), provides an innovative means for studying the spatial contours of the virtual dimension of practically any subject, including religion.

This is a different, interesting way to conceptualize the religious landscape of America.

The obvious weakness of this map is the extent to which it relies on denomination names. It's interesting, though, that even as more Protestant churches downplay organizational affiliations, and non-denominational churches are on the rise, there's still quite a bit of information that can be gathered using the organization names generated by internet users, and that information gives one a decent overview of the strong regional differences in American's religious choices.

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Hitler wins: the disjunction of law & politics in Romeike v. Holder

The definition of a very vague legal term is at the center of oral arguments being heard today in a federal appeals court in Cincinnati, Ohio. That term is "particular social group."

In US law, that is one of five named groups of people eligible for asylum -- and the most ill-defined. The other categories are race, religion, nationality, and political opinions. If someone can demonstrate they are being persecuted or that they fear being persecuted on those grounds, they can be granted refugee status in America. People also have the right to asylum if they're being persecuted because they belong to a "particular social group," but what that means, who that applies to, is a matter of a legal dispute. In the case in court today, the question is whether or not homeschoolers count as a "particular social group" and should be granted asylum if they come to the US from a country where homeschooling isn't legal, such as Germany.

The political agitation coming out of this court case bears only the slightest relation to the legal issue, though.

The activists who care about this case, Romeike vs. Holder, don't appear to be at all interested in the legal issue at the heart of the case. They are, though, very interested in the way public perception of the case allows them to agitate against the Obama administration and for homeschooling.

The Romeike family has become a cause célèbre on the American right.

Uwe and Hannalore Romeike left southwest Germany in 2008, facing mounting fines for their refusal to send their children to either a public or private school. At the behest of the Home School Legal Defense Association, a non-profit committed to advocating for the rights of parents to homeschool, the Romeike's travelled to the US on tourist visas and then applied for asylum, claiming they were being persecuted in Germany for their religious belief that they should homeschool. The family does not belong to nor affiliate with any religious organization, but cited numerous Bible verses that they say instruct them to educate their own children, despite their lack of official credentials to do so.

The couple also claimed the German education system was teaching their children all sorts of things that they were opposed to, including witchcraft, though they didn't offer any evidence to support those claims.

Uwe Romeike told the authorities, "God requires me and my wife to educate our children at home ourselves."

In 2010, a federal judge ruled that the family was indeed a "particular social group" -- i.e., homeschoolers -- being persecuted in Germany, and thus could be considered to have the right to asylum in America.

The Romeike's lawyers also argued they were being discriminated against because of their political opinions and religious beliefs, but the court didn't accept those arguments. The family had no history of political activity. They certainly were religious, but the law they were accused of violating had no religious component to it, and didn't qualify, legally, as amounting to religious persecution. The judge wrote, however, that the family was being attacked by the German government because the German government, "for some unknown reason," wants to suppress the particular social group that is home schoolers. Their request for asylum was granted.

Then, a year ago, the immigration appeals board overturned the court's decision. The board ruled the Romeike's were not legally entitled to the status of refugees, as homeschoolers do not constitute a protected class, since they are a diverse group, amorphous. The main legal standards for establishing a group as a "particular social group," established by the precedent of court rulings, require the Romeike's lawyers prove that homeschoolers are a group with immutable characteristics. This means they have to make the case that being a homeschooler involves "a characteristic that either is beyond the power of an individual to change or is so fundamental to individual identity or conscience that it ought not be required to be changed." There are also other interpretations of what this term means that have been used by the courts, as is outlined in a Boston College International and Comparative Law Review article that strongly supports the Romeike's asylum case. The extensive legal issues involved in this case are further argued by one of the HSLDA lawyers in a long blog post here.

None of that shows up in the popular arguments being about this case, however.

Instead, the HSLDA is promoting arguments like this:

That comparison has been picked up and repeated by those who strongly support homeschooling and strongly oppose Obama and, generally, American liberalism. For example, a self-described "homeschooling guru" blogger writes,

the Obama Administration, while disregarding millions of illegal immigrants and Mexican drug lords sneaking over the Southern borders, dismissed the judge’s argument and immediately set their sights on an innocuous homeschooling family from Germany .... This case should be on the radar screen of every parent who values the freedom to raise and educate our children without government interference.

A FOX News story opened with the same comparison between "good" immigrants and the bad ones: "While the White House and many lawmakers push to grant legal status to immigrants who crossed the border illegally, the Romeike family thought they followed the rules -- but now face deportation."

None of this has anything to do with the case, in reality. The merits of the case -- on which the case will be debated and will be decided -- have not the slightest relationship to the question of immigration reform or general immigration policy. The politics of immigration aren't at issue in the federal appeals court.

The case has even less to do with Nazism, but the political agitators have been very aggressive in associating Germany's education law to that dark period of German history, making the hand-wavy argument that either this family should get asylum in America or the Nazis win. Though public education has existed in Germany since Luther, and was law long before Nazis took charge, people defending the Romeike's right to be seen as persecuted refugees repeat claims that German education policy is, at bottom, a Nazi policy.

As HSLDA head Michael Farris put it,

the German government wants to prohibit people who think differently from the government (on religious or philosophical grounds) from growing and developing into a force in society. It is thought control. 

It is belief control. It is totalitarianism dressed up in politically correct lingo. 

In the same vein, HSLDA has argued people should speak up in support of the Romeike's because:

While Dietrich Bonhoeffer's face may not symbolize principled opposition to growing government encroachment on the freedom of religion to everyone, that's what it communicates to Christian conservatives in America today.

Nor are the ad hitlerum arguments always so subtle.

A Neo-Calvinist homeschooler wrote that in this case, the US Attorney General is taking the side of Nazism in federal court. The homeschooling father writes:

This may be a glowing example of the argumentum ad hitlerium fallacy, but consider the facts. Adolf Hitler will be one of Eric Holder’s witnesses for the prosecution against the Romeikes. This is a human rights contest where the prosecution will posthumously call Adolf Hitler to testify on their behalf whenever German law is invoked, and the German Supreme Court’s upholding of these Nazi laws is the primary witness in Eric Holder’s case against the Romeikes.

No facts are actually involved in that paragraph. But details of how and why German education policy developed aren't relevant to rhetorical excess, nor to the political argument for homeschooling and against government generally. And anyway, no one who is making this argument-by-free-association seems to have bothered to investigate why Germans tolerate and even avidly support the ban on homeschooling.

It's enough, politically, to shout "Hilter!"

Or, as a columnist at the right-leaning Washington Times wrote, "small-minded and grasping totalitarianism .... It sounds like they aren’t really big on religious or philosophical diversity over there."

Even if it were what it seemed like or sounded like to those who think loose comparisons to Hitler serve as evidence of totalitarian intent, that wouldn't be relevant to this court case being heard in Ohio today. The decision won't be based on anything having to do with Hitler. Or immigration. Or any of the political conflicts being actively aggravated by homeschooling advocates in loose connection to the Romeike case.

The court case isn't about any of these things.

But then maybe that's the point, because HSLDA can lose this appeal and still advance its cause and rally its base with all this rhetoric and agitation that's only tangentially connected to the court case purportedly arousing it. Getting people up in arms can serve a purpose. And people are unlikely to strong emotional reactions to debates over the definition of "particular social group" in a US asylum law passed in 1980. The politics of this and the legal case in the courts are, when one looks at them, only barely related. The two discourses never quite intersect, even when they're presented as being (and necessarily, for the sake of the politics) entirely the same.

This is what's really crazy about the public debates about politically sensitive court cases -- knowing the facts of the case and legal issues being debated doesn't really turn out to be particularly relevant to the social groups who really, passionately care.

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Teaching the history of American atheism

There are more than a few resources available to those who would teach on atheism, so long as they conceive of atheism in philosophical terms. There are anthologies, and college course syllabi available online, and a more-or-less established sense of what would be included in such a course.

For those interested in teaching on the history of atheism, this isn't the case.

Personally, I became interested in atheism as a historical phenomena when thinking about how to explain the relationship between the New Atheists and the cultural changes at the turn of the century -- the terrorist attacks of 2001, the election of George W. Bush, and the rise of blogging in particular. While the arguments being advanced by New Atheists were, from the most part, not directly speaking to their political and cultural context, those things seemed relevant nonetheless. They're relevant not necessarily in terms of evaluating the arguments being made, but in terms of understanding why the arguments were what they were, and why they were being made in the ways they were. It seemed, further, that in the atheism debates that sprang up in the first part of the 21st century, atheism was consistently being treated as one thing, a timeless and unchanging philosophy. But when one looks at actually existing atheism, there are always multiple movements and counter-movements and many contested claims about coextensive commitments that come along with atheism.

Atheism, that is to say, is always, in history, atheisms. In the plural, they are, I find, more complex, more fraught, and more alive than they're generally made to seem in popular, public conversations.

Thinking about atheism ahistorically means leaving out a lot of interesting and arguably important aspects of the atheisms that people hold to and live their lives with.

Approaching the subject as history, on the other hand, allows one to focus on at least two important issues. One, what cultural conditions contributed to and determined the shape and tenor of various atheist movements, and two, what effect those movements had and have on the culture. Approaching atheism historically can mean (for example) allowing for the space necessary to think about how different political environments and philosophies were hospitable to different movements of atheists at different times -- why, for example, Republicans in the Gilded Age gladly counted Robert Ingersoll as one of their own, while in the first decades of the 20th century atheists were associated and affiliated with the more radical strains of the politics of the left.

As far as I can tell, the only readily available historical works on atheism tend towards hagiography, or are designed to be dismissive, so that "history" means either "model for moral instruction" or "refutation." Such approaches aren't great, academically. While they may be useful for arguing for atheism or against atheism, they're not helpful in teaching about atheism, which is what I want to do.

I am trying to teach the history of American atheism(s) this semester. I've had to create my own canon, to do that, with a bit of very helpful advice. With the thought that there may be others interested in teaching such a course, or anyway, general interest in approaching atheism as aspect of American history, I offer my course schedule reading list here, along with some explanatory notes.

In selecting the assigned readings, I kept two principals in mind: One, representitiveness; Two, accessibility.

It quickly became evident that it would not be possible to be comprehensive, given limitations of a semester. But I wanted readings that would adequately represent the various movements of atheism in American history, give students a vairly complete overview, and I wanted to have selections that would sufficiently present the particular thinkers and their arguments. Also I wanted readings that would not give my students -- mostly in their first years of university, coming from a wide variety of educational backgrounds, from a number of different disciplines -- too much trouble. Plus I had to be able to get ahold of the given readings and make them available to the students. With those limitations and goals, here's what I came up with:

15 April

Introduction; syllabus; definitions; review of classic arguments for the existence of God

22 April

Thomas Paine (1737-1809)

Selections from Age of Reason

Joel Barlow (1754-1812)

Selections from Joel Barlow: American Citizen in a Revolutionary World, by Richard Buel, Jr.

29 April

Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)

"Centennial Oration"; "Why I am an Agnostic"; selections from The Great Agnostic, by Susan Jacoby

Elizabeth Candy Stanton (1815-1902)

Selections from A Woman's Bible

6 May

Charles Chilton Moore (1837-1906)

Selections from Kentucky's Most Hated Man, by John Sparks

Blue Grass Blade

Selections from Letter from an Atheist Nation, ed. Thomas Lawson

13 May

William Graham Sumner (1840-1910)

"Religion and the Mores"; "That it is Not Wicked to be Rich; Nay, Even That it is Not Wicked to be Richer Than One's Neighbor"; "The Shifting of Responsiblity"; "Sketch of William Graham Sumner," by Albert Galloway Keller; "God and Man at Yale (in 1880)" by George Marsden

20 May

Max Eastman (1883-1969)

"The Religion of Patriotism"

Mike Gold (1894-1967)

"The Jesus-Thinkers"

27 May

H.L. Menken (1880-1956)

Selections from Damn! A Book of Calumny; Scopes trial reporting

3 June: NO CLASS 

10 June 

Humanist Manifestoes (1933; 1973)

17 June

Richard Wright (1908-1960)

Selections from Black Boy

James Baldwin (1924-1987)

Selections from Go Tell it on a Mountain

24 June

Ayn Rand (1905-1982)

Selections from Atlas Shrugged; Playboy Interview 1964

1 July

Madalyn Murray O’Hair (1919-1995)

Playboy Interview 1965, "The Murder of the Madalyn Murray O'Hair: America's Most Hated Woman," by Lona Manning

8 July

William Hamilton (1924-2012)

"The New Essence of Christianity"

Thomas J.J. Altizer (1927- )

"A Wager"

Make-up class:

Richard Feynman (1918-1988)

"The Relation of Science and Religion"; "Cargo Cult Science"

Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

"Pale Blue Dot"; selections from "The Varieties of Scientific Experience"

15 July

Daniel Dennett (1942- )

"The Bright Stuff"; "Atheism and Evolution"; "The Evolution of Misbelief"

22 July

Chris Stedman (1987- )

Selections from Faitheist

Conclusion; wrap-up 

A few thoughts:
1. It would be very easy to double the number of readings. There are lots and lots of people who are not here and could be here, though hopefully the above gives a good overview even though it's not comprehensive.
2. There were a number of people who I ended up leaving out because their work is limited mainly to criticizing instantiations of Chrisitanity, and they don't generally go beyond that. Examples range from 19th century abolitionists to 21st century media figures. I gave preference to works where epistemological and metaphysical claims are made.
3. If this could be expanded, it would be worth looking at those who were not atheists per se but attempted to establish secular alternatives to traditional religions, such as Felix Addler and John Muir. Such movements will be referenced in discussions of readings that are included, but there are limits on time that forced me to make some tough decisions.
4. With a few noted exceptions, fictional works on atheism were not included. While there would ideally be space for Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Kurt Vonnegut, etc., etc., there was a problem of accessibility. In some cases, non fiction versions of the author's arguments are easier to teach. In others, the issue of excerpting a short enough portion of text for a single undergrad class was very problematic. Additionally, teaching fiction is different than teaching argumentative essays, and switching back and forth too much presents a number of challenges.
5. There are only a few secondary texts, here, mostly in the first month of class. The secondary texts I've found tend to be very uneven. The hope, though, is that these texts will demonstrate to the students how one can take a primary text and situate it historically and read it in historical context, which the class will then do with the later texts.
6. Class time will be given to a combination of history lectures and group discussions explicating the assigned readings.

This is obviously a work in progress, but, I hope, a promising one.

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A tax on sex outside of marriage

Chuck Colson died a year ago today. The one-time Watergate criminal, who converted to evangelical Christianity after his indictment, played a pivotal role in the political mobilization of American evangelicals, particularly by popularizing and promoting the work of Francis Schaeffer and the idea of "worldviews," and also in convincing evangelicals to work with Catholics on common social causes.

In one of his very last daily radio commentaries, broadcast April 2, Colson argued tax policies necessarily reflects legislator's worldview, and that conceptions of "sin" are important to the shape that those tax policies take. He said,

... the number of sin taxes is increasing, perhaps because legislators simply want to be on record as opposing the 'sins' of alcohol, smoking, and even sugary drinks! 

It’s odd, though, that despite this feeding frenzy, nobody is proposing to tax an activity that nearly every previous generation saw as truly sinful and harmful to society: sexual promiscuity. 

In fact, the word 'promiscuity' is no longer uttered after the word 'sexual' in polite company, although the word 'freedom' certainly is. And we actually celebrate sexual promiscuity. 

... now the Sexual Left not only excuses sin, they want us to actually subsidize it.

It's a clever argument, partly playfully facetious, built not on argument for a policy position per se but the deftness of the reversal of the policy position being opposed, an argument via subversion, mutates mutandis.

That style was not incidental to his success, I don't think.

The late Colson's radio commentaries can be heard here. Colson's columns for Christianity Today, including those he co-wrote with the Catholic theologian Robert P. George, can be found here. The radio commentaries of those who have continued his work -- including those of popular Dietrich Bonhoeffer biographer Eric Metaxas -- can be heard here.

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George Beverly Shea, 1909 - 2013

George Beverly Shea, who sang at Billy Graham crusades for more than 60 years, died on Tuesday at the age of 104.

According to the PR Newswire article, he was

Born in Winchester, Ontario, Canada, where his father was a Wesleyan Methodist minister, Shea's first public singing was in the choir of his father's church. Between Crusade, radio, and television dates in many countries, he sang at hundreds of concerts and recorded more than 70 albums of sacred music. At age 23 he composed the music to one of his best known solos, "I'd Rather Have Jesus."

He won a Grammy in 1965, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Grammys in 2011. He was inducted into the Gospel Music Association Hall of Fame in 1978 and the Religious Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 1996.

According to Shea's authorized biography, written by Paul Davis, Shea turned down an early offer of a career in secular music. He won a radio competition, singing Go Down Moses and was offered a recording contract, but wasn't comfortable with anything but gospel music. After he joined with Graham in 1940s, he wholly committed his talent to evangelical outreach. That talent did not go unappreciated. As Davis writes,

In those dizzy, busy days of Billy Graham Missions, his hit records barely kept pace with demand as his multiple admirers flocked to see him in person or on the silver screen in his movie musical shorts or cameo in Christian feature films.

The New York Times reports he was "perhaps the most widely heard gospel artist in the world."

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Psalms for sale

One of the few extant copies of the Bay Psalm Book, either the first book or one of the first books printed in what is now the United States (depending on your definition of "book"). The psalter is very small -- 6 inches by 5 inches -- and is one of only 1,700 printed by Massachusetts Puritans in 1640. The book goes on auction in November. It is expected to bring in more than $15 million. That money will go to Boston's Old South Church, the current owner, a United Church of Christ congregation that has been struggling financially.

The head of the auction house's book department said "It is a mythical rarity. Yet here it is today, this modest little book printed in the American wilderness but embodying the values that created our nation: political freedom and religious liberty."

Update: One of the bombs that went off yesterday at the finish line of the Boston Marathon (after I wrote this post) was outside the Old South Church. The church was not damaged. On their facebook page, they ask people to "Please continue to pray for those impacted by today's events."

[Cross-posted at Jonathan Edwards Center Germany].

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'Heathens' and the history of 'In God We Trust'

In a pending federal lawsuit, the Freedom From Religion Foundation is seeking to get "God" taken off of U.S. currency. Previous attempts have been unsuccessful. The group claims that the motto -- which was reaffirmed by Congress in 2011 -- makes full citizenship seem to be contingent on assent with monotheism, and coerces atheists into promoting monotheism, as they're forced to carry and distribute the message "In God We Trust."

According to the lawsuit, the motto on American money violates both religion clauses of the First Amendment, giving a government endorsement to a religious belief and putting a substantial burden on atheists right not to practice religion.

Whatever one thinks of the legal merits of Newdow vs. the Congress of the United States, the complaint offers an extensive and fascinating look at the history or American money's dedication to God. Part of the story is familiar: in the context of Cold War antagonisms, American politicians, including President Dwight D. Eisenhower, were eager for the country to confess God, even if only in the vaguest of terms. Religiousness served to unify Americans against "the Godless commies," and to sanctify economic and political interests.

Less familiar are mid 19th century efforts to put "God" on American money.

In 1861, at the start of the American Civil War, some thought mentioning the divine on coins would be a good response to "heathenism."

Possibly, in particular, the suspected heathenism of Abraham Lincoln.

According to the Freedom From Religion Foundation suit:

On November 13, 1861, Rev. M.R. Watkinson -- characterizing himself as a 'Minister of the Gospel' -- wrote to Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase seeking 'the recognition of the Almighty God in some form in our coins.' Noting to the Secretary that '[y]ou are probably a Christian,' Rev. Watkinson claimed that such recognition was important to 'relieve us from the ignominy of heathenism.' Additionally, the minister argued that such recognition 'would place us under the Divine protection we have personally claimed. From my heart I have felt our national shame in disowning God as not the least of our present national disasters.' In response, on November 20, 1861, Secretary Chase wrote a short note to James Pollock, then the Director of the Mint in Philadelphia, making the purely religious claim that 'No nation can be strong except in the strength of God, or safe except in His defense. The trust of our people in God should be declared on our national coins.' Secretary Chase then instructed Director Pollock to 'cause a device to be prepared without unnecessary delay with a motto expressing in the fewest and tersest words possible this national recognition.'

Chase was a leader in the Republican party, a strong anti-slavery advocate, and part of the party's radical wing that pushed Abraham Lincoln to be less conservative and cautious. He was religious himself, but it's possible Chase wasn't motivated by his own Christian faith as much as the political desire to thwart the idea that the Lincoln administration was anti-religious. I.e., heathenish.

The president, after all, would, only a year later, tell a group of concerned Protestants that he couldn't know whether or not it was God's will that he free the slaves. Asked to invoke God on behalf of the cause, he resisted. "These are not," Lincoln wrote, "the days of miracles, and I suppose it will be granted to me that I am not to expect a direct revelation. I must study the plain, physical facts of the case, ascertain what is possible, and learn what appears to be wise and right."

That sort of secularism didn't sit well with a lot of Americans, circa 1861. Public, pro forma recognitions of God were more popular. 

It's not clear whether or not anyone was convinced of the goodness of the Union cause by the legend on the coins, though. When Congress took up the issue of the monotheistic inscription four years later, a New York Times editorial noted it sounded a bit like a dying profession of faith, too desperate to be taken at face value. According to the paper:

in view of our recent struggle for national life, does it not sound somewhat like a death-bed repentance? Does it not remind one of the significant words of the MASTER, whose estimate of this common medium was expressed in the words: "Whose image and superscription is this?" Without questioning the good motives that led to the enactment of this new form of national worship, we respectfully submit that such tract-printing by the government is always improper, and, just now especially, ill-timed [....] Let us try to carry our religion -- such as it is -- in our hearts, and not in our pockets.

It's not too hard, interestingly, to find Christian sermons making that last point today, contrasting the cheapness of words on money with what the preacher holds to be true Christian trust in God. Though, typically, conservative Christians are thought to be strong supporters of government declarations of dependance on God, the motto on the money regularly comes in for critique from conservative pulpits. At a Church of God in Conyers, Ga., in a sermon speaking to the 2008 financial crisis, for instance, the pastor preached:

every time we make or spend money, the money reminds us that our trust, as a nation, is not in the money, or the army, or the politicians. Our trust is in God. But is it really? Do we really trust God, or has our trust in God been shaken by the economic crisis that our nation is in? Do we trust in God or are we looking to someone or something else to deliver us?

In Franklin, Wisc., at Victory of the Lamb, a church that's part of the theologically conservative Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, a whole sermon series was built off of that critique of the national motto. The series was called "In God We (Really) Trust." The church announced the series this way:

'In God We Trust.' The phrase is printed on all our money. But does our nation really trust in God?  

More importantly, do we really trust in God? Just asking the question may offend some of us. Of course I trust in God!  

Perhaps the more pointed question might be: how deeply do I trust in God?  

Jesus makes it clear that trust radically changes the way we look at and think about the world, our money and our God. This series is not for the faint of heart or for those who do not want to be stretched or challenged. 

Presumably neither church goes in for "heathenism," but the way the debate about the motto takes shape in the national discourse, criticism is often assumed to be coming from a place of anti-religious animus. In 1907, for example, when the place of the phrase on the nation's money was being debated again, the Rev. Charles Edward Locke declared, according to the suit now before the federal courts,"I have never heard of any body of men who believe in the sacred principles of patriotism passing resolutions asking to have the sentiment removed, but from my childhood I have heard the blatant protests of infidels and unbelievers against this custom."

That might be a decent description of the folks at the Freedom From Religion Foundation. They might object to the phrase "infidels," but would probably acknowledge, at least, that the reverend was talking about people like them.

The history of efforts to inscribe American money with words of monotheistic devotion, and resistance to those efforts, however, don't sort out so easily into opposition between believers and non-believers. The history of this is complicated, and political, and, as this current lawsuit serves to illustrate, both long and peculiarly fascinating.

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Southern Gospel: if you don't love your neighbor, then ...

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Death of a witness to vulgar grace: Brennan Manning, 1934 - 2013

Brennan Manning, a former priest, alcoholic, and author of the spiritual classic The Ragamuffin Gospel, who wrote extensively on the theme of grace and God's love, died yesterday at the age of 78. He would have been 79 this month. 

From his memoir, All is Grace, his last book:

My life is a witness to vulgar grace -- a grace that amazes as it offends. A grace that pays the eager beaver who works all day long the same wage as the grinning drunk who shows up at ten till five. A grace that hikes up the robe and runs breakneck toward the prodigal reeking of sin and wraps him up and decides to throw a party, no ifs, ands, or buts. A grace that raises bloodshot eyes to a dying thief's request -- 'Please, remember me' -- and assures him, 'You bet!'... This vulgar grace is indiscriminate compassion. It works without asking anything of us. It's not cheap. It's free, and as such will always be a banana peel for the orthodox foot and a fairy tale for the grown-up sensibility. Grace is sufficient even though we huff and puff with all our might to try and find something or someone that it cannot cover. Grace is enough... 

Sin and forgiveness and falling and getting back up and losing the pearl of great price in the couch cushions but then finding it again, and again, and again? Those are the stumbling steps to becoming Real, the only script that's really worth following in this world or the one that's coming. Some may be offended by this ragamuffin memoir, a tale told by quite possibly the repeat of all repeat prodigals. Some might even go so far as to call it ugly. But you see that doesn't matter, because once you are Real you can't be ugly except to people who don't understand...that yes, all is grace. It is enough. And it's beautiful.

Christianity Today published a good piece on Manning and his ministry -- and influence on American evangelicals -- in 2005. The article notes how Manning's message of grace spoke to those who felt like they were faking their way through life, but wanted something more than the usual self-help fare:

His light denim jeans are cheekily patched up with colorful squares. It's as if to remind himself and me, 'Don't think I'm a saint. I'm a ragamuffin, you're a ragamuffin, and God loves us anyway.' In his bestseller The Ragamuffin Gospel (Multnomah, 1990), he writes that 'justification by grace through faith means that I know myself accepted by God as I am.' He explains, 'Genuine self-acceptance is not derived from the power of positive thinking, mind games, or pop psychology. It is an act of faith in the grace of God alone.'[....] 

We sit down, and Manning tells me that there's nothing he'd rather do than what he has done for 41 years: help sinners journey from self-hatred to self-acceptance. 

He's been there -- or, to put it more accurately -- he is there, traveling this road daily, never too far from a character he calls the Imposter. Everyone's got one. It's 'the slick, sick, and subtle impersonator of my true self.' The persona craves to be liked, loved, approved, accepted, to fit in. 'It's the self that refuses to accept that my true self, centered in Christ, is really more likeable, more attractive, and more real than the fallen self.'

On his facebook page, a statement from Manning's family reads: "While he will be greatly missed we should all take comfort in the fact that he is resting in the loving arms of his Abba."

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What 'Mormon' means to the media when you're murdered

Travis Alexander was a Mormon.

He converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in high school. He did his two-year mission in Denver. He abstained from alcohol, tobacco and caffeine, in keeping with the common understanding of the church's health codes, and cared about eating nutritional meals, which isn't always true for financially successful 30-year-olds. He wanted to live in a community with a strong Mormon presence. That was part of why he moved to Mesa, Az. He wrote a spiritual self-help book, titled Raising You, and was trying to get it published when he died.

When he died, the Arizona Republic said Alexander was a "a devout Mormon." It was the first sentence of their first story about how he was murdered in his shower: "Travis Alexander was a young, successful businessman, a well-known motivational speaker and a devout Mormon."

It's never really clear what news reports mean by "devout." It's often a kind of content-free intensifier, like "really" or "literally." The stylebook for religion reporters discourages use of the word, since "It's a subjective term without a precise meaning to all readers." Sometimes it seems to mean the person adheres more to a religion's teachings than others do (with the journalist sweeping right by the always-present internal struggles over the right understanding of a religion's teaching). Sometimes it seems to mean measurable practices, like prayer or proselytizing, are practiced by this person -- practiced, sometimes, vaguely more, or a lot, or even at all. Sometimes it doesn't even mean anything observable, but is a gesture at how the person presented themselves as if religion and religiousness were important. Or maybe the word works to justify religion's inclusion in a story, since after all the vast majority of people in America identify with

In any case, it's all very hand-wavy.

When Travis Alexander was murdered, though, the Arizona Republic made mention of his Mormonism and did the hand waving, and dubbed him "devout."

That was five years ago, though. In more recent stories, covering the high-profile trial of Alexander's girlfriend, who is charged with murdering him, the man's Mormonism has been described a bit differently. On Jan. 2, for example, as the trial began, the paper summed up the court case this way:

An outwardly religious young man is shot down and slashed apart by the angry young woman who was his secret sex partner. Prosecutors call it first-degree murder; [...] defense attorneys call it self-defense. The network TV news magazines call it the trial of the year.

On Jan. 30, as the defense phase of the trial began, the Arizona Republic repeated the description of the murdered man as an "outwardly religious Mormon." The story reads:

[Jodi] Arias is on trial in the 2008 killing of Alexander, 30, an outwardly religious Mormon who was found shot and stabbed in the shower of his home. Arias, his secret sex partner, admits killing Alexander but claims it was in self-defense.

Presumably Alexander's piety -- his Mormon-ness -- has not changed in five years of being dead. How the major Arizona paper describes that piety has changed, however.

Why?

It is still true that Alexander converted in high school, did a mission, didn't smoke or drink alcohol or caffeine, wanted to live in a place where there were lots of other Mormons, wrote a spiritual self-book, etc., etc. What's different now is that with the trial, information about Alexander's relationship with Arias have come out, and there's lots of evidence that lots of that relationship did not conform with his church's teachings. There's evidence, too, that he lied about the church's teaching in order to manipulate his girlfriend, a new convert, to perform certain sex acts.

As the Associated Press reported, "Alexander's religion and sex life have been a constant theme throughout the trial."

More precisely: the contradiction between how this man apparently believed he should live and how he did live, have been a critical aspect of the accused's defense. And a critical aspect of the trial. The very first witness called in this case -- herself described as a "devout" Mormon by the Arizona Republic -- was grilled about "what constitutes sin in the Mormon religion."

She ranked sexual immorality the second worst Mormon sin, right after murder.

Whether or not Arias is guilty of the worst sin is still up to the jury to decide, but there's a lot of agreement that Alexander was definitely guilty of the second worst sin. In one report, Alexander is said to have convinced his girlfriend that sodomy was not frowned on by the church. Arias testified "She believed the Mormon vow of chastity, based on Alexander's interpretation, meant that most sexual acts were 'more or less OK' as long as they did not involve premarital vaginal intercourse -- which they eventually engaged in." In the accused's testimony, she further said Alexander gave her her own copy of the Book of Mormon the same day he asked her to perform oral sex on him in a parking lot. He had sex with her the same day he baptized her into the faith. He apparently also lied to another girlfriend about being a virgin, and pursued multiple women at the same time.

There was also a phone sex recording, nude photos, and claims of public sex, acted-out fantasies, pornography, and day-long trysts. Alexander and Arias were, of course, also unmarried.

As the Arizona paper glosses this: "although they both professed to be faithful Mormons, their relationship was anything but chaste."

This is what it means, in the paper's estimating, to be only outwardly Mormon. Inwardly -- or, perhaps, better, privately -- Alexander wasn't really Mormon, because he behaved in ways disapproved of by his church. When they didn't know about his sexual behavior, the paper deemed Alexander devout. Now that they know, his faith is seen as just for show.

It's certainly true that the Latter-day Saints actively teach against the behavior that this murdered man was engaged in. Alexander likely would have agreed, if asked by his bishop, that he was sinning. The church does not teach, though, that one somehow ceases to be Mormon when one sins. Acting badly, by ones own lights and even in the judgement of the church, doesn't delegitimize one's conversion, or undercut one's Mormon-ness. The church teaches morals, but it doesn't simply equate being a part of the church with consistently living in accordance with the morals that are taught.

Inward and private struggles to live up to the standards of one's religion do not mean that one only has that religion outwardly, at least not in Mormonism, not in how it's understood by Mormons or by the church hierarchy.

The paper, however, has confused a moral code for the whole of a religion. Adherence has been interpreted as hypocritical, or even fraudulent, unless it means perfectly doing what you say you believe you're supposed to do. This is a misunderstanding of Mormonism, and more than that a gross overreach on the part of the paper, going well beyond the bounds of what a newspaper has the authority to say.

Alexander himself could have said whether or not his was a devout Mormon, or whether he was only one outwardly. Other Mormons could judge his piety, based on their understanding of Mormonism. The church has authorities who, as part of their job, do make such judgements.

A newspaper, though, is not a religious authority, and shouldn't pretend to speak as such. According to the rules of American newspapers, reporters are only allowed to say what's verifiable, what's known to be fact or can be attributed. Really, in this case, the Arizona Republic should have avoided the evaluations of the murdered man's piety, and kept it simple:

Travis Alexander was a Mormon.

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What an atheist learned while writing Atheism For Dummies

Dale McGowan, author of the recently released Atheism For Dummies, on 20 things he learned while writing the book:

No. 17 seems deeply methodologically problematic. And McGowan, in this talk at least, also seems to have a tendency to decontextualize nuanced theological statements from diverse historical periods and construe them as basically like contemporary anglophone atheism. There are important differences between points made in disputes during Islamic golden age philosophy and what the teenage McGowan was saying, which the adult McGowan seems to miss. I worry, too, about the extent to which the field of atheist history is being shaped by atheists' need for a canon and the drive to hagiography.

This is, of course, only the For Dummies series, but these things have a way of shaping popular understanding and public discussions.

The introduction of the book is available at The Friendly Atheist.

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Atheist seeks to free Hispanics from faith, community

What holds American Hispanics to their faiths? Community.

That was the claim made at the American Atheist's 2013 convention in a talk by David Tamayo about how to reach out to Hispanics. According to a conference report, Tamayo thinks a substantial number of Hispanics in America are skeptical of religion -- even "natural atheist allies" --  but trapped by their families and their communities, and their needs for the infrastructure and social support that religion provides.

Whether or not this is generally true, it is the case that this is what happened in Tamayo's own life, as he told a Virginia newspaper last year. The paper reported:

Tamayo cites his own life as a case in point. Raised in a Catholic household, he described himself as an extremely devout youth who even pondered whether to become a priest. 

By the time he realized he was an atheist at around 40, it still took him years to explain his beliefs to his parents, who remain skeptical, he said. 

He has been asked not to attend marriages of friends and why he hates God. He feels uncomfortable discussing his beliefs at work, where a prayer group meets regularly.

Tamayo said many Hispanics, especially younger Hispanics, are religious mostly for such social reasons. It's not belief, per se, in these of individual propositional statements one mentally affirms, that makes them religious, but social reality. The good that religion does in their lives is the good of community and support systems -- somethings he thinks freethinking groups and networks can replace. And should replace. And must.

The promotional material available from Tamayo's website, though, takes a different approach. There the approach is more New Atheist, in style, depicting non-believers as heroic and strong for the ability to dispense with the fictions relied on by the mentally and morally feeble. A brochure that's billed as something that can be given to family and friends, for example, states:

Some Hispanics live without the fear of imaginary beings and superstitions. Some of us put our hope in science instead of prayer, witchcraft, or homeopathic medicine [....] Sometimes we have struggles, heartaches, disappointments, and trials just like anyone else, but we solve our problems without the comfort or help of imaginary beings such as angels, ghosts, gods, fairies, or even chupacabras.

Such statements seem to be more about affirming atheists in their non-belief and promoting antagonism towards the religious, rather than outreach or recruiting allies or giving people community support alternative to the established religious communities. Perhaps their are other forms of outreach, though, that Tamayo and other atheists are using to reach Hispanics and, as the conference commentator put it, "unlock the demographics."

"Unlocking the demographics" has brought about a lot of interest in Hispanics, recently, political and religious. A number of Catholics have been talking about Latin American immigration as a source of possible spiritual renewal. Political conservatives have speculated that "mass immigration" could save social conservatism in America.

The most interesting comparison for atheists wanting to reach Hispanics, however, might be Pentecostals.

It strikes me, at least, that American Hispanics joining Pentecostal churches can face similar serious opposition from friends and family, of the same sort that Tamayo describes. These matters of faith are matters of communal rupture. In addition to the questions of specific beliefs and practices, it can be issues of community and support and connection that are decisive in such conversions or de-conversions.

Arlene Sánchez-Walsh, for example, a professor at Azusa Pacific University, writes that for many, becoming Pentecostal means a life of tension with fathers and mothers, siblings, aunts and uncles. Of herself, she writes:

I was born and raised Catholic, and you can ask just about anyone who made this sojourn to Pentecostalism, whether through a dramatic Damascus-like narrative, or, like me, through a painful year-long process of searching, it is, as my colleague Fr. Allen Figueroa Deck has written, "a familial rupture" that separates you from the weddings, funerals, quinceaneras, and family get togethers that have marked our lives for years. Where, if they are anything like the family gatherings I have had -– the dancing, drinking, and partying is part of the package. As my colleague tells me, once the music played at the weddings, his Pentecostal mom took her kids and left–before all the craziness ensnared her impressionable young boys. Well I don’t know anything of that high-tension piety, I don’t know what its like to have one’s faith played out on that field -- and perhaps one reason why I study this community, is because I am trying to understand how my community lives, how it worships, and if I ever will cross over from the feeling I have had for nearly 20 years, that I am an interloper.

One of the ways Pentecostal churches help Hispanics maintain the decision they've made, despite family and social pressures, is a steady flow of anti-Catholicism. A sustained fusillade against the church, its teachings and practices, works to counteract or at least tempter the tolerance new converts might otherwise have for the validity of family members' faith. Promoting antagonism -- such as public displays of disapproval like leaving a party when the dancing starts -- is one strategy. Another, though, is exactly what Tamayo was talking about at the conference of atheists, Easter weekend.

At least one of the ways Pentecostalism has helped converts maintain the decision they've made is to offer alternatives to the communities they've known.

A third-generation Pentecostal woman (who's now pursuing a degree in the sociology of religion) writes, for example, of how her whole life, growing up, was wrapped up in her church. Erica Ramirez writes:

I spent my adolescence at Westover Hills Assembly of God, in the Northwest side of San Antonio, completely immersed in the life of the community there. I sang in the choir and was part of the youth group. I went to camps and conventions because I wanted to. I imagined there: I imagined myself whole, I imagined the world meaningful; I envisioned a future for myself that replicated the most healing experiences I have had in my life -- I would lead worship I would help people. It was simplistic, but it was a safe space to be, emotionally. I could remake myself in the space of that church and people would, people did help me.

It's this sort of social reality, and especially the attendant personal imaginaries, that Tamayo is saying would have to be replaced by freethinking associations in order for Hispanics who are actually (he says) already skeptical of religious claims and supernatural stuff, to be freed from what they don't believe.

"There isn't anything a church can do that a secular organization can't do," Tamayo told the Virginia newspaper.

It's not clear to me that, strictly sociologically speaking, that's true. But it does seem right that if your goal is to de-convert American Hispanics and liberate them from the "comfort or help of imaginary beings,"talking about the existence of supernatural realities may be less important than offering social replacements for baptisms, confirmations, funerals, feast days, family prayers, and all the other ritual, social ways in which beliefs are communal realities.

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But it's okay

On the wall of the bathroom stall at the Wal-Mart where I worked stocking shelves my last year of college, someone had scratched the start of a game of tic-tac-toe. X in the center. O in the upper corner. (The start of a stalemate, a cat's game).

On the wall of a corridor in the hospital in Tübingen where I've been this last week, there are framed portraits of famous people who had diseases. FDR had polio, and look what he did with his life. Gauguin had syphilis, but didn't let it hold him back.

The lesson of the first wall is one I am only slowly unlearning.

The man who put the tic-tac-toe game on the wall probably didn't have health insurance. I certainly didn't have health insurance working at Wal-Mart. My hours were kept below the minimum for full-time employment, the point at which certain labor laws would have kicked in and required benefits. I made 50 cents an hour more than minimum wage, if memory serves. Part of training was a video on what to say if approached by union organizers. One of the benefits that did come with the job, after a few weeks of a paperwork and a probationary period where you could be fired without cause, was an employee discount on groceries. With the money I saved from that I got a tattoo -- a cheap tattoo -- when I quit the job, and graduated college, and moved south to where I met my wife.

I tell people the tattoo is from a book that was really important to me, when they ask. I tell people, sometimes, that it's what the aliens say in this book whenever someone dies. I could also say it's an answer to the set-up for a cat's game, a phrase that's important to me for how it acknowledges and accepts the world as it is, but makes a decision against despair. This was one of the first conversations I had with my wife, though at the time of course she wasn't that yet, and I couldn't yet know how amazing she would be if you fell off your bike in a field and were in excruciating pain and had to go to a German hospital.

She reminded me of this conversation this week as I recovered from surgery to fix my broken shoulder with a metal plate and eight screws. "Thank you," she said, "for not despairing."

When I broke my shoulder, I was in the middle of a field, on a path with an unfortunate rut in it where my bike slipped and I flipped onto my shoulder. I had to walk to a nearby landmark where a taxi would pick me up. It took about a hour, because of the pain. Every step jostled the three fractures where my arm no longer lined up with my shoulder. I kept walking, though, and got there, and the taxi came, and we went to the hospital. This would not have always been the case. When I signed into the hospital left-handed, and did the necessary bureaucratic form-filling, I wasn't overwhelmed by it. Even though I am basically always overwhelmed by even the most benign bureaucracies. Just the thought of bureaucracy is normally enough to fill me with shaky dread, a frantic certainty that such institutions loom with secrets and rules to hurt me.  I didn't think about the cat's game, though, the lesson of the X and the O already where they are. I signed wrong-handed, shaky and uneven, and then signed the next thing, and focused only on what was next.

I walked around the hospital a little, waiting for the surgery, on pain meds and with my arm safe in a sling. That's how I found the wall of pictures of people who had had bad stuff happen to them but were okay anyway. The person who put that on the wall probably had health insurance. Which I do too now. It's a very different kind of a lesson, on this wall. One that's hard for me. That may be why the message was so unsubtle: stuff goes wrong sometimes, but it's okay.

The writer Kurt Vonnegut once wrote of someone in one of his books, "she never thought of her awful luck as being anything but accidents in a very busy place. Good for her."

As I replace the bandages over my sutures, that sew up the two surgical incisions now perpendicular to my tattoo, I know how that feels. It feels pretty good.

Like things are going to be okay.

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Southern white Pentecostals, from the documentary, Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus.

The late novelist Harry Crews, in another part of the documentary, makes the point:

Truth of the matter was, stories were everything and everything was stories. Everybody told stories. It was a way of saying who they were in the world. It was there understanding of themselves. It was letting themselves know the way they believed the world worked, the way that was right and the way that was not so right. 

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