From: mls@cbnewsm.cb.att.com (mike.siemon)
Subject: Re: Christians at Work in Oregon
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 04:30:44 GMT
Summary: what are the political responsibilites of Christians?

In article <92251.234740SECBH@CUNYVM.BITNET>, <SECBH@CUNYVM.BITNET> writes:

	what goes a long way to defusing any upset or anger I held from
	his original post under this subject.

> To the extent that explanations and/or apologies may be owed to
> Michael on that score, hopefully I will see where they are necessary.

I don't think I am owed an apology; in any case what you write suffices.
It deals with the (serious) problems without anything I would take as
cheap rhetorical tricks.  And this, indeed, is what I generally expect.

> But then after a pause I realize that _I_ am not sure what this "arena
> of politics" means to me, nor am _I_ clear on how many Buddhists or
> or Baptists can, or should, feel compelled to band together carrying
> their label aloft and enter any such arena.  Still where are the
> limits of what is termed political is a very difficult question.

Very difficult.  For the first centuries of Christianity, the idea
was to avoid political involvement utterly -- and that ideal persisted
through the great age of monasticism, even after bishops (and even monks)
got caught up in Imperial political manipulations.  The Catholic West,
with a secular political structure collapsing around it got further
caught up, and in the burgeoning of the Carolingian "Holy Roman Empire"
secular politics, the Church hierarchy and the monastic orders (most
especially the Cluniac, reforming, orders) got so intermixed that the
"obvious" reaction to Turkish conquest in the Near East became Crusade,
proclaimed by the then-equivalent to televangelism, Bernard of Clairvaux.

Centuries of subsequent politico-religious warfare, with each side taking
the other into orgies of destruction, on its own whims followed, through
the 17th century into the exhausted cynicism of the Enlightenment.  What
the USA has seen is colonial foundations with (often) religious agendas,
a nation-building totally hostile to (overt) religion in politics (though
relishing quasi-religious symbology such as its bizarre neo-Roman guff
-- think Cincinnati -- and Masonic shadow-religion.)  Then, in the 19th
century we get religion both pushing and rejecting abolitionist politics.
And thereafter "Temperance"/Prohibition, and then Civil RIghts.  And
now, you will find those who "crusade" against abortion with (what they
think are) the "same" moral grounds as earlier episodes they have learned
to value (never mind that most of these people are heirs of *religious*
foes of the earlier movements they cite as their examples :-))

That era, 150 years ago, first raised the issues we now face -- if we
are motivated, personally, by firm religious conviction about issues that
ALSO play out in national politics, what do we do?  I do not at all know
what a "Buddhist" answer might be -- I was as startled as anybody by
monks immolating themselves during the Viet Nam war.  I don't have much
in the way of advice or speculation for Christians, though I'll try to
deal with such things here to a pitifully minimal extent.

You may forget, if you will, some of my earlier language about not boot-
licking anti-Christians.  I won't do so, of course; but the language was
strong because I apparently needed to shout to get any response.  Like the
meek press-releases of the liberal Churches, my voice tends not to be heard
by those "demanding" a "Christian" response, unless I am as strident as
what they have come to expect from other "Christians."  Or else, if I
am subtle and sarcastic, I am regarded as somehow different from typical
Christians -- as if we were somehow not products of the same education
you have received to be able to appreciate subtlety.  Again, statistics
*should* convince anyone that Christians are by no means limited to rural
Baptists with a Southern accent (and that those fitting such a description
do NOT necessarily fit a "redneck" stereotype.)

Let me hold off for a bit more what I *think* should be expected of
Christians in American politics (meaning more, what one could at best
expect, rather than at worst).  Let us just posit to start that it is
not easy to define a political agenda from (most) religions.

> On the other hand, if I have objections to Christianity as I see it as
> a tradition, or to Michael's personal expositions of his faith, or
> to what his queerness may involve or his being a queer Christian I
> will probably say so -- ditto for Messrs Adams and Foard in the same or
> similar areas.

No problem.  Anything I say, I should be held responsible for.  And that
goes for all others who pretend to operate as human adults.  I noted two
ways in which I might be judged -- by the moral standards of those who
observe me (which of course I do *not* grant authority to in my own life)
and, with reference to judgments of hypocrisy, by my own *proclaimed*
standards.  The judgments of others *might* not sway me, if I feel I am
on firm grounds -- but if I am *really* dealing with others in the love
that I owe ALL of them, then I had better be prepared to do something
other than dismiss a chorus that tells me I am not doing what I say I am.

That is the criterion on which one can (very easily) reject the homophobes
who talk about "loving the sinner but hating the sin" while busily destroy-
ing the lives of the supposedly loved ones.  Even to the moral standards
I do *not* follow, I owe something more than a "that's merely worldly and
Satanic."  Early Christians REJECTED the claims of "family values" with
extreme vigor -- and all later traditions can reclaim that rejection --
but we must do so in light of BOTH Luke 14:26 ("If any man comes to me
without hating his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes
and his own life too, he cannot be my disciple" -- take THAT Republicans!)
and Luke 18:20 ("You know the commandments: You must not commit adultery;
You must not kill; You must not steal; You must not bring false witness;
Honor your father and mother.")   Rejection of Republican agendas should
never lead us to denigrate what people have loved in their own lives.
(Nor have I seen any TRACE of such denigration in the people the Repubs
and their fundie allies want to demonize -- rather, what WE insist on
is honesty: the myth often hides the most terrible crimes of abuse.)

> My "agenda" looks to be clearer to Michael than to me -- which is

Well, the "agenda" may not be yours, but it is unleashed by a subject
line like: "Christians at work in Oregon."  If that is NOT an attempt
to tar ALL Christians with the activities of the OCA, and to demand
a reaction of explicit rejection, what the hell is the point?  I say
that there are MANY, possibly a majority, of "Christians" in Oregon 
who both disagree with the OCA and will work, or at least vote, against
them.  What are you trying to accomplish with this subject line?  Are
we supposed to feel guilty?  Do *you* think that Dahmer is any kind of
indictment of gay sexuality?

> My response was to the effect that when I heard mainstream Christians
> speaking up on the same issues and in large numbers expressing
> contrasting views then I would be more inclined to agree with him.

But do you SEEK for what the mainstream views are? (I mean, other than
by posting things under terribly provocative titles) or do you merely
assume that you would mystically KNOW these, without effort?  If the
press buries mainstream views in back pages (even in the NY Times --
possibly off the page in local rags), do you presume to know what we
think and do and say and put effort into supporting or opposing?  You,
at least, do have the Times at hand to give some ongoing reportage.
If the OCA and Oregon are not a major topic, do you stop to imagine
how BLOODY much "religious" reportage is simply not carried?

> I also remarked that I thought mainstream Christians were essentially
> silent on this topic -- implying a passive complicity.

Here again, it is hard to know what to do -- if we remain "polite" we
are likely to be generally ignored; only if we enter the "battle" with
our own "crusade" are we going to be noticed by the press -- and *I* do
not want to be part of a religion on crusade.

> Michael's reference to me making him (and other Christians) "clones"
> is _his_ adventure into hyperbole, but it does bring up the
> the problem of labels.  What's a queer,

And instructive.  I have posted a number of other comments on politics
-- but only the one with the hyperbole got a reaction.  This is very
depressing.  I am not, habitually, hyperbolic -- except when discussing
Republicans, for whom I find little to say that is not apocalyptic.

> We can (and probably should) spend a great deal of time examining
> labels and concepts.  Sometimes labels or even examining them can be
> a "game": baiting, and attempt to confuse rather than clarify.
> It can also be the opposite of these things.

Concepts, maybe; labels, I think not.  Any self-righteous prig in America
can label himself "Christian."  I am not required to "fight" every such
identification, or even to worry over much about those who know so little
about my religion as to grant credence to any such turkey.  Christianity
is NOT a trademark that becomes useless if abused by the self-interested.
Christianity is not now, and never has been, monolithic in character, and
anyone who tries to play on "All Christians should ..." or "All Christians
do ..." clearly is abysmally ignorant (that, of course, applies even more
to "Christians" who attempt such gambits.)

> But the "insinuation" of the statement remains. Perhaps why will
> become clearer later.  But, yes, I _do_ wonder how alike you Christians
> are.

	Not very.  We are human, and by this stage in the career of the
	religion, very little that is human is alien to the religion.

> More precisely, I wonder if there is a limit to how dissimilar
> you can be.

	How different is a Ceylonese Buddhist from a Nichiren Soshu
	Japanese Buddhist?  The range of Christianity is *at least*
	as great as the range of Buddhism.

> Do generic Christians _owe_ me an explanation or
> defense?  Certainly not a pay-on-demand type, no.

	Thank you.  That is my basic point.

Your own history, certainly -- and I wish to make no snide reservations --
gives you one honest and important perspective about Christians in this
country.  This is the level at which I think your past statements here
have had their stongest impact.  A religion as old as Christianity, and
with as checkered a career of interaction with politics -- avoidance,
cooptation, cooperation, suspicion, rejection, conspiracy, ... -- as mine
leaves a LOT of residue.  Much of it ugly.

> I was born in this country, which is one heavily influenced and formed
> by the Christian religious tradition(s).  I was raised a Christian.

Ok; much of what I value in your posts is because of an honest statment
arising from this perspective.

> As a gay man I have in the past year and a half come  to feel not
> just uneasy about anyone wearing a Christian label, but
> to feel very distrustful of them and not only in regard to the gay
> "issue."

This, however, makes me wonder.   Do you *discount* what I have said
over many years here and in other forums that we both read?  Does my
position -- and that of many others, gay and nongay, not *count*?  Is
your concern the (partly real, partly media-hype) apparent dominance
of right-wing Christianity during a period of right-wing political
ascendancy (and if so, can you manage to disengage from the present
enough to realize that this is a cyclical phenomenon in America?)
Your posts here, "challenging" the "Christians at work in Oregon" seem
to assume that I don't exist or am irrelevant -- a conclusion I am not
particularly willing to grant.

And I am *massively* unhappy that you could take the self-labeling of
bigots as *defining* what Christians are and believe and do.

> I am not at all comfortable with a religion that sees tribal and
> dynastic history and legend written many centuries B.C. as anything
> other than that.  I can identify with the sitting and weeping by

And what makes you think that the majority of Christianity sees it
differently? -- aside from some conclusions we may draw from that.

> the waters of Babylon, but I recoil at being happy over smashing
> your suckling babies a few short verses later.  If any branch

Yeah -- but you do NOT recoil, as far as I can recall, from equally
bitter comments by those of *our* community fucked over by a hostile
bureaucracy and Reagan/Bush cynicism.  Part of what is going on in
the Psalms is people taking God seriously, including what they think
God has promised them.  It is because you do NOT have any serious
identification with the destruction of Judah that you can make a few
pious noises about "identifying" with a destroyed community and not
see their pain.  I don't "enjoy" the bashing verses of that psalm --
neither do I enjoy the raw anguish of AIDS victims confronting the
hateful and spiteful world around them.  (You *don't* think, I hope,
that the deportation practices of the Assyrians and Chaldeans were
benign?)

If those verses got used to "justify" the mangling of children, I
would protest as quickly as I would if PWAs were somehow in a position
of power and denied medical care to those they thought wronged them.

> A queer Christian?  I have recently come to wonder if, in metaphorical
> terms, this might not mean "sleeping with the enemy," albeit perhaps
> unwittingly.  Just what can the Biblical heritage, beyond that of
> the gospels, mean about a queer's view of himself and the world.

I refer you two three queer statements.  One is my current .signature;
another is a quatrain from Auden I have often used as .sig --

   "Oh, stand, stand at the window,
	As the tears scald and start;
   You shall love your crooked neighbor
	With your crooked heart."

The last is too close to my sense of the world to post frequently.
It is another bit from Auden (the greatest Christian poet of this
century); it also strikes me as as much Buddhist as Christian:

	Time will say nothing but I told you so,
	Time only knows the price we have to pay;
	If I could tell you I would let you know.

	If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
	If we should stumble when musicians play,
	Time will say nothing but I told you so.

	There are no fortunes to be told, although,
	Because I love you more than I can say,
	If I could tell you I would let you know.

	The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,
	There must be reasons why the leaves decay;
	Time will say nothing but I told you so.

	Perhaps the roses really want to grow,
	The vision seriously intends to stay;
	If I could tell you I would let you know.

	Suppose the lions all got up to go,
	And all the brooks and soldiers run away;
	Will Time say nothing but I told you so?
	If I could tell you I would let you know.

> I have read such statements and have no reason to doubt what Mr.
> Hedrick says.  What puzzles me is _why_ is so little attention paid
> to these statements (as it seems to me the case.) And are the members

Knowing the determined silence of the press on gay issues that do not
pander to audience excitation, how can you NOT realize that the press
is totally uninterested in "reasonable" Christian statements?

> of these churches commited to these positions as the extreme
> conservative Christians are committed to the opposite.  In two

This, to an extent, depends on what you mean by "committed."  If my
political life is a balance of many issues, and I do not "sell all I
have and give it to the X PAC" does that make my politics ineffectual?
I certainly HOPE not, as I regard any political involvement of the
kind that the Fundies are engaged in as demonic, not Godly.  That
is part of my recurring question -- PLEASE be careful what you wish
for -- you do not want *my* kind of Church defining America's political
agenda, even if it is (initially) more congenial than Robertson.

> recent threads in soc.religion.christian - one on "Christian Politics"
> and the other focusing on poverty in the United States and who
> is a worthy recipient of charity and the meaning of giving - there
> were (to me) extraordinarily radically conservative views presented.

I cannot see any good that would come from my posting against these
views.  The fundies have already discounted anything that opposes them.
In my naive early days on the net, I tried to post neutrally, and to
engage people of views wildly different from my own.  I needn't have
bothered.  Again, there is a statistical thing going on here -- I can
not believe that anyone once out of the thought-control of bigoted
parents would NOT be aware of a huge range of opinion on all these
matters, or else to have so completely rejected "religious" opinion
that it hardly matters what range exists among the religious.  If one
GOES to church, one either opts for the bigots, and is basically hope-
less, or the liberal range is all-too-evident.  Nothing but personal
tragedy, or the unaccountable grace of God, has any chance of changing
the bigots.  So why bother making pro forma objections?  I post enough
that no one reading this group, or others, can claim ignorance of OTHER
Christian positions.  What else is possible?

> There was hardly more than a few murmurs regarding these statements.
> Very few people seemed to think that these positions were worth
> questioning as "Christian".  Granted SRC is not the world, but I
> found the lack of reactions typical.  And it is this sort of thing
> lack of interest that I am referring to in the context of the "gay
> issue."

SRC is far more dominated by conservative/fundagelical statements than
the American Church at large (and most certainly the world church.)
Chuch Hedrick can only post what he gets, and the "Christians" with an
"agenda" are the right-wing loonies -- the rest of us have a hard time
trying to figure out what Christianity means for US, personally.  We
are in no position to pontificate for the world.

> What I hear (at least in part) from Michael Siemon, Steve Adams,
> Chuck Hedrick is something like: We are not the people you fear,
> here are some facts and assertions to support that - Trust me.
 
Umm; I don't think I am asking quite so much from you.  I would
LIKE you to trust me, but I think that would have to be earned, and
I do not think the net is a place where it CAN be earned -- though
trust can easily be LOST on the net.

Rather, what *I* am saying -- I do not presume to speak for the others
-- is that I see a gambit "I will consider you as essentially identical
to an OCA member, unless ... <unspecified>".  That is NOT a position
any human being should be placed in. If I *were* in the OCA, I presume
there would be some rationalization for that (though my stomach churns
at the thought.)  WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING that makes it reasonable
to *presume* so grotesque a thing without a trace of evidence?  Yeah, I
read what you wrote above.  It doesn't seem to compute.  Must every
Christian in this country contrive to place a personal advertisement on
CNN to the effect that he or she does NOT support some noxious campaign
that is pushed, malevolently, under the name of "Christian" values?

I repeat -- ANY assumption of monolithic Christianity MUST be made in
a total denial of all the history of my religion.  What the fuck is
going on here, if I am to be held answerable for ALL "Christians?"
I have a hard enough time taking responsibility for my OWN actions.

> It probably distresses me as much as it does Michael Siemon.  But I have
> come to the point where I question whether if I follow the usual
> Buddhist recommendations in regard to politics I shall not find
> myself and many of my countrymen (not all of them queers by any means)
> in serious difficulties, which uncharteristically Buddhist activity
> (in the arena of politics) might help to prevent. (Clearly this
> brings the depth of my religious commitment into question. Not at all
> a pleasant experience.)

Yes.  This is precisely the double-bind I feel as a Christian in politics.
I sort of thought Jack might recognize it :-)  I have gone on so long
here that I won't attempt now make the few, pitiful suggestions I have
on the matter.  Maybe I can get to that tomorrow.
-- 
Michael L. Siemon			"I know of nothing -- I suspect
					not even death -- that is so fixed
mls@usl.com				in the present tense as love."
standard disclaimer					-- Jess Anderson