Category Archives: religion

The Black Tradition: There is a lot to be learned from the Oppressed

Philosophy/Ideas, religion, Religious Quest in the Modern Age, Social Justice

 

Brother Cornel West frequently reminds us that he comes out of the Black tradition from African to America. Sometimes West calls that the “chocolate side of life.”

Not that long ago, I also  a wonder interview of Cornel West by Walter Isaacson  on Amanpour and Co in April of 2021 on PBS television.  Brother West started talking about one of his heroes—Martin Luther King Jr. According to West, King had a deep conversation with the ancients and the classics. He could do that, West says, because he learned it from a people who had been despised for 400 years and yet still tried to teach the world so much about love. So did John Coltrane, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison among others. All of them came from a people who had been traumatized for 400 years, but still at their best decided to be wounded healers rather than wounded hurters. He came from a people that had been terrorized for 400 years all the way up to Brother Floyd in 2020. What did that people do? They called for freedom for everybody, West pointed out. They did not create a black version of the Ku Klux Klan. “If they opted to be like the Klan there would have been a civil war every generation. There would have been terrorist cells in every chocolate centre of every city.”

West believes

“these black leaders focused on the tradition of the virtues, that embraces all, that is predicated on the humanity of each and everyone of us, each human being made in the likeness of God, that gives us a value, a worth, a sanctity, a dignity. That has been the best of black leadership, and once that black leadership has been reduced to just a quest for dollars, and smartness, rather than justice, and deep commitment to love and compassion, then you lose the best of the black tradition.

West does not say all black leaders have demonstrated the best of that tradition.  But these, and others, have done that. West said the best of the black freedom tradition has been the” levelling of the democratic low”. In the 2020 presidential election in America it was the votes of blacks, particularly the votes of black sisters that handed the victory to Biden. A majority of whites voted for Donald Trump!  58% of white men and 53% of white women voted for Trump.  Whites should never forget that. Trump of course always bragged about being a winner and his worst insult to others was  that they were “losers”. West, like Jesus, always wanted to be on the side of the low—i.e. the so-called losers.

Trump tried to appeal to the black voters on the basis that the average income of blacks in American had never been better in comparison to whites than it was during his administration. While this might be true, according to West,  it was one of the few good things about his administration, and he could not persuade blacks to abandon the quest for justice merely for dollars. That is what I have called the religious quest for justice.  Were it not for the black voters, particularly the black women voters, America could have had Trump again and would been even closer to a neo-fascist America! As a black man, West was proud of that.

As West said,

“the best of black folk has always been about the broadening of not just rights and liberties but of the equality of our relations to one another. It’s also about the Hesed that great concept that comes from the genius of Hebrew scripture.  That loving kindness is to be spread to the orphan, and widow, and fatherless, and motherless, and to be spread to the weak and the vulnerable. And if you give up on that, it becomes simply might makes right. And if you give up on that it becomes simply survival of the slickest.  If you give up on that and push the 10 Commandments away and take the 11th Commandment, ‘Thou shalt not get caught, thou shall take over by any means, and make as much money, and status and spectacle as you can’, you lose your democracy you lose your soul.”

To save your soul, you must rally to the low, rather than the high and mighty. Is that not exactly what Jesus always did.  And the Hebrew Prophets. We should all ask ourselves, what side are we on?

Secular Prophecy

Philosophy/Ideas, Politics & Religion, religion, Religious Quest in the Modern Age, Social Justice

 

According to Brother Cornell West, “even atheists like Karl Marx can be a secular prophet”. Remember West identifies as a Christian. Marx was deeply secular, but in his concern for working people and in what West refers as  “his call for accountability of capital, and the bosses, and elites at the top including oligarchs and plutocrats there is a prophetic element to his critique.”  West denied that Mao, or Stalin, or even Lenin are prophets. They have become “gangsters” said West. They were not on the side of the oppressed. They are not prophets at all. They manipulated working people for their own advantage. They did not care about the poor.

The presence of gangsters who claim to be followers of Marx does not detract from the fact that Marx’s critique was an act of secular prophesy. When Marx said that capitalism would generate a system in which there would be more and more autocrats and plutocrats at the top who will not be accountable and will instead try to buy off politicians in such a way that working people become “secondary and tertiary” he was prophetic. That does not mean that Marx correctly predicted the future. It means that he was correct in his analysis of the present (at that time) workings of the capitalist system.  And the present is the the mother of the future. That is what pragmatic prophecy is all about. Like the Old Testament Prophets, West does not advocate trying to predict the future. That is false prophecy. The real Prophet tries to look closely and fearlessly at the present, analyze it, and tell us what he or she thinks is wrong with it. Often that entails telling the powerful what they don’t want to hear. That is a Prophet.

As a result, West accepts Marx as a secular prophet even though as a Christian he disagrees with him on the God question.  He does not agree with Marx that all forms of religion are opiates. Some certainly are. Not all. At the same time he rejects some of the forms of Communism that flowed from Marx’s work.

What is important is a basic empathy for humanity. That is a big part of pragmatic prophecy as West sees it.  We must, he suggests, must ask “how do we get out of our tribalism, our clannishness, our narrow groupism, let alone our egos, our narcissism, our hedonism and our rapacious individualism that renders us callous to the suffering of others?” That is the type of question the prophet asks, whether secular or religious.  I think that is a very important approach. I even think it could be an important part of a religious quest in the modern age which is what I am looking at.

That is a perennial problem that every generation must face. As West said at his talk at the University of Winnipeg, “We have to learn to support not just those who look like us, that have the same colour of our skin, that attend the same churches or mosques as us, and support the larger humanity.”

 

Taking up a notion I got from the American philosopher Peter Singer, what we must do, is expand our fellow feeling is how I would put it.  I think that is what Brother West was saying. And I think that is profound. Again, since my view is that fellow feeling or empathy is the fundamental core of religions—virtually all religions—that is the what it means to be engaged in a religious quest in the modern age. If you are not expanding the circle of compassion you have fallen off the trail and it’s time to get back.

Moral Constipation

Ethics, religion, Religious Quest in the Modern Age, Social Justice

 

Brother Cornell West, like Woody Guthrie, always wants to be on the side of the oppressed. That does not mean the oppressed are always right about everything. It does mean they are oppressed and they deserve to be relieved of that oppression. Is that not what the Old Testament prophets urged us to do? Is that not precisely what Jesus did as well? West was not on the side of the money lenders. They didn’t need his help.

 

West translates that point of view to modern times. That is why I refer to him as a modern prophet. Sadly, sometimes the rich and powerful are not satisfied with their luck; they want to interfere with any ameliorative action on behalf of the vulnerable. When they do that they must be stopped. Then they are on the side of injustice. As West said, at the University of Winnipeg, when the elites are addicted to status and resist change, that is a case of “moral constipation.”

In 2015 when he talked at the university it was before the age of Trump. It was the age of Obama. Many people saw Obama as a modern Messiah. He was not a messiah to West. West actually campaigned for him, but told Obama that as soon as he was elected he would turn out to become his fiercest critic. Like Socrates, the job of the Prophet is to be a gadfly to power. Socrates one of West’s heroes and one of mine too.

West complained, that in the US many liberals did not want to criticize Obama because they sympathized with him in his fight against Fox News and other Conservatives. West compared Obama to what happened in the Savings and Loans crisis in the US when many people lost a lot of money as a result of those financial institutions collapsing. As West pointed out, during the S & L crisis in the US, which was during the Presidency of Ronald Reagan, 1,100 businessmen went to jail. And Reagan was not exactly a visionary for social justice. Yet during the Presidency of Obama, notwithstanding the financial chicanery, fraud, and shenanigans not one of those businessmen went to jail. as a result of financial crisis.  Is that taking the side of the poor and weak?

 

Obama’s financial advisors, like Tim Geitner came right out of Wall Street. Eric Holder, Obama’s Attorney General, was expected to investigate his best friends. How well did that work? It worked out well for them. For us not so much. West was suspicious of what Obama would do as soon he saw the advisors that Obama had selected. When Larry Summers was appointed Secretary of the Treasury by President Obama, he knew Obama’s government would be a Wall Street friendly government. There would be no investigations of Wall Street malfeasance. That undermines the legitimacy of the rule of law.  Even when they admit they did wrong what do they do? They just write a cheque. JP Morgan and Chase. They negotiate how much to pay. No talk of imprisonment. It is just the price of doing what they were doing. It’s just business. That is what West did not like.

 

West realized that this enraged many youthful radicals. “The young are filled with rage but the key question is how do you channel that rage through love and justice rather than hatred and violence. That is the fundamental question of any generation,” opined Brother West. That, I would submit is in the spirit of  the Prophets and Jesus.

 

West was asked at the University of Winnipeg, if he believed that a secular Prophet is possible. West asserted strongly that it was.

 

“Anybody who has the courage to speak the truth about human and social misery and provide an analysis of that social misery in such a way that they can be changed and transformed and alleviated and maybe even eliminated has a prophetic element to what they are doing.”

That is what it means to be a secular Prophet.

 

Justice: Prophetic Pragmatism and the Quest for God

religion, Religious Quest in the Modern Age, Social Justice

 

Brother Cornell West has been called a “prophetic pragmatist.” He likes that label. It is part of his desire for the Socratic life. Decide what sort of life you will lead, “what virtue you will enact in your short journey from womb to tomb.” That is the deeply Socratic life. West said, “That is William James and John Dewey the indigenous philosophy of pragmatism that I have been a part of.” But he also says, “it is prophetic because I remain a Christian.”

This is what West said in May of 2015 at the University of Winnipeg:

 

This is the prophetic Jewish tradition that was continued by a Palestinian by the name of Jesus. He said that we have to spread and love and kindness to the orphans and widows, fatherless, poor. Just like the Bible he means that in a broad sense of those who need help. He wants to spread kindness to the human particularly those who are weak and vulnerable and that includes gay brothers and sisters, workers, the colonized, the physically challenged, indigenous people, black, red, brown, white, poor working class whites.

 

Prophetic pragmatism is just establishing a fundamental tilt toward the weak and vulnerable. That includes the elderly and children.  In the US 40% of our children of color live in poverty. 22% of all children live in poverty! And that is in the richest nation in the history of the world. “That is a moral abomination.”

Even here in Manitoba, 25% of the children live in poverty. That is just not right. That is a state of emergency for them and their parents.”

 

We should be treating it like an emergency.  That’s what prophets do. They don’t just go to the pub with their friends. Or to the golf course with their buddies.  Not that there is anything wrong with such activities. After all I have done them many times. But, prophets do more than that.

That is what I liked about West. It is the same thing I liked about the Prophets of the Old Testament which I blogged about earlier.

The Prophets refuse to allow the powerful to stand in the way of helping the needy. That is fused throughout the Old Testament. Jesus inherited and even transformed this tradition. That is all for the good. West wants to  do that too for modern society. That is why he is a prophetic pragmatist.

In my language that is why I think Brother West, as he likes to be known,  is on a religious quest and can help us all learn something of value. Who knows, maybe even we can go on such a quest.

 

Cornell West: a modern prophet on a religious quest in the modern age

religion, Religious Quest in the Modern Age, Social Justice

I

It is time for me to renew my religious quest in the modern age. 

I have hear Brother Cornell West, as he likes to be known,  speak a couple of times and once in person at Arizona State University where they invite the world’s greatest teachers to come to speak and invite mere minions like Chris and I. He is a flamboyant speaker and in my opinion a great thinker.  He has taught at Harvard, Princeton, and Union Theological Seminary. He is a frequent speaker and in fact says he has never been  home for one weekend. Usually he has 4 speaking engagements per weekend! He is the author of 20 books and has edited 13 more. I have seen him frequently on Real Time with Bill Maher where he usually outshines all the other guests.  He is never boring. He also had a part in the Matrix.  Naturally, he rarely sleeps.

West is also “a prominent and provocative democratic intellectual” according to his own website. He is not shy as you tell from that. He is certainly not shy when he speaks. Although I have not heard him call himself a prophet I think the word is appropriate. He is a modern prophet on a religious quest in the modern age. He has said this of himself: “I am a profoundly Jesus-loving free black man who bears witness to truth and justice until the day I die.”

Cornel West is a man of great interests who  has a passion to communicate to a vast variety of publics in order to keep alive the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. – a legacy of telling the truth and bearing witness to love and justice. That is what being a prophet is all about.

One person he does say was a modern prophet was Martin Luther King Jr. Cornel West sees the legacy of  King as one of “telling the truth and bearing witness to love and justice.” That is what the Hebrew prophets did. That is what Martin Luther King Jr. did and that is what Cornell West has done. Being a prophet is not about making predictions. That is cheap prophecy.

 

This is what West said in 2015 after his talk at the University of Winnipeg:

 

“Martin Luther King, was an example of a modern prophet.  That does not mean he made predictions about the future. That is not what prophets are about. That is cheap notion of prophet—a trickster.  West, said, inspired by King ,that there were 4 diseases eating at the heart of the US democratic experiment and they are poverty, racism, militarism, and materialism. They are eating the heart out of that great country.  (And the same thing is happening in Canada, I would add.)

 

That type of thinking became a danger to the oligarchs. They were more than uneasy with it. Just before Martin Luther King Jr. died 72% of Americans and 55% of Blacks in America, disapproved of him because he was too dangerous. “Anybody filled with that much love and full of that kind of fire for justice and will cut against the grain.”  That’s why corporate radio referred to him as an extension of Hanoi. They called him a Communist. The truth always allows the suffering to speak out.”

West sees the essence of the job of the prophet (mirroring the Hebrew Prophets of the Bible: “My job is to go down swinging for truth and justice,” said West. That is the job of the prophet. He wants to give voice to the powerless. The powerful don’t  need his help.

I will speak more about him in future posts.

 

 

 

Christians Sing while People Die

Epidemics/Pandemics, Evangelical Christianity, Human rights, religion

 

The Winnipeg Free Press (Tom Brodbeck) has again reported on the effect that Christians have been having on the health of Manitobans.

“First the reporters explained how Intensive Care Units are working.  According to the Free Press

“Manitoba’s intensive care units can handle close to one new admission a day, on average, without disrupting normal hospital operations. Two per day, on a sustained basis, may force hospital administrators to redeploy staff to ICUs from other wards.

More than three daily admissions can lead to disaster — the kind Manitoba experienced earlier this year, when officials airlifted 57 COVID-19 patients out of province for critical care treatment. ICU patients tend to remain in hospital for long periods, which means they pile up fast when admission rates are high.

That’s how Manitoba Health described its ICU capacity in October, when public health officials pleaded with people to get fully vaccinated and follow public health orders to reduce pressure on hospitals.”

 

Of course, the Winnipeg Free has already reported how many people in Southern Health particularly in the Winkler area (though Steinbach is not much better) have been repeatedly ignoring Manitoba’s public Health Orders. Worst of all, dozens of people have been gathering in “secret churches” in barns and sheds ordinarily used for farm equipment. They want to gather together and sing together, even though such activities are dangerous at this time.  At the same time the region has the lowest rate of vaccine acceptance in the province and among the worst rates in Canada. All of this is done in the name of religion and freedom. The results have been disastrous, not just for the Southern Health Region but for all of Manitoba. As Tom Brodbeck of the Winnipeg Free Press opined:

“Since then, the ICU situation has gone from bad to worse, largely owing to scores of unvaccinated patients — mostly from the Southern Health region— clogging up hospital beds and threatening to collapse Manitoba’s health-care system.

ICU admissions from Southern Health alone over the past month have been enough to trigger contingency planning at Manitoba hospitals.

By mid-November, the number of newCOVID-19 ICU admissions from Southern Health exceeded an average of one a day, according to statistics compiled from the province’s online data portal.

There were two ICU admissions from Southern Health some days in November. On Dec. 6, there were four. No other health region, including Winnipeg, had more than one ICU admission in a single day over the past month.

Between Nov. 12 and Dec. 12 (the most recent available data), 33 of 69 COVID-19 ICU admissions were from Southern Health. The region is home to about 15 per cent of Manitoba’s population.

During that same period, 15 ICU admissions came from Winnipeg, 13 from Prairie Mountain, five from Interlake-Eastern, and three from the Northern health region.”

 

It is reasonable to infer, that because so many people from Southern Health are using the ICUs, and because so many of them are unvaccinated and flaunt public health orders, that the Manitoba Health system is jeopardy. This is despite the fact that Southern Health accounts for only 15% of Manitoba’s population. Sadly, a small group of recalcitrant people who resist vaccine and health orders, is putting the lives of Manitobans at great risk. And in many cases, this is done in the name of religion.

Added to that, Brodbeck asserted,

“There is incontrovertible evidence that low vaccine coverage and a stubborn refusal to follow public health orders, including masking indoors and adhering to proof-of-vaccination policies, is killing and hospitalizing people from Southern Health at disproportionate rates.”

 

Moreover, during this time we constantly hear reports about over worked nurses and other staff who are on the verge of emotional and physical collapse as they try their best to help people who are harming themselves and others as a result of their failure to follow health orders.  As a result Brodbeck informed,

 “Hospitals have been forced to redeploy health-care staff and cancel thousands of procedures to accommodate that, leaving tens of thousands of Manitobans suffering in pain and misery on growing wait lists.

This is the direct result of a misguided and misinformed anti-vaccination campaign that has taken a foothold in parts of the province. It is also the result of a provincial government that has refused to effectively enforce public health orders.

Manitoba hospitals are averaging over three new ICU patients a day (around half from Southern Health, the vast majority of whom are not fully vaccinated). Instead of having enough capacity to absorb another wave, Manitoba hospitals already have 34 COVID-19 patients in ICUs and 135 in hospital overall.”

It really looks like Manitoba and Southern Health in particular are headed for disaster and people in Southern Health have a lot of responsibility on their shoulders. They have illegally exercised their religious  freedom while they wreak havoc on the community. That is a strange kind of religion. If it is religion at all.

 

Religion of Thugs

Epidemics/Pandemics, Evangelical Christianity, religion

 

I recently read about a strange  Kind of Christianity—Churches flaunt rules as People Suffer and  Die.

Here is what was reported in the  Winnipeg Free Press by Brenda Suderman,

“Christian worshippers are secretly holding church services in farm sheds and machine shops in southern Manitoba communities as a way to evade Covid-19 public health orders.

Held on private properties, the Sunday services, attended by dozens, and up to hundreds,, have been organized to circumvent current public health rules, which required mask use and limit the size of religious gatherings if attendees are not full vaccinated for Covid-19 Communities in the Southern Health region have some of the lowest vaccination rates in Manitoba including Winkler and the Rural Municipality of Stanley, where the services are reportedly being held.”

According to Suderman, attendees gather in large insulated and heated farm buildings used for equipment maintenance, repair and storage. Usually, the buildings are equipped with overhead doors large enough to accommodate big farm machinery and have one two doors for pedestrians and perhaps an occasional window.

It appears nothing is being done by the province because the local MLA and current Manitoba Minister of Justice who oversees the criminal justice system and is responsible for making sure Manitoba’s laws are enforced said,

“It’s very sensitive. We’re also trying to send the message that we know how important it is for people to gather to meet their spiritual needs… If there were some groups of people looking to meet in clandestine ways in undisclosed locations, it would be very challenging to monitor.”

 

Perhaps Manitoba’s police are too busy checking up on drivers driving without wearing seat belts.

What makes the negligence of the Minister of Justice even more disturbing is the sharp rise of cases, hospitalizations and deaths in this region where Christians flout the law. Christians are flouting the law to facilitate their personal desires for freedom and as a direct result Manitobans are dying and being put at risk of further harms.  What kind of Christianity is that?

In a previous post I called this the religion of thugs. Actually, it’s not religion at all.

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The religion of Us vs. Them

Epidemics/Pandemics, Evangelical Christianity, religion

 

I have bravely commented before in this blog that when religion leads to hate, it is no longer religion.  I still believe that. More firmly than ever in fact. But obviously, many religious adherents, though not all, think otherwise. Unsurprisingly, this is coming up during COVID-19.  Dan Lett a Winnipeg Free Press opinion columnist has written a recent piece commenting on this phenomenon.

He commented on statements made by Manitoba’s Minister of Justice Cameron Friesen who happens to represent the region of Manitoba that contains Winkler and the Rural Municipality of Stanley, that have the lowest rates of vaccine uptake in the province and the highest rates of COVID-19. For more than a month now, the Southern Health Region of Manitoba that contains those two communities, and of course, Steinbach and our surrounding rural municipality of Hanover, which also have similar rates, have had very low rates of vaccine uptake and very high rates of new COVID cases. Friesen was recently asked about the news that many people in his region were attending church services in private homes and bars in efforts to get around Manitoba’s public health orders that prevented them from meeting together in churches as closely as they wanted.

Friesen was asked if the province would start enforcing those health orders.  That was hardly a surprising question, but his response was surprising. As the Winnipeg Free Press reported,

“Friesen assured Manitobans that enforcement was taking place but that it would be difficult to find the underground churches, and that the government’s efforts may not necessarily result in fines or tickets.

“We’re also trying to send the message that we know how important it is for people to gather to meet their spiritual needs.”

 

Holding both of those positions at once is about like riding two horses at the same time. When they inevitably ride apart, the rider is bound to get a splitting headache or worse. As Lett said, “In one sentence, Friesen confirmed this government’s tolerance for the deliberate actions of some that has sparked and driven a dangerous fourth wave of COVID-19.”

Lett concluded this was clear evidence that the Manitoba government was prepared to acquiesce in allowing Christians to break the law. Lett believes this suggests the Conservative government of Manitoba is prepared to permit the perpetual pandemic that could follow. As Lett said,

“A combination of tolerance, education and enforcement has not been able to convince tracts of people in some communities in southern Manitoba to embrace public health orders. The Morden-Winkler area in particular has become an epidemiological and ideological battleground, with the province’s health-care system caught in the crossfire.”

 

As I mentioned, Steinbach is really in that same community though with a little less rebellious vigour.

Lett suggested that at the very least Friesen ought to have told Manitobans

“While acknowledging the importance of worshipping in person, Friesen could have said now was not the time for worship in large numbers not permitted by public health orders. Further, he might have shown the courage to serve his fellow Christians an inconvenient truth: in-person worship is important, but it is not a transcendent Christian value.”

 Lett pointed out that for some reason Churches in southern Manitoba in particular have put in-person worship during the pandemic as a tradition that trumps all others. He asked, what happened to other Christian values? The vast majority of other churches have accepted, though often not without reluctance, that Manitoba has the right to impose restrictions on gatherings, even religious gatherings, to try stem the tide of the disease.

 As Lett opined,

 “Increasingly, the leaders of these churches turn to the Bible in an effort to justify their emphasis on in-person worship. And to be sure, worshipping in a group is an important element in the Christian identity.

However, many other religious leaders have made it clear: this one element of faith was never intended to take precedence over other Christian imperatives like loving one another, and making sacrifices for our family, friends and neighbours.”

 

After that Lett asked a very good question, namely, how did we get into this mess?  Lett suggested the cause was “many of the truly die-hard anti-vax, anti-mask and anti-social distancing citizens find community with each other through churches.”

 This leads me to the point I wanted to make. Many churches have shown their willingness to abide by Manitoba’s health orders and have recognized that God does not require in person church services at all times. But these churches, mainly from southern Manitoba, have instead demonstrated that they have, what Lett called,  an “us against the world” philosophy” that  runs deep.” That is precisely the attitude I believe is deeply anti-religious. When churches find that attitude running deep, they should consider whether or they are still religions at all.

Lett concluded his column by saying,

“Whether he’s deferring to constituents in an effort to preserve his political career, or he truly believes individuals should be allowed to do whatever they want, whenever they want, his comments are irresponsible. But he utters them with knowledge and comfort that in certain faith circles, he is a hero.”

 

I would go even farther than Lett. I would suggest that perhaps he is not even catering to a faith group at all, but rather, a group of thugs who think they can do whatever they want in the name of religion. Is thugs too strong a word? I think not. You can call them Christians. I call them thugs.