Away with All Gods: Possibility or Fantasy?
On Thursday afternoon, The Center for the Study of Religion at UCLA hosted a debate between Sunsara Taylor and Scott Bartchy, my doctoral advisor. I was not able to make it to the debate, but was happy to find this tidbit giving what appears to be a fair report of the debate. The report is done by the Bruin Alliance of Skeptics and Secularists. Even giving their leanings, they seem to indicate that Bartchy had a much stronger point than Taylor.
Taylor’s argument was that all religion is bad. Bartchy’s point was that there is bad religion and good religion. I think Bartchy had an easier job to do because, well, he’s right. Both terrible things and great things have been done in the name of religion. Apparently Taylor shot herself in the foot when she defending communism by saying that there are good things and bad things in communism: “When Sunsara said that some things in Communist societies were good, some bad, Bartchy immediately compared it to his own point about good and bad religion.”
Of course there were people of faith who were dissatisfied with Bartchy as their representative in this debate. Apparently one woman refused to believe that Bartchy actually believes in God:
I didn’t catch the whole thing, but I heard her say, “So you don’t really believe in God”. Bartchy insisted that she didn’t know that. But she kept on saying “He doesn’t really believe in God”, walking away satisfied.
Bartchy often mentions that when people ask him about this, he often tries to ask them what they mean by “God.” Too often people have no idea how to articulate an understanding of what “God” means to them. For Bartchy, at least as he explains early Judaism and Christianity, their God is the God of “community forming power”: the God who gathers a people who are committed to following God’s way of social justice. When people talk about “God” in America, it is often something quite different.
Incidentally, it seems that Bartchy had the correct approach by responding in a reasoned and logical manner, in contrast to Bill O’Reilly who interviewed Sunsara Taylor and simply called her a “lunatic.”
Sounds like it was a stimulating event. Sorry I couldn’t make it.
Obama Going to Messiah College
This is just an update that Obama accepted the invitation to the Compassion Forum that will be held at Messiah College on April 13th. See my earlier post about Clinton’s announcement to attend.
Clinton confirms she's going to Messiah College
I mentioned the Compassion Forum the other day, when we knew the invitations were being considered, but Hillary Clinton has made it explicit: she’s going to participate in the forum at my alma mater (HT: Beliefnet [the article is kind of a watered down version of the press release]). I don’t think this will be proving which candidate is “Christian enough” as one commenter at Beliefnet suggests, since the Forum will be focused on issues of broader concern (e.g., domestic and international poverty, global AIDS, climate change, abortion, genocide in Darfur, and human rights and torture). Note that the board includes folks like Jim Wallis, Gary Haugen, Richard Cizik, and David Beckmann.
The spin is that these questions are being asked from a faith perspective. I think it does more for challenging people of faith to think about important social issues than it ranks the candidates on their “Christianness.” What Jim Wallis says is that politicians are “wind chasers.” They stick their finger up in the air and see which way the wind is blowing. Wallis says that Christians (and I think all concerned citizens, no matter religion) need to change the direction of the wind–like MLK, Jr. I hope that this Forum is one more step to raise public awareness that the faith-based voters are not only looking for the best Christian (although some unfortunately are) but they are more interested in making real change with difficult social concerns.
I’m envious of the students on campus right now because of the amazing learning opportunity this provides them.
For the record, I’m still a little dumbfounded that presidential candidates are going to an Anabaptist school!
My Anabaptist Alma Mater To Host Presidential Candidates
This is something else. Messiah College, my undergraduate alma mater located near Harrisburg, Pa., is going to be hosting the “Compassion Forum” in the evening of April 13th (nine days before the Pennsylvania primary). Invited are Obama, Clinton, and McCain for a conversation on important moral issues that bridge the partisan divide. Check out this bit from the announcement on Messiah’s news blog:
The Compassion Forum will be a unique event—not another traditional debate. Each candidate will participate in a separate substantive conversation. The Forum will be moderated by Jon Meacham, editor of “Newsweek,” author of “American Gospel,” and a respected scholar on faith and American politics. Conversation topics will focus on compassion and social justice issues such as U.S. and global poverty; AIDS; climate change; Darfur; and human rights.
The compassion, reconciliation, and social justice issues to be discussed at this forum are relevant to the mission and values of Messiah College. As host organization, Messiah will be able to create important educational opportunities for our students related to this event.
It is sponsored, in part, by Council of Christian Colleges and Universities, the ONE Campaign, and Oxfam America.To my knowledge, the campaigns haven’t officially accepted the invitation yet, but it sounds like it’s assumed they will. I hope they do. It is pretty darn interesting. Presidential candidates come to an Anabaptist school to talk about how issues important to people of faith. Anabaptists have come a long way in their interaction with society and politics. Of course, most of the students at the school are not actually Anabaptist and many probably don’t know much about Anabaptism, but the school is intentional about its Anabaptist values (even if its not as explicit about them as, say, Goshen). I wonder what the campaigns will do when they learn that Messiah doesn’t have a flag pole on campus (oh, heresies of heresies).
What I’m not looking forward to are more jokes about the name of the school or references to the whole Monica Goodling fiasco.
I was first tipped off by these two stories (and my alumni email update).
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Elsewhere . . .- Blog titles beginning with "A" to "Z" on your reader Mark Goodacre
- Of making many books there is no end Chris Brady
- Free Online: The Liddell-Scott Jones Lexicon S and C
- Does Higher Criticism Attempt to “Destroy the Bible”? II agathos
- Steven J. Friesen and the Identity of Satan’s Throne in Pergamum alan
- Does Higher Criticism Attempt to “Destroy the Bible”? agathos
- Bloomsbury buys Continuum Mark Goodacre
- Imperial America Peter J. Leithart
- C.F.D. Moule on the Birth of the New Testament d. miller
- Responding to Kostenberger (with comparisons to Marshall) Jeremiah
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