Jim Palmer's Blog, page 5

Is mass incarceration a form of racialized social control?

Last night the Nashville Humanist Associationhosted a roundtable discussion on the topic of race, more specifically the topic ("What is the new Jim Crow?") was about mass incarceration as a form of racialized social control. As a co-founder of NHA, myself and others have aimed to encourage vigorous and thoughtful conversation and dialogue about the topics we address, and to formulate meaningful paths of action. Last night's roundtable discussion was Part Two of a roundtable discussion we had a couple weeks ago on the topic, Is Race America's new religion. In anticipation of last night's meeting we encouraged participants to explore a few resources, including the reading of the first chapter of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander, and Alice Goffman's Ted Talk, "How we're priming some kids for college - and others for prison."There's a lot to educate oneself about in terms of our criminal justice system and mass incarceration to get a fuller picture. Here are a couple quotes from The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander on the topic:“The genius of the current caste system, and what most distinguishes it from its predecessors, is that it appears voluntary. People choose to commit crimes, and that's why they are locked up or locked out, we are told. This feature makes the politics of responsibility particularly tempting, as it appears the system can be avoided with good behavior. But herein lies the trap. All people make mistakes. All of us are sinners. All of us are criminals. All of us violate the law at some point in our lives. In fact, if the worst thing you have ever done is speed ten miles over the speed limit on the freeway, you have put yourself and others at more risk of harm than someone smoking marijuana in the privacy of his or her living room. Yet there are people in the United States serving life sentences for first-time drug offenses, something virtually unheard of anywhere else in the world.” “Arguably the most important parallel between mass incarceration and Jim Crow is that both have served to define the meaning and significance of race in America. Indeed, a primary function of any racial caste system is to define the meaning of race in its time. Slavery defined what it meant to be black (a slave), and Jim Crow defined what it meant to be black (a second-class citizen). Today mass incarceration defines the meaning of blackness in America: black people, especially black men, are criminals. That is what it means to be black.” “In the era of colorblindness, it is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly, as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and social contempt. So we don’t. Rather than rely on race, we use our criminal justice system to label people of color “criminals” and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind. Today it is perfectly legal to discriminate against criminals in nearly all the ways that it was once legal to discriminate against African Americans. Once you’re labeled a felon, the old forms of discrimination—employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial of educational opportunity, denial of food stamps and other public benefits, and exclusion from jury service—are suddenly legal. As a criminal, you have scarcely more rights, and arguably less respect, than a black man living in Alabama at the height of Jim Crow. We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.”The two discussions we've organized on the topic of race have been racially, ethnically and generationally diverse, men and women. Last night we opened the meeting by asking participants to write down their thoughts as follows:On the topics of: (A) Slavery; (B) Racism; and (C) Mass incarceration, we asked participants to fill in the blank for themselves on these three statements: 1. Something I know .... 2. Something I believe ....3. Something I wonder ....The bulk of the meeting was spent discussing five questions:How does mass incarceration function as a form of racialized social control?Have you ever witnessed or experienced the repercussions of incarceration?How do you think the War on Drugs has affected your generation? Do you think your response is influenced by your race and your family's socioeconomic class?Do you hear and see stereotypes today similar to those mentioned in the book excerpt, such as "welfare queens," "crack babies," and "gangbangers"? What are some present-day ways of sending racialized messages and stereotypes about people of color without using explicitly racial language?Based on what you read from chapter one of The New Jim Crow, why do you think she's naming the phenomenon of mass incarceration in this way? After discussing these questions, we ended the evening by asking participants to return to their "I know... I believe... I wonder..." reflections and ask: Has anything you thought you knew changed?Have any of your beliefs changed? Were any of the things you wondered about answered? What new questions do you have?Participants were also given some information, answering the question: "What you can do about it." Some useful resources and ways to get involved are offered here on the newjimcrow.com website. There is also a useful article written by Bree Ervin at everydayfeminism.com about talking to your kids about race. How does the lifestance and values of humanism relate to matters of race? Anthony B. Pinn offers a thoughtful article on the subject at thehumanist.com. At the American Humanist Association conference in 2015 there was a very meaningful panel discussion on humanism and issues of race.Last night in our discussion I shared that I know I cannot fully appreciate the impact of slavery, racism and mass incarceration on people of color. Even if I could somehow quantify the impact in areas such as education, economics, and opportunity, I can never appreciate the personal life experiences and psychological impact that slavery, racism and mass incarceration has had. This point was driven home to me in the meeting as a I listened to a young black man describe his personal experience in the criminal justice system and the time he spent in prison. It struck me that this is the point where empathy breaks down. I cannot truly put myself in his shoes and relate to his personal experience. I think this point of empathy is something to explore more deeply. A good place to explore i further is Paul Bloom's book, Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion. I am committed to preventing and alleviating human suffering, and promoting and aiding human flourishing. This presses into matters such as social justice, equality and human rights. I cannot turn a blind eye where injustice and oppression is causing suffering and preventing flourishing. I realize this must begin first by scrutinizing my own beliefs, mindsets, narratives and actions (or lack thereof) that are complicit (knowing or unknowingly) in perpetuating social injustice. Secondly, I understand that I am responsible for educating myself about where human society breaks down. The first act of compassion is to care enough to understand what the reality actually is and the systemic factors and dynamics that feed into and perpetuate it. Compassion will not let me sit quietly, comfortably and conveniently in ignorance, inadequate understanding and half truths. As Elie Wiesel wrote, "The opposite of live is not hate, it's indifference." As a white educated male I think I know more than I actually I do as a result of reading articles and opinion pieces by other white educated males. Last night I got an education I could not have received anywhere else from a young black man who shared his experience of life before, during and after prison. I know I have a lot more listening and learning to do, and less talking and pontificating. When it comes to the subject of mass incarceration as a form of racialized social control, it's complicated. The question is, do I care enough to sort through it and formulate a response and do something about it. There is much that could be said about secularism and social justice.It's an area I'm particularly interested in. For a season of my life I directed an inner city agency that provided programs and services for at-risk youth and their families. I describe some of my experiences in my first book,Divine Nobodies, as I was first starting my journey out of religion. I was confronted by the crisis in education for black youth, the absence of fathers in families, and the impact of drugs and incarceration. I spent a lot of time in the Davidson County Juvenile Detention Center talking with black teens as they expressed the impossibility of getting a job at McDonalds as a reasonable alternative over selling drugs in order to earn income for their family. As a Humanist Chaplain, I continue to invest my time and energy in these kinds of issues of social justice in my city.

Dear Jim, If "God is good all the time," then why....?

Dear Jim: I have a decorative plaque on the wall in my hallway that says, "God is good all the time." In my bedroom I have another decorative plaque that reads, "Our God reigns with power and love." I got to thinking about it... if God is good all time and God reigns with power and love... why do bad things happen in the world? Sincerely, Bewildered Brenda *** Dear Bewildered Brenda: Do the conditions of our world supply ample evidence in the idea of an all-powerful and good God? For a season I traveled with an international human rights agency that worked cases of forced child prostitution around the world. 1 million new girls each year are forced into child prostitution. I was part of an operation and sting to raid brothels that forced 12-15 year old girls to provide sex to "customers" 4-5 times a day, six days a week. So let's pick one of these 12-year-old girls that get raped 5 times a day, six days a week. If God is all-powerful and good (in other words, God has the power to stop this 12-year-old girl from being repeatedly raped) but doesn't stop it, could it actually be that God is truly all-powerful and good? Maybe God is good but not all-powerful. That would make sense. Of course God would not want a 12-year-old girl to be repeatedly raped, but God can't prevent or stop it. Maybe God is all-powerful but not good? This could also make sense. God could stop it but doesn't because he does not care. Some people resolve this by referring to such things as "God's passive will." In other words, God doesn't directly cause the 12-year-old girl from being repeatedly raped, but allows it. To this I ask you: Would you stand by and allow your 12-year-old daughter to be raped? And if you did, could you still be called "good." Other people might have a philosophical conversation about the dualistic categories of "good" and "bad." They ask: What is truly "good" or "bad"? To which I reply by saying let's ask the 12-year-old girl who is being repeatedly raped what she thinks? Someone might say "God works in mysterious ways" or "God's ways are higher than our ways." If I stood by and allowed my 12-year-old daughter to be repeatedly raped, would you call this act "mysterious" or "higher"? Others might say, it's tragic but this girl has an eternal reward that far outweighs her momentary afflictions. Well hold on; that only applies if she happens to have the correct theology by being born into a Christian culture, otherwise her fate is conscious eternal torment. Maybe someone says, yes but this girl will get through it with God's help and be stronger and will be in a unique position to especially help others who suffer horrific life circumstances. Is this a reasonable rationale for permitting such a thing to happen? Another person defends God by saying that he (or Jesus) was present the entire time as the girl was being victimized. Like Footprints in the Sand, the idea is that God was not absent during the girl's ordeal but present, perhaps in tears, "carrying her" through it. To this I reply: Why would a "good" God be present during such a horrific circumstance and not intervene? I chose the example of the girl not as some kind of extreme outrageous theoretical situation. I chose it because I sat in brothels in SE Asia posing as a customer, locking eyes with 12-year-old girls on a cat-walk moments before they were selected to be forced into sex. Do I ask these questions about "God" because I want to stir up a big debate? No. I raise these issues because I believe humankind can do better than the notion of "God" cooked up by religion. In fact, rather than debate and argue theological positions about the goodness and power of God, why don't we instead come to terms with the following reality: 1. Human beings are responsible for the evil and suffering in the world 2. We don't have to cause evil and suffering in the world 3. We are free to choose differently 4. We are capable of living lives of goodness 5. Until we do, expect nothing to change 6. We invented the God of religion to either blame or shirk our responsibility for the condition of the world 7. Consider the possibility that "God" is your, my and our commitment to alleviating the suffering and contributing to the flourishing of our world Hope this helps, Jim

Remembering Christopher Hitchens

Fierce atheist and scathing polemicist, Christopher Hitchens, died on this day six years ago (December 15, 2011) of complications from esophageal cancer. Raised religious, he shed the reins of his upbringing and sought to understand the effects of widespread and exploitative religion on the masses. Of course Hitchens had many enemies, given his zealous disdain and combative repudiation of religion. Over the years I have listened to countless debates, interviews and speeches of Hitchens. I've read several of his books, including his final one entitled, Mortality, in which Hitchens shares his battle with cancer and confronting the reality of his own death.Christopher Hitchens has had an impact on my life and journey in various ways. On this day, which commemorates his death six years ago, I want to share 3 of them. 1. Christopher Hitchens challenged me to become more intelligent.The breadth of knowledge Hitchens had, his skill at complex reasoning, and his extraordinary clarity of thought was without rival. He could deduce new conclusions based on solid, fundamental, true understanding. Hitchens could connect the dots across multiple disciplines where most people are only specialized in their one area of expertise. He had excellent critical thinking skills, and could step back and see the big picture from new angles. He was a tremendous knowledge synthesizer but applied it with the precision of a surgeon. What developed, evolved, deepened and matured in Hitchens' mind was nothing short of brilliant. He challenged me to rethink my own commitment to expanding the breadth of my own knowledge, and strengthening my critical thinking skills. Hitchens was important because he was able to write and speak so knowledgeably about a wide range of subjects from literature to poetry to current events and history to religion, philosophy, and ethics. Hitchens was a voracious reader, and a prolific writer.2. Christopher Hitchens challenged me to become more articulate.Hitchens’ gift for rhetoric and erudition was unmatched. His command over the English language was extraordinary. Whether it was organized and planned remarks, or speaking extemporaneously in debates and interviews, Hitchens was an extraordinary communicator. He was a brilliant writer. We all have access to the same 172,000 words in the English language. There’s a skill and talent in the words selected and how they are strung together in sentences, paragraphs and chapters. Hitchens set himself apart among his contemporaries as an orator and author. 3. Christopher Hitchens taught me to operate within the power of my convictions. Hitchens wasn’t afraid to offend people, and perhaps this was his calling card – pissing people off. But to be fair, he did it with his intellect and debating skills. He is a polarizing figure. People don’t just ‘not like’ Christopher Hitchens; his detractors hate and vilify him. It’s understandable, there are no sacred cows to Hitchens and he put every world religion on notice. One of his most known books is, God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. I think Jesus would have been fond of the fiery Hitchens, and would have shared many of his condemnations of religion. But I don’t think that matters; Hitchens doesn’t believe there’s ample evidence that there was a Jesus. Yes, Hitchens had a superior intellect and exceptional communication skills, but it’s my view that Hitchens was the force he was because he was convinced he was right about something that he felt truly mattered. You can disagree with his conclusions but they were his personal convictions, which he carried, perhaps most devotedly, through the very last days and hours of his life as he faced his own death. I did not know Christopher Hitchens personally. I guess it’s a bit odd that he’s had the impact upon me that he did. Hitchens inspired me to know more, say it better and be willing to stand in my convictions and let the chips fall where they may. I was moved by Hitchens’ brutal honesty and raw humanity in his last book, Mortality. I am grateful for Hitchens and I feel a love in my heart for him. I’m also angry with Hitchens. I wanted some sort of nice pretty bow at the end of his final book and life. I wanted his death to somehow be okay. Some grand and comforting resolution to his departing. I got none. Instead he wrote, “To the dumb question "Why me?" the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: why not?” In the final pages of Mortality, Hitchens scribbled an entry that includes a quote from the book, Einstein’s Dreams, which is a 1992 novel by Alan Lightman. The novel fictionalizes Albert Einstein as a young scientist who is troubled by dreams as he works on his theory of relativity in 1905. The book consists of 30 chapters, each exploring one dream about time that Einstein had during this period.Hitchens’ entry in the final pages of his book that references Einstein’s Dreams reads as follows:From Alan Lightman’s intricate 1993 novel Einstein’s Dreams; set in Berne in 1905:With infinite life comes an infinite list of relatives. Grandparents never die, nor do great-grandparents, great-aunts… and so on, back through the generations, all alive and offering advice. Sons never escape from the shadows of their fathers. Nor do daughters of their mothers. No one ever comes into his own… Such is the cost of immortality. No person is whole. No person is free.I’m not sure why these words would have been of such importance for Hitchens to have referenced them in the final days of his life. The quote appears to be saying that there is an immortality that exists in the sense that the living are always afoot in the shadows and influences of those who have passed before us. As a result of this immortality, no living person is ever truly whole or free. In this scenario, true freedom could only come from mortality.Maybe this was Hitchens’ making final peace with life and death – his way of saying that he saw mortality as the doorway to the freedom we spend a whole lives seeking.I guess we’ll never know.

Depression is not a "spiritual problem"

In Divine Nobodies there is a chapter in which I share about my journey with depression. Perhaps no chapter in any book I’ve written has resulted in more response. I have a file folder filled with emails from people who wrote me about their own struggle with depression. In many cases the story involved feeling shame at church or given pat spiritual answers on how to remedy it. In my fourth book, Notes from (Over) the Edge, I devote an entire chapter to addressing depression and spirituality. A portion of that chapter reads: “Let me be as clear as possible. Depression is not a “spiritual problem” or a sign that you are somehow failing God. Our life is our spiritual path, and we live it by responding to situations as they require. For some, that situation requires you seeking professional support for depression. That is spiritual enlightenment! It’s not being attached to false ideas about depression, and simply doing what the situation requires and seeking the help you need. 80% of people who have depression are not being treated. Don’t be part of that statistic!The outcome of transformation, awakening, or enlightenment is not the absence of difficulties. It is coming into the awareness or correct perception of the true nature of things. It’s seeing the fundamental, unchanging, and underlying truth of your Self and all things. Meanwhile, you have a mind and body that has been conditioned by a lifetime of experiences and circumstances. We should not expect that those just magically and instantaneously disappear.For example, an unenlightened person who has depression becomes an enlightened person who has depression. Either way, the depression is there. The difference is how you relate to your depression.Consider that the enlightened person is awakened to the underlying, unchanging, and fundamental essence of who they are. Knowing this, they see their depression differently – their depression is not something they ARE but something they HAVE. They don’t judge it as something “bad” or “wrong,” but just something that IS. ”– Jim Palmer, Notes from (Over) the Edge According to the World Health Organization:1. Depression is a common mental disorder. 2. Globally, more than 350 million people of all ages suffer from depression. 3. Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide. 4. More women are affected by depression than men. 5. At its worst, depression can lead to suicide. 6. There are effective treatments for depression.According to the Centers of Disease control: 1. 1 in every 10 Americans suffer from depression. 2. The number of people who are diagnosed with depression increases 20% each year. 3. People who have major depressive disorder are the leading cause of disability in the U.S. for ages 15 – 44. 4. 60% – 80% of depression can be treated with medication and psychotherapy. 5. 80% of people are not being treated who have depression.How depression feels as described by some:“I’m tired of trying, sick of crying, I know I’ve been smiling, but inside I’m dying.”“Maybe one day it will be okay again. That’s all I want. I don’t care what it takes. I just want to be okay again.”“I guess there comes a point where you just have to stop trying because it hurts too much to hold on anymore.”“How can you understand me when I can’t understand myself?”“What do you do when you become too scared, too scared to live, to scared to die, too scared to love, too scared to even care.”“I’m often silent when I am screaming inside.”“No more joy. No more sadness. No emotion. Only madness. I can’t see. I don’t feel. I can’t touch. I don’t heal.”“It’s an interesting feeling, really, to scroll through all the numbers in your phone, and realize that there is no one who will understand.”“Someday I’ll fly away.”“Do you ever lay in bed at night hoping you wake up in the emergency room and hear the words, “she’s not going to make it.”“How can you hide from what never goes away?”“I’m freezing, I’m starving, I’m bleeding to death, Everything’s Fine.”Major depression is a common and treatable mental disorder. If you or someone you love struggles with depression, it’s important to seek out help. You can begin exploring how to get help at this site. Dealing with depression may involve professional treatment. If your car breaks down, no amount of spirituality is going to fix it. Maintaining a positive attitude will likely influence the degree to which the car situation rattles your equilibrium, but it’s still not going to fix the car. Fixing the car is a mechanical issue, and responding to the situation as it requires would require taking the car to a mechanic. Likewise, if you have depression, though spirituality might transform your relationship to your depression, you still must respond as the situation requires, which means investigating the available treatments for depression and seeking guidance on what is best for you. In other words, spirituality is not a substitute for professional therapeutic treatment but a motivation for seeking it out without same or judgment. Seeking professional help is not a detour from your spiritual path; it is your spiritual path. If you cut your hand open, you would go to the hospital or doctor for stitches and not think twice about it. But too often people put mental disorders in a different category and choose not to seek professional help. I wish I could convince people that there is no difference between slicing your hand open, breaking your leg, high blood pressure, reflux, allergies, and depression. What I mean by saying there is no difference is that they all are a condition of the mind and body and to do what the situation requires in each case is to seek professional help and treatment.Of course, our attitudes and ways of being in life have an overall impact on our lives as a whole. For example, we know that stress, lack of self-care, or any destructive habits in our lives, can be detrimental to our physical and mental health. But having said that, please realize that the notion that reading the Bible more, positive thinking, having correct beliefs, trying harder, lifestyle changes, or spiritual enlightenment is a solution to depression is erroneous thinking. Would they be the solution to a sliced hand, broken leg, high blood pressure or allergies? Of course not. Same with depression.There is a lot one can learn and explore about depression if they are intersted. Psychology Today has a top ten list of books about depression. 

Is race America's new religion?

I am co-founder and board member of the Nashville Humanist Association. Last night we hosted a roundtable discussion on the topic, "Is race America's new religion?" The discussion was led by one of our members and friend of mine, Kyle Robinson, who is a young black man. It was a very useful and productive conversation and there was unanimous consent to organize another roundtable discussion on the topic. The question of race has crossed my mind several times at it relates to the secular community - humanists, atheists, Brights, nones and SBNR's (spiritual but not religious). My initial involvement in the secular community in the Nashville area felt like it was mostly a lot of middle-aged suburban white men. A previous event we (Nashville Humanist Organization) organized was a lecture by Fred Edwords. Edwords was national director of the United Coalition of Reason. He was chair of the American Humanist Association's Humanist Manifesto III Drafting Committee. Fred delivered a lecture on the topic of evolution and creationism. Fred (white male) is married to a black woman, Mary. During their visit I shared with them my limited perception that it seemed that the secular community was largely white. I learned a lot in that conversation. As I probed deeper, here are a some things I learned: In the United States, blacks are less likely to be religiously unaffiliated, let alone identifying as atheist or "none." In some quarters it is true that atheism has been seen as a whites-only club. On the whole in the United States, African American history, including the civil rights movement were closely tied to Christianity. African-American communities tend to believe that the church is the center of morality and often turn to the church to solve various social problems that the government is not being perceived to solve or care about. As writer, Cord Jefferson put it, "For a long time, black houses of worship doubled as war rooms to plan protest actions and galvanize people made weary by centuries of racist violence and legislation." Many black people have turned to religion to find the answers to their own suffering. However, there has also been a scathing critique of Christianity in the black community. For example, during the Harlem Renaissance, several prominent black authors in America wrote or discussed their criticisms of the Christian church in various forms. Anthony Pinn called Christianity a tool for keeping the status quo and historically, for supporting slavery. African-Americans who come out as a atheist may face a significant social cost. Journalist Jamila Bey wrote, "It's difficult - if not impossible - to divorce religion from black culture." This social cost is not unique to blacks who leave Christianity, but also occurs among black Muslims who leave the religion. Some atheists who have left Islam have been disowned by family or received death threats. Black atheists in the United Kingdom face similar problems, where coming out as an atheist is associated with the fear of being ostracised and demonised. Black women risk their own social status and reputation when they are active atheists. They are more likely to become estranged from their religious families, due to openly expressing their atheism. Within an already religious group, African American women make up "the most religious demographic" in the United States and when black women leave their religion, they also leave an entire social system. Black atheists who identify as LGBT report that they have face a large amount of hate coming from the black community itself.There is a rich history of black freethinkers and atheists. Hubert Henry Harrison, A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, George S. Schuyler, John Henrik Clarke, James Baldwin, James Forman , Lorraine Hansberry... to name a few. In 1989 Norm Allen, Jr founded African Americans for Humanism, an explicitly secular organisation for blacks. Black Atheists of America and, more recently, Black Nonbelievers Inc, as well as local groups such as Black Skeptics Los Angeles, soon followed. New black atheists are not content to personally reject religion but instead have a goal of spreading freethought to the broader black community. I wish the secular community as a whole would follow suit. In January, the Nashville Humanist Association is offering "Secular Study Hall," which are group workshops designed to broaden and deepen our knowledge on important and relevant subjects and fields of study, and develop new tools for preventing and alleviating human suffering, and promoting human flourishing. Author Sikivu Hutchinson, and founder of Black Nonbelievers, Mandisa Thomas, argue that religion hurts the black community by promoting sexism, patriarchy and homophobia. Sikivu and others say that black churches have failed to address drug addiction, housing inequities, health disparities, lack of employment opportunities and other pressing social problems facing black Americans. Rather than adopting religious solutions such as abstinence-only education to a problem such as teenage pregnancies, black atheists call for more sex education and access to birth control. There are some who feel that the overall atheist movement can be seen as "tacitly racist" in that "the movement is not generally interested in the issues that affect people of color" and racism becomes "invisible" and therefore difficult to talk about. Sikivu Hutchinson has written that there is a "staggering lack of interest" about issues facing black people from the atheist community. And so I have thought long and hard about these issues. It would not be a fair generalization that American secularism/humanism/atheism is a bunch of white upper middle class males sitting around pontificating about the finer points of philosophy, but I have to admit that at times it has felt this way. I am grateful for my black secular, humanist and atheist friends who infuse the secular movement with a passion and dedication to address the root causes of human suffering, and the underlying and systemic causes of them. Here are additional resources you might be interested in checking out: Black Non-BelieversBlack HumanistsA book to read: African American Atheists and Political Liberation: A Study of the Sociocultural Dynamics of Faith (History of African-American Religions)An author to read: Sikivu Hutchinson

Women and Religious Assault #NOMORE

The news lately has been filled with tragic stories of women who have shared their experiences as victims of sexual assault. Many of these stories are being shared with the hashtag #metoo. This has caused me to reflect upon the role of religion in creating a misogynistic mindset toward women. On the whole, religion has not been kind to women, largely patriarchal and often misogynistic. Consider these common church phrases: "Women should be silent in the church." "You are an amazing leader! You'd make an excellent pastor's wife someday!" "You're equal to men in value; you just have a different role. God made you to submit to man's final authority." "Dress in a way that doesn't cause your brothers in Christ to sin." "Want to come to my Bible Study? We are learning how to be gentle submissive women." "Men are visual and struggle with lust. Women are emotional and we need to protect them." "Always be prepared to have sex with your husband even if you don't want it." "The head of the woman is the man." "For man did not come from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for women, but women for man." "Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord." Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote, "The Bible teaches that woman brought sin and death into the world, that she precipitated the fall of the race, that she was arraigned before the judgment seat of Heaven, tried, condemned, and sentenced. Marriage for her was to be a condition of bondage, maternity a period of suffering and anguish, and in silence and subjection, she was to play the role of a dependant on man’s bounty for all her material wants, and for all the information she might desire. ... Here is the Bible position of woman briefly summed up. The Bible and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women’s emancipation. The whole tone of church teaching in regard to women is, to the last degree, contemptuous and degrading." Differences in tradition and interpretations of scripture have caused sects of Christianity to differ in their beliefs with regard to their treatment of women. In The Troublesome Helpmate, Katharine M. Rogers argues that Christianity is misogynistic, and she lists what she says are specific examples of misogyny in the Pauline epistles. She states: "The foundations of early Christian misogyny — its guilt about sex, its insistence on female subjection, its dread of female seduction — are all in St. Paul's epistles." I have received many messages and emails over the years from women who were victimized through their association with religion. One woman wrote, "At church, I learned that God loves me less because I’m female." Below is a portion of one of many emails I've received, which I keep in a "Dear Jim" Gmail Folder: "I decided I’d start wearing pants. I know that seems so small and petty, it’s almost laughable, but to a young, IFB ‘good girl,' it was a huge deal. I thought that maybe if I could at least ‘look’ like an independent woman, maybe I’d ‘feel’ more like one. If I could look ‘normal’ maybe I’d feel a little less… sub-human. I knew there’d be hell to pay when I told him, but I thought surely the few days or weeks of hell on earth would be preferable to the months or possibly years of suffering a divorce would cause. This was my somewhat fractured logic, but I was a woman at the end of her rope and willing to try anything before finally giving up. The next day I sat down with David and gently told him my decision. I cried when I told him because I knew what was coming. At first he seemed concerned, even sympathetic and curious about why I’d made my decision. Then he began to ‘reason’ with me. When he realized I wasn’t going to budge, he became irate. For at least 4 hellish hours that evening, he yelled, showed me Bible verses, following me around the house, continuing the barrage. He poked his finger in my chest, on my face, and when I tried to lay down that night, he yanked the pillow out from under my head. He put his pale, rage-filled face inches from mine and yelled, “This is my MINISTRY we’re talking about!!” The next 2 days were more of the same. When I suggested marriage counseling, things got worse. He locked us in the bedroom, pacing back and forth, holding a Bible in one hand, and poking me in the chest and face with the other. Finally, one night, he laid down beside me and told me that he was going to stop allowing me to watch my favorite shows on tv or read my favorite books anymore because they were giving me “ideas”. When I felt the familiar ‘trapped’ sensation rising in my chest again, choking me, when I realized that my tiny world was now becoming that much smaller, I realized I didn’t know what the “will of God” was anymore, but I knew it WASN’T God’s will that anyone, even a woman, live in such oppression." I know the above case is quite extreme. But in more subtle ways, religion has often diminished women. Young girls learn self-diminishing/defeating views early in life, indoctrinated into a fear-based view of God and shame-based view of ourselves. The fundamentalist “Christian Gospel” damages young girls by telling them that they are born into this world intrinsically bad and repulsive to God. They learn that their sinfulness is to blame for the brutalization, torture, and death of God’s only son. Girls in these churches are often told that there is nothing good inside of them and that they should not trust their thoughts and feelings. They are manipulated with fear and shame to adopt certain religious beliefs and practices. They are also taught that the rejection, hatred, or diminishment of other human beings (“unbelievers”) is an expression of devotion to God. This kind of religious indoctrination should be considered child abuse, and many women are still suffering the consequences of having spent their childhood and youth under this kind of mental, emotional, and spiritual oppression. What hashtag is there for women who have been victimized by religion? Whether in extreme cases or more subtle ways, it all adds up to the same result. I'll suggest a hashtag #nomore Religion that diminishes and victimizes women can no longer be tolerated. I came up with 10 religious falsehoods about women and put them on a meme with the hashtag #nomore. Please consider saving the attached meme to your device (phone, laptop, ipad), and sharing it with your FB and social media audience with the hashtag #nomore 10 Religious Falsehoods about Women: 1. Women brought sin and death into the world  2. Women are to blame for the fall of the human race 3. Women are inferior to men 4. Women were intended to be subservient to men 5. Women are incapable of exercising spiritual authority and leadership 6. A godly woman is a silent, submissive, and domestic woman 7. Women are responsible for the sexual temptations and transgressions of men 8. Women are weak, emotional, and irrational 9. Women are expected by God to stay in demeaning, damaging, destructive, or abusive relationships 10. Women should deny and repress themselves in order to serve and satisfy others#nomore

Making sense of Texas

There is continuing grief and mourning for all those who suffered heartrending loss in the Texas church shooting. There's a sadness and sorrow in my own heart, contemplating it. In the aftermath of the shooting, I heard a woman interviewed on CNN who was impassioned in proclaiming that people need to "get back to God." In times of tragedy many people reflexively respond by evoking God in some form or fashion. This makes sense because in the face of senseless and harrowing events like the Texas shooting, people look for an explanation or consolation with which they can take comfort. The person interviewed on CNN seemed to think that the shooting was in some way a byproduct of the absence of God in society and people's lives. The gunman is purported to have been an atheist, which has served to galvanize those who believe that people who don’t believe in God are the problem, and more of God is the solution. The implication is that if more people believed in and were devoted to God, tragedies like this would not happen. During a portion of the interview she rattled off a diatribe about how God would ultimately prevail and further insisted that these tragedies will continue happening until people get right with God. In my view, acts of senseless violence and destruction is a human dilemma, not a God one. The idea that more of God would prevent acts of violence and destruction in our world is not true. As you know, many acts of violence and destruction in the world are done in the name of God. Acts of senseless violence or destruction are a human dilemma, meaning that the motivations and causes of such actions are rooted in human conditions, circumstances, and psychological malady within the person. Although there is evidence that the gunman was a disturbed person, we do not know the full extent of the human conditions, circumstances and psychological malady that influenced him and his senseless act. Rather than take the position that the solution to such tragedies is “more of God” (never mind who gets to decide what version of “God” we are deciding upon), I believe we would gain more by understanding the entanglement of factors that played a role in this horrific act. I devoted my second book, Wide Open Spaces, in honor of the lives lost in the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia where I grew up. A senior at Virginia Tech, shot and killed 33 people, one of them I knew personally. Over the years many reports and articles have been written about “lessons learned” from this tragedy and how to address the mental health and other issues that were part of the equation. Human beings know that actions that cause human suffering are unsound, and actions that aid human flourishing are beneficial. Human beings have the capacity and responsibility to direct their lives in a way that alleviates suffering and promotes well-being. What the Texas gunman did was not a denial of God but a denial of his humanity. In my view, claiming that less of God is the problem and more of God is the solution is basically letting us off the hook, and shifting the blame, cause and the solution to something other than ourselves. In other words: 1. Human beings have the capacity and responsibility to live ethical and responsible lives, guided by the principle of doing that which alleviates suffering and aids flourishing. 2. When human beings act unethically or cause suffering, they are denying their fundamental humanity and are responsible for their actions. 3. In the aftermath of senseless human acts, the entire human family should play an active part in addressing the issues that played a role. 4. People who believe in God and people who don’t believe in God at times deny their humanity and do unethical and destructive things. 5. God is neither the problem nor the solution to senseless acts of destruction and violence in the world; we are. Whatever may be learned from the Texas shooting is not going to bring back those whose lives are lost. Nor will it diminish the heartache of those who lost them. People often speak of offering prayers for those who have been impacted by tragedy, especially when the tragedy doesn’t allow a more direct or personal action of comfort and support. If you live in California, it’s probably not realistic to drive to Texas to offer emotional support or practical assistance to the Sutherland Springs community and those suffering heartrending loss. I think any demonstration of human solidarity with this community and those affected by the tragedy is meaningful. It doesn’t necessarily need to be couched in terms of offering prayers. It can also be expressed by conveying the idea that whenever another human being suffers tragic loss, all of us as one human family suffer and empathize. We share in the sadness and sorrow, express kindness and tenderness, and respectfully honor the grieving process people naturally experience in such tragedies.

Beliefs Matter: Part 5

The notion of original sin is an invention of the church. It asserts that all human beings are born with a sin nature as a result of Adam and Eve’s rebellion against God in Eden. According to the doctrine, humanity shares in Adam’s sin, transmitted by human generation. This idea is not unique to Christianity. Ancestral fault whereby the sins of the forefathers lead to the punishment of their descendants was a common belief in ancient Greek religion.  The Christian concept of original sin was first mentioned by Church fathers such as Irenaeous and Augustine in the 2nd century. The issue needing resolved was: How could sin have entered the world if God is good? Answer: Adam and Eve’s disobedience and subsequently the entire human race, their offspring.  To believe in the doctrine of original sin you would have to uphold the following: 1. That the Bible’s creation story is to be taken literally – that there was an actual Adam and Eve who were the first human beings, and that the family tree of all humankind is traced back to them. 2. That Adam and Eve’s act of disobedience and rebellion of God resulted in a sinful condition that can be propagated through human conception and birth.  The doctrine of original sin posed as many problems as it solved. How could Jesus be God, as Christianity claimed, if he was born a human? Hence the doctrine of the virgin birth – the belief that Mary was not impregnated through the sperm of Joseph, which would have been contaminated by the sinful condition, but impregnated directly by God himself. The Catholic Church takes it a step further with the teaching of the Immaculate Conception, which asserts that Mary was conceived by normal biological means, but God acted upon her soul, keeping her “immaculate,” at the time of her own conception.  A further complication of the original sin doctrine is the question of how one can believe and appropriate God’s remedy of Jesus if our natural fallen state is one of rebellion. Hence the doctrine of “regeneration,” which states that God first changes the sinner’s nature to make it possible for them to repent. Repentance and conversion both follow regeneration because the sinner cannot naturally obey God's command to repent and be converted unless and until God alters his nature. Don’t feel badly if all this starts to feel a bit convoluted. In divinity school I learned how to become a theological contortionist – stretching, bending, twisting and beating doctrines into submission until they somehow managed to hold several absurd notions together, if only hanging by a thread.  The Bible itself is contradictory when it comes to the matter of original sin, and there is no consistent or coherent message about it. The Apostle Paul wrote that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” and yet Jesus himself said, “blessed are the pure in heart,” implying that one’s innermost being is untainted. Even in the Genesis creation story, prior to the fall of Adam and Eve, God’s original pronouncement upon all creation, including the human person, is that they are “good.”  The doctrine of original sin is problematic from every feasible angle of a reasonably thinking person. So the question is, why do so many people believe it? People once believed the world was flat and the earth was the center of the universe, but once they were given more accurate information they eventually adopted the new view. And yet, people hold onto religious beliefs despite their absurdity and the absence of evidence. Religious truth is often held to a different standard. It gets a pass in terms of how we typically determine the truth of a proposition. When a religious belief appears unfounded or illogical, we often hear the phrase, “God’s ways are not our ways.” It’s considered the height of arrogance to think one can comprehend the ways of God with the human mind. After all, God is “omniscient” or all-knowing.  Insert the carrot and the stick. Let’s say you believe there is a God who rewards and punishes people, and that your eternal future of heaven or hell are hanging in the balance. If the authoritative people (clergy, Bible scholars) impart a set of beliefs you’re expected to uphold to remain in good standing with God, then you could be persuaded to accept in any number of absurd things. The alternative would be to question them, jeopardizing your standing with the Almighty. So the short answer to why people who should know better believe nonsensical religious ideas is fear. 

Beliefs Matter: Part 4

1st Century Greek historian, Diodorus Siculus, in his monumental universal history Bibliotheca historica, wrote, “It is to the interest of states to be deceived in religion.” Roman historian, Livy, wrote in admiration of Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, who “introduced the fear of the gods as the most efficacious means of controlling an ignorant and barbarous populace.” Roman philosopher, Seneca, added, “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.” And English philosopher, William Hazlitt, wrote, “The garb of religion is the best cloak for power.”  There are always two equally participating parties in a lie – the person who tells the lie and the person who believes it. Even as religion has been a means of control over people, it has also offered something people want. The well-known line of Karl Marx states, “Religion is the opium of the people.” Marx believed that religion had certain practical functions in society that were similar to the function of opium in a sick or injured person: it reduced people's immediate suffering and provided them with pleasant illusions, but it also reduced their energy and their willingness to confront the oppressive, heartless, and soulless reality that capitalism had forced them into. Religion offers an escape from a grim and grinding world, typically caused by an oppressive ruling class. Religion tells people that God loves them as his own children, how God is in control of all things, will provide for and protect them, and how the faithful have a future eternal life of perfect happiness in Heaven. Russian revolutionary, Mikhail Bakunin, wrote, “People go to church for the same reasons they go to a tavern: to stupefy themselves, to forget their misery, to imagine themselves, for a few minutes anyway, free and happy.”  But for those few hours of escape, religion commits the greatest injustice against humankind by corroding the part of us that is capable of accessing what human beings most deeply want and need. American psychologist, Abraham Maslow, developed the notion of the “hierarchy of needs,” which uses a triangle to convey the layers of fundamental needs all human beings have. On the bottom of the triangle are safety and security needs such as basic human survival, personal and financial security, health and well-being, and safety against illness and oppression. Maslow next identified needs of love, belonging and a stable self-respect and self-esteem. Nearing the top of the hierarchy, Maslow said human beings ultimately desire self-actualization and self-transcendence – reaching one’s full potential as an individual person, and meaningful engagement with a reality greater than oneself.  For a human being to consciously direct their lives in order to meet these essential needs they would have to have a strong sense of self-worth, self-trust and self-reliance. But these are the exact qualities that religion too often strips away from a person. Throughout history, religion has repeatedly discouraged people from thinking for themselves, dissuaded them from questioning what they’ve been told, and discredited their ability to direct their own lives. Religion weakens people’s relationship with themselves, and replaces it with a dependency on a particular belief-system, and the leaders and organization that represents it. Religion has often used this arrangement to control people and further its own self-serving ends.  For example, the Christian religion inflicted a deep wound upon humankind with the lie that human beings are born bad. The doctrine of original sin teaches that all people are born with a sinful nature. No idea has more influenced and shaped the course of Western Civilization than this falsehood. You don’t have to be a Christian to have been impacted by it. It’s in the water. The underlying assumption that pervades all of society is that people when left to themselves naturally do evil and destructive things.  These ideas keep the Christian religion in business. Christianity manufactured a problem that doesn’t exist and established itself as the cure. Jesus, the Bible and the church are held out as the remedy to humankind’s hopeless condition. Jesus paid the price for humankind’s sin, the only means by which one can gain eternal life. The Bible is God’s one-and-only word to humankind, the revelation of his will. And the church is the authority to represent and interpret both Jesus and the Bible. The church holds the carrot and the stick to control the masses. Belief and obedience are rewarded by God’s blessing and heaven (carrot). Unbelief and disobedience result in misery and eternal damnation (stick). The effect of the original sin doctrine is human repression. Human repression is a state in which a person is prevented from validating and expressing his or her humanity. What I mean by “humanity” are one’s natural thoughts and feelings that occur spontaneously in response to the world around us. Since its inception Institutional Christianity has been vilifying people’s humanity. It has cast a wide shadow of shame, leaving the masses with the belief that there is something fundamentally and intrinsically wrong with who we are. We doubt ourselves. We fear ourselves. We doubt and fear each other. 

This past weekend...

This past weekend I had a lot going on that serves as a synopsis of those things that truly matter to me with respect to my life’s work. Friday morning I had an early am call with one of the writers I am currently coaching. Early in life she was shackled with chains of shame by her family and religion, which spiraled into a life of obesity. She has an extraordinary life story of overcoming that shame, and conquering her obesity. I started writing in 2006 and have published five books about my journey out of religion. Along the way people have requested my endorsement for their book, which required sending me their manuscript. In many cases I noticed how their writing could be more powerful and effective, and started working with writers toward this end. Eventually I created an online course for new writers, and do more extensive individual coaching with writers who seek to write and publish a book. Later Friday morning I had an appointment with an individual who I am currently working with as a “spiritual director.” After I published my first couple books, people began contacting me about doubts they were having about their religious faith and beliefs. In other cases, people reached out to me because their religious involvement and indoctrination of certain beliefs had done great damage in their lives, and they were wanting to disentangle themselves and recover from the psychological effects of their religious conditioning. In addition to meeting with people face-to-face in the city where I live, Skype calls with people all over the world began multiplying. I currently do individual work with people locally and worldwide, counseling and supporting them through a process of recovering from religious pathology, trauma or damage, and creating a post-religion life of meaning, wholeness and wellbeing. After a few years of this work, I created an online course toward the same end – Life After Religion: A Personal Journey Out. On Friday night, I had a wedding rehearsal for a wedding I officiated on Saturday evening. I spent many years of my life as a church pastor, which included being present with people in some of the highest and lowest moments of their lives. I celebrated the joy and excitement of newfound love or a second chance at love in the wedding ceremonies I officiated. I also shared many moments of grief, sadness and loss, and celebrating the life and legacy of a loved one in funeral and memorial services. There are many significant and special moments in a person's life - the birth of a child, rites of passage, life celebrations, graduations, new beginnings and final goodbyes - that I was called upon and a part of as a minister. All people want to share, celebrate, mark, honor, memorialize and make special, those moments, milestones, people, passages, beginnings and endings that make us who we are. This year I became a Humanist Celebrant (and Humanist Chaplain) because I many people see and embrace these moments as having profound human meaning, not religious meaning; a natural part of our human journey, not supernatural; an acknowledgement of what we all know in our innermost being deeply matters, not doctrines imposed by religion. I went through a certification process with the American Humanist Association and The Humanist Society. I officiated the non-religious wedding ceremony on Saturday as a Humanist Celebrant. You can read more about my work as a Humanist Celebrant and Chaplain here. Saturday day before the evening wedding I was at Second Harvest Food Bank, assembling emergency food boxes to be delivered to people in crisis or desperate need in my city. It was a joint effort of Nashville Humanist and Nashville Interfaith, two organizations I am heavily involved in. My involvement with the Nashville Interfaith group relates to my conviction that it’s a step in the right direction if people of different religions will foster more harmony and acceptance between them, and collaborate together for a common good. Virtually every religious tradition affirms the values of love, compassion, service and caring for the vulnerable, marginalized, victimized and those in need. In his book, Beyond Religion, the Dalai Lama wrote, "What we need today is an approach to ethics which makes no recourse to religion and can be equally acceptable to those with faith and those without: a secular ethics." There is obviously a close correlation between poverty and hunger/food insecurity. Former Christian Ryan Bell write a thoughtful and substantial article about Humanism and anti-poverty work. In my own personal journey, I am finding there are no labels or isms I want to own, save this one – human. In more recent years as my previous involvement in religion becomes more and more something of the past, I have deeply and vigorously explored what it truly means to be human, and how to live a life of meaning and wellbeing outside the framework of religion and Theism. This is the subject of my next book that I am now writing, currently titled: Human by Fire: A Non-Religious Guide to a More Human Spirituality. I have taken a leadership role in the humanist movement in my city of Nashville. According to the dictionary, "humanism" is technically a noun. It could just as easily be a verb. Humanism is not really a person, place or thing. A verb is a word used to describe an action or state. I’m for embracing a humanism of action – leading meaningful and ethical lives, and adding to the greater good of humanity. You don’t need religion or “God” to do either of these. In fact, I have worked with countless people for whom religion and “God” was an obstacle to them. There are many secular, humanist, atheist, agnostic, freethinking, SBNR’s and nones in Nashville and beyond. They have found that science, reason and the extraordinary resources of the human spirit provide a solid framework and dependable roadmap for living a life of meaning, wholeness and wellbeing. In my view, religion has been a stumbling block preventing people from exploring, accessing and embracing these gifts that are available to all people.Humanism does not mean the absence of spirituality. Because the word "spirituality" is often associated with religion, supernatural or metaphysics, there is the distinction of secular spirituality. Secular spirituality is the adherence to a spiritual philosophy without adherence to a religion. Secular spirituality emphasizes the personal development of the individual, rather than a relationship with the divine. Secular spirituality is made up of the search for meaning outside of a religious institution; it considers one's relationship with the self, others, nature, and whatever else one considers to be the ultimate. Often, the goal of secular spirituality is living happily and/or helping others. There are two terms that are common descriptors of the non-religious community. The first is"nones," which are those who do not identify with any religion. The terms comes from what is typically the last choice on questions about religious affiliation - "none of the above." There is also the SBNR distinction - "spiritual but not religious." These are people who discard religious structures for a more personal spirituality. I have discovered in many cases that when individuals declare themselves “spiritual but not religious,” they are adhering to principles of humanism. Many people who aren’t self-identified humanists are de facto humanists. An article aptly titled "The Spiritual Perspective and Social Work Practice," author Patricia Sermabeikian talks about the spiritual dimension of life as expounded by such humanistic and existential theorists as Viktor Frankl, Eric Fromm, and Abraham Maslow. Her quotation from Maslow is particularly instructive: “The human being needs a framework of values, a philosophy of life, a religion or religion-surrogate to live by and understand by, in about the same sense he needs sunlight, calcium, or love.”The word "spiritual" often stands in contrast to "secular," and both terms are often viewed in quite a narrow-minded sense. Religious/spiritual people tend to have an inadequate understanding of the word "secular," and non-religious people return the favor with an insufficient view of the word "spiritual." The words are often thought of antithetical - in other words, what is "secular" cannot be "spiritual" and what is "spiritual" cannot be "secular." Part of the confusion is that the word "secular" implies to some the absence of things like any kind of deep sense of aliveness and interconnectedness or feelings of awe, well-being, love, beauty and happiness or transcendent experiences of knowing oneself as part of and belonging to a greater, mysterious and beautiful whole. And then on the other hand, the word "spiritual" implies to some the belief in God and religion or a bunch of woo-woo and supernatural/metaphysical mumbo-jumbo and irrational nonsensical quackery.That many humanists themselves disparage the term spiritual as mumbo-jumbo—as little more than outdated pre-scientific superstition—doesn’t much help the matter either. For it inflicts the word with negative meanings similar to what Christian conservatives have done to the tag “secular.” I think humanists would want to claim all the positive, non-supernatural aspects of spirituality, and leave the heavily biased, parochial derision of the term secular to those too narrow-minded, or prejudiced, to appreciate how they’re using it. In the article, "Humanism and Spirituality: A Spiritual Perspective," Humanist psychologist Judith Goren writes, “Humanism, to be a viable movement in the 21st century, needs to expand its parameters to explore, address and include the spiritual dimension of human experience.” With respect to the Humanist Manifesto of the American Humanist Association, I think that according to all the secular definitions of spirituality I’ve seen—Humanism's philosophy, ethics, and its principles and practices makes humanism a spiritual movement, and one to be reckoned with. Some hope that future humanists will come to recognize their essential identity and reclaim a word that actually reflects the very heart of what they’re all about. Which is to say their aspiration to lead virtuous, morally responsible lives that are at once rational and—emotionally—rich, passionate, exciting . . . and deeply fulfilling.