TruthBook Religious News Blog

Stephen Rohde
Constitutional lawyer, Lecturer, Writer and Political Activist.
June 25, 2009 11:06 AM

Today is Torture Accountability Day. Across the country, people and organizations are urging the Obama Administration to keep its promise that no one is above the law by launching criminal investigations against any former Bush Administration officials who played any role in authorizing and committing torture during the "War on Terror." One of those organizations demanding accountability is Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace.

In the immediate aftermath of September 11, many of us feared what America would do in retaliation. For years we had pleaded, cajoled and threatened warring nations around the world, from the Middle East to Northern Ireland to Kosovo, to settle their ancient differences through peaceful negotiations and international treaties, not through escalating war, renewed violence and ever more bloodshed.

On Sunday, September 23, 2001, I found my way to an interfaith service at All Saints Church in Pasadena convened by Rev George Regas. I was deeply moved by the scriptural readings, prayers and songs presented by Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and others. I had not expected to be so touched by this outpouring of spiritual faith in peace and justice and the rejection of war and violence.

The outgrowth of that healing event was the creation of Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace ("ICUJP"), which has been the center of my personal efforts since September 11 to contribute to greater understanding and lasting reconciliation between people of all nation alities and beliefs. This year, I was very proud to became Chair of ICUJP.

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Labels: ICUJP, interfaith, justice, peace, Stephen Rohde, war

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Friday, June 05, 2009

Poverty, injustice, inequality threaten peace, pope tells ambassadors

Poverty, injustice, inequality threaten peace, pope tells ambassadors

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Social injustices and economic inequalities, which have become even worse because of the global financial crisis, are serious threats to peace, Pope Benedict XVI told new ambassadors from eight countries.

"Peace can only be realized when people commit themselves with courage to eliminating the inequalities created by unjust systems and to ensuring all people of a standard of living that permits a dignified and prosperous existence," the pope said May 29 as he welcomed the new ambassadors to the Vatican.

The new ambassadors represent Benin, Burkina Faso, India, Mongolia, Namibia, New Zealand, Norway and South Africa.

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Labels: Cindy Wooden, equality, justice, Pope Benedict XVI, Vatican

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Sunday, April 05, 2009

Consumerism as a Spiritual Disease

Consumerism as a Spiritual Disease

...Consumerism enables the unsettling lack of equilibrium of the contemporary workplace. People will find it easier to stay in dysfunctional jobs so that they will be able to buy what Madison Avenue says that they need to be happy. Banks, credit cards, lines of credit, and a host of other facilitators step in to make all of these things attainable more easily -- with devastating results as we have seen of late. There is another sad repercussion in this consumerist cycle. The corporation or employer becomes enabled -- to do what it wants, to demand what it wants, to behave in whatever manner it wants. This occurs at the expense (literally) of the worker. After all, where will the debt-ridden employee go? In this era, options are very limited.

There is an alternative, however, a spiritual and healthier one. Christians do not pray for abundance; we pray for "our daily bread." In the Torah it was commanded that all of produce of a field or orchard not be harvested so that some would be left for those in need. The less we think we need, the happier we can become, not only with what we do have, but also with who we are as human beings.

As possessions matter less and less, something else happens. People begin to matter more and more. Talking replaces buying. Dinners with friends become places to discuss ideas and each other's lives rather than battlegrounds to prove who has the most toys or the most "A-list" friends. Families replace corporate personnel flow charts. Business contacts are replaced with real relationships. Competition is replaced with companionship. Joy arrives not in power or things or money or portfolio increases (remember those?) but in community.

A truly spiritual person understands that justice and not possessions is what really matters (please note that many people who do not consider themselves to be spiritual also promote justice over consumerism). Justice is the antithesis of "the golden handcuffs" of consumerism. Where the latter is an end-sum game of winning with the most toys, the former is about sharing them. The consumerist fails to graduate from the kindergarten mentality that "I" matter most. What matters most is that every "I" be afforded the same chance, consideration, opportunity, and respect as any other "I." Spiritual justice is meant to reach out to everyone with everything every day. While consumerism can result in hording, justice is always concerned with sharing. And sharing is healthy.

Labels: Albert Scariato, consumerism, employment, justice, sharing, spirituality, the economy

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Sunday, March 30, 2008

A matter of character

Who stacks up in 'speaking truth to power'
BY DAVID WELLS

According to a national Associated Press/Ipsos poll, 55 percent of Americans think "character" is more important than "issues" when picking a president. But what exactly is meant by "character"?

According to Neal Mayerson, a psychologist and president of the Manuel D. and Rhoda Mayerson Foundation, here in Cincinnati, everybody, including every candidate, has character; they just have it in different measures.

• How do you define character?

CHARACTER TRAITS

Character is common in the famous and the unknown. It is a personal measure by which we judge others. But clearly, there is no one standard.

Ten years ago the Mayerson Foundation organized a study group of social scientists called Values in Action, and began to categorize and evaluate the traits of what people call "character." Studying a wide range of religions, cultures and philosophies, the group eventually came up with six categories of consistently valued positive human characteristics, each with a subgroup of character strengths:

Wisdom (creativity, curiosity, judgment, love of learning, perspective).

Courage (bravery, honesty, perseverance, zest).

Humanity (kindness, love, social intelligence).

Justice (fairness, leadership, teamwork).

Temperance (forgiveness, modesty, prudence, self-regulation).

Transcendence (appreciation of beauty, gratitude, hope, humor, spirituality).

We all judge character, and how we define it and balance its various characteristics is largely a matter of personal choice - perhaps an indication of our own "character."

LOOK FOR BALANCE

Mayerson suggests that a truer picture of a person's character emerges when we balance the various character traits. "I would use the legal term of preponderance of evidence when trying to assess someone's character," he said. When discussing character, we also should remember that our own preferences are subject to change. We look for different character strengths for different roles. "If you are looking for a spiritual leader, you may be inclined to look for a different set of traits than you would want in the CEO of the company that is managing all of your retirement stock," Mayerson said.

So what would you want in a president?

Mayerson's group has been conducting an online survey asking people just that. Full data is not yet available, but some trends seem to be emerging, he said. One is a decision maker, but not one so single-minded that he/she is unwilling to hear opposing views. People seem to want someone with humanity strengths, but are not primarily interested in "a nice guy," he said.

Putting character ahead of issues is a way for people to deal with candidates in terms they can more easily relate to, Mayerson suggested. We may not all understand the nuance of economic policy, but we all understand honesty, courage and generosity. The important thing to remember about character, however, is that it is a package, not a single issue.

Labels: character, courage, David Wells, humanity, justice, Mayerson Foundation, politics, temperance, transcendence, Values in Action, wisdom

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Saturday, January 19, 2008

The spiritual legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

January 19, 2008

The Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday, mandated by federal law to fall on the third Monday in January, is the least celebrated federal holiday.

The King holiday was born in controversy and took 15 years to become law; it faced stiff opposition from national leaders. President Reagan opposed the measure and finally relented and signed the bill creating the holiday in 1986 after perceiving that his veto would be overridden.

One of the leaders of the opposition, Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, continued to express outrage over the bill, declaring that King had been a racial agitator and Communist sympathizer.

The opposition to the holiday usually today is put in terms of cost, about 8 billion dollars in lost revenues.

But nonunionized businesses generally do not observe the holiday, and as commentator Earl Hutchinson has put the matter, the biggest reason for nonobservance of the holiday is ''the still widespread public perception that the King holiday is a holiday exclusively of, by, and for blacks.''

The King holiday provides us with a moment to reflect on the spiritual state of our nation, to recall the terrible legacy of slavery and racism, and to reflect on King's call for peace and justice.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist minister with a Boston University Ph.D. in systematic theology, is remembered as the undisputed leader of the American civil rights movement.

He pushed hard at the forces in American life that were oppressing the poor and marginalized -- racial discrimination, economic injustice and war.

Inspired by Thoreau, Gandhi and Jesus, he became an inspirational leader known for oratorical wizardry, and his commitment to nonviolence earned him the Nobel Peace Prize.

But King was mired in controversy and opposition all the time. Not only did he receive daily death threats for his civil rights work -- he was stabbed in Harlem at a book signing in 1958 -- but even fellow civil rights leaders objected to his outspoken opposition to what he called America's ''imperialist war'' in Vietnam. Many of King's supporters saw this opposition as a betrayal of Lyndon Johnson and his administration, which had done more for African Americans than any administration before or since.

I was recently in Atlanta and wanted very much to take some time to visit the King Center near the old Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King had preached, and where King's mother, some years after King's death, had been shot and killed while playing the organ one Sunday morning. A museum with continuous film loops and mementos of King's life are there, a souvenir-bookstore shop, and the tombs of King and his wife, Coretta Scott King.

As I contemplate the life and legacy of King this January, I recall that visit. I am remembering that at my hotel, when I asked how to get to the King Center, I was told, ''You don't want to walk in that neighborhood. Take a cab.'' When I went east on Auburn Avenue I noted that a huge highway overpass cut right through the center of the community there, something that reminded me of similar dislocations of communities I had seen in the old District 6 in Cape Town, and have even heard about in Allentown, where the Martin Luther King Drive is today.

Those who study environmental racism often make note of public works projects that cut through neighborhoods where people lack the power to oppose them. The office of the Southern Christian Leadership Office is on Auburn Avenue, but nearby are low-income housing projects and small businesses looking a bit run down.

Metal protection screens were on some windows. The reputation of this part of town I had received from my hotel concierge, and I am realizing how close this part of town was to the upscale hotel where I had been attending a Christian ethics conference -- a 20 minute walk.

King would have been 79 on Jan. 15. Were King alive today, I suspect he would be working on the same issues even in his old neighborhood. The problems of racism and discrimination are still with us.

Although the Voting Rights Act brought a major shift in American political and social life, and King worked for it tirelessly, he would no doubt be commenting on the million African American males in jails and prisons today, many of whom lose their voting privileges by conviction.

Would King be talking about the subtle disenfranchisement of blacks today, noting that the civil rights movement never got into our prisons? And would he be focusing attention on America's public schools, where the divide between rich and poor, black and white, is as pronounced today as it was in his lifetime?

And war? There is no question that King would stand in opposition to the Iraq war, having foreseen the tragic loss of life and a waste of treasure that cripples opportunity for many.

It is surprising that America chose to honor so critical a spiritual leader with a national holiday. That it did so, however, provides all of us with an occasion to reflect about who we are and what we value. For we do what we value; and among the painful things we must confront is our tendency to resort to violence to solve problems.

America today uses war as an instrument of foreign policy; incarceration and execution are responses to crime; and meantime we do not provide health coverage to 45 million citizens, and 36 million Americans live below the poverty line.

The true legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. is that he would not let us forget that what we value we do, and we have need to be reflective about the meaning of what we are doing.

The King holiday, born in controversy, should continue to be controversial if we are to do honor to the man it remembers. May this King holiday be a time for us to connect ourselves to King's call for racial, social and economic justice.

May we remember his life as it stands before all of us as a challenge to do better than we are doing.

Lloyd Steffen is university chaplain and professor of religion studies at Lehigh University.

Labels: African-Americans, contoversy, justice, legacy, Lloyd Steffen, Martin Luther King Jr., racism, slavery