Moses should have quit while he was ahead. If only the Torah had consisted of the “two books of Moses” instead of five. And ended with Exodus, a historical account of repression, courage and perseverence. And he delivers the Ten Commandments, the equivalent of the U.S. Constitution. A rather short document which assumes people of good will can figure out the rest.

Although I prefer George Carlin’s distillation of the tablets into Three Commandments.

THOU SHALT ALWAYS BE HONEST AND FAITHFUL, ESPECIALLY
TO THE PROVIDER OF THY NOOKIE.

THOU SHALT TRY REAL HARD NOT TO KILL ANYONE, UNLESS,
OF COURSE, THEY PRAY TO A DIFFERENT INVISIBLE MAN
THAN THE ONE YOU PRAY TO.

THOU SHALT KEEP THY RELIGION TO THYSELF.

[Complete Carlin transcript]

But Moses faced an age-old problem. He was the leader of a tribe over which he was losing control, as first evidenced by that golden calf incident at Mount Sinai. To make matters worse, God told him all those people who had been subjected to Pharaoh’s tyranny were incapable of participating in the new order. He had to make them crisscross the desert for 40 years until they all died off (including Moses himself).

Forty years is a lot of time to kill. So, what does Moses do? He decides to expound on the Ten Commandments just in case the Israelites did not get it. If the Ten Commandments was the Constitution, Leviticus is the U.S. Code.

Think of Leviticus as a compilation of responses to unimagined behavior. But it did not end with Leviticus. For example, today in Alaska, it is illegal to wake a hibernating bear for the purpose of taking its picture. Why? Because you know some fool tried exactly that. As comedian Costaki Economoupolous (real name) suggests, the penalty for violating this law? “Death by bear.”

Imagine Moses watching over his flock and each time he observed behavior which seemed out of place he made a note to himself. “You need to tell the people ‘DON’T DO THAT.” Some of them make sense though you would hope unnecessarily.

• Finding lost property and lying about it. (L6:3)
• Having sex with your mother. (L18:7)
• Marrying your wife’s sister while your wife still lives. (L18:18)
• Cursing the deaf or abusing the blind. (L19:14)
• Making your daughter prostitute herself. (L19:29)

Some made sense at the time, especially those related to sanitation or proper preparation of food, problems hopefully addressed by the invention of the refrigerator and the USDA.

However, when you have 40 years, there was no telling what people would do to kill a few hours or days.

• Letting your hair become unkempt. (L10:6)
• Picking up grapes that have fallen in your vineyard. (L19:10)
• Mixing fabrics in clothing. (L19:19)
• Eating fruit from a tree within four years of planting it. (L19:23)
• Selling land permanently. (L25:23)

It makes one wonder how portions of Leviticus could possibly have been penned contemporaneously. If, as reported, the Israelites spent 40 years wandering in the desert, were they ever in one place long enough to grow grapes or fruit trees? Or who would take out a 10-year mortgage to buy land if they knew they would soon move on to the next location?

If this looks or sounds remotely familiar, maybe that is because we have our own restless tribe with its own golden calf (or one with dyed golden hair). Out of power, they are adrift in a political desert with lots of time on their hands. So, they have decided to fill that time by creating their own version Leviticus including:

• Do not give nourishment to voters in line even if they have to wait hours to enter the polling place.
• Restrict the right to assemble unless you are a Canadian trucker or headed to DC.
• Make up non-existent justifications to ban books.
• Challenge election results whenever you lose.
• Accuse anyone who supports gay rights of being a pedophile.
• Claim to be pro-business unless a private corporation disagrees with your bats**t policies.
• Decry “cancel culture” whiling trying to cram LGBTQ Americans back in the closet.

As you know, I am not a believer but there are valuable lessons to be gleaned from the evolution of religion. Despite my Jewish heritage, I admire the change in tenor between the Old and New Testaments. The Old Testament (once you get past Exodus) is about power and control. Written approximately 15 centuries later, the New Testament speaks of comfort, mercy, peace and a thirst for righteousness.

Is present-day America capable of a similar enlightenment? I do not have the answer. If it does, I hope it does not take another 1500 years.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

 

My favorite part of 9/11 (pause) was the Muslim terrorists, when they went to Muslim heaven, which we all know isn’t true.  They can’t be in Muslim heaven because they’re in Christian hell.  Unless they go back and forth, which you can do because they’re both pretend.

~Comedian Dana Gould/”Anything Can Be Funny”

As is so often the case, the theme of today’s post was triggered by the convergence of the following unrelated events.

• An August 26 New York Times report by Emma Goldberg titled, “The New Chief Chaplain at Harvard?  An Atheist.”
• Reports, upon the departure of last U.S. military from Harmid Kharzi Airport, of Taliban soldiers shooting their weapons in the air, chanting, “Allah Akbar” (“God is most great.”)

I became aware of the Harvard University story when a friend and colleague, who also happens to be an ordained minister, emailed it to me and sought my opinion.  My response, as any regular reader of this blog might suspect, “I find this somewhat refreshing.”  A perspective affirmed as I read Greg Epstein’s justification for his appointment to his new post, one in which he is expected “to coordinate the activities of more than 40 university chaplains, who lead the Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist and other religious communities on campus.”

There is a rising group of people who no longer identify with any religious tradition but still experience a real need for conversation and support around what it means to be a good human and live an ethical life.

There it was, a focus on universal spirituality rather than membership in any religious movement.  More relevant today than ever.  When the Taliban believe they were commanded by their God to twice rid Afghanistan of foreign invaders.  Or American religious leaders who declare certain candidates for public office are part of God’s plan.  The irony, in this latter instance, being the white evangelical community preferring the least Christian-like option in 2020 over a practicing Catholic who continually draws on his faith.

Please do not take the above as a denunciation of all religion.  If participation in a religious community helps one find the path to spirituality, no argument here.  After all, a religious leader in the Jewish tradition is called “rabbi,” which literally means “teacher.”  But the role of educator and mentor is not reserved for any single denomination.  The same can be true of any priest, pastor, minister or imam.  The question associated with Harvard’s choice of Epstein as chief chaplain is whether he can serve that same function without the trappings of a church, synagogue or mosque.

To answer that question, look at a principle of religious faith which transcends one’s choice of religious affiliation, belief in something greater than oneself.  For many that “something” is belief in a divine presence.  For the atheist or agnostic, that “something” needs to be more tangible.  One’s community.  Human rights.  A mission with an external purpose.  Something other than one’s own well-being or acquiring power.  There is no dearth of available alternatives.

However, as a devout agnostic, my personal spiritual journey must also be one of continuing questioning and discovery.  In that vein, I often find atheists as frustrating as those who are convinced their religious testament–old or new–is the literal word of God.  Especially since so many before them watched (assuming there is an afterlife) their absolute religious tenets become literature (Bulfinch’s Mythology) or their deities displayed as mere works of art relegated to museums.

In Genesis, Abraham is portrayed as the father of monotheism.  As the story goes, he refused to accept the fact an idol, easily destroyed by humans, had divine power.  How is that any different from questioning whether an omnipotent, compassionate God would tolerate genocide, innocent children dying from cancer or a global pandemic?  In 1988, on a flight from Dallas to Honolulu, I sat next to Victor Stenger, a physicist and author of Not By Design: Origins of the Universe.  Stenger, who died in 2014, continued to pursue this theme in later books such as God: The Failed Hypothesis (2007) and God and the Folly of Faith (2012).

As Stenger explained to me, the existence of humanity on earth without divine intervention was not only possible, it was mathematically probable considering the infinite number of galaxies, stars and planets.  However, it also explained both the biological and sociological shortcomings of mankind.  The probability of a perfect world with no disease, where everyone gets along with each other, though possible, is exponentially less likely.  As I recall our conversation, I realize why I could never fully embrace his atheist views.  In a universe with so many possibilities, there still remains that slight possibility there is a divine presence that is responsible for creation though not quite the way it is described in the first chapter of the Old Testament.  As Neil deGrasse Tyson admits, “I know HOW the big bang happened.  I just don’t know WHY.”

Maybe this explains Harvard’s counterintuitive choice of Epstein as chief chaplain and why a institution of higher learner is the right place for this “experiment.”  If I were Epstein, I would begin my first conversation with the other religious leaders on campus as follows.

To paraphrase Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at the beginning of the second Iraq war, “You go to life with the world you have, not the world you might want or wish to have.”  It is why a university has two roles as it trains generation after generation to address the reality of an imperfect society.  We of the spiritual community can help these adults in training find purpose.  The academics train them to be doctors, scientists, politicians, historians and artists, giving them the tools to eliminate, or at a minimum ameliorate, the negative consequences of the imperfect world in which they were born.

In closing you might wonder if Epstein’s appointment is one more example of elite “woke” liberalism of a university president or board of trustees.  It is not.  Epstein, who has served as humanist chaplain at Harvard since 2005, was the unanimous choice of his peers.  It suggests students who are seeking a different form of spirituality are not the only ones having second thoughts about their religious upbringing and training.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

 

Contrary to common newspaper usage, I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for president, who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me.

~John F. Kennedy/September 12, 1960

Question #1 du jour:  Have you ever wondered why American voters in 1960 were so concerned about a Catholic becoming president?

On Friday, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops voted (168-55) to clarify whether the church should prohibit politicians who support abortion rights from participating in the holy sacrament of communion.  Although not mentioned by name, the vote was seen as directed at President Biden who, throughout his career, has had to reconcile personal views with political stances on issues which pit him against Catholic doctrine.  You could not follow this story without coming upon a variation of the following response to the bishops’ action.  “The church has no right to deny Biden communion until it denies communion to pedophile priests.”  True, but not the core issue.

During the 2012 vice-presidential debate, Biden explained his position as follows.

I accept my church’s position on abortion as what we call de fide doctrine. Life begins at conception. That’s the church’s judgment. I accept it in my personal life. But I refuse to impose it on equally devout Christians and Muslims and Jews. I just refuse to impose that on others.”

The American bishops, in their communique, are saying just the opposite.  Perhaps they overslept and missed the seminary class on the synoptic gospels.  You know, the one where Jesus says, “Render under Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” (Matthew 22.21)  Ironically, a majority of Catholics agree with Jesus.  According to a 2020 survey by Pew Research, 56 percent of declared Catholics said abortion should be legal in all or most cases.  Instead of punishing those who share this opinion, the bishops should honor Biden’s example of making personal choices consistent with Catholic doctrine regardless of national policy.

Equally ironic, many protestants, especially white evangelicals, who feared papal influence over American politics seem to turn the other cheek when it comes to their own denominations.  Consider the most recent example.  On the same day the bishops raised the communion question, former vice-president Mike Pence was called a traitor and heckled during a speech at the Faith & Freedom Coalition Conference in Orlando.  In response, Pence declared, “I’m a Christian, a conservative and a Republican in that order.”  For someone who wants to be the next president, you would think “being an American” should appear somewhere on that list.  Imagine the outcry if JFK had opened his 1960 campaign speech before the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, “I am a Catholic, a liberal and a Democrat in that order.”

Question #2 du jour:  Why are “former Catholics” the fastest growing religious denomination in the United States?

One day earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court demonstrated how a unanimous decision in one’s favor can actually be a major loss for the same party.  The plaintiff in the case was a Philadelphia-based Roman Catholic adoption agency with which the city refused to contract because Catholic Social Services (CSS) refused to work with same-sex foster parents.  The opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, focused on the establishment clause in the First Amendment to the Constitution, pointing out the local government’s actions violated CSS’ free exercise of religion.  The Court does not rule 9-0 unless the constitutional principle on which the case is decided is on solid ground.

How could this then be viewed as a loss for the Church?  Because it again exposed what may be the single most significant fallacy in the Catholic modus operandi, the dogma of papal infallibility.   I do not mean to offend Catholics, but consider the following description of papal infallibility in the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Papal infallibility, in Roman Catholic theology, the doctrine that the pope, acting as supreme teacher and under certain conditions, cannot err when he teaches in matters of faith or morals.

Sorry, but the term “supreme teacher” conjures comparisons with autocrats like Kim Jung-Un.  Or reminds me that our own country was governed for four years by someone who claimed he never made a mistake.

The recent Court decision is just the latest example of the conflict between allegiance to an individual and the teachings which are the core tenets of Catholicism.  On one hand, the Church preaches that the gospel is the divine word of God delivered to the people by his only son Jesus Christ.  Yet, nowhere do the gospels refer to discrimination against same sex couples.  In fact, one could argue it says just the opposite.  “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:26/King James Bible)

So where did this ban against same-sex foster parents originate?  Catholic attitudes toward homosexuality are contained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  A tome with such a formal title must date back many centuries if not millennia.  Hardly.  It was commissioned by John Paul II in 1986, drafted by 12 bishops and cardinals and personally approved by the Pope on June 25, 1992.  I hate to keep making analogies, but how is this different from the Florida Board of Education proposing a Catechism of American History in response to the 1619 Project which will eventually be blessed by Pope DeSantis?

What does this have to do with an 18 percent decline in Catholic affiliation over the past two decades?  Rather than looking to the Church for moral guidance, more and more Americans are relying on their daily experience.  And attitudes toward the LGBT+ community is the clearest example.  The Church’s attitude toward homosexuality is contained in the 1992 Catechism.

Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.

In contrast, a June 8, 2021 Gallup report documents an increase in support for same-sex marriage from 27 percent in 1997 to 70 percent today.  Support among young adults, age 18-34, is 84 percent.  To paraphrase FDR, “The only thing you have to fear is what the Church teaches you to fear.”  Instead of familiarity breeding contempt, in this case, it promotes acceptance.

A CAVEAT

The Catholic Church is not unlike many corporations who believe their own propaganda and are mired in old ways of doing business.  In response, you often hear a CEO suggesting  “it is time we return to our entrepreneurial roots.”  Academic management research suggests changing the culture of a large organization takes years if not decades.  This is one area where the Church, because of papal infallibility, may have an advantage.  In the right hands, absolute authority could accelerate change.

Despite pushback from conservative bishops and cardinals, Pope Francis has challenged some traditional teachings from the past.  For example, he acknowledged even atheists can go to heaven (that’s a relief).  He has promoted economic justice and challenged corporate greed and trickle down economics.  And just this weekend, he cautioned the American conference of bishops about their rush to judgment on who is worthy of communion.

During a strategic planning exercise during my time at the Ewing Kauffman Foundation, I asked to see the file of Mr. K’s handwritten notes on which he based the charity’s endowment.  It gave me an entirely new perspective about his intent and how I should approach my own work.  I imagine the Catholic Church might have the same epiphany if it went back to their founding entrepreneurs’ original notes.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP