Tag: COVID

Religious Authoritarianism

A True Leader

A dangerous element in our society, which has been operating for many years, has the potential to destroy our democracy and plunge our society into a dark, oppressive state. The danger is similar to that in Iran when the Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the Shah in 1979. In our country there is a well-organized conservative movement that could possibly seek a similar outcome; Religious Authoritarianism. We will discuss a conservative religious leader who bravely took a contrary stand and was swiftly denounced. We also discuss the movement, present day consequences, and briefly mention a scary possibility.

Joel Hunter

Joel Hunter is a pro-life pastor who formerly led an Orlando megachurch; before the recent election he announced his support for Joe Biden.[1] He remains conservative and pro-life but is concerned that concentrating on only one issue is too narrow. The group he founded, Pro-Life Evangelicals for Biden, states “Poverty, lack of accessible health care services, smoking, racism and climate change are all pro-life issues.”[2] Whenever anybody views any issue with a confined mindset, there is no way a balanced understanding could be reached; that is like living our life with one eye closed, gaining a proper perspective would be impossible. Such an approach lacks biblical balance, “a biblically shaped commitment to the sanctity of human life compels us to a consistent ethic of life that affirms the sanctity of human life from beginning to end.”[3]

Promoting the sanctity of human life is a noble goal, but when considering only the abortion issue, all other aspects of human life are ignored. Poverty certainly affects human life; those trapped in the downward spiral of poverty have no hope for a meaningful existence until they are liberated from such a demeaning place. Many of our citizens cannot afford necessary medical procedures and medication, which leads to either more poverty or serious health problems. Smoking is certainly a health issue and a quality of life issue. Racism devalues our sisters and brothers who are disenfranchised and degraded because of some arbitrary superficial characteristic. Climate change has a profound impact on every mortal on our planet; for example this year was a record breaker for hurricanes.[4] Each one of these issues has a profound impact on our quality and quantity of life; how can they be ignored?

This list ignores lives impacted by and lost to Covid-19; the severity of which has been ignored by our government. We discuss this below.

Religious Authoritarianism

Those who follow religious authoritarianism identify “with Christian nationalism: the idea that the United States is and ought to be a Christian nation governed under a reactionary understanding of Christian values.”[5] This is quite similar to Muslims who overthrew the Shah of Iran; they followed an equally narrow and conservative type of Islam.

“The 2020 election is proof that religious authoritarianism is here to stay, and the early signs now indicate that the movement seems determined to reinterpret defeat at the top of the ticket as evidence of persecution and of its own righteousness. With or without Mr. Trump, they will remain committed to the illiberal politics that the president has so ably embodied.”[6]

Those involved in this movement are well organized and fiercely committed to their cause. The focus of their existence is reaching their goals; gaining full control of government. Their command structure “is profoundly hostile to democracy and pluralism, and a certain political style that seeks to provoke moral panic, rewards the paranoid and views every partisan conflict as a conflagration, the end of the world. Partisan politics is the lifeblood of their movement.”[7]

Three underlying realities in our society contribute to their power. The first is economic inequality, which the movement seeks to enhance rather than diminish. Those who financially support them are mainly ultra-rich conservatives seeking tax breaks and minimal regulation. The second is that those in this movement get their information from an isolated segment of news. “The fact that Mr. Trump was able to hold on to a high percentage of the vote in the face of such overwhelming evidence of malfeasance is proof enough that the religious-nationalist end of the right-wing information bubble has gotten more, not less, resistant over time.”[8] The third and final aspect is that our political system gives more power to a well-organized and active minority.

Covid-19

Most people reading this blog are well aware of the dangers resulting from this virus; exceptions will be noted presently. I was particularly struck by a headline in the Mississippi Free Press: “After Big Thanksgiving Dinners, Plan Small Christmas Funerals, Health Experts Warn.”[9] That not so subtle title is scary.

This paragraph is based on a blog posting by Dave Pell on NEXTDRAFT.[10] Jodi Doering is an ER nurse in South Dakota.[11] She had a night off and was spending it on the couch with her dog Cliff and Oreo ice cream. She could not get out of her mind experiences at the hospital. She is dedicated to her work and loves South Dakota; however her memories are filled with patients who are sick with the virus while denying it is real. “They tell you there must be another reason they are sick. They call you names and ask why you have to wear all that ‘stuff’ because they don’t have COViD because it’s not real. Yes. This really happens. And I can’t stop thinking about it. These people really think this isn’t going to happen to them.”[12] Dave Pell’s comment is (we call him Cool Guy): “It’s really impossible to overstate how dangerous this level of misinformation is, especially during a pandemic; when the actions of a deluded few can lead to the deaths of an enlightened many.”[13]

Denying facts inconsistent with one’s core beliefs is a certain path toward destruction. Only when we consider facts with relation to our beliefs and adjust accordingly can we achieve true progress. This brings us to the connection between the experience of health workers like Jodi Doering and religious authoritarianism. Those following conservative ideology, especially our current president, ignore science, rationality, and anything not conforming to their expectations; to them anything outside their fundamental ideological beliefs cannot exist. The consequence is countless sick individuals who have bought into a science-denying mind set and are therefore left alone in sterile hospital rooms.

Actually they are also denying God because He has created the facts of science, the beauty of natural surroundings, and the wisdom of profound thought. God, the creator of all things and beings, cannot be confined in a single issue, cannot be restricted to any one viewpoint, and cannot be distracted by difficulty.

Anti-Christ?

The success of our current president should be a wakeup call to everyone. Imagine if someone with charisma, intelligence, political savvy, administrative skills, and speech making ability took control of one of our political movements while holding Religious Authoritarianism views. The result would be like having the Ayatollah Khomeini as our President.

  1. Mark I. Pinsky “Pro-Life Evangelicals for Biden signers face a Fiery Blowback,” https://religionnews.com/2020/10/23/pro-life-evangelicals-for-biden-face-a-fiery-blowback/ Retrieved 11/1/2020 ↑

  2. Ibid ↑

  3. Ibid ↑

  4. https://disasterphilanthropy.org/disaster/2020-atlantic-hurricane-season/ Retrieved 11/18/20. ↑

  5. Katherine Stewart, “Trump or No Trump, Religious Authoritarianism Is Here to Stay” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/16/opinion/trump-religion-authoritarianism.html?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=website, Retrieved 11/16/2020 ↑

  6. Ibid ↑

  7. Ibid ↑

  8. Ibid ↑

  9. https://www.mississippifreepress.org/7014/after-big-thanksgiving-dinners-plan-small-christmas-funerals-health-experts-warn/ ↑

  10. https://nextdraft.com/current/ ↑

  11. https://nextdraft.com/archives/n20201116/ ↑

  12. Ibid ↑

  13. Ibid ↑

Perfect Victim

Troublous times such as we live in can be a clarifying experience because they reveal previously unknown deficiencies. Have we not, every one of us, bitten into an apparently healthy fruit and found it totally rotten on the inside? Biting into the apple revealed the unseen rot within. By the same token, COVID-19 produced stresses which exposed profound defects in our secular society. The root cause of our current multiple predicaments is not some microscopic virus; the underlying issue is our refusal to consider spiritual reality.

Secular society has created the perfect victim

Billions of them

Sunny Dooley, nearly the last traditional Diné (we call them Navajo) storyteller, has said: “We have every social ill you can think of, and COVID has made these vulnerabilities more apparent. I look at it as a monster that is feasting on us—because we have built the perfect human for it to invade.”[1]

Her people had a profound spiritual practice but white people destroyed it. Their spirituality was based on connection with the land; they were forcibly removed from their land, thus destroying their spiritual roots. Later it was based on a relationship with their only property, their sheep, which were then purposely slaughtered. Their spiritual foundation was repeatedly destroyed. Children were violently taken from their families and forced to speak only English. Their culture, their spirituality and their language were stripped away. Because of these deliberate actions they had no spiritual foundation.

She also said there is anxiety and panic because a lot of her people do not know how to be alone, they have no spiritual practice to anchor them. Because of this they have nothing giving their lives meaning, purpose, and value. Those in power have destroyed the spiritual foundation of the Diné people. Those performing these atrocities thought white culture was superior, but their actions declare otherwise; whatever the relative value levels may be, any cultural transformation must be accomplished gradually. The same can be said about the so-called Emancipation Proclamation, while it was the moral thing to do, it suddenly ripped slaves out of an immoral bondage and replaced it with—nothing at all; more than 150 years later we are still experiencing consequences of that spiritual disassociation.

Sunny Dooley is talking about her people, the Navajo, but the same process also applies to our American society and a large portion of global society. Everywhere we look we see obesity, ill health, and individuals cut off from society, disenfranchised. Indeed COVID seems to have effected American society more than others. “But the COVID‑19 debacle has also touched—and implicated—nearly every other facet of American society: its shortsighted leadership, its disregard for expertise, its racial inequities, its social-media culture, and its fealty to a dangerous strain of individualism.”[2] Our culture has created the perfect victims for this monster.

Moral foundation

Everywhere we look we perceive human beings without a spiritual foundation; their lives are built upon the shifting sands of materialism, selfishness, and greed. Every human, every nation, every enterprise of any kind absolutely needs to be built upon spiritual reality. Material things may come and go but spiritual reality, God, is unchanging.

This notion of having a moral foundation may seem like something ephemeral or of no consequence; something for the weak-minded to chuckle over. They would no longer be jolly if they discovered their house was built upon quicksand. If it is vital for their material abode to have a firm foundation, why is it their lives, their very existence, are without a firm moral foundation?

Our society has been largely secular for so long, hundreds of years, there appears to be no alternative. But consider: every physical object needs something substantial to rest upon. We have difficulty walking on the soft sands of the beach; if we park our car in muddy terrain we will not be able to get out without assistance. Why then do we not seek some sort of foundation for our existence? Why do we presume to dance through our mortal days in the flesh without anything of substance guiding us, motivating us, and upholding us? Why do we feel we do not need something substantial to lift us up? Why do we think we can ignore God?

Our Heavenly Father who created all things and beings, who upholds all creation, is the ultimate bedrock. God is the most unyielding foundation possible. When our total existence is based upon this crucial truth we cannot fail. There may be apparent setbacks, there will certainly be difficulties, but in the final analysis failure is not possible when we steadfastly stand on our moral foundation, our Heavenly Father.

Pandemic

How does this apply to our current situation, COVID? First we have to be secure about our own moral foundation. We can do nothing if we are floundering spiritually. We need to fully recognize God as our pilot and the basis of our existence; that He is certainly present within our being, a vital part of each one of us.

We then expand this to recognize each person we can become aware of also has this God presence and therefore has value. Mind numbing figures might overwhelm us when we recognize every one of these thousands of human beings who depart Earth every day around the world had God within; their mortal existence was terminated prematurely by this monster we name COVID.

Only after that should we look at the broader picture. When we have a firm moral foundation we will examine facts instead of hearsay and social media gossip. Having God as our foundation means we look at science to guide our actions, not some anonymous tweeter. Once we have done these things we can then formulate our individual response.

Since each one of us is a unique individual, our reactions to COVID must also be singular. But these reactions absolutely need to be based upon our moral foundation, science, and recognizing every mortal has value. Once we have done all this we take every reasonable precaution: wearing masks and gloves when out, social distancing, avoiding indoor restaurants, and avoiding indoor gatherings of any kind. With online meetings such as Zoom we can conduct some business and meet with friends. We reserve hugs for our family members.

COVID is only an illuminating warning flare. It has exposed the dangers of our secular materialistic society. We ignore it at our peril, individually, societally, and globally.

  1. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coronavirus-is-attacking-the-navajo-because-we-have-built-the-perfect-human-for-it-to-invade/ Retrieved 7/21/2020. Sunny Dooley as told to Scientific American. ↑

  2. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/09/coronavirus-american-failure/614191/?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=website, retrieved 8/4/2020. How the pandemic defeated America, by Ed Yong ↑

Faith in the Time of Coronavirus

Spring Hope

Click on photo for information about it.

Things have changed around our house, as it has for many of us. A month ago we were a household of two with one cat. Then two family members were rescued from Palm Beach County, not a place to be during these times. Now there are four of us and two cats; I spend a significant amount of time being gate keeper for cats.

A discussion of the place of faith in our life is important in difficult times such as now. Faith can be a great comfort; it also can become a dangerous crutch. When faith ignores science, the consequence can be unfortunate.

In these times of anxiety over global pandemic, faith can be a comforting presence, but what does this mean? How should faith motivate us in these troubling times? Faith must be a driving force in our life at any time, even more so when we are in distress as today. Faith should be the bedrock of our existence, but must be based on spiritual reality. We must not presume Heavenly Father will allow us to flaunt faith, expecting Him to protect us from whatever misdeeds we might perpetrate.

Most of the country is under some sort of stay-at-home directive; the goal of which is to minimize spread of this deadly disease. There is scientific evidence isolation does in fact help curb the spread of this virus. Stay-at-home orders are a sensible method to lessen the severity of this deadly pandemic; such orders are based upon sound science from many places around the globe.

In Lodi, California, where there was a mandatory stay-at-home order, one pastor held religious services anyway, and was arrested after the services. We saw a report interviewing the faithful as they left the service. Many of them said they were “protected by the blood of Jesus.” They were confident and unanimous in their faith that Jesus would protect them from harm. Let us pray they are correct. The issue is about not only protecting ourself, but also those around us. One unsuspecting infected individual in that service could infect dozens of others who would spread it even farther. That is exactly what happened in South Korea. At least one infected person, identified as “patient 31,” attended a gathering at Shincheonji Church of Jesus, and infected others, this quickly grew to thousands. South Korea, a democracy, issued and enforced mandatory stay-at-home orders, the spread was minimized.

Jesus said we are to render to Caesar that which is Caesar’s;[1] he was talking about taxes, but this directive would also apply to laws, which we must obey. This especially applies when such laws are based on science and aimed at protecting public health. To do otherwise would be placing one’s own wishes above health and safety of sisters and brothers.

When religious people base their faith on a set of dogma, they are in danger of limiting themselves to only what that dogma proclaims. Sometimes this even neglects reasonable scientific considerations, as we saw above. Since everyone is indwelt by a spark of Heavenly Father,[2] faith can be a personal relationship with Him. The bedrock of faith should be the conviction Father is with us. Father will protect us as long we follow spiritual reality. If we presume to be somehow above others, we have not true faith.

Truth is living; the Spirit of Truth is ever leading the children of light into new realms of spiritual reality and divine service. You are not given truth to crystallize into settled, safe, and honored forms. (Urantia Book 1917.3) When truth becomes crystallized dogma, it has lost its vitality.

Everyone is equally indwelt by an actual spark of Heavenly Father. This means He is always with us, guiding us, and showing the way. He is “no respecter of persons.”[3] Father respects everybody equally; we all stand equal before Him.

Belief becomes faith only after it motivates our lives and changes our way of life. This faith is a living and personal religious experience.[4] When we have this personal experience, when we dedicate ourselves to following God’s will in thoughts, actions, and deeds, we know God and His love for each of us. In his life among us, Jesus attained the highest realization of this as a human being living on our planet. Jesus was born a mortal struggling to understand his surroundings just as everyone born on this orb or on any other in this local universe. He was on his own, and by the strength of his will and faith, he found God; and so can we if we make his faith our faith.

Jesus personified personal religious experience, and this shone forth in his life. The religion of Jesus is all about each believer having an individual relationship with God. It is truly that simple, and that difficult.

When an individual has faith there may not be any obvious indication; if they truly do have faith they cannot consciously prove it.[5] The only way faith can be demonstrated is first, fruits of the spirit are shown in their life,[6] and second their entire life shows they have risked everything they are and everything they have in pursuit of finding God in their own life.[7] Fruits of spirit include sincere and loving service working to uplift people in darkness.[8] In times such as this, we manifest fruits of the spirit in joyful service to family, friends, and neighbors.

Society must become more aware of spiritual reality; however this may take a major event. We need something to make us aware of the need for all citizens to seek a more spiritual existence; this spark may be anything: a major war, riots in the streets, a pandemic, an economic collapse, or perhaps a spiritual awakening. People need to become aware of their eternal spiritual possibilities, what will be in store for them if they reach out to grasp eternal goals and seek spiritual reality.

Kingdom builders… are not to be disturbed by temporal upheavals or perturbed by terrestrial cataclysms. What does it matter to you who believe this gospel of the kingdom if nations overturn, the age ends, or all things visible crash, since you know that your life is the gift of the Son, and that it is eternally secure in the Father?[9] (Urantia Book 1916.2)

We pray for peace, love, harmony, and guidance. We pray health care workers, government officials, and others on the front lines of this pandemic will find courage, strength, and moral fortitude to do the right thing. We pray those who have lost loved ones will have time to grieve, remember, and move on.

Be safe.

  1. All references are to The Urantia Book unless otherwise noted, 1899.2, this refers to page:paragraph of the one column edition; and Bible, Matthew 22:21, also appears in Mark and Luke. ↑

  2. Bible, I Corinthians 3:16 ↑

  3. Bible, Acts 10:34 ↑

  4. 1114.5 ↑

  5. 1733.2 ↑

  6. 1733.3 ↑

  7. 1733.4 ↑

  8. 1930.3 ↑

  9. 1916.2 ↑