Lisa Sharon Harper2013-05-19T02:49:39-04:00Lisa Sharon Harperhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=lisa-sharon-harperCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Lisa Sharon HarperGood old fashioned elbow grease.A Call to Transform Politicstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.18579062012-09-06T08:42:47-04:002012-11-06T05:12:01-05:00Lisa Sharon Harperhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-sharon-harper/
Maybe it's the title of my last book, "Left, Right and Christ: Evangelical Faith in Politics," which was co-written with a Tea-Partier who is also an evangelical Christian. The book does frame me as the one on the left, but if you read my chapters you'll see that is not my mind or my heart.
In times like these, when politicians are sweating to sway voters to their side, or frame their opponents as the polar opposite -- the enemy -- it is tempting to begin to define ourselves and each other through the frame of politics. We place each other in convenient little political boxes -- boxes not made by scripture or the church, but by politicians and the media.
The political "left" and "right," Dems and GOPers, Progressives and Conservatives claim to stand on fixed points of impervious truth on a linear spectrum that stretches across a horizontal plane from pole to pole. The spectrum's fixed middle marks the permanent philosophical and political "center." And politicians conveniently cry that political party is synonymous with political philosophy. It does not work this way and has never worked this way. Rather politics' center point is mercurial and its far left and right philosophical boundaries move with the ages. Parties and platforms flip philosophies and shape-shift to match the ethos of the age.
Let's consider history: In President Lincoln's day the Republicans were the economic and social progressives while the Democrats fought to conserve the economic and social status quo. Republican President, Teddy Roosevelt, was a leader in the progressive movement at the turn of the 20th century. A believer in more regulation for business and the conservation of our natural resources for the benefit of the general public, Roosevelt coined the phrase "Square Deal," a symbol of his domestic agenda, which promised every citizen a fair shake at access to the American Dream.
Likewise, conservative Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower expanded Social Security, continued Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "New Deal," instituted the interstate highway system, and sent federal troops into the south for the first time since Reconstruction to enforce desegregation policies. His conservative vice president, Richard Nixon, gained the distinction of becoming only the second president in U.S. history to press for a National Universal Health Care plan.
Meanwhile, Democratic President Barack Obama took National Universal Health Care off the table and would not allow it to be considered from the start of his legislative health care battle in 2009. Even the "public option" (an historic middle point) became a political lightning rod and was taken off the table by President Obama. Jimmy Carter, the hawk in dove's feathers, escalated the American naval presence in the Persian Gulf and established the Carter Doctrine, which laid the foundation for the last 30+ years of U.S. foreign policy in the Gulf -- policy that has prioritized middle east oil reserves as an American interest worthy of military engagement.
And finally, consider immigration policy. In 1882 the Republicans tried to block legislation that barred Chinese immigrants from entering the country, but the Democratic congress pressed for and passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. It was the first time in U.S. history that legislation blocked a group from immigrating solely based on their race or nation of origin.
The sands of politics and political philosophy shift with the ages. One can anchor herself to political philosophy and find herself in the party of "the enemy" within one generation. Conversely, one can anchor himself to a political party and find his philosophical and theological convictions compromised within one election cycle.
So, I reject the moniker "Christian Left." It is a moniker drawn in hasty response to the "Religious Right" a political movement (not a theological one). I do not set the standards of my political engagement in response to some random political point on a line. No. Rather than anchoring my politics on the shifting sand of a linear continuum, I ask a higher question: "What is my axis?" What does my political engagement revolve around? Is it political ideology? Is it political party? Is it biblical theology? I choose the later.
I am a Kingdom Christian, not a leftist Christian, a conservative Christian, nor any other political brand of Christian. I have even moved away from the term progressive Christian. It is too closely associated with that linear political spectrum. No. I am called to be a prophetic Christian. The axis of my political engagement is scripture and the biblical theology of shalom: It sets the standards of my political engagement.
Shalom is what the reign of God smells like. It is what the Kingdom of God looks like. Grounded in the story of creation in Genesis 1-14 and woven through every book of the Bible, the concept of shalom teaches us that we were created in relationship with God, with our selves, with each other, with the rest of creation and with the systems that govern us. What it means to be one who lives under the reign of God is to be connected with a forceful bond of love in all these relationships. Genesis 3 offers a picture of the consequences of humanity's grab at its own peace, in its own way (not the Jesus way). When we say to God "You don't know what you're talking about" or "Your word is good for church, but not for real life" or "You are not out for my good" and we take matters into our own hands, then shalom is shattered. Every relationship in creation is broken.
Jesus's life, death and resurrection bring us the ministry of reconciliation. Reconciliation to God, to self, to each other, to the rest of creation and to the systems that govern us is now possible because Jesus beat death -- the one power we all must face.
If Jesus beat death, then can he beat the division between races in the U.S.? Yes!
If Jesus beat death, then can he beat the record levels of poverty that our nation is experiencing right now? Yes!
If Jesus beat death, then can he beat our world's propensity toward war and domination? Yes!
If Jesus beat death, then can he beat our broken immigration system, which is dividing Christian families and holding 11 million immigrants hostage between two signs at the U.S. border "No Trespass" and "Help Wanted"? Yes!
When thinking politics, some Christians say, "Faith! Schmaith! My faith has nothing to do with my politics. The Bible is for church, family, friendships and personal growth. To know what we're doing in politics, we must go to the great political philosophers like Adam Smith and Edmond Burke or Thomas Payne and Thomas Jefferson. We must align with the party that most closely affiliates with the philosophers' admonitions." If this is how we set the standards of our political engagement then its axis is not Christ, but culture and we should take the word "Christian" out of the moniker all together. We should call ourselves what we have actually become: political operatives masquerading under the cloak of Christianity. Or worse, pawns.
In its purest form, politics is simply how we organize our life together in society. The polis (the people) works together to determine policies for the common good. Those policies are turned into laws and structures that guide the daily course of life in society. In autocracies a single ruler is responsible for dictating the politics of the day. What the ruler says goes and the daily course of life is structured by the will of one human being. In plutocracies the wealthy and powerful rule (especially those with inherited wealth and power). But in a Democratic Republic like our own, the polis is ultimately responsible for the policies, laws and structures that guide daily life. As we vote for candidates and ballot measures we shape our society.
So, here's the rub: Jesus said the greatest commandment was to "Love God and love your neighbor as you love yourself" (Mark 12:30-31). In a Democratic Republic, our politics have the power to love, hurt or even oppress our neighbor.
Paul explains that God's call to humanity is to be reconciled to God and to become ministers of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:17-20). In other words, allow God to do the work of reconciliation in all those relationships broken by our original sin in Genesis 3! Be reconciled to God, be reconciled to our selves, be reconciled within our families, be reconciled to our enemies, be reconciled across ethnic boundaries, be reconciled across economic boundaries, be reconciled across geographic and national boundaries, be reconciled to the rest of creation, and work to reconcile systems (politics, laws and structures) to their polis. Then partner with God in bringing about the reconciliation of all these relationships in our world!
This is the call of the gospel! And the good news is that Jesus's life, death and resurrection makes it possible; not Adam Smith, not Thomas Paine, not William Buckley, not Ayn Rand or even Thomas Jefferson. Jesus and the Jesus "Way" (Acts 19:23) makes the high call of reconciliation possible.
Paul exhorts us: "Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God -- what is good and acceptable and perfect" (Romans 12:2).
The Evangelical church preaches the transformation of our own private morality. We believe God for the transformation of our families and churches. What could it look like if everyone who called themselves Jesus followers allowed their politics to be transformed by the words and ways of Jesus?
This is what it looked like for the first evangelicals: William Wilberforce stood in the face of an economic system that secured the well-being of the British Empire and Wilberforce called his nation to be transformed -- to renew their minds and imagine a world where the slave trade is no more.
Charles Finney, Pheobe Palmer, Sojourner Truth and Harriet Beecher Stowe called American evangelicals to be transformed by the renewing of their minds and imagine a New World where the laws of our land were reconciled to the realities of the Kingdom of God and everyone is equal.
And evangelicals in mid-19th century New York City looked around at the turn of the Industrial Revolution and saw that men, women and children were being worked to the bone -- crushed under the weight of unregulated industries, slave wages and unsafe workplace environments. And the workforce could not organize. These evangelical pastors recognized that this system was not serving the wellbeing of their congregants or the general polis. So, they organized the first labor unions.
And when the Democrats pressed to exclude the Chinese from being able to immigrate to America, Evangelical pastors stood up and called us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds! Scripture tells us we are all made in the image of God. Our policies, laws and structures should reflect that truth!
Where does transformation begin today? Well, here is where it begins for me: I pray. Then I get the hard facts on the ground from multiple sources (think tanks and those affected directly by the problem). Then I ask Jesus to talk to me through scripture and listening prayer about the issues of our day.
Lately when Jesus whispers back this is often what I hear...
"Whatever you do in the polis to the least deserving of the hungry, the least deserving of the thirsty, the least deserving of the sick, the least deserving immigrant, the least deserving prisoner, and the least of the abject poor you did this to me."]]>Will the Real Ms. Middle Class Please Stand Up?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.16701252012-07-16T07:06:00-04:002012-09-15T05:12:02-04:00Lisa Sharon Harperhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-sharon-harper/
Well, I don't think I've ever heard the words "middle class" tossed to and fro and applied to as many economic levels as I have over the past few months -- especially when it comes to tax cuts, tax hikes or tax anything.
So, let's play a little game. Shall we? Let's play "To Tell the Truth about the Middle Class."
All three contestants claim to be "Ms. Middle Class," but which one really is?
Contestant number one says: "I am Ms. Middle Class."
Here is her profile: private pre-school, SAT and ACT tutorials starting in grade school, school musicals, dance lessons, gymnastics, soccer (lots of soccer), leased SUV, professional career, gardeners for the lawn, part-time nanny, part-time housekeeper, combined household salary of $100,000-$166,000 per year (up to $250,000 if she's somewhere like New York City or San Francisco), inherited furniture mixed with stylish new pieces, independent voter, leans right on fiscal matters, leans left on social issues, anti-smoking, pro-parks, anti-nukes, pro-special trips to the spa. She lives in or near a major city. If in the city, she has a doorman. If in the suburbs, she has a two-car garage. If in a major city she's a high-end renter. If in the burbs, let's just say she has an in-ground pool in the back yard. She juggles credit cards, kids' clubs and flight miles programs and brings home the turkey bacon, but the housekeeper fries it up in the Calphalon pan.
Contestant number two says: "I am Ms. Middle Class."
Here is her profile: Public schools, PTAs, Pell Grants, La-Z-boys, brown panel basement where stuff gets stored and the men go to drink, shoot pool and throw darts, holes in walls covered by prints of Van Gogh paintings, gardens and lawns tended by mom and dad, lawn chairs and barbecue pits carted from the local Home Depot in the back of dad's pre-owned SUV, the family day-trip to the beach or the annual camping trip because weeklong vacations at a resort are a pipe dream, no stamps in the passport (or no passport), stairs that squeak (or slant), teenage baby-sitters, live-in grandparents, the never-ending struggle to decide which bills will be Peter and which will be Paul on bill payment due dates, improvised home remedies for abscessed teeth, sweat on foreheads at the check-out counter as she prays that her last credit card isn't maxed out ... yet, a combined income of $25,000-$100,000, which pays for the 132 more payments on the home mortgage worth $25,000-$100,000.
Contestant number three says: "I am Ms. Middle Class."
Here is her profile: CEO of Whatever, Inc., investments and capital gains, major donor to political party, major financial engine behind social causes, multiple homes -- at least one with a pool or a beach in the back yard, mix of inherited and new furniture, contracted interior decorators for most homes, Marc Jacobs boutique clerks know her by name, combined household income of $800,000 per year, full-time nanny, full-time maid, full-time driver, private tutor, private school, Ivy League colleges for kids, first-class travel, 34 stamps in her passport. What's a basement?
Will the real Ms. Middle Class please stand up?
Contestant number two stands up. She is the real Ms. Middle Class. According to the Census bureau, median household family income in the U.S. is $49,445. For a non-family household, it's $29,730. The Real Ms. Middle Class is one layoff, one unexpected hospital visit, one pregnancy away from inching closer to the poverty line -- $23,050 for a family of four.
In the name of protecting the "middle class" some politicians have been pressing for extensions of the Bush Tax Cuts for all earnings up to $1 million. They are calling folks in the top 1 percent "middle class." This week, President Obama announced that he would extend the Bush era tax cuts for all earnings up to $250,000, but not beyond this threshold. Still hard to swallow the idea of those being "middle class" tax breaks, but it's an improvement from calling millionaires "middle class."
While Jesus loves everybody, there is no Christian tradition of teaching God's "preferential option for the middle class." For Christians, it's still about the poorest and most vulnerable, and here is why these tax issues matter to those Jesus called "the least of these."
Last year's Budget Control Act delivered $1 trillion in cuts to defense and nondefense spending over the next 10 years. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), Congress will have to find more than $3 trillion in additional 10-year budget savings in order to stabilize America's debt by the end of the decade.
In a recent report CBPP explained that if Congress lets the Bush era tax cuts expire for earnings above $250,000, then America can count on $829 billion -- almost $1 trillion -- added to its coffers over the next 10 years. On the other hand, if the cuts are extended for earnings up to $1 million, then America can kiss $366 billion of that savings good-bye. The loss will need to be made up somewhere, and it will likely strike poor people first with cuts to Medicaid, CHIP, the Earned Income Tax Credit, Head Start and housing. Then it will strike at the heart of the real middle class with cuts to public education, Pell Grants and the Affordable Care Act.
I ask: When was the last time you saw a millionaire sweat it out at the check-out counter? When was the last time you saw someone making $800,000 per year call the neighbor to see if her teenager could babysit? When was the last time you saw someone making $500,000 a year rejoicing that they can finally afford to buy a pre-owned Ford Escort made in the late 1990s?
I can just see the real Ms. Middle Class standing up and saying, "Never."
What if real Jesus followers of every tax bracket stood with the poor -- and those in danger of becoming poor -- and called their senators? And what if the Jesus followers being disingenuously propped up as middle class demanded that their legislators tell the truth? What if their faith led them to declare: "I am not middle class and I do not support a vote for a tax cut that would place the vulnerable in jeopardy down the road." What if?
What a beautiful day that would be.]]>Health Care and Judgement Day, Revisitedtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.16459542012-07-05T12:23:11-04:002012-09-04T05:12:15-04:00Lisa Sharon Harperhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-sharon-harper/
On that day, I published a post titled "Health Care and Judgement Day," focusing on the Tea Party's mantra of the time, "Small Government!" and traced the mantra back to its roots in the Antebellum South's cry for "state's rights!"
Two years later, as pundits projected how the U.S. Supreme Court would rule on the Affordable Care Act, they confirmed the heart of the opposition's arguments -- "state's rights" -- but they miscalculated the level of ideological loyalty within the nation's highest court.
Last week, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government does hold the constitutional power to mandate that most American's purchase health insurance or pay a penalty. This power is maintained in Congress's ability to levy taxes.
The justices also ruled that the federal government does hold the constitutional power to expand Medicaid, making more people eligible to receive the benefit, but, like the original Medicaid law of 1965, states can opt out of the expansion if they so choose.
What does this mean?
In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt advocated for a national health insurance program.
In 1935 President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to include a national health insurance program in Social Security, but was thwarted.
In 1945, President Harry S. Truman proposed the nation's first "single payer" program, but it was eviscerated by the American Medical Association, which feared the program would cut into physicians' profits.
In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson amended FDR's Social Security Act to include Medicare and 19 million senior citizens gained access to health care that year.
In 1974, President Richard Nixon proposed the Comprehensive Health Insurance Act. This program would have expanded Medicare and Medicaid to cover all Americans, but political jocking on the left stalled that legislation.
In 1993, President Bill Clinton put forward a bill that would retain the best of the market, while offering universal coverage. It was defeated.
Finally, in 2010, in one of the most dramatic congressional fights ever, the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which expanded coverage to 30 million more Americans. President Obama signed the bill into law on March 23, 2010.
Two years later -- 100 years after Teddy Roosevelt pressed for a national health care program -- the Supreme Court has levied its judgment: States can opt out, but they cannot prevent the nation from offering its citizens the health and care worthy of every human being made in the image of God.
"No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth."
In the same way that Chief Justice John G. Roberts served the Constitution and forsook ideological loyalty to the states rights mantra, followers of Jesus are called to bow to God and forsake our ideologies.
Jesus reminds us that our Creator requires supreme loyalty. If we claim to follow Jesus, then we are to be slaves to the God who "made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them; who keeps faith forever; who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry." (Psalm 146:6-7).
If we claim to be followers of Jesus, then we must be slaves to the God who protects and cultivates the lives of people made in his image as he "opens the eyes of the blind" and "lifts up those who are bowed down" (Psalm 146:8) -- slaves not only in our individual morality, but also in our votes.
Eighteen-million Americans still remain uninsured or underinsured today. Now is the time to fight for them.]]>Christian Views on Social Issues: Abortiontag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.10817922011-11-08T11:04:04-05:002012-01-08T05:12:01-05:00Lisa Sharon Harperhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-sharon-harper/Editor's Note: HuffPost Religion is running a series of posts by Lisa Sharon Harper and David Innes on how Christians should view social issues. This issue here is abortion
Left, Right and Christian: Mississippi's Family Values
By Lisa Sharon Harper
The pro-life movement catapulted to prominence in 1989 when the first major Supreme Court case to challenge Roe v. Wade hit the courts since the ruling itself. There were pro-life and pro-choice rallies at Rutgers College, Rutgers University every week throughout my junior and senior years. Christian groups sponsored viewings of the 1984 anti-abortion video, "The Silent Scream." And evangelicals assumed if you are saved, then you must be "pro-life."
One day that year my mother and I stumbled into a heated argument. With exasperated arrogance, I bent backwards to convince her that her pro-choice position on abortion was immoral, unfaithful and unchristian.
She asked: "What if the life of the mother is at stake? Should abortion be allowed then?"
"No," I countered flatly.
"Lisa," she explained, "do you remember that time I was pregnant, a few years ago, and I went into the hospital and the baby didn't make it?"
"Yes..." I said.
"I had an abortion," she said. "I almost died and the doctor had to take the baby to save my life." She paused.
"I could have died," she said.
I wish I could tell you I responded with compassion and humility, but I can't. Determined to win the argument, my heart turned to steal. I looked my mother in the eyes -- my mother, the woman who almost died to bring me into the world, who worked nights to put herself through college while raising three small children, who would give up anything to make sure we were provided for -- I looked my mother in the eyes and said: "They should have saved the baby."
Today (Nov. 8), Mississippi voters will vote on Ballot Measure 26, "the Personhood Amendment," which would grant the status of legal person to a fertilized egg. The measure would effectively outlaw abortion in all circumstances within the state, deeming it murder. It would make protection of the mother's life a criminal offense, if that protection risked the life of the fertilized egg.
There are lots of points of controversy over this measure. It is so extreme that even the Catholic Bishops have denounced it. For me the most haunting question is this: "Who would it harm most?" My conclusion: families -- especially poor ones. When mothers -- especially poor ones -- die of complications in childbirth, families fold.
Thirty-two percent of households led by single women were poor in 2010, as opposed to 6 percent of two-parent households. Mississippi is the poorest state in the nation with an overall poverty rate of nearly 22 percent and a number of counties with rates as high as 48 percent. If Measure 26 passes, the state's foster care system better watch out. With no provision to protect the lives of mothers, the system will likely see a rise in the rates of children processed and placed in the system. This wave would include both the fertilized eggs and fetuses born to dead mothers and their motherless brothers and sisters. How's that for family values?
I often think back to that conversation with my mother. It took decades for our relationship to heal after I knifed her with my words that day. Since then, God has countered the effects of my hardened heart. God has whispered words of truth and health to my mother's soul, "I care about you... I see you... You matter to me... The well-being of your family matters to me."
May the mothers of Mississippi hear the same on Nov. 8.
Amen.
Left, Right and Christ: Fighting Abortion from the Left and Right
By D.C. Innes
Mississippi has brought the abortion question before us once more. Of course, the issue is always before us. Abortion takes the life of approximately 3,500 people a day. But that is precisely the question voters in Mississippi will address in this week's election. The rest of us us can be thankful, however, that our humanity does not depend on the opinion of our neighbors on Election Day.
Lisa Sharon Harper, my friend on the left and co-author with me of "Left, Right and Christ," shares my view that abortion is murder and sin (p.121). So, like me, she agrees in principle with those who sponsored the Mississippi ballot initiative. But her response to that murderous sin is not the same as it is to any other murder.
She sees abortion as fundamentally a poverty issue, and thus to be addressed not as a criminal act to be punished and deterred, but the consequence of an economic condition to be alleviated. She cites the Guttmacher Institute which reports that the proportion of abortion patients who were poor jumped by 60 percent in 2008. They also report that "the abortion rate for low-income women was three times that of better-off women." Lisa points to single-parenthood as the condition of 85 percent of women having abortions (p.128). Single-parenthood is, of course, a notorious poverty trap.
But even if we concede that poverty itself is chiefly what determines abortion rates, it does not follow that criminal prosecution of abortionists and the tight control of any abortions that we do permit is the wrong response. If one were to show a correlation between poverty and murder generally -- and this would not be difficult; murder rates are much higher in poor neighborhoods -- then murder would be a poverty problem. Should we then deal with it as such and decriminalized it? Of course not! Poverty problem or not, the first obligation of government is to stop people from killing each other! With protective measures in place, the government can then address the contributing issues.
Dealing with abortion is no different. In addition to preventing us from killing one another, government's chief task is to safeguard those who are especially vulnerable against the oppressive designs of the more powerful. That is a principle on which the Christian left and right can surely agree. The unborn baby (that is what mothers call what is inside of them, regardless of his or her stage of development) is the most helpless among us and the most in need of government protection when his or her mother turns murderously hostile.
Even considering abortion as a poverty issue, the most effective way to address lowering abortion rates is not as simple as offering generous welfare programs. The programs that Lisa lists (p.128) support women in their poverty but do not remedy the condition. In his recent column on economic mobility in America, our brother in Christ Michael Gerson asks, "What can be done to improve the quality of teachers in failing schools, to confront the high school dropout crisis, to encourage college attendance and completion, to reduce teen pregnancy, to encourage stable marriages, to promote financial literacy, to spark entrepreneurship?" These are also the questions that will lead us to lower abortion rates if we address them effectively. But that's a separate discussion.]]>Is The American Dream God's Dream?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.10357712011-10-31T07:22:48-04:002011-12-31T05:12:01-05:00Lisa Sharon Harperhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-sharon-harper/Editor's Note: HuffPost Religion is running a series of posts by Lisa Sharon Harper and David Innes on how Christians should view social issues based on their book Left, Right, Christ. The second issue is: 'Is The American Dream God's dream?
Is The American Dream God's Dream?
By Lisa Sharon Harper
I've been hearing a lot of talk on all sides about the American Dream lately. This has pressed the question: Is the American Dream God's dream?
The American Dream traces its roots to the United States Declaration of Independence. Our forbearers declared: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
From its foundations the American dream has trumpeted the equality of all humanity. Yet, all the while, our economic system has prioritized the "equality" of some while blocking its realization among others in order to secure the "happiness" of a few:
People of African descent were denied their liberty, their happiness and sovereignty over their own lives in the antebellum south in order to secure the "happiness" of British descendants bestowed, by law, the mantle of "master" class -- literally.
For most of the 19th century the U.S. removed native peoples from their lands. The lives, liberty and happiness of every Native American nation was decimated so that white miners and settlers might pursue their "happiness".
12,000 Chinese workers laid the western half of the First Transcontinental Railroad; securing the "happiness" of American commerce. But Chinese workers were excluded from the right to become citizens and in Oregon they were excluded from the right to own land.
The American Dream has always been at odds with itself, but our chosen economic system of the past 30 years has dragged America farther away from its common dream of equality.
In the past, economic policies like the Homestead Act of 1862 and the G.I. Bill of 1944 served to bolster and secure the lives, liberty, and happiness of at least the white middle class. But in 1980 Ronald Reagan ushered in a torked up brand of capitalism to our economic system. Neo-liberal free-market capitalism embedded the ideological language of deregulation and market sovereignty into our economic lexicon. Within eight years the American dream was deposed by the dream of corporate liberty and oligarchy.
Consider this:
A recent Congressional Budget Office report revealed from 1979 the average income grew by 275 percent for the 1 percent of the population with the highest income. The top 20 percent's income grew by only 65 percent. By contrast the poorest 20 percent's income rose by 18 percent.
Nobel Laureate, Joseph Stiglitz, points out the top one percent owns 42 percent of all wealth (net worth minus the value of one's home) in the U.S. while the bottom 80 percent owns only seven percent.
Last year top CEO salaries were up 23 percent, but the average worker only saw a .5 percent rise.
Then consider, nearly 50 million Americans are currently living below the poverty line (that is $22,000 for a household of four) and half of them are working full time jobs.
In our current economic system, the "happiness" of the super-elite is secured while the lives, liberty and access to basic needs of the rest are suffering. This isn't the American Dream and it isn't God's dream either.
The feeding of the 5000 (Mark 6:30-44), the institution of the sacrament of communion (Luke 22:14-23) and the movement of the Holy Spirit to create a commonwealth in (Acts 2 and 4) reveal God's sacred dream of the common good. At God's table all people are equal and therefore equally worthy of life, liberty and happiness -- yea, even flourshing.
Left, Right and Christ: Does God Want You Rich?
By David Innes
Is the American Dream God's dream? It's a fair question and a provocative one. But what exactly this question is asking is unclear. Is it asking if the hope that America holds out for opportunity seekers is identical with God's redemptive purposes in Christ? Clearly, the answer would be no. But why would anyone compare the two? It's worth a deeper look.
The American Dream is generally associated with social and economic rising with a view generally to modest suburban comfort. You arrive with a cardboard suitcase and three dollars in your pocket and you end up with a thriving business. You start out sharing a bedroom with three brothers in the moral squalor of a Brooklyn tenement and you end up with a big backyard and a pool on middle-class Long Island. With hard work and opportunity, you can make it here. The American Dream.
There is nothing necessarily ungodly in that. When God brought Israel into the Promised Land, he promised them security against their enemies and a land flowing with milk and honey, i.e., fat and plentiful livestock and flowering fields atop rich, productive soil. He promised them prosperity!
God has given us a potentially rich world that he wants us to develop and enjoy in human dignity and worshipful gratitude. In that respect, one may reasonably say that the American dream can be a godly dream, i.e., part of what God offers human beings somewhere on the other side of Christian repentance and faith.
On the other hand, God warns us not to trust in wealth. The Apostle Paul writes, "People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap" (I Tim. 6:9). God told Israel that even the enjoyment of the wealth he would give them would be morally dangerous.
"Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God ... Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase... then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God" (Deut 8:11-18).
The reason God packaged his good and generous gift with a spiritual caveat is that God's gospel, whether to Israel or to you, is not a health and wealth gospel. His gospel is Christ, and the Christian's chief enjoyment is not the creation but the Creator himself. It is a chastening reminder to my fellow lovers of liberty that while life is severely stunted without political and economic liberty, there is more to life than politics and economics. It is also a reminder to my liberal friends like Lisa, however, not to despise God's good gift by redistributing it under constraint instead of further unpacking it in liberty.]]>Christian Views On Social Issues: Occupy Wall Streettag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.10176382011-10-18T11:10:19-04:002011-12-18T05:12:01-05:00Lisa Sharon Harperhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-sharon-harper/Editor's Note: HuffPost Religion is running a series of posts by Lisa Sharon Harper and David Innes on how Christians should view social issues. The first issue is Occupy Wall Street.
Left, Right and Christ: Believers Occupy Wall Street
By Lisa Sharon Harper
Usually wide-open, clean and full of weary shoppers and business people on lunch breaks, Zuccotti Park was now jam-packed with protesters, sleeping bags, tents, food, protest placards, celebrities and press.
My favorite placards were "I will not let food stamps numb my hunger for righteousness and justice," and "Democracy is too big to fail."
What are the occupiers talking about? Is our democracy in danger of failure? What isn't right about the way things are?
The foundation of Innes's political worldview is summed up in two words: "Limited Government." According to Innes, the role of government is solely to "punish those who do evil" and "praise those who do good." (Left, Right and Christ, 60) This says nothing of things that are neither good, nor evil -- like cancer. Does the government punish it or praise it? Does the government do nothing to help find a cure or create regulations on pollutants that cause it?
The Bible clearly establishes government to ensure the basic protection and flourishing of the image of God in all of its citizens and residents. All humanity is created in the image of God and has the same basic needs: life, food, shelter, work, and the ability to migrate (Genesis 1:26-28). These basic needs lay the foundation for modern day human rights.
Scripture offers a glimpse into God's thinking about the proper roles and boundaries of government and business in the establishment of Israel and the Ten Commandments (the Bill of Rights for a nascent nation of Israel) as well as the institutions of Sabbatical Year and the Year of Jubilee.
The Sabbath day policy required all workers, the land, all livestock, and even immigrants working in town to rest. The Sabbath Year policy mandated that every seven years Israelites were required to forgive debt and give workers, land and livestock a year of rest. The Year of Jubilee mandated that every 50 years land lost to pay debts was mandated to be restored to the original deed holders. These regulations prevented the accumulation of gross wealth and the entrenchment of gross poverty in God's economy and protected workers, land and animals from exploitation and oppression.
I talked with several Occupy Wall Street protesters; a web designer, a documentarian and Noreeda, a homeless 28 year-old woman whose creased face belied manifold brushes with straight up evil. Noreeda was born and bred in the Bronx. She joined the occupation because there she found community. Plus, she admitted to me, she still has dreams of being a doctor...one day.
On this particular day homeless Noreeda sat in the shadow of Wall Street. Protesters buzzed around her and she motioned to them with hope. She said, "I still believe...one day...it will all be made right."
Left, Right and Christ: Dreamers on Wall Street
By David Innes
The Occupy Wall Street movement has really brought out the...well, it's not fair to say the crazies, but certainly the dreamers. If Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" was the anthem for the 60s protests, the anthem for Occupy Wall Street has to be Harry McClintock's "Big Rock Candy Mountain."
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains,
There's a land that's fair and bright,
Where the handouts grow on bushes
And you sleep out every night.
But even that is too specific. From the start, OWS has been a movement without a message. The location of the original protest indicates the importance of one particular animus: Wall Street prosperity at a time of high unemployment everywhere else. But as vague as this message is, it has been further muddled by calls for closing Gitmo, pulling the troops home from everywhere, etc.
This has left the movement open to co-opting by related causes that see energy going to waste. At some point the unions showed up in hope of giving it a labor focus. The Democrats have been thinking about how they might use the movement to boost their 2012 prospects the way the Tea Party carried the Republicans into blue skies in 2010.
The leftist Evangelical group, Sojourners, has also been working at bringing these directionless but passionate young idealists into their fold. Jim Wallis, Sojourners CEO and grand-daddy of the Evangelical left, published "An Open Letter to the Occupiers from a Vietnam Troublemaker." He encourages them to "[k]eep asking what a just economy should look like and whom it should be for."
Supposedly, it would look like what my co-author, Lisa Sharon Harper, calls "God's economy" in our book on the competing Evangelical views of politics, Left, Right and Christ. On the basis of a controversial reading of Leviticus 25, she advocates widespread redistribution of wealth, a limitation on wealth accumulation, "Sabbatical-year rest for workers and the land," and perhaps even nationwide debt forgiveness every 50 years (p.79). She also seems to suggest the nationalization of all agricultural land and natural resources (pp.79, 85). She certainly advocates public control of the economy (p.81). That's a lot of control.
Lisa does what she does and believes what she believes because, as a good Christian, she loves people. This is obvious. But we disagree on how God calls people to love one another. What I see in the Evangelical political left is a dangerous, and I believe unbiblical, combination of Utopian expectations for government combined with an unjustifiably optimistic willingness to empower government for this breathtaking work. They want the Kingdom of God on earth; they want shalom fully realized now through political and economic reform. But if they came into the power they would need for this, they would quickly find their own movement co-opted by opportunists and their beautiful new day turned into a nightmare.]]>#OccupyWallStreet: What They Want (VIDEO)tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.10082142011-10-17T17:06:01-04:002011-12-17T05:12:01-05:00Lisa Sharon Harperhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-sharon-harper/Left, Right and Christ: Evangelical Faith in Politics," I visited Zuccotti Park with Jim Wallis and Tim King. We interviewed several participants in the #OccupyWallStreet encampment.
Meet Drew! He answered an ad in early August for the Occupy Wall Street organizing core. He came back week after week for more organizing meetings. Now he's quit his job as a graphic web designer and is helping to run the Occupy Wall Street website. In this clip, Jim Wallis (CEO, Sojourners), asks Drew what is it that the occupiers want. I film the interview.
]]>Our National Dark Night Of the Soultag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9268062011-08-16T18:00:18-04:002011-10-16T05:12:01-04:00Lisa Sharon Harperhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-sharon-harper/dark night of the soul," or a period in life when "your feet, knees, and face scrape and stick to the proverbial bottom." It is a time when even your soul feels forsaken. Ultimately, the dark night is not about the suffering that is inflicted from outside oneself, even though that could trigger it. It is about the existential suffering rooted from within. St. John of the Cross, the 16th century Carmelite priest, described it as a confrontation, or a healing and process of purification of what lies within on the journey toward union with God.
"Whenever you face trials of any kind," explained the apostle James, "consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in northing." (James 1:2-4)
Evangelical leadership guru, Dr. J. Robert Clinton, says the dark night is a key process God initiates in the lives of leaders for the building of faith and strength of character. Many have waxed poetic about whether President Obama has experienced his own dark night. Others have wondered if perhaps the events of the last few days, or the last two years, might be moving his soul toward the blessed struggle. But these reflections are not about our president: They are about us -- they are about our nation.
On Thursday, August 4th, the day after "Debt Ceiling D-day," the Dow Jones industrial average fell 500 points. On Friday, August 5th, Standard & Poor's downgraded the United States' credit rating from AAA to AA+. By the closing bell on Monday, August 8th, the Dow Jones industrial average had fallen another 634 points. The markets rallied on Tuesday and closed 430 points up, then fell again on Wednesday, closing 520 down. This market struggle, after weeks of wrangling over debt ceilings, has left me wondering if God might be moving us into a national dark night.
We are a nation woven together by eclectic threads of common faith in the truth that all people are created equal. Again and again, our darkest hours have come when elements within our own national body have tested this faith. They espoused and lived according to one basic lie: People are not equal; some are inherently worth more than others.
In America's darkest hours, social movements rose up and called us to face down the lies and embrace God's truth.
Abolitionists called Americans to understand that no matter how dependent our economy is on the free labor of other human beings, slaves are human beings -- walking images of God in our midst, and they should be free.
Suffragists called us to see that the world would not end if the traditional order of society was reformed to acknowledge women's spiritual need for, and equal right to, self-sovereignty -- a right most powerfully demonstrated in the right to vote.
Labor unionists reminded us of the spiritual truth that profits are not more important than people. Working people to the bone over twelve hour days, for pennies on the dollar, under oppressive work conditions exploits the image of God in our midst. In fact, work was given to us in the garden of Eden (paradise). It should bless humanity -- not curse it.
And, finally, Civil Rights workers called America back to the root of the root: Some of us are not more valuable than others. We are all made in the image of God, and as such, we are all worthy of equal protection under the law.
All of these American movements were spearheaded by people of faith. Their faith in God, in the truth of scripture, and in the example of Jesus' life led them to do as Nehemiah did; to lament the lies distorting our national body, to take responsibility for our complicity in them, and to forsake them.
What is the lie today? How's this? "Some people have to be sacrificed on the altar of economic health." Sounds reasonable, huh? In the midst of dire times, dire measures must be taken to get our economic health back on track. Yes, this does sound reasonable, but it's a lie.
Dire times do warrant dire measures, but here's the trillion dollar question: Will we cut, cap, and balance our investment in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, which will make up more than 50 percent of our nation's deficit by the year 2019? Or will we cut food stamps from the hands of the vulnerable, cap protections against toxins in our water supplies, and allow imbalance that favors the super-rich to go unchecked in our tax structure?
I believe God is leading our generation into its own dark night. We have a choice. We can pretend all is well, and continue to look lies in the face and call them truth. Or we can do as Nehemiah did; lament the lie, and then forsake it.
]]>By Any Other Name: Campus Crusade For Christ Becomes Crutag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9067322011-07-22T13:43:26-04:002011-09-21T05:12:01-04:00Lisa Sharon Harperhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-sharon-harper/
On July 19th, Campus Crusade for Christ announced its plan to officially change its name to Cru in early 2012.
Brown v. Board of Education had not yet been fought in the Supreme Court when Bill and Vonetta Bright christened their evangelical campus-based ministry "Campus Crusade for Christ" in 1951. The evangelical church context was overwhelmingly white, middle class, and suburban. The nation and the church had not yet been pressed to look its racist past and present in the face. The world had not yet been rocked by the international fall of colonialism, the rise of the Civil Rights movement, the disillusion of the Vietnam War, the burnt bras of the women's lib movement, the fall of the Berlin Wall, or the rise of the Black middle class (more African Americans now live in the suburbs than in inner cities). In short, theirs was not the world we live in today. So, the name Campus Crusade for Christ smelled sweet. Over the past 20 years, though, it has become a stink rose ... warding off many who might otherwise have come near.
Steve Sellers, Cru Vice President of North American and Oceania Ministries, explained in a recent interview: "Even staff were pulling back from using the name in the course of their jobs both internally and externally. Hindrances with the old name led the board to begin a process to examine the name in 2009."
In a recent interview Larry Christensen, Cru New York Regional Director, reflected:
"The old name just didn't work any more on any level. The word "campus" didn't work because we're no longer focused exclusively on campuses. "Crusade" didn't work because as the church diversified that word became more and more associated with a dark period in church history. Even the word "Christ" presented roadblocks as we wanted to engage Orthodox and conservative Jewish people in conversations and relationship. It made them cringe because it was associated with The Holocaust.
According to Sellers, a commissioned study found that of interested non-Christians who interacted with Campus Crusade staff twenty percent pulled back from the relationship when they heard the name of the organization.
"Twenty percent name alienation is an extremely high number," Sellers added.
Campus Crusade is nothing if not practical. In the 1940s Tent Revivals were the evangelistic method of the day. By the 1960s that wasn't working, so founder Bill Bright developed a practical way to share the gospel; a little gold tract folks could share with strangers. It was called The Four Spiritual Laws.
Apparently, it's been a while since The Four Spiritual Laws worked like it did when I was a member of Campus Crusade back at Rutgers University. Summer 1987, I participated in a Campus Crusade Summer Project in Wildwood, NJ and walked scores of people through that little gold booklet on the Wildwood boardwalk. Twenty-five people, in all, prayed the sinner's prayer with me that summer.
But things have changed.
"We're embracing the new reality," Christensen explained. "Now evangelism takes place more often than not in the context of community. And people in their 20's and 30's as a generation are saying 'I want to make a difference in my life.' In fact," Christensen added, "the recession has pressed the issue. People know they may not get the American dream, so now they're seeking lives that make a difference."
"In the old days," Sellers said, "there was a split between the evangelicals, who proclaimed good news, and the liberals, who did good deeds. We don't see a split anymore! We're doing both!"
And indeed Cru has been engaged in both. Hurricane Katrina was the tipping point. Tens of thousands of Crusade staff and students trekked to New Orleans to help the clean-up effort. Since then, Crusade started a new ministry, Global Aid Network (GAiN).
With this culturally sensitive response to the growing diversity of our world and its attention to poverty issues, I wondered about the current budget crisis. What would Cru's response be to systemic poverty -- poverty entrenched by poor public policy.
In the shadow of the debt-ceiling war and the budget crisis, more than 20,000 people have joined The Circle of Protection for the poor. Jim Wallis of Sojourners, David Beckman of Bread for the World, Lieth Anderson of the National Association of Evangelicals, and Richard Stearns of World Vision among many prominent faith leaders others have joined hands with heads of denominations and other faith leaders to form a "circle of protection" for the poor. It is the poor who are most vulnerable to budget cuts right now.
So, in the final moments of both of my interviews, I asked Christensen and Sellers: "Do you see a day coming when Campus Crusade might send a representative to join the Circle of Protection for the Poor?"
Both answered separately: "We have a long way to go, but we're moving in that direction. The name change is only one part of that."
But it is part of it.
Dear Jesus, let it be so.
]]>The Ryan Plan: A Declaration of War on the Poortag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8485702011-04-13T15:38:03-04:002011-06-13T05:12:01-04:00Lisa Sharon Harperhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-sharon-harper/ hunger fast for a moral budget because something incredible is happening in our country, and we haven't seen anything like it in 30 years. When introduced on February 11, H.R. 1, the FY2011 spending bill approved by the House, proposed $100 billion in cuts to this year's budget. Two-thirds of H.R.1's cuts will directly affect working and poor people.
Then, on April 5, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) introduced a 2012 budget that is much, much, much worse than H.R.1. Ryan's budget would put all the burden for balancing the budget on poor people, while at the same time cutting the tax rate for people in the top income bracket from 35 percent to 25 percent.
In 1945, at the end of World War II, the top marginal tax rate was 94 percent.
In 1954, when Republican Dwight Eisenhower was president, the top marginal tax rate was 91 percent.
In 1980, the year Reagan won his presidential election, the top marginal tax rate was 70 percent.
By 1989, the year Ronald Reagan's presidency ended, the top marginal tax rate was 28 percent.
When Clinton took office in 1992, he raised the top marginal tax rate to 39.6 percent, where it stayed throughout his presidency.
Clinton balanced the budget and left office with a surplus.
Bush Jr. chipped away at the top marginal rate until it rested at 35 percent in 2003, where it remains to this day.
Americans (Republicans and Democrats) used to take pride in paying their taxes. Our contributions made this nation great. We lived on less and paid our fair share to make sure all of our most basic needs were met. That changed in the 1980s with the onset of Reagan's "trickle-down" economics. Reagan slashed the budget more than any president before him and drastically lowered the top marginal tax rate. And we found the trickle didn't go far. Most Americans never felt one drop.
Now, in the middle of a time of war; in the middle of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression; in the face of history which teaches us that balanced budgets require extra revenue from top marginal tax payers (not just cuts to services for the poor) -- in this context -- Rep. Paul Ryan has proposed the lowest top marginal tax rate since the onset of the Great Depression and the death of services to the poor, domestically and abroad.
Did you know CEO pay has increased by 20 percent to a median pay of $9.6 million for top executives at 200 major companies since 2009, while worker pay has remained virtually unchanged (decreased by 0.1 percent) in the same period?
The Ryan plan is not fiscal responsibility; it is a declaration of war on the poor. The GOP is currently being led by blind ideology that has potential to literally kill people -- real people made in the image of God.
And so, I fast.
And last week NY Faith & Justice board members Veronica Black (Rainbow Push), Rev. Gary Wiley (Trinity Grace Church), Rev. Peter Heltzel (Micah Institute), Rev. Derrick Boykin (Bread for the World), and Tim Bomgardner (World Vision) joined the hunger fast as well! Together, we are fasting with more than 30,000 Americans who are hungry for a moral budget.
As Palm Sunday approaches and Easter rounds the corner, let us remember Jesus' last sermon before going to the cross: "Just as you did to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did to me." (Matthew 25: 40)]]>King's Hearings Worth a Tweet, not a Speechtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8340362011-03-10T11:58:18-05:002011-05-25T18:35:25-04:00Lisa Sharon Harperhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-sharon-harper/The King's Speech, I held my breath with the rest of the packed audience and hoped to God that history was kind to King George VI. His sudden ascension from the dutiful stuttering brother to the noble King who led Britain through World War II was one worth watching. Rep. Peter King's ascension is another story.
Today, another kind of "King" is ascending to make his mark on the annals of history. But his mark will only merit ballistic blogs and twittering tweets. My tweet read: "@lisasharper: Peter King's anti-Muslim hearing unites Long Islanders, Republicans, Christians to Dennis Kearney and Joseph McCarthy legacy. #kinghearings"
Dennis Kearney's political posturing and racist rhetoric led to the 1877 Chinese Exclusion Act and Joseph McCarthy's 1954 guilt-by-association anti-commie campaign led Americans through their own political version of the Spanish Inquisition. Kearney and McCarthy fashioned some of the darkest days in American history. They led us away from our values -- away from our ideals. Kearney and McCarthy stoked the embers of fear until they became a bonfire that consumed the soul of America, leaving only destruction, alienation, and crushed images of God in their wake. Now it seems Peter King is hell-bent on leading us into darkness again.
The most shameful part of this anti-Muslim American melodrama is King's Long Island constituents, his party, and those who share his Roman Catholic Christian faith are being forced to partake of the legacy of King's like-minded historical players. History will look back on this moment with a tsk-tsk and a waving finger and with all the flying blogs and tweets King won't be the only one implicated. People from Long Island will be reminded; they elected him. Republicans will be reminded; they did not censure him. And Christians will be reminded; they sat silent and let their spiritual brother lead the country away from God and into darkness.
And what does darkness look like this time around? It looks like Rep. King looking Jesus in the face and saying "No" to his command to "Love your neighbor." (Luke 10:27-28) National security is a genuine concern, but if King really wanted to strengthen national security he would take the advice of national security experts that warn against targeting a single ethnic or religious group for examination. That tactic only weakens us in the end. Better to broaden the scope of the hearings to focus on the effects of radicalization on American security in general or King could sharpen the focus to examine how Al Qaeda recruits in the U.S. Either of these would be worthy investigations, but King's middle ground of ethnic and religious suspicion leads only to confusion, prejudice, and more fertile soil for terrorist recruitment.
Darkness also looks like Rep. King listening to Jesus say, "I am the truth" (John 14:6) and then embracing lies. King has said the Muslim community is sympathetic to radical Islam and does not cooperate with law enforcement. Not true. American Muslims have been America's first and best defense against Islamic terrorist activity. Many Muslim-Americans migrated half-way across the world to flee from repressive extremist governments. They love America. They love what America stands for and they are committed to the safety of their new homeland. To boot, Islamic mosques are proven deterrents to extremist activities.
Thus, the annals of history might record King's hearings through the tweets they inspired. Here are a few:
@TheMuslimGuy: @UncleRush @npr2way LA County Sheriff Lee Baca testifies that Muslims helped foil 7 out of last 10 terrorist plots #kinghearings
@ACLU: Rep. Dan Lungren (CA-R) compares investigating American Muslims to investigating Nazi war criminals! #kinghearings #muac
@NancyPelosi: Responsible policies are rooted in facts, fairness & unending commitment to rights & liberties of all Americans #kinghearings
@washingtonpost The Washington Post: Rep. Dingell: I kept picture of McCarthy on wall so I knew what it was that I did not want to do or be http://wapo.st/eWb1yY #KingHearings.
Amen!
]]>Waiting for Love in a Tea Party Worldtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.7908772010-12-05T06:46:37-05:002011-05-25T18:15:22-04:00Lisa Sharon Harperhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-sharon-harper/
I answered: There are two major commands in scripture. 1) Love God/love your neighbor, 2) Do not fear. Why does fear matter so much? Because, according to Jesus, fear is the opposite of faith. Fear compels us to take things into our own hands. It tells us to crush our neighbors and ultimately, to crush the image of God on earth through oppression, greed and apathetic disengagement that allows poverty and injustice to thrive.
I'm heartbroken right now. The Tea-Party movement rose in this country on a wave fear. It is a fear-based movement. It is NOT based on love.
Rand Paul was elected to the Senate after saying he would not have voted for the Civil Rights Act in 1964. This is NOT love.
In house races across the country, good Republicans and Democrats with histories of collaboration and getting things done were forced out by fans of fear. This is NOT love.
Tea Party candidates -- now elected -- have called for tax cuts for the richest Americans even as they proposed a way to balance the budget by eliminating public education and the Department of Justice -- both of which were created to ensure equal opportunity and protection under the law to every American. This is NOT love.
This is not faith.
Faith compels us to love. Faith compels us to consider others as more important than ourselves. Jesus commands us to love sacrificially -- especially the poor, the marginalized and the oppressed.
My heart is grieving because I see people being wooed by the power of fear. What we have failed to see ... and to believe is this: love is more powerful than fear!
The policies we support should be rooted in sacrificial love -- not fear.
Churches all over the world have entered into the season of Advent. Advent is our chance to step into Mary's shoes ... and wait for a promise to be born.
Henri Nouwen points out in his Advent essay, "Waiting for God": "The whole opening scene of the good news is filled with people waiting. And right at the beginning all those people in some way or another hear the words: 'Do not be afraid...'" He reflects, "Fearful people have a hard time waiting."
And so we wait ... for the promise to be born.]]>Why Christians Should Support the 'Ground Zero Mosque'tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.6867942010-08-20T06:18:48-04:002011-05-25T17:25:21-04:00Lisa Sharon Harperhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-sharon-harper/
As an Evangelical Christian, three pillars of my faith guide my response to this trumped-up controversy: forgiveness rooted in the Cross, the value for Truth, and the call to love our neighbor.
Evangelicals believe in the power of the Cross, the place where Jesus died at the hands of his enemies; the place where Jesus uttered, "Forgive them Father for they know not what they do"; the place that makes radical forgiveness possible. Yet the Muslim world did not perpetrate the terrorist acts of 9/11, so there is actually no need to forgive Muslims for 9/11. The fault sits squarely with Al Qaeda, a small terrorist organization. And therein lies is the irony. We have failed to do the lesser thing. Jesus calls us to follow him into forgiveness of our enemy. But forgiveness isn't politically profitable. So we have been led by Evangelical hacks like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck to feed on misdirected bitterness rather than follow Jesus' lead.
Fear and hysteria are no excuse for muddled language and twisted truths. Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth and the life." Thus, to suppress truth is to suppress Jesus himself. Why would Jesus care about truth? Because lies destroy people made in the image of God, thus destroying the image of God on Earth. We would do well to remember that the next time Newt Gingrich rants that building a mosque in the shadow of the World Trade Center is like the Nazis putting a swastika next to the Holocaust Museum. Come on.
So what is the truth?
Dr. Sarah Sayeed, president of Women in Islam, Inc. and program director for the Interfaith Center of New York, explained in a recent interview:
There has been a mosque on Warren Street, four blocks from the World Trade Center site, for many many years. My dad used to go there for prayers when I was a little kid. A lot of the Muslim people who work at City Hall or in the financial district would go to that mosque.
The Warren Street Mosque lost its lease and had to find a new location. Some people in that community came together and were able to purchase the building on Park Place and West Broadway, where the Islamic Community Center is now proposed; two blocks closer to Ground Zero. The people in the purchasing community partnered with Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who had another mosque in Tribeca -- also close to Ground Zero. Imam Feisal serves on the board of the Interfaith Center of New York.
Their vision included a full-blown community center that serves the wider community, not just the Muslim community. It's conceived in the tradition of the YMCA, with a pool, a place for seniors to congregate, a place for the arts and a multi-faith chapel and prayer space. So, it's really a cultural center that is being built by a group of Muslims. They're also talking about having an interfaith advisory group to help shape the work in the building.
In light of this truth, to ask this long-established community to relocate is a first step down the long road to ethnic cleansing. It is the antithesis of Jesus' call to love our neighbor.
Governor Patterson and other politicians are trading truth for political points. And worse, without realizing it, they are following the lead of right-wing liar, Pamela Geller, founder of Stop the Islamization of America, a crude website dedicated to stopping the spread of Islam in the U.S. and worldwide. Loonwatch.com lists Geller as "the looniest blogger ever." The mosque controversy traces directly back to Geller. And it is true to form. During the 2008 elections, Geller claimed that Obama was a Muslim and that purple is the official "gangsta" color of the Obama administration -- no connection, just goof-ball.
My faith's values for forgiveness, truth, and love of neighbor lead me to conclude that politicians using the Islamic community center as an opportunity to score political points are mounting a direct assault against the honor of the dead -- not just the 59 Muslim Americans who died but also all those whose lives were stolen by the hands of terrorists on September 11, 2001. They are betraying the heart of our country. Worse, they are betraying the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which guarantees the free exercise of religion. And this is the one freedom Islamic extremists despise most.]]>Immigration, the Bible, and the Lawsuittag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.6371542010-07-06T20:11:26-04:002011-05-25T17:00:24-04:00Lisa Sharon Harperhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-sharon-harper/
With these actions President Obama is exercising courage and courage is the stuff of leadership. Last Thursday I stood with the New York State Interfaith Network for Immigration Reform at a press conference in front of the White house in support of President Obama's courageous speech on immigration reform. We applaud him again today, for with the Arizona lawsuit our president demonstrates he is willing to do everything in his power to maintain the integrity of our nation. Our core values and interests are at stake.
On the 4th of July, our nation celebrated its 234th birthday. This is a natural time in the rhythm of our life together to pause and remember our heritage -- our birthright. We are a nation of hard workers. We are a nation marked by creativity and a robust entrepreneurial spirit. And in the Declaration of Independence itself, Thomas Jefferson submitted the following major grievance against the crown of England as one of many justifications for the American Revolution. According to Jefferson, England was obstructing the migration and naturalization of foreigners in the Americas and that was grounds for a Tea Party! We are a nation of immigrants!
Plus, in a recent Open Letter to President Obama on Immigration Reform nearly 600 interfaith leaders from 40 states affirmed the common call of our faiths to renounce fear and exercise faith by embracing the immigrant within our borders.
Grounded in Genesis and carried through the last chapter of Revelation, my own evangelical Christian faith calls followers of Jesus to see all humanity as made in the image of God and worthy of intrinsic dignity and protection. As such the basic needs of all human beings as outlined in Genesis 1: 26-30 (e.g. life, food, land, work, and the ability to migrate) lay the biblical foundations for the basic rights of all humanity.
Genesis 1 is why God decrees in Leviticus 19:33-34, "When an immigrant resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the immigrant. The immigrant who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the immigrant as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God."
Genesis 1 is why Jesus holds no punches in Matthew 25 warning, if you fail to love of the least of the hungry, the thirsty, the abject poor, the sick, the imprisoned, and the most foreign immigrant, then you will go to hell.
The Arizona law (SB1070) and its amendment are an affront to core American and religious values. Governor Brewer claims the amendment prevents racial profiling. It does not. Rather, it's authors intentionally crafted a sly form of racial profiling powered by the inclusion of county and municipal statutes to the list of the kinds of laws that warrant a "lawful stop, detention, or arrest". Thus, under the current law and amendment, police officers can target households with too many residents, homes with cars on cinder blocks in the front driveway, or people with too many passengers in a car. In Arizona, these offenses are ones perceived to be committed most often by Latinos. This is racial profiling.
Again and again in the course of our nation's history, our core values have been challenged by core lies. Again and again we found ourselves standing at a fork in the road, faced with a choice: Would we believe the lie that some people are simply worth more than others? Or would we actually "hold these truths to be self-evident, that all human beings are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Faith leaders are not led by polls or swayed by the tides of public opinion. We answer to a higher authority and, as in years past, we stand together today holding a moral compass. So, today we echo our call from a week ago:
"President Barack Obama and both houses of Congress -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- in the coming days you will be tempted to fear the polls, but you have something greater to fear. Fear the judgment of history. There is such a thing as right and wrong. There is such a thing as betrayal of our nation's values. There is such a thing as an abdication of leadership that sacrifices American interests on the altar of political expediency."
On June 1, the delegation of Interfaith Leaders from New York -- arguably the first major border state -- represented the desires of the nearly 600 interfaith leaders who signed on to our Open Letter to President Obama. We hand delivered the letter to White House officials when we met with them. In addition, we sent copies of the letter to every member of Congress, calling them to do the right thing. If the responsibility for immigration reform is not with the states, then the President and Congress must find a pragmatic and moral solution to our dysfunctional immigration system with comprehensive reform.
The faith community will not let up. We see firsthand the brokenness of our system and its devastating effects on families across the country, and we will continue to be powerful advocates for comprehensive reform. During the month of July, in anticipation of the enactment of Arizona's law, faith-rooted actions will roll across the nation. They will include pulpit swaps where non-citizen immigrant faith leaders will swap pulpits with faith leaders who are citizens. Each will preach from the pulpit in support of Comprehensive Immigration Reform; "Not in Our State Petitions"; Public vigils in support of Arizona and Comprehensive Immigration Reform; and finally, there will be a major faith action at the end of the month if the Arizona law takes effect
So, we thank you, Mr. President, and we implore you and Congress, don't turn back. Don't stall out. Protect our values and interests and keep letting your actions do the talking.
]]>A Christian Response to Arizona's Government-Sponsored Eviltag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.5540972010-04-28T02:35:00-04:002011-05-25T16:15:25-04:00Lisa Sharon Harperhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-sharon-harper/
There's something about hard-knock times that consistently opens civil minds to uncivilized acts. When those minds hold the power of the policy pen, then personal malice becomes government-sponsored acts of terror against its own citizens.
This time it is the good, economically recessed, fear-ravaged people of Arizona who have elevated bottom-dwellers to the place of law-makers. They actually handed a registered hate group, FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform), the pen and asked them to help write Arizona's anti-immigrant law, SB1070, which requires police officers to ask for "papers" from anyone they "suspect" might be an illegal immigrant. If they cannot prove their legal residence, they will be thrown in jail. This Machiavellian law places the U.S. in company with Apartheid South Africa, Nazi Germany, and the Antebellum South, each of which demanded the presentation of "papers" demonstrating the individual from the minority group was allowed to be in certain areas of town.
On April 23, Governor Jan Brewer took her policy-making pen and placed her government-issued stamp of approval on SB1070, signing it into law.
The first victim fell before the bill was signed. The victim, Abdon, a Latino trucker, was pulled over and asked for his "papers." When he didn't have his birth certificate on his person, he was jailed. His wife was called and told to bring his birth certificate to the jail to arrange his release. Abdon is a United States citizen born in Fresno, California.
The second victim I know of was Ben Lowe, the 20-something Democrat currently running for Congress in the 6th District of Illinois. On April 24, Ben (a half-white, half-Chinese-American Evangelical Christian) was one of four passengers in his friend's car when they were stopped by police in Cicero, IL.
In a phone interview today Ben explained that after all four passengers were taken out of the car, lined up, and patted down, the officers searched the car. All of the other three passengers were white/Caucasian, so no one suspected racial profiling.
"Then, after we were searched," Lowe explained, "one of the officers came up to our driver and explained we were pulled over on 'probable cause' because we were 'light-skinned', 'could have been Hispanic,' and they have trouble with Hispanics driving into the city on this road with drugs in their car."
Ironically, a major pillar of Lowe's congressional platform is the need to introduce and pass Comprehensive Immigration Reform.
There are times in scripture and history when God looks at unjust laws and calls people of faith to stare them down and break them. Think Abram and Sarah posing as brother and sister upon entering Egypt to get around a dirty law established by Pharaoh. Think Moses defying Pharaoh's legal hold on his Jewish kinfolk. Think Jesus defying religious laws to touch the bleeding woman and the leper and to heal on the Sabbath. Think Paul who called the church to cross ethnic and racial boundaries, flying in the face of religious laws of his day.
Then think of the abolitionists and conductors on the underground railroad who said "no" to the complete crush of oppression in their day. Think of Rosa Parks who starred in the face of segregation and said "no" in her day. Think of César Chávez who mounted a 36-day spiritual fast against environmental and labor injustice, saying "no" in his day.
This is our day.
It is time to march. It is time to make some serious noise. We must speak up and out and make it known that we will not lie down. We will not comply with injustice. We will not let hate and fear govern our nation. No! We have come too far for that! Too many people have bled and died and paid severe costs for us to trample on their sacrifices with unjust laws like SB1070.
Without federal standards, states are free to enact their own unjust immigration policies. Today, pundits say Congress is backing away from its commitment to introduce and pass Comprehensive Immigration Reform in this session.
As a person of faith, I call on our congress to have faith! Do what God calls all of us to do when faced with government sponsored evil. Look injustice in the eye and say "no." Pass Comprehensive Immigration Reform now.]]>