Reader alert: This true story contains some profanity and an adult situation.

On Christmas morning 2023 our dear friend, Naomi, drove Embry and me to BWI airport arriving at 7:45 for a flight to San Juan where we would meet our son, Andrew, and his wife, Karen, and our two grandchildren, Sadie and Parker, for a short holiday gathering. We were in plenty of time to make a 9:15 AM flight on Frontier Airlines, the cheapest airline Embry could find. The flight was listed to take off at 9:35, but for some reason Frontier made a big deal of completing all boarding by 9:15– “Absolutely no exceptions. If you are not on the plane by 9:15, you aren’t flying on Frontier.” Hey, no problem. Lines would not be all that long at eight in the morning on Christmas. Although the Frontier line was not short, it went fast, and we reached the Frontier baggage check counter at 8:05, checked one bag for the two of us for an exorbitant price, and headed to the security lines, which were also mercifully short. For some reason, the Frontier guy did not give us a boarding pass, commenting that “We do not do that anymore.”

On the way to the security checkpoint a nice young woman airport employee asked me if I would like a wheelchair. Oh, my goodness, I thought, do I really look that old? I thanked her for her thoughtfulness and refrained from saying, hey, I walk 15-20 miles a week, okay at a slow pace, but still decent for an 81-year-old, and yes, I have bad knees and balance issues, but I DO NOT NEED A WHEELCHAIR, thank you! Then in my mind I conceded: In three months I will turn 82. I am old.

We reached the security gate at 8:30, a full 45 minutes before the 9:15 boarding ultimatum, plenty of time. The security officer appeared young and inexperienced, but cordial. Under the new system at the International Terminal at BWI, all you need to do is look into a device that checks your eyes and you are in. You do not even need a boarding pass, only a ticket. How clever, I thought, sure speeds things up—until the security guard proclaimed that I would not be allowed to fly. Embry was already approved and headed toward the luggage check conveyor belt.

“Pardon me?” I replied.

“You are not flying,” he responded. “You did not pass security.”

This took about five minutes as he peered into his computer screen and fumbled around pressing keys. When I asked why I didn’t pass the eye scan security, he said he didn’t know, but I would have to return to the Frontier Airline desk and see if I “could work something out.” He said the problem was at their end. By this time Embry had returned realizing I was having trouble. I looked at my watch. It was now 8:45. We turned around and Embry charged back to the Frontier desk, where fortunately the line was now short. When I arrived slowly shuffling along behind her, the attendant had already given her boarding passes for both of us and assured her that this would get us through security.

We headed back. Embry was running. Where was the nice lady who could get me a wheelchair? However, since we still had over 25 minutes to make it, I was not panicking. I followed behind and calmly handed the guard the new boarding pass, looked into the eye checking device again, and started toward the bag screening area.

“Stop,” another security guard ordered, “You are not leaving security!”

I demanded to see his supervisor, a plump guy with white hair who turned his back and walked away, muttering, “I am his supervisor, and you are not leaving security.” Embry immediately charged back to Frontier; and by the time I arrived, the attendant was printing out yet another boarding pass for each of us, assuring us that this would definitely solve the problem. Back we went, this time avoiding the line and entering through the exit area as two cleaning ladies cheered us on. The clock was ticking. Only 15 minutes to go but still enough time to make it. Embry had already expressed her dismay and disbelief, asking, “Are you people nuts, do we look like terrorists?” I had been relatively quiet, cursing under my breath and scowling. I told Embry to head for the gate once she had her backpack and then try to block the entrance to the plane door until I arrived. At least one of us would make it to Puerto Rico. She had about eight minutes to make it.

By this time, I had become an issue. About a half dozen guards were gathered in a huddle, trying to figure out what to do with me. I demanded to know why I was not allowed through security. One of the guards informed me that I was a security risk because “I was not who I said I was.” When I asked the reason, he replied, “That is what the eye machine says.”

“Well, then who am I?”

“We don’t know and that’s the problem, but if the eye machine says you are a security risk because you aren’t who you say you are, then you aren’t flying. That is final. We have no choice.”

I pointed out that I had not one but two boarding passes.

“That does not mean anything anymore. The eye machine calls the shots.”

This is when I lost it and shouted, “Well then get a new fucking eye machine!”

“You are verbally assaulting a U.S. security officer and that is a federal crime, subject to fines and prison!” he replied sternly.

I glanced at my watch. It was 9:10. I had five minutes to make it.

I then charged toward the conveyor belt and placed my backpack on it. What did I have to lose? Miraculously, no one stopped me. The group of security personnel was still huddling and apparently someone with authority and common sense had showed up and decided to let me through. But time was now the issue. If the gate was not too far away, I could make it, plus I was sure Embry would press them to delay closing the door. That should work, at least for a few minutes.

I anxiously waited for the backpack to come through. Someone had pulled it off the conveyor belt and placed it on a table. Several employees were milling around and chatting, but no one was touching my backpack. After a couple of minutes passed, then another, I screamed out, “Will someone please look at my backpack? I am going to miss my plane!”

 No one came to my rescue. I hollered out again, and someone who looked like he could be a supervisor walked over and explained that it was a shift change and everyone was on a five-minute break.

I lost it again. “What? Do you realize I have only a minute or two to make my flight and everyone is just standing around? I have flown hundreds of times and this is the most outrageous behavior I have ever seen.”

He sighed and directed one of the employees to examine the contents of the backpack. She walked slowly over to the table where the bag was and in slow motion opened the backpack and proceeded to throw a can of shaving cream and a can of sunscreen into the garbage. She then handed me the backpack, glaring, turned her back, and continued her break time conversation.

“Finally,” I sighed, grabbed my backpack, and started to shuffle as fast as I could toward the gate. If only I had accepted the nice lady’s wheelchair offer.  A security guard grabbed me. “You can’t leave security until you go through the scanner.”

“What? I have already been through the scanner!”

“But you had your shoes on.”

 “I am 81 years old, for God’s sake!”

“Yes, but the eye machine has determined you are a high security risk. You are not who you say you are. And you must go to the back of the line. And this time you must take your shoes off.”

I tugged at my shoes and broke into the line. I was so nervous at this point that it took several tries to get the correct scanner image. Finally, the guard waved me through. I looked at my watch. It was 9:20. Embry could block the door from closing, but only for only a few minutes.

I was doomed.

Finally good luck! It turned out that Gate Five was the first gate and only a few steps away; and as I arrived panting, there was Embry along with a bunch of other passengers waiting to board. The 9:15 boarding mandate was not enforced after all. The plane took off at 9:35 as scheduled, we arrived in San Juan on time, and had a great time staying in an Airbnb in the rain forest with the family. Happy ending. But still the mystery of why I am not who I say I am remains unsolved.

Four days later we said our goodbyes and arrived at the airport well in advance of our flight back to BWI—over two hours to clear a very long security line and make it to the gate. The only glitch was that since the machines at Frontier were not working, we did not have a paper ticket or a paper boarding pass. There might be a problem getting through security. Also, the Frontier Airline attendant said because our checked bag was six pounds over the limit, we would have to pay another $75. Embry grabbed the large suitcase and began dumping out items on the floor and stuffing them into our backpacks. When the clerk looked puzzled, I replied, “She is Scotch-Irish. She can’t help it.” After about five minutes we had managed to reduce the weight by ten pounds and were on our way.

As expected, because we did not have a paper ticket and the tickets on Embry’s cellphone were too small for the computer to read, there was another delay. This time the security officer was nice and accommodating though it took about 10 minutes for us to clear, leaving a line of at least 50 agitated people, whom we had blocked behind us. I thanked the guard enthusiastically and told him how great it was to be dealing with a real person rather than an eye machine.

“The eye machines suck,” he said, “they are a disaster.”

We had made it! Embry breezed through the scanner, and I was next. The first glitch was that because I was required to take off my belt, I had to hold onto my pants to keep them from falling down. When directed by the security guard to raise my hands, down they went. The two teenage girls waiting behind me giggled. With great effort I managed to pull my pants up and keep them from falling long enough to get through the scanner. Off to the gate. Plenty of time.

“Not so fast,” said the security guard. He then picked up his cell phone and called for a backup. I am hard of hearing, but I managed to hear him say in an anxious voice, “Security risk here! Got a guy with a gun in his jockstrap.”

He then turned to me and said that there was a problem. The scanner had identified an object in my groin area and labeled it a high security risk. He had to check it out. He then asked if I had ever had a urology exam. When I said yes, he said this would  be similar but not as bad and that I would not be required to take off my pants.

“Excuse me,” I said in disbelief. “In order to board an airplane, I have to have a urology test right here in the airport? Are you serious?”

“I am dead serious, but it is not a urology exam. It is like a urology exam,” he replied in a cordial tone and a sheepish grin and then went back to the scanner. He returned with a large photo showing my body, hands held high, and a bright six inch, red square in the area starting just below my belt. “That red square is the way the scanner signals high security risk. I am required to check this out. It could be a weapon.”

“Not at my age, for God’s sake.”

 By this time security backup had arrived with a pistol, which he had not taken out of the holster, though he kept his fingers on the handle.  All this effort took several minutes, which meant more delays for the same people who had been standing in line when we were trying to enter security. Many were anxious to get to their gate before the doors closed and were not happy campers. I heard someone angrily groan and  pointed to me, “It’s him again!”

I will not describe in detail the procedure to determine if anyone has a weapon hidden in his or her underwear. The entire procedure took less than five minutes. When someone showed up to take the guard’s place on the scanner, the people in line behind me started to filter in. But instead of running to their gate, however, most hung around to watch the “genital  probe” procedure and to see if I was a terrorist or got arrested. The guard remained on his knees the entire time. I was standing.  I tried to look up to the sky and not at any of the crowd but could not help hearing children ask, “Daddy, what are they doing to that old man?”

The most embarrassing moment came when the guard tightly wrapped his arms around me just below my waist and put his ear next to my zipper, I suppose listening to determine if there was a ticking bomb in my underwear. I glanced at what had become a rather large crowd of security personnel and passengers, most of whom by this time were gaping in disbelief. Some people smiled in puzzled amusement, but others, especially older women, turned their heads away. One person, Embry Howell, was laughing uncontrollably.

The security guard smiled apologetically and declared, “No weapons. You pass. Have a good flight.” Unlike the guards at BWI, he was polite and nonconfrontational the entire time. He was just doing his job.

While I was waiting for the guard to complete his inspection, I said to myself, “I gave up serious distance running over twenty years ago. The same for tennis. I gave up power walking five years ago. I gave up sailing one year ago. I think it is  time to give up traveling that involves airplanes.” I have no explanation as to why I was declared to be someone I was not at BWI or why the scanner in San Juan showed that I was hiding a gun in my underwear. These mysteries will remain unsolved. But what will not remain unsolved is that today airport security has reached the point of absurdity. That is why Embry was laughing uncontrollably and why I joined her in the best belly laugh I have had in years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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There is still a lot of water that will flow under the bridge before November 5, 2024. The presidential race could change, but right now it is starting to look bad for Joe Biden. I am a Biden supporter and will remain so. I think that overall, he has been a great president, given the hand he was dealt. But he finds himself between a rock and a hard place, which could make him a one term president, and it is not the MAGAs and Trump fanatics that will hammer the nail in the coffin. It will be the progressives and the younger voters, who normally vote for a Democrat. The two issues that put him at risk are Israel’s War on Hamas in Gaza and immigration.

First, the situation in Gaza. It is nearly impossible for a sensitive person to watch the evening news night after night without flinching when seeing  young children crying out for parents whom they will never see again, when hearing women crying and screaming in despair, when watching the total destruction of apartment buildings and hospitals, and the long lines of people marching to the south, which was supposed to be a safe haven, but now is in the line of fire and unrelenting bombing. “Only” about twenty thousand Palestinians have been declared dead so far, eighty percent being women and children. Netanyahu so far has refused to allow sufficient aid, supplies, food, and medicine to get into Gaza to avert a looming humanitarian crisis of Biblical proportions. He is adamantly opposed to a lengthy ceasefire, truce, or negotiations to end the war. For this to happen Hamas must be “completely destroyed.” But the cost of killing every Hamas fighter and supporter could mean killing every Palestinian living in Gaza.

U.N. healthcare workers warn that time is running out. Unless there is a ceasefire and the needed medical and nutritional assistance are allowed to get to those in dire need, in addition to the deaths by bombs and ammunition, we can expect cholera, dysentery and other deadly diseases along with mass starvation.

It may also mean the end of Joe Biden’s hope to be a second term president. As much as most Democrats despise Trump and all he stands for, many on the progressive side will stay home and so will a lot of younger Democratic voters who tend to favor the Palestinian cause over the Israel’s. Biden needs those votes to win. Many will not be able to pull the lever in the voting booth for someone on whose watch this catastrophe happened. They will not be able to vote for someone whose country cast the single veto for a ceasefire in the U.N. Security Council. They will not be able to vote for someone whose government continues to send billions of dollars every year to support  Israel’s war effort.

Make no mistake: Joe Biden is not a bad person. He is not “evil” or responsible for this war. He is stuck between taking a stand on one of two alternative, irreconcilable choices. Were he to take a hard line against Israel’s excessive overreaction, he would lose many of the votes of Democrats who support Israel over the Palestinians; and there a lot of them—almost the same percentage as support Palestine. But if he is unable to get Netanyahu to back off, he loses many in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. There is no question that he is trying to walk a middle ground and trying to get Israel to come to the negotiating table but so far with very little to show for it. If the war is not over and if massive aid does not flow into Gaza well in advance of the election, Biden will be in real trouble.

The other issue is immigration. The Republicans are using border security and deportation of illegal immigrants to get concessions to allow other critical laws to pass Congress. Today on the news I learned that Biden has hinted he may be willing to make concessions regarding asylum as a reason to allow people to enter the country and in sending back illegal immigrants. I do not know how this will end up, but if it means significant rounding up of immigrants and “dreamers,” it will mean another slap in the face of many progressives. Biden cannot make too many concessions to hard line, right wingers without alienating his base. Many will stay home.

Poor guy. He is caught in the middle of the Great Alienation that our country is experiencing. We progressives and MAGAs rarely speak to each other. We do not understand one another. We do not see the other side. Yet the stakes in 2024 have never been higher. The Times published a lead article today, December 19, showing Trump continues a two-point lead over Biden overall. The number of all voters who disapprove of the way Biden is handling the Gaza War is an astonishing 57% compared to only 33% who approve. Some 46% say Trump would do a better job handling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict compared to 38% for Biden. Almost half (47%) of all  voters favor Israel in the conflict compared to only 20% for the Palestinians.  (Democrats are split—31% for Israel, 34% for Palestine.) However, the numbers are reversed with younger (under 30) voters—only 20% for Israel compared to 46% for Palestine.

The thought of another Trump presidency is a nightmare. And if Trump does win, the United States may end up as another casualty of the Israel Palestine War in Gaza.

 

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Some say that as 2023 nears its merciful end, it may turn out to be a pivotal year. AI has now become a fledging reality with all sorts of warning bells going off that eventually it could do us in. Trump has shown his cards of neo fascism and is currently ahead in the polls, despite his 91 indictments. The Russian/Ukrainian War is at a tragic standstill with widespread death and destruction showing no signs of ending. Even more alarming, the Israeli/Gaza War is moving toward what could turn out to be one of the worst humanitarian crises in world history. And then there is climate change and global warming. Oh, my goodness!  

Could the planet be headed toward catastrophes beyond our imagination? What does all this mean? Here is a look at the big picture:

You may have read some of my recent blog posts which traced the history of the universe starting with the Big Bang, which happened some 18.6 billion years ago. While the focus was on the evolution of religion–these were based on a forum I lead at All Souls Episcopal Church– I believe that some of the information is relevant for our world today in putting our times into perspective.

Our sun, planet and solar system have been around for about 4.5 billion years, and cellular life on the planet for about 4.0 billion years. Animal life came much later and human-type life very much later, “only” about 2.0 million years ago. We Homo sapiens arrived very late, only about 200,000 years ago. Religious belief and practice only a few thousand years ago. What caught my attention was that since life started on the planet there have been five mass extinctions when over 80% of all plant and animal life were wiped out each time. In one mass extinction over 95% of plants and animals disappeared. These mass extinctions have tended to happen around every 130-150 million years, about the time that has elapsed since the last mass extinction. Scientists tell us that we are now entering the sixth mass extinction, so far limited to animals and insects pretty low on the food chain due mainly to us humans eliminating natural habitats of animals and plants.

The question of our time is this: Will we humans be part of the sixth mass extinction? Think about how fast life on the planet is changing and how this change is accelerating before our eyes. Hundreds of thousands of years passed when the total human population on Earth remained under several million when we humans struggled to survive in the middle of the food chain. Then we slowly began climbing our way up to the top. Our relatively large brains allowed us to communicate, to imagine things that did not yet exist, to make tools and form communities, and gradually to learn how to grow crops, build towns and cities, and change the landscape of the planet. The world population has now surpassed eight billion, most of the growth happening over the past 300 years. How many people can be sustained on the planet? The current thinking is that with better food and agricultural technology maybe 10 million. Some believe we are already there. All scientists agree that there is a limit. Plus, inequality on this planet persists with poor nations and poor people outnumbering those who are well off. Can these imbalances last forever? And there has never been a time when wars were totally absent. What will happen as weapons become even more lethal and ubiquitous?

In Dubai this week, scientists and politicians are gathered to discuss the future of the planet in the era of global warming. Most people now acknowledge that climate change is happening. There is cautious optimism that we can address global warming if the world comes together and acts decisively, but we are not there yet. We are way behind in achieving the goals of the Paris protocols. Will this be what ultimately does us in or will it be something we do to ourselves? After all, more and more nations are producing nuclear arsenals. It would only take one major miscalculation or mistake to start a war that would have the potential to wipe out life as we know it. And where will artificial intelligence take us? If you ask ChatGPT how to make a nuclear bomb, how long will it take to get an answer?

So here is an indisputable fact: the likelihood of Homo sapiens being around two billion years from now when our sun will begin growing into a red giant before it shrinks into a white dwarf is zero. Two billion? How about two thousand years at the speed we are going? Two hundred? Whatever the number is, all life on the planet Earth will continue to change and eventually will come to an end. There is slim chance—actually, no chance– that we humans will be part of life on Earth forever. The question is when will our time on the planet come to an end. What is sobering about the times we live in now is that it seems that many of the ingredients are in place for that time to be a lot sooner than we humans would like or expect.

And before the planet Earth is consumed by our sun when it expands into a red giant, if experience is any indicator, at least five more mass extinctions can be expected.

This is where science and religion intersect. Very early in the era of Homo sapiens, early humans figured out that there must be something responsible for life on Earth that was real but beyond our human capacity to figure out. We humans named this mystical force “God,” but what that word means varies from religion to religion and from person to person. Some religions, like the Abrahamic religions, see God as the creator of the universe and everything in it and who is accessible via prayer and ritual. Other religions like Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism see God as Being itself, ineffable and beyond human understanding or comprehension but nevertheless still very real and vital. We humans are fundamentally a religious species. Some 85% of the world’s population is estimated to fall into one of the various religious categories. Each religion tries in its own way to make sense of the meaning of life. At the end of the day, however, there is no definitive meaning regarding life on Earth and our place in it. It is, as they say, beyond our pay grade. All we can do is celebrate our existence, honor the mystical force that is behind it, and be thankful for the short time we have been allotted on this incredibly beautiful planet. Our time now—the 20^th and 21^st Centuries—may turn out to be the golden age for our species.

 

 

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If you are wondering why there has been a six week delay in my usual, semiweekly blog posts, I have been, as they say, “under the weather.” I am prone to respiratory viruses; and after several weeks of battling this one–and fearful of possible pneumonia–I dragged myself to the Urgent Care Center at Kaiser Permanente, my Medicare Advantage health care provider.

 Kaiser’s Urgent Care Center in Washington is in the basement of an office building near Union Station. Hallways are painted a dreary brown, lighting is poor, and there is nothing on the walls or long corridors, not even a single painting or photograph. (However, the grim setting is not as bad as the Washington Hospital Center’s emergency room where I spent a few days and where doctors are often outnumbered by cops, and desperate patients, some in handcuffs, are lying on cots jammed together.) But it is bad enough. I have been there several times before when the waiting area had no space available, and the background “music” consisted of groans and moans. None of that for me. My plan was to arrive at 7:30 in the morning—in advance of the urgent care rush hour.

I was in luck. When I arrived a little after 7:30 there was only one person ahead of me, an African American man in his 20s, wearing a sweatsuit and humped over with his head in his hands, moaning. Within minutes the door opened, and my name was called. My plan had worked.

The doctor who examined me—a caring, African American woman in her fifties—did all the right things, ordering a slew of tests—blood, urine, chest x ray–and by 8:30 I was assigned to a small room separated from a bustling central area by a curtain. Within an hour of taking some 15 or 20 tests, the results were posted to my Kaiser account and available on my iPhone. My results seemed to be in the green zone. Most important I did not have pneumonia. I concluded that this was a good sign though I felt as bad as ever, wheezing, coughing, body aches, heavy congestion, and no energy. I settled in wearing my hospital gown and lying on an uncomfortable examination table. That was around 10:00. Very impressive to get the test results back so fast, I thought.

What was not so impressive was that I remained in that tiny room for five more hours with no human contact. I had skipped breakfast to be sure I made it to urgent care before the morning rush. No one had offered me anything to eat or drink, and by 3:00 pm, I took matters into my own hands, yelling “help” as loud as I could. It took two or three desperate shouts before one of the technicians stuck his head through the curtains and asked me what my problem was. I explained that I had been in urgent care since 7:30, had received test results on my iPhone at 10:00, and wanted to see a doctor. He said nothing and departed, but it only took another 30 minutes for the doctor to come in with an apology and honest answer that she had completely forgotten about me.

“But here is the good news,” she proclaimed, “You do not have pneumonia! Your tests are all negative, you are fine and can go home. In fact, you are the least sick person I have seen today.”

“Fabulous news,” I responded, wheezing, and coughing and wondering if I was not sick, how come I felt so bad. So I returned home, relieved that I did not have pneumonia. I flopped down on the bed after making myself a sandwich and drinking about a gallon of water and remained there for the next two days.

In a few days, however, I did start to feel better and was able to drive with Embry to North Carolina where we visited her brother and sister-in-law in Chapel Hill and then drove to the Outer Banks where we spent the long Thanksgiving weekend with our son, Andrew and Karen, his wife, and their kids, Sadie and Parker,  Karen’s brothers and parents, and our daughter, Jessica, and her daughter, Jo (Josie), and nieces and nephews on Karen’s side—17 people in all.

After a brief recovery from that trip, I feel fine now, and you can expect the posts to get going again.

In defense of Kaiser, I have to say that whatever this strange malady is—Embry calls it “the Joe-Crud”—no doctors have been able to figure it out. The symptoms started over 50 years ago and are more like what I have read about long-covid or chronic fatigue syndrome. I guessed it had something to do with Post-Polio Syndrome but the post-polio specialists at the National Rehab Hospital thought not. Whatever it is, it has always eventually gone away; and at the ripe old age of 81, I am just happy to be alive.

Stay tuned for the return of the blogs.

 

 

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As I write this post, on Monday, October 23, just over two weeks have passed since the Hamas massacre of innocent civilians in Israel on October 7. The lights are still off in Gaza as is almost all power. Food and drinking water are scarce. Many Palestinians have moved to the southern part of Gaza as ordered, some staying with relatives, some with friends, some in shelters but most unaccounted for. As of this past weekend over 4,000 Palestinians in Gaza had been killed, the vast majority (3,400) civilians including over 1,400 children and almost 1,000 women.

Another 15,000 people had been injured, over half women and children. Some 42 percent of all the housing units in Gaza had been destroyed along with hospitals, mosques, schools and hospitals. According to eyewitness accounts, northern Gaza is nearing total annihilation. If you are keeping score, this compares to 1,400 Israelis killed and another 4,500 wounded by the Hamas soldiers in their surprise attack on Israel. At what point do you say, enough is enough. The score is even, the debt settled.

But at least 250 hostages remain captured and held by Hamas with their fate unknown. And Israel’s goal of destroying Hamas once and for all has not even really started. Israel has announced that this is just the beginning. Many thousand Israeli soldiers are assembled on the Gazan northern border prepared to attack at any moment and kill whoever is left in northern Gaza.

The question the world is asking is how does this horror movie end. Are we supposed to believe that all the innocent people have left northern Gaza, and the only people who remain are Hamas terrorists, that anything that moves is fair game? And for that matter, what is keeping the Hamas terrorists from moving to the southern part of Gaza? And how do you win guerilla warfare when the majority support the guerillas? How many more young Israeli lives will be lost in the hand-to-hand and sniper combat?

I suggested in my last blog post that the carefully planned attack was designed as a trap to get Israel to do such terrible things to the people living in Gaza that it would cause outrage on the world stage and cause the country to lose international support. Whether this was by design or not, it seems to be starting to happen; and if the invasion results in an even more severe humanitarian catastrophe as is likely to be the case, it will happen. So where does that leave Israel and where does it leave the United States?

So far, I give Biden and Blinken pretty high marks for sticking with our ally and also pushing hard for humanitarian relief. Food, water, and medical supplies are slowly starting to move into Gaza via Egypt, but how far will they go compared to the enormous need? And the question is still out there: How will this horror movie end?

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One week ago on October 7, 2023, a surprise invasion of Israel by Hamas soldiers in Gaza resulted in deaths of 1,300 innocent civilians, which included beheadings of children and other horrific acts of murder, rape, and torture, leaving another 3,400 Israelis   wounded, many seriously. Twenty-seven Americans were among the dead. Between two and three thousand Hamas soldiers participated in the surprise attack.  I have not found any definitive information as to how many Hamas soldiers were killed or arrested though it appears that there were few. Most got away, taking at least 150 hostages with them, including some Americans. Hamas is threatening to torture and kill one hostage a day and post the executions on social media.

Of course, most people know all of this since it has dominated the news for a week. The unanswered question is this: Why would anyone do this? It was a deliberate act of war and a war crime, which anyone would conclude would result in immediate retribution from Israel to punish Gaza for this unimaginable atrocity. And the retribution would likely be far more severe than the initial act of aggression by Hamas. This is the way things work in the Holy Land.

This is exactly what has happened. Israel immediately cut off Gaza from the electricity it provides to the country and the fuel it provides for generators. Food and water are now in short supply for two million people. Toilets don’t flush. Lights are out. Massive bombing attacks began immediately destroying buildings of all types throughout the county. One bombing destroyed the only access to Egypt, assuring that the two million residents of Gaza would have no escape route. A blockade has been in place for years around the ports. As of today—one week after the war began—Gaza says 1,900 of its people have been killed, mostly civilians, and 7,700 wounded. If this were an eye for an eye, you might conclude that the goal has been achieved since the casualties in Gaza today are higher than those caused by Hamas in Israel.

But that is not the way things work in the Holy Land.

The “real retribution” is just beginning. Israel has announced its stated goal is to destroy Hamas completely and to assure that something like this will never, ever happen again. They have called up almost 300,000 army reservists giving them a total force of around 500,000 soldiers compared to the Gaza force of 30,000. Israel’s air force and stockpile of weapons and rockets far exceed what Gaza has plus they have a nuclear arsenal. As the bombings continue unabated, thousands of troops and tanks are massing along Gaza’s northern border with Israel. A full scale border invasion is expected to happen within days—or hours!

One way of thinking about Israel’s retribution is that it is like killing an insect with a sledgehammer. The problem is the insect is sitting on a glass table.

Yesterday, Israel gave notice to the 1.1 million residents living in north Gaza that they had 24 hours to relocate to the southern part of the country. Hundreds of thousands are leaving their homes carrying what few belongings they can handle and walking south along streets blocked by wreckage from destroyed buildings. Virtually no transportation is available. The old, the disabled and the very young are stuck in north Gaza. And where will people go once they reach the southern part of Gaza? This tiny country (the size of Philadelphia) is one of the poorest and most densely populated countries in the world. Many have described it as a “hell hole,” others “the world’s largest prison.”

Israel has announced its goal is the “total and complete annihilation” of Hamas in Gaza, which sounds to many like the total annihilation of Gaza. About half the population of the country is under the age of fifteen. The Hamas army makes up only two percent of the population though a little over half of the populaton are Hamas sympathizers. The United Nations and several organizations involved in catastrophe relief have warned that if the course of action does not change, this could lead to one of the worst humanitarian disasters of all time and possibly could involve war crimes and crimes against humanity.

So, the question I raised earlier deserves a response—why did  Hamas do something like this? It seems insane. Certainly, Hamas must have known that Israel’s response would be far more than an eye for an eye. Certainly, they must have known that atrocities like this would require Israel to engage  in a fight to the finish that Hamas has no chance of winning.

My take on this is that knew exactly what they were doing. They were setting a trap for Israel. They were setting a trap that Israel will overreact so much that the initial sympathy for Israel will turn to scorn and hatred. They are betting that the Arab/Muslim world will unite, and that Hezbollah will attack Israel  from the north and other Arab or Muslim countries will come to their aid, making this an all-out war in the Holy Land. They are betting that Iran will have their back. They are betting that the peace initiatives between Israel and Saudi Arabia will be blocked. They are betting that Hamas has a better chance of leveling the playing field if the war becomes hand-to-hand combat in a guerilla style, hunt-and-kill war. The U.S. has seen this movie in Fallujah and Afghanistan. The endings were not happy ones for us.

And so far, Hamas would appear to be right. A half million people gathered in the main square in Baghdad yesterday to support Gaza and scorn Israel. Similar demonstrations happened in Beirut and Bahrain. Even in the U.S. at some elite colleges, students are speaking out against Israeli overreaction and are supporting the Palestinians.  If Israel continues to keep the lights and water off in Gaza and if it continues to blockade the country from getting food and supplies from ships, people will begin to die from starvation. Hospitals will be paralyzed, and the vast majority of causalities will be innocent civilians. If Israel continues to blow up buildings and obliterate neighborhoods, the number of deaths will skyrocket.  There is no question that it is going to get worse before it gets better. What will happen next?

If innocent Gaza citizens are spared massive casualties, then there may be a glimmer of hope. If not, the outcome could and probably would be  grim for all involved and for the planet Earth. The goal should be to find a pathway to avoid a worst case catastrophe. When you smash a mosquito on a glass table using a sledgehammer, the mosquito dies, but the glass shatters and goes everywhere.

Make no mistake: This is a big deal. The U.S., which appropriately wholeheartedly supports Israel as do many nations in the world, needs to help steer a path toward peace and humanitarian aid for the hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, who will be hurt the most. The alternative of total mass destruction of Gaza and it’s already destitute civilian population is unthinkable.

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Now that my “Human’s Quest for Meaning” lectures are almost over at All Souls Church, I am moving on, starting by posting some thoughts about old age, inspired by a light-hearted op ed column by Roger Rosenblatt in the October 1 issue of the New York Times. (“Old Age, It’s No Joke.”) It is true that for many octogenarians getting out of a taxi or a comfortable chair requires enormous skill and elaborate planning in advance and that the simple tasks of earlier years are now daunting for us codgers. Yet Mr. Rosenblatt does not deal with the most daunting task for some old people: trying to understand what on Earth other people are saying.

I am now 81 and will turn 82—his age– in exactly six months. I am not a newcomer to hearing loss. I got my first pair of hearing aids in 1997 when I was only 55. I probably inherited this problem from my father, who when he was my age often provided strange or weird answers to simple questions because unlike me, he rarely wore his hearing aids and had no idea what people were saying. It drove my mother crazy. I, on the other hand, have been a devoted and shameless hearing aid user for 25 years. The technology has gotten much better over the years but still has not been able to achieve the Holy Grail of solving the biggest hearing challenge—ambient noise. The hearing aid providers say they have made progress in this area. They haven’t.

Just like canoeists and kayakers who rate rapids by categories from Class 1 to 5 (with Class 5 meaning impossible passage for a canoe), every morning I think about the day’s activities and rate the conditions that I am likely to face that day. A one-on-one conversation in a quiet room is a Class 1. If I have my hearing aids on, no problem, even if the person is occasionally looking in the other direction when speaking. Embry, of course, might disagree, but like a novice canoeist gently paddling down a stream with small ripples and wavelets, I declare that this situation is relatively easy to handle. Two people, when they are talking to each other and to me sometimes are a Class 2, especially if there is low music or ambient noise in the background.  Also concerts with good amplification and acoustics fall into Class 2 along with moderate-sized dinner parties. Bottom line: I am fine with Class 1 and can get by pretty well in Class 2 situations. Class 3 is when the situation becomes a bit problematical. This includes lectures, presentations, and sermons (which are not always a loss to miss), unless I am seated at or very near the front. I can catch the gist of what is going on but often not much more. Some movies fall into Class 3 or worse if the acoustics are not good, which would cause them to fall into Class 4 along with plays, large dinner parties and conversations with groups of people where moderate ambient noise or music are present. Conventional phone conversations fall into Class 4, but fortunately with Blue Tooth the sound goes directly into my hearing aids. Class 5, however, is where the problems become insurmountable. And the challenge is there are lots of Class 5 situations, especially for an extrovert like me, who likes to be around people and engage in chit chat, to go to cocktail parties, to gatherings for morning coffee and conversation, and to enjoy eating at a good restaurant. At least I used to. However, a crowded restaurant with low ceilings with hard surfaces on the floor and the ceiling and with occupied tables close together is hopeless. I have no idea what anyone is saying. It is a Class 5 on steroids disaster. And, of course, the main culprit is always ambient noise.

So, what is an old codger like me (or anyone with a serious hearing problem) supposed to do? You can’t just keep on asking people to repeat themselves. If I had a dollar for every time I asked, “Pardon, could you say that again?” I would be, as they say, rich. You have to fake it. So, in situations where I am talking to people in a crowded room with ambient noise in a Class 5 environment, I try to read lips and study facial expressions. If they are smiling and look happy, I nod, smile, and say something like “yes” or “very interesting” or “glad to hear it.” If they suddenly look shocked or horrified, I immediately switch gears, blush, and say something like, “Oh, what I mean is I am very sorry.” Since in superficial conversations, most people usually reply to the question “How are you?” with the answer “Oh, I am doing fine” even if they aren’t doing fine, it usually works. But not always.

You have heard the pejorative term “deaf and dumb.” This is where the “dumb” part comes from. Hearing impaired people like me say dumb things because we have no idea what other persons are saying, do not want to ask them to repeat what they said too many times, and often have no choice other than just a guess. Mostly this works. Sometimes it doesn’t.

This happened to me at my 60^th high school reunion in Nashville four years ago, just before Covid arrived. I went to a small, private boy’s school where over the years I have remained close to more than a half dozen classmates. In our class of 50 boys, I would guess more than half showed up with their wives for the main event, which was a cocktail dinner at the elegant home of one of our most successful classmates. The minute I entered the main room where drinks were being served, I knew I was in trouble. It was bedlam. The room was jam-packed with people hugging and laughing and celebrating our survival and our friendships after all these years. The ambient sound was an extreme Class 5. What to do? I did what I always do in situations like this: I faked it. I smiled, hugged, shook hands, and said again and again, “Great to see you, glad you are doing well, terrific news,” that sort of thing; and as the evening wore on, I concluded that I had managed pretty well though I had understood hardly a word that was said.

Two days later, after I got back to Washington, I got a call from one of my best friends whom I have remained very close to over the years and whom I could always count on for his gentle honesty.

“Well,” he said, “Joe, I am afraid I have bad news. You are the talk of the reunion. The word on the street is you have severe dementia. I got this from more than one person that what you said to them made absolutely no sense. Everyone thinks you have lost your mind.” He said he was asked not to mention any names.

“Oh, my goodness!” Then I recalled that some of my typical rosy responses to my fellow alumni had been met with a few shocked expressions and a couple of people just walked away.

Uh oh. Guessed wrong.

Here is how I imagined one of the conversations going:

“Hi, George, great to see you! How are you doing? It has been so many years!”

“Not good, Joe, but it is good to see you too. My wife died of a stoke just a couple of weeks ago and I am at a loss of what to do next.”

“Hey, that’s great news, George, so glad to hear it!”

I had at least two or three of those conversations where I suspected that my guess had been wrong, judging by the expressions on their faces. But what to do? The room was so noisy that I could not have heard their story if I had asked them to repeat it.

“Deaf and dumb,” that is me, but thankfully no dementia though some might have different views on that too.

“Old age, it’s no joke,” says Roger Rosenblatt in the New York Times. How right he is!

 

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There are many today who are not affiliated with any religious institution. They are called “Nones” or “Dones.” Nones are people who answer surveys about religious practice that they do not have any religious affiliation. Many say they are “spiritual but not religious.” Dones are people who used to be affiliated with a religious institution but have opted out. Enough is enough. They are “done.” Both groups have grown significantly in the U.S. over the past several decades at the expense of established religious institutions. Christianity, still the largest religion in the United States, experienced a 20th-century high of 91% of the total population in 1976. This declined to 74% by 2016. In 2020, only 47% of Americans said that they belonged to a Christian church; this was the first time that a poll found less than half of Americans answering this way.  What is going on? Why is this happening?

The Christian Church—especially the established “Mainline Churches” — no longer meets the needs of an increasing number of people, led by the Millennials and GenXers. I would like to attribute this phenomenon in the Episcopal Church to the overuse of the Nicene Creed. Much of what is in it does not jibe with their understanding of the world today, but all Mainline Protestant churches, including many which rarely use ancient creeds in worship, have lost members, not just the Episcopal Church. The Presbyterians have fared the worst losing almost 40 percent over the last two decades.

Is there still a need for religion today? Do we live in what is becoming a post-religious world?

We Homo sapiens on the planet Earth have been asking the same questions that our ancestors were asking several thousand years ago: What is the meaning of our lives? What happens when we die? Why do bad things happen? Why is there so much suffering in the world? These have been the questions of both philosophy and religion from time immemorial. All religions deal with these questions. These questions remain as real and important today as they have been throughout history.

The secular answer is that this is just the way the world is. Get over it. You don’t have to believe in God to get by or to know Truth. Albert Camus’s “Myth of Sisyphus” portrays the human condition as pushing a huge boulder up a mountain only to lose control and watch it fall to the bottom, but we humans get up and start over again and again and again. There is no such thing as Absolute Justice or Absolute Truth, just the day-in, day-out slogging along in the short time we have allotted to us. I have often used the example of running a marathon. When you stumble across the finish line, the important question is whether you have you given the race your best effort.

Now I am a loyal church goer. A lifer. My parents were religious people who attended the downtown Episcopal church in Nashville, which makes me a “cradle Episcopalian.” My upbringing is the main reason, I suppose, that I am an Episcopalian. Also, the clergy in that church visited me every week during the two years that I was at home recovering from polio when I was ten and twelve, and that made a huge difference. Religious faith was very important to me then and on other occasions in my life, but at the same time, I cannot help asking the same questions as Camus did in the Myth of Sisyphus allegory. I find myself in the skeptical world more than I would like.

From 1964-1968 I attended Union Theological Seminary in New York where I was a “postulant,” someone who intends to become an Episcopal priest. My bishop was a feisty, old school guy, who did me a great favor by telling me the year before I graduated from Union that for every year I had spent at that “heretical Protestant seminary” I would have to spend a year at a conservative, Anglo Catholic seminary, a deal he knew I would never accept. I will always be grateful to him for that. It would not have been the right job for me. He knew that.

I have been asked more than once that if I am not a “True Believer,” why do I continue going to church in the first place. Part of the reason is that I do believe in the fundamental mystery of life that we humans experience from time to time, along with occasional glimpses of the Devine. The fundamental message of God’s love resonates with me. I believe life has a purpose.

Yet at times I wonder.

(Another, I must confess, is that Embry sings in the choir and is now the Senior Warden of All Souls Episcopal Church. Plus, it is a diverse community and a warm and accepting place where people can discuss honestly questions of faith and doubt. Being part of a loving and accepting community, I think, is one of the main reasons people attend church.)

And the times we are in now are especially frightening. We need all the help we can get. The catastrophes of global warming are happening right now with wildfires, flooding, and horrific hurricanes. If the Greenland ice cap melts, it may be too late. Scientists tell us we are at the beginning of the Sixth Great Mass Extinction. More and more countries are acquiring nuclear weapons. What are the chances that they will never use them? We Homo sapiens have the power to do ourselves in and take most of the animal and plant life on the planet with us. And bad things have happened before in Earth’s 4.5 billion year history—five mass extinctions, which eliminated 80-90% of life on the planet each time. But the planet Earth is resilient. It has recovered and thrived after each extinction and is now home to eight billion people. The planet will survive for about another billion years before our sun expands into a red giant and high temperatures on Earth make life impossible. But will we Homo sapiens still be around for another billion years? Please. Does anyone believe there is a remote chance? What different kinds of life may emerge? What new or post human-like creatures will take our place?

The short answer is that we do not know and will never know the answers to these questions. We are just another animal living on an extraordinary planet. We have worked our way up the food chain as we have evolved over the past 3.5 million years. The best we can do is run our race the best we can and try to leave this troubled world in better shape than we found it, a goal which I am sad to say we are far from achieving. Where Christianity and most other religions come in is that they provide blueprints for making some sense of the world and moving forward. The point of all religions, I believe, is essentially the same—to try to understand the meaning and purpose of life, to be touched by the mystery of the Devine, and to live good lives.  One Destination, many pathways. To be part of this mysterious experience is something for which all humans should be grateful. I know that I am.

 

  

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While it is impressive that Christianity is the most popular religion in the world, accounting for over 31 percent of the world’s population, what about those in other religions? Are they to be written off as lost souls, following fake religions and deceiving themselves? The top three religions besides Christianity include Islam (25%), Hinduism (16%), and Buddhism (7%).  The Big Four religions account for almost 80% of the people on the planet Earth. But there are many other religions including Judaism and lesser known religions like Sikhism, Taoism, the Bahai Faith, Jainism, Confucianism, Shintoism, Zoroastrianism, and indigenous religions. Only sixteen percent of the world’s population are labeled by those who try to keep the statistics as “non-religious.” In other words, Christianity may be the most popular religion, but still out of a world population of just over eight billion, that leaves about 5.6 billion people who are left out. Some would say they are doomed to hell.

Does this make common sense?

Of course not. Especially when you consider that while there are important differences in these religions, there are also similarities. Furthermore, when you consider all the differences within Christianity concerning belief and religious practice, an argument could be made that there are as many differences within the Christian community as between Christianity and other religions.

There is lot, however, that most religions and religious practices have in common:

• Most religions believe in a supernatural deity. Most are monotheistic though there are still some religions which acknowledge other gods. (Note, however, Christianity has been described by some as also polytheistic due to the concept of the Trinity, along with the plethora of angels that some Christians pray to.) Buddhism and Confucianism are the main exceptions and are more philosophies than religions, and neither worship a supernatural deity.
• They promote behavior equivalent to the Golden Rule: Treat others like you would like to be treated.
• They have rituals and sacred writings.
• They pray to their deity.
• They have places of worship like temples, synagogues, and churches.
• They have an ethical code.
• They have barriers to entry—circumcision in Judaism, baptism and confirmation in Christianity, and dietary restrictions in many religions like prohibitions on pork and shellfish in Judaism, meat in Hinduism, pork in Islam, and alcohol in many religions.
• They acknowledge a genuine spiritual realm beyond human understanding.

Here are some of the other similarities and differences among the major religions. Hinduism, considered by some to be the world’s oldest religion, is said to have no beginning as it precedes recorded history. It has no human founder. It is a mystical religion, leading the devotee to personally experience the Truth within, finally reaching the pinnacle of consciousness where man and God are one. From a Hindu website there is this: “In Hinduism we talk of many Gods, but there is one God behind them whom we all worship. One God who is Brahman. Similarly, in Christianity there is Trinitarian conception of God. However, we accept it as one God which is all powerful and loving.”

Islam, of course, along with Judaism, worships the same God as Christians, and their members have similar ethics. Both religions have expectations regarding religious practice like praying five times a day for Muslims and attending synagogue on High Holy Days for Jews. Catholics are not supposed to eat meat on Fridays and weekly attendance at mass is expected. Protestants are not as strict in this area though church attendance at least at Christmas and Easter services is common. It is one of the ironies that the three Abrahamic religions, which have most in common  and worship the same God, have often been in conflict.

Sikhism, an offshoot of Hinduism, is strongly monotheistic, believing that God is without form, or gender, that everyone has direct access to God and that everyone is equal before God. A good life is lived as part of a community, by living honestly and caring for others. Empty religious rituals and superstitions have no value.

Taoism, still important in China, is a religion which like Buddhism is more a philosophy than a religion. While there is a (small)  polytheistic component, it has a strong ethical system. Jainism, which is another ancient religion dating back to 900-600 BCE in India teaches that the path to enlightenment is through nonviolence and reducing harm to living things (including plants and animals) as much as possible. Like Hindus and Buddhists, Jains believe in reincarnation. This cycle of birth, death, and rebirth is determined by one’s karma. Shintoism, practiced in Japan, stresses purity, harmony, respect for nature, family respect, and subordination of the individual before the group. There are many Shinto gods or spirits, and these have shrines dedicated to them where people offer food, money, and prayers.

Some would argue that while the religions are not the same, they have more similarities than differences and are all trying to make sense out of the world we humans live in. I argue that this is the human condition we Homo sapiens inherited from our ancestors.

What are we to make of these other religions? Why do some Christians consider them a threat or even worse, evil? Why have there been so many wars associated with religion? Why has it been so important to convert people from one religion to another religion–to one’s own religion? Aren’t these members of other religions searching for the same things we humans who call ourselves Christians are searching for—for meaning in life, for wholeness, and for being loved and accepted, for connection with an unseen spiritual dimension, which we believe is real? This comes back to the God-gene that I wrote about earlier. It is part of our human nature. That some 85 percent of human beings living on the planet Earth are considered part of some religious group is a compelling indication that the need for a spiritual connection for us humans is strong. The skeptic, of course, would point out that just because people are searching for something does not mean that it is real or that it actually exists. And they would have a point. This is the blessing and curse of being a human being. 

And what is wrong with the notion that there is one God, the Creator of the Universe, who is accessible to all humans, who do not necessarily share the same vision or use the same name for their deity that other religions use? I remember the story of five blind men who were asked to describe an elephant:

A group of blind men heard that a strange animal, called an elephant, had been brought to the town, but none of them were aware of its shape and form. Out of curiosity, they said: “We must inspect and know it by touch, of which we are capable”. So, they sought it out, and when they found it they groped about it. The first person, whose hand landed on the trunk, said, “This being is like a thick snake”. For another one whose hand reached its ear, it seemed like a kind of fan. As for another person, whose hand was upon its leg, said, the elephant is a pillar like a tree-trunk. The blind man who placed his hand upon its side said the elephant, “is a wall”. Another who felt its tail, described it as a rope. The last felt its tusk, stating the elephant is that which is hard, smooth and like a spear. One described the elephant as a tree, another a wall, another a rope and another as a large spear.

And, of course, they are all correct. This parable is found in Hinduism, Buddhism, Sufism, Jainism, and in ancient Chinese and Japanese proverbs. However, it never found its way into Christianity.

And finally, if  you ask yourself why you are a Christian—or a person belonging to any religious group for that matter– and not part of another religious group, or why you are part of one Christian denomination and not another, it could boil down to which country  you were born in, which language you speak, where you grew up, what religion your parents practiced or what you were exposed to at a young age, and other factors that have little to do with any specific creed or belief. That is another part of our human behavior: We tend to go with the flow.

The last essay in this series will be about the state of the Christian religion today in the United States. There is a strange paradox that while Christianity is growing among Pentecostals and those in nonaffiliated churches such as Praise Churches, attendance in mainline Protestant churches–and even among the evangelicals–is plummeting in the U.S. as it has been for decades in Europe. More people are signing up as “Nones,” or “Dones.” What is this all about? What if anything can be done about it? Or should anything be done about it?

Stay tuned for the final installment.

 

 

 

 

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Christianity is now the most popular religion on the planet. As the saying goes, “You have come a long way, baby!” Starting with a handful of the followers of Jesus over two thousand years ago, Christians now account for more than 2.4 billion followers, over 30% of the world’s population. Christians are present in every country in the world. Christianity and Islam, two of the three Abrahamic religions, now comprise more than half the world’s population. While Christianity is shrinking in Europe and church membership is facing challenges in the U.S., the religion continues to grow in many countries, especially in underdeveloped countries. Part of the growth has been due to colonialism, part to missionary work by evangelical Christians, and part to the nature of the Christian message and the human hope for “salvation.”

So, what are we to make of all this? Does this mean that Christianity is the natural culmination of the human quest to experience the Divine? Of all the human attempts over a 20,000 year saga to connect with God, does it mean that Christianity has proven the best or as some would say only religion that is “true” and “real.” Does this mean that the other spiritual journeys involve “fake” or inferior religions? Does it mean that only those who call themselves Christian will have eternal life with God? That the rest will perish? Does it mean that if you are not baptized as a Christian, you are not “saved” and are destined to an afterlife in hell?

Probably many Christians, especially evangelicals, would say yes, that is exactly what it means.

But it is not just evangelicals. In the Episcopal Church which Embry and I attend we say either the Nicene Creed or the Apostle’s Creed where the essentials are laid out for being a Christian. They both were in use beginning in the 300s CE and state what determines whether you are a Christian. The longer Nicene Creed is used more often and addresses various heresies in the early days of the church. The Apostles Creed, which is below, was more often used in Baptism.

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and born of the virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to hell.
The third day he rose again from the dead.
He ascended to heaven
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.
From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.

The creeds are all about belief, not about action or how to live one’s life. Yet believing in the creeds is considered essential by many churches. If you do not believe in your heart of hearts every word that is in the creeds, you are not a Christian. Well, some two thousand years later, for some people it is hard to say that they believe  every word in either creed. Was there really a  virgin birth of Jesus and what difference does that make anyway? Did Jesus really  descend into hell for three days  and what was he doing done there? You can be a Christian without taking the creeds literally.

Skeptics of taking every word at its face value  would warn  not to get too hung up on words that were written at a specific time that made sense then–about two thousands years ago, pre Copernicus and Galileo and Darwin and the Web telescope-but not so much now  and point out that the central message of Christianity is unconditional love and acceptance. No one is going to hell because they are not baptized. No loving God would require this. Or because they do not believe in the virgin birth. Plus, when you are looking at the Big Picture, there are many unanswered questions that we humans will never be able to answer. We cannot explain why and how the Big Bang happened. We cannot explain the cosmos of billions of galaxies, all containing billions of stars and planets. While we can understand the science of evolution, we have trouble with its spiritual dimension or how God is part of this. We do not understand the nature of evil and why bad things happen to good people. If there is an afterlife, no one can accurately describe what that is like.

 Given these uncertainties some declare themselves atheists or agnostics, concluding that there is no religious or spiritual reason for life on Earth. There is no “higher power.” There is no “God.” Get over trying to figure this all out, they say, and chill out. Just accept life for what it is. Others would say that we have clues but no absolute answers. Can you call yourself a Christian if you fall into this latter category and believe that Christianity provides the best clues to understanding the Big Picture, but there are still unanswered questions? Many would say no. It is all or nothing. I would say yes.

And there are issues with regard to the history of the Christian Church once it became a state religion, many of which continue  to the present.

While you can point to many good things that Christian churches and devout Christians have accomplished over the centuries, you can also point to a lot of bad things. The history of the Christian church is  a mixed bag. Think of the nine Crusades to liberate the Holy Land in the 1100-1200s, which resulted in over a million deaths, the Spanish inquisition beginning in the 15^th Century and continuing into the 19^th Century where tens of thousands died, the Wars of Religion in central Europe that lasted for over 100 years in the 1500-1600s, when several million Protestants and Catholics perished—Christians killing Christians. Think about the witch hunts in New England. What about the Christians who owned slave ships or who owned plantations in the South? And what about the  Ku Klux Klan, which describes itself as a Christian organization? Explain the persecution of Jews by Christians over the centuries. Where were Christians during the Holocaust, and why were there  so few Dietrich Bonhoeffers?  And why were most White, segregated Christian churches in the South silent and on the sidelines during the Era of Jim Crow and then the Civil Rights Movement?

Yes, the history of the Christian Church is blemished. It has its dark side. Some would put the blame squarely at the foot of human nature. Remember we are only Homo sapiens. We have made it through many thousand years of evolution due to our instinct for survival and are now at the top of the food chain.

And there are those who argue, “The Bible says God created humans in His likeness.” Can this be right?

Keep in mind that it is not fair to lump all Christians together. Christianity is divided in all sorts of ways—Roman Catholic, Russian and Greek Orthodox, and a long list of Protestants churches–all of which “sort of” believe the same thing. But then again do we really? Presbyterians are said to believe in Calvin’s idea of Predestination. Catholics are said to believe there is a purgatory and the ultimate authority of the Pope. Mormons are said to believe that Jesus came to America.  In some churches people speak in tongues. In others they swing incense. Some churches are filled with icons. Others are plain and simple. There are mystics, fundamentalists, evangelicals, right-to-lifers, and pro-choice Christians.  Christians are on both sides of gender and political issues. There are conservatives and liberals, management and labor, PhDs and high school drop outs. There are MAGA Republicans, who adore Trump and progressive Democrats who despise him.

But here is the thing: We tend to sort ourselves by our backgrounds and our opinions, which often have little to do with Christianity. And also important: We rarely attend the same churches. The compositions of most churches are segregated according to race, class, levels of education and political leanings.

Is this situation today what the early Christians had in mind?

I recall attending a revival in Covington, Georgia, about 20 years ago when we were visiting Embry’s long lost cousins, who Embry was surprised to see on the cover of the National Geographic, where they were featured in the cover story, which was about old fashioned “camp meetings.”

The three-day, small town event, which had been happening every September since the end of the Civil War, brought (White) multi-generational families together at the end of the summer for fellowship, storytelling and to hear good preaching. The preacher for the event that year was probably in his late 30s and a Southern Baptist. He was very sharp and intelligent and surprised me by preaching a progressive message of inclusiveness, tolerance, and social responsibility. Toward the end of his last sermon, he stunned the congregation of several hundred attentive listeners with this question:

“After hearing what I have preached on this week, how many think that I would say that there is not really all that much difference between the Christian Protestant denominations? We are all pretty much the same. Well, let me be clear: There is a huge difference, and don’t you forget it!”

I could feel the puzzled shock that came over the audience. All ears perked up.

“Now I am a Southern Baptist and proud of it. A Southern Baptist is a Christian who has been washed.”

I was not sure what that meant, but there were plenty of heads nodding.

“Are there any Methodists in the congregation?”

Forty or 50 people raised their hands.

“A Methodist is a Baptist who can read.”

I could hear some soft chuckles.

“What about Presbyterians?”

More hands were raised.

“A Presbyterian is a Methodist who has gone to college.”

More soft chuckles.

“And an Episcopalian is a Presbyterian whose investments turned out all right.”

This brought the house down. Everyone knew exactly what he was getting at.

In addition to all the other things that divide us, culture and social status are also often near the top.

Yet despite the divisions and the differences in worship style and belief, and values the Christian Church has survived all these years and on a global scale– except for Europe and the U.S. and a few other “developed” countries–is thriving in a world where there are many other options for spiritual life and spiritual journeys. What is that all about?

This question will be the focus of the next post, the penultimate post in this series.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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