Religious folk really do have useful things to say -- you just have to listen to the right ones

by Ken

If you say anything against religion, it then becomes impossible to persuade large segments of the religious community -- especially the really stupid ones, that you're not necessarily against religion, just against the kind that's practiced by most of the organized denominations, for whom it is primarily a way of enforcing their orthodoxies and prejudices on people whose primary interest is being told what to think and do. The terrible thing is that the so-called "religious revival" in the U.S. that set in roughly over the last quarter of the 20th century is almost entirely Crap Christianity.

So it doesn't matter how many times I say that some of the wisest and most committed people I know and have read about were inspired by their faith. Note, though, that those people hardly ever have much standing in their faiths' org charts. Among Catholics the shining exception was Pope John XXIII, who was elected to be a brief, do-nothing caretaker pope, to give the warring cardinals a breather and see if they could agree upon a longer-term choice next time around. Instead Pope John set about opening all those dank closets and sealed windows, and for a lot of Catholics their church began, for the first time, to have meaning for their lives. One result was the liberation theology movement, which set about trying to bring decent lives to the oppressed of the New World. Of course the church hierarchy hated that. After all, those poor souls' oppressors were some of the church's most loyal (and richest) supporters -- most of that oppression was (and is) carried out, not just with the approval, but with the active participation of the church hierarchy. Needless to say, the sainted Pope John Paul II made sure that that heresy, along with every other humane one he could track down, was finally destroyed. And Pope Cardinal Ratguts will make sure that nothing of the sort gains a foothold on his watch.

(Catholics, by the way, and Mormons too, have no idea why there is such strong feeling against them, for the simple reason that they pay no attention to the words and deeds of theirs that arouse that feeling -- like when Catholic leaders drag their flock into cahoots with the vilest, most hate-mongering and hateful and reactionary elements of our society in support of their hateful and reactionary dogmas, or when the Mormons flood a state like California with cash to enforce its primitive bigotries. Already there are tiny-brained neanderthals with negligible reading skills who will say that I've just denounced all Catholics and Mormons as vile and hate-mongering reactionaries. Well, their hierarchies certainly work their darnedest to be.)

As a result of all this, the idea of religion as a force for good seems to a lot of us a theoretically plausible concept, but one that has at best a quaint ring in the real world. Since I'm not particularly looking for religious inspiration, I'm not a good source for information about where to find the good stuff. It was only when I was writing on the subject the other day that I realized how long it had been since I'd sought wisdom from my official go-to guy on the subject, Pastor Dan Schultz, and tracked him down to the Religion Dispatches website. Since then we've heard from our friend Evan Derkacz, a wise and committed progressive colleague who turns out to be the managing editor of the site and insists that, while the name may be unglamorous, they've proud of the quality of the contributions they've been putting out since they set up shop in 2008 (they're now celebrating their second anniversary), and have gotten a fair amount of attention in the MSM.

The people who operate Religion Dispatches are certainly an impressive group, and from my quick glances it really does look like a place where you can find intelligent and humane discussion of the basics of our modern world from a religious perspective. I just glanced at the current front page and found the following highlighted articles:

* "Catholic Child Neglect: DC Archdiocese Cuts Adoption Rather Than Abide Same Sex Parents"

* "The Pope and Social Media: A Digital Counter-Reformation?"

* "Meet the New Haggards—Same as the Old Haggards?"

* "Mauled by an Angel: Why Do Americans Need 'God’s Secret Agents'?"

And the following highlighted blog posts:

* "How Intelligent Design Advocates Helped Shape the Christian Right's Texas Curriculum Standards"

* "Hundreds of Thousands Spent to Fight Gay Marriage While Poverty Grows"

* "Is Tax Evasion a Christian Value?" [I threw in the link because that really sounds like a good one!]

* "Conservative Activist Says Tea Party Movement Needs 'Reverence to God'"

* "Convicted Wall Street Con Artist Finds New Target: Gays"

By the way, Evan assures us that Pastor Dan will indeed return to posting as soon as the book I mentioned in my post is done. By all means check it out.

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