<underfire> Evangelicals, Compassion, Secularism

Fri Nov 17 03:44:13 EST 2006

One could add the picture above to the montage of evangelical self 
+global images. I saw this week a few glimpses of an evangelical film  
about George W. Bush, a film, I must confess, that in the parts I saw  
was quite impressive. I am not sure whether it was the 2004 film  
GEORGE W. BUSH: Faith in the White House. The story of a boozing,  
dissolute young men being touched by the grace of God and as a result  
of his conversion leaving alcohol behind him and making something of  
his life is touching at the personal level. If however this person  
becomes a world leader addicted to power and making war in the name  
of the same Jesus that saved his person, he and his faith scare me  
and a multitude of others.
The picture comes form the site What are George "dubya" Bush's  
religious beliefs? presented by the Religious Freedom and First  
Amendment Coalitions:
http://www.tylwythteg.com/enemies/Bush/bush19.html
The site has not a little to say about Marvin Olasky, the man Bush  
himself has called  "Compassionate conservatism's leading thinker"  
and his efforts for federal government funding of religious social  
service programs that include proselytizing and worship as key  
components, on the grounds that federally funded social service  
programs should not be judged by the effectiveness of the services  
they provide but by their religious "long term ends".
I think we are here touching the heart of the conflict between  
secularists and what in Roman catholic countries is called  
clericalism, that is the influence of church leaders and churches on  
the public domain and politics. The conflict is as old as the radical  
enlightenment described in the thorough studies of Jonathan Israel of  
the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton:  Radical Enlightenment:  
Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, 1650 –1750 (2001); and  
Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation  
of Man 1670-1752 (2006).  His recent work focuses on the impact of  
radical thought (especially Spinoza, Bayle, Diderot and the  
eighteenth century French materialists), and on the Enlightenment and  
emergence of modern ideas of democracy, equality, toleration, freedom  
of the press and individual freedom. Spinoza was the first who  
fiercely opposed the freedom of speech (including of course the  
freedom of religious speech) to the the notion of freedom of religion  
understood as giving a privileged status to churches and religious  
leaders.
One is tempted to think that the twain shall never meet, for each  
sees the other as the core of evil. Secularists see the influence of  
organized religion as a source of evil, whereas the word saeculum  
itself has the connotation of evil in the christian context. In my  
catechism I've learned that there are three sources of evil: the  
world or saeculum, the devil and the flesh. Nowadays, however, the  
notion of the saeculum as the source of evil appears to be a  
fundamentalist notion and radical freethinkers, who have adopted the  
nickname enlightenment fundamentalist, for whom any religion appears  
to be evil, are a small minority. To be a moderate secularist is  
therefore an option for believers as well as for non-believers.  
Freedom of religion includes also freedom from religion for the  
individual and for most western countries it is the accepted rule  
that the state should not discriminate on the basis of religion. It  
is frightening to see a world leader like George W. Bush to be  
willing to do just that.

Paul Mercken

Op 16-nov-2006, om 2:48 heeft Melani McAlister het volgende geschreven:

> Dear colleagues:
>
> Attached are some photos that together offer something of a montage  
> of evangelical (self/global) images. I posit them as an  
> illustration or an accompaniment to my earlier post, but also, in  
> some way, I hope they begin to respond to the conversation about  
> what constitutes, or whether one can clearly constitute, a  
> religious/secular divide.
>
> Mary Keller previously cited Talal Asad's crucial argument about  
> the quandry of asking religious discourse to disavow its own claims  
> to ultimate truth. I'm paraphrasing, but Asad essentially says  
> that, in invoking a public sphere, we ask that everyone bring to  
> the table issues to be negotiated in "rational discourse" (as  
> Habermas says). But what happens when there are items that are not  
> up for negotiation? Secularists, in his view, tend to want  
> everybody to put pretty much everything up for debate and  
> negotiation in the public sphere. But religious beliefs are often  
> precisely about establishing the terms of what is non-negotiable,  
> what is True.
>
> So I'm less certain about Mary's statement that, while she believes  
> it is important to value religious practice and experience:
> "It is the repressive quality of religious discourse that I think  
> is the
> greatest threat posed by religious traditions. When a discourse posits
> purity, originary states, good/evil dichotomies and builds up the  
> forces of
> repression, that is when I am concerned. "
>
> For Asad, and for many evangelical Christians, religious faith is - 
> about- positing purity, originary states, and good/evil  
> dichotomies. For evangelical, and many other, Christians, the  
> belief in a pure, originary space of goodness, from which creation  
> emerged and then fell, is central to the faith. You can't just  
> parse it out.
>
> This is what I am hoping to get at with the mosaic attached here  
> (I'm sorry, I'm not very good with this tech stuff, so the  
> descriptions here are only more-or-less in the order of the photos.)
>
> The first is an image of "The Jesus Film" being shown somewhere in  
> Asia. It is from the site, "JesusFilm.org," the distributor of the  
> film, which is perhaps the most widely used evangelistic tool in  
> the world.
>
> Second is a map of the 10/40 Window, that area of the world  
> targeted by the late 1990s global missionary revival; it marks  
> those areas, "enslaved by Hinduism and Islam" that are sources of  
> particular missions activity by evangelicals from around the world,  
> not just the United States.
>
> Next is an image from Baptist Missions International about  
> "reaching" Africa.
>
> Then a photo from one of the scores of organizations that are  
> opposed to "Christian persecution." This is a typical image of the  
> safer type; often they are far more graphic. This is of a man in  
> Nigeria who is said to have been injured when a Muslim group  
> attacked a church. These are basically "human rights" photos, not  
> so different from those used in other kinds of activism, but now  
> enfolded into this work specifically on the situation of Christians  
> and especially in Muslim countries.
>
> Two final images: one is from "Blood:Water Mission," the charity  
> run by Christian rockers Jars of Clay, which they use to raise  
> money for HIV/AIDS work and well-building projects in Africa. The  
> last is a photo from Micah Challenge, which is an international  
> evangelical activism organization, supported by evangelicals - 
> across- the political spectrum. (I first learned about it at a  
> conference that was otherwise very right wing. The major sponsoring  
> organization is the World Evangelical Alliance.)  The relevant  
> verse in Micah 6:8: "What does the Lord require of you but to do  
> justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God." The  
> "challenge" is to support the UN's goal (yes, the UN) to halve  
> world poverty by the year 2015. The photo is from the "launch" of  
> the Micah Challenge. The full caption is just below.
>
> I hope these images give some sense of the complexity of  
> evangelical internationalism today: its global reach, fears of  
> Islam, and focus on Ch persecution, as well as its commitment to  
> working on issues of global social justice.
>
> Melani
>
> Micah challenge: Archbishop of Cape Town, The Most Reverend  
> Njongonkulu demonstrates Micah Challenge’s commitment to cutting  
> poverty by half, with (from left) Bishop Paul Mususu, (Executive  
> Director of the Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia); Godfrey  
> Yogarajah, (General Secretary of the Evangelical Fellowship of  
> Asia); Fidelis Wainaina, (Director of Maseno InterChristian Child  
> Self Help Group Kenya); Doug Balfour (General Director of Tearfund,  
> UK).
>
>
>
>
> Melani McAlister
> Associate Professor of American Studies
>  and International Affairs
> George Washington Univ.
> mmc at gwu.edu
>
> Mailing address:                Office location:
>     2108 G. St. NW                       609 22nd St. NW
>     Washington, DC 20052            Room 203
>     Main office: 202-994-6070       Direct: 994-6073
>     fax: 202-994-8651
>
> <Jesus film.jpg>
> <1040windowmap.jpg>
> <BMI africa.jpg>
> <nigeria_kenneth.jpg>
> <BWater Missin.jpg>
> <Micah Challenge.jpg>
> _______________________________________________
> Under Fire  http://underfire.eyebeam.org
> 16 October - 10 December 2006
> International Biennial of Contemporary Art of Seville
> all writings copyright individual authors
> no commercial use without permission
> to post a message, send an email to:
> underfire at underfire.eyebeam.org
> to unsubscribe, send an email to:
> underfire-leave at underfire.eyebeam.org

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://underfire.eyebeam.org/pipermail/underfire/attachments/20061117/0d3d1285/attachment-0001.html 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: bush14.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 5444 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://underfire.eyebeam.org/pipermail/underfire/attachments/20061117/0d3d1285/attachment-0001.jpg 