Against the Stream

Bonhoeffer and Niebuhr on "Speaking of Faith"

If you're not familiar to the NPR show "Speaking of Faith," I would highly recommend checking it out. I've got it set up to download as a Podcast, but you can listen to it at their website, or (if you're lucky) get it on your local NPR station.

Every week is interesting, but for the purposes of this site, perhaps most interesting have been the two hour-long shows that have been done on Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Reinhold Niebuhr. These shows grapple with the complexities of both of these great theologians' thoughts, and try to put them in the context of their own world and the social crises to which they were responding.

The question for us, in listening to these shows, is what Bonhoeffer and Niebuhr have to say to us today, and what demands our own context and the social crises today put to us and our Christian faith. Thanks to Krista Tippet for these shows. Go check them out!

Jo Guldi at Sollicitudo Rei Socialis

Good friend and really, really smart Jo Guldi is gues blogging at Sollicitudo Rei Socialis this week. Go check out her stuff. She's always worth reading!

What is Sollicitudo Rei Socialis? Here's the description at their site:

Sollicitudo Rei Socialis seeks to joyfully proclaim moderate, left of center, and nonpartisan social and political principles from the perspective of Catholic social thought, especially as defined by the pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes and by the Holy Spirit speaking to us through tradition, scripture, and the sense of the faithful. Sollicitudo Rei Socialis is a proud member of the Reality-Based Community.

All Your Phone Calls Are Belong to Us!

Whatever should we do about the crimes of the Bush Administration? Why, fix the law so that it's not a crime anymore!

The federal government would have to obtain permission from a secret court to continue a controversial form of surveillance, which the National Security Agency now conducts without warrants, under a bill being proposed by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.).

Specter's proposal would bring the four-year-old NSA program under the authority of the court created by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The act created a mechanism for obtaining warrants to wiretap domestic suspects. But President Bush, shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks, authorized the NSA to eavesdrop on communications without such warrants. The program was revealed in news reports two months ago.

Why bother holding the Administration accountable when you can easily offer a post facto justification by encoding their felonies in the law?

Although that might be technically true, the notion that the Specter bill would "bring the four-year-old NSA program under the authority of the [FISA] court" obscures what's so significant about the Specter bill -- namely, that it would bring the program "under the authority of the court" by providing statutory authorization for a program that is currently illegal.

The draft legislation isn't at all what Senator Specter has been talking about in recent weeks -- namely, a bill to facilitate judicial review of the legality of the current NSA docmestic surveillance program. This bill would appear to do absolutely nothing to address whether the current and ongoing program(s) is (are) permisisble under current law -- that is to say, it would not seek to facilitate judicial review of the AUMF and Article II arguments on which the Administration is relying.

As Glenn Greenwald notes, it is "disorientingly bizarre to hear about a proposed law requiring FISA warrants for eavesdropping because we already have a law in place which does exactly that. It's called FISA. That's the law the Administration has been deliberately breaking because they think they don't have to comply with it and that Congress has no power to make them."

And it may be worse than that! For folks like me, who still care about what used to be called "freedom" (aren't we fighting a war somewhere to bring that to some folks?), this legislation can bring us right back to the bad old days of Nixon, Hoover, and COINTELPRO:

It's not simply a a reenactment of the "FISA framework" -- instead, it's a wholescale dismantling of that framework, a substantive amendment to FISA that would vastly increase the surveillance authority of the President. It would give the Executive branch everything it has always wanted, and much more: The punishment for having broken the law with impunity would be a wholesale repeal of the law that has governed electronic surveillance for almost 30 years (and not only with respect to Al Qaeda or terrorism). In one fell swoop, the Specter legislation would undo the detailed regulatory scheme that both political branches have so carefully calibrated over more than a quarter-century.

Once again, I want to stress what I've said before: This whole program is unconstitutional, doesn't do anything that couldn't have been done legally under existing law, and actually undermines the struggle to identify and stop terrorists by overwhelming the intelligence community with too much unnecessary information. To oppose this program isn't to oppose security, it's to oppose the continuing expansion of executive power over every facet of American life. It was and remains an unwarrented (pun intended!) intrusion into the lives of ordinary Americans.

Im. Peach. Him!

UPDATE: More on the pro-impeachment front, from Lindsay:

Impeachment for FISA is a no-brainer. There's no question the president broke the law, and there's no question that his offense is a serious felony that he committed in his official capacity as POTUS. There are no nagging questions about whether his misconduct could be dismissed as a personal matter, or whether his misdeeds rise to the level of national importance. Nor is there any doubt that Congress has a duty to impeach any president who commits crimes on this scale--the alternative would be to put the president above the law.

Only practical questions remain: Do Democrats have the political power and the popular support to impeach George W. Bush. Right now, the answer is clearly no. However, the 2006 elections might drastically alter the balance of power in Washington. If and when they do, we should be ready. That means keeping the impeachment discussion alive until justice can be done.

100% agreed.

Sex and Corruption

That's the problem at the U.N., at least according to the emphatically not-crazy John Bolton:

Bolton, a longtime critic of the U.N., has been leading U.S. efforts to reform the United Nations after the oil-for-food scandal and sex scandals involving U.N. peacekeepers.

Well, now we know.

Orthodoxy

Given that there are some out there who would label all things progressive or liberal "anti-Christian" (as one such did to Christopher Hedges after he spoke at DePaul), it's a relief to know that I've got actual, internet quiz-based proof of my orthodxy right here:

You scored as Chalcedon compliant. You are Chalcedon compliant. Congratulations, you're not a heretic. You believe that Jesus is truly God and truly man and like us in every respect, apart from sin. Officially approved in 451. Chalcedon compliant 100% Pelagianism 67% Nestorianism 42% Modalism 42% Monophysitism 42% Adoptionist 33% Apollanarian 17% Monarchianism 17% Arianism 17% Socinianism 8% Gnosticism 8% Donatism 0% Albigensianism 0% Docetism 0% Are you a heretic? created with QuizFarm.com

Hat tip to Frank for the link.

Unbelievable

This headlines explains so much about what's wrong with the United States today:

CNN Pundit: Mosque Bombing Shows Bush Strategy Is Working In Iraq

Follow the link. There's a video!

Has It Been a Week Already?

Well, it's hard to believe a whole week went by since my last post! It's not that nothing exciting has been happening, but simply that I haven't had a lot of time to blog. I'm going to try to up my average of once-a-week posting over the coming weeks and months, drawing your attention to interesting items on the net and trying to come up with clever and/or intelligent things to say.

Stay tuned!

If I shoot a guy in the face, is it my fault?

Not to minimize this, because it's very important, and the circumstances are very grave, but what kind of a threshhold for moral (not to mention legal) responsibility ought we be holding our high elected officials to?

Since Dick Cheney shot one of his hunting companions in the face on Saturday, it has been said repeatedly by the White House a) that it was accidental and b) that it was Whittington's fault. Now, leaving aside for a moment how it can simultaneously be an accident and someone else's fault, what are the standards for caution when you're handling a gun? I've never hunted, so I need to rely on hunters for my assessment. Based upon my all-too-casual perusal of the blogs on this, it seems that Lindsay sums up the consensus:

Of course, Cheney is responsible. Any gun owner will tell you. If you pull the trigger and hit someone, it's your fault. You're supposed to be looking where you're shooting. I find it hard to believe that Whittington dove into a stream of oncoming fire, especially if he initially came up behind Cheney.

I find it reprehensible that the Vice President's office has worked so hard to blame the victim in this matter, and particularly given that his condition appears to be much worse than we were initially led to believe.

The VP is clearly the responsible party in this, and he needs to step up. I'd go so far as to say that if Whittington dies, Cheney ought to resign. If not, he ought to be impeached. After all, if oral sex is sufficient grounds for impeachment, surely shooting someone in the face should be.

Lessons from Bonhoeffer

I'll probably have more to say in the coming months about the legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, but for now I want to point out Larry Rasmussen's excellent essay in the latest Sojourners about what Bonhoeffer's theology, life and resistance mean today. I suggest reading the whole thing, but here are several key points:

What are the lessons for the church from Bonhoeffer’s insights and Stern’s conclusions?
            1) Because they were culturally captive, Protestant churches suffered confusion about true patriotism. Ideologically and institutionally aligned with the state, they were unable to take the measure of civic loyalties and faith community loyalties when these conflicted.
            2) Given this entanglement of church, state, and culture, national turmoil generated church turmoil. Even the resisting church had to rediscover a faith to live and die by, and do it amidst fast-moving events. New ways to render faith publicly visible in discipleship practices—such as resistance, community, and institutional up-building, and rethinking the faith itself—became the task of ministry, all amidst crisis and war. Too much was asked of far too few.
            3) The churches needed allies. They found some but didn’t create a genuine movement in sufficient time to counter the growing base of right-wing populism. A church community that resists by way of confessing is necessary; but short of a broad-based, cross-cutting movement of allies, both secular and religious, it does not suffice.
            4) Moral-spiritual formation, with its powers of discernment, was a needed habit of life before crises arose so that fascism could be sharply challenged before it became entrenched. “Resist the beginnings” is the requirement. Resist the beginnings of compromises that dull the moral senses and take their ease in a life of cheap grace. Resist the beginnings that give evil, willed blindness, and civic passivity a foothold. Don’t let the right eye wink at complicity or the left hand abet it. Resist becoming unwitting accomplices to an errant leader. Resist all the places in your own soul that give way. A discerning spirituality is as vital as the right politics and indispensable to it.

Amen, and amen.

Wellstone and King

A lot has been made in recent days of the fact that, during Coretta Scott King's funeral, some of the speakers took the opportunity to offer remarks critical of President Bush's policies and politics. In particular, Jimmy Carter and Joseph Lowery have been excoriated for their remarks.

The event has been likened to the funeral of Paul Wellstone, when the right wing media scorched the earth in wrath over the "politicization" of the event. With that in mind, it's worthwhile to hear what Al Franken, who attenede the Wellstone funeral, has to say about that:

It was the Republicans that tried to cheapen Paul Wellstone's life by dishonoring his death. It was the right-wing media, not the friends and family who spoke at the memorial or the people who came to it, that seized an opportunity to use a tragedy for political gain.

Now to the King funeral, which I did not see in its entirety.

Coretta Scott King was 78 when she died. Her death followed a long illness and was not a big shock. Her family and friends had had time to prepare for her death and had not lost five other friends and/or family members in a tragic plane crash.

Four presidents spoke. One of them, Jimmy Carter, made a passing reference to the fact that Martin and Coretta King had been the victims of domestic wiretapping by the government. Was it a shot at President George W. Bush, who was sitting right behind Carter? Probably. Was that inappropriate? Maybe.

Would Coretta Scott King have enjoyed the moment? I don't know. You know who would have a better idea than me? Jimmy Carter. He knew Mrs. King. Those who are currently complaining - most of whom claim to be offended on her behalf - didn't know her at all.

Coretta Scott King was a political woman. Most of those complaining on her behalf are against everything she stood for. In her later years she spoke passionately on behalf of affirmative action. Should her family have been offended that President Bush didn't mention this and apologize for it? Should they have been offended that the first President Bush didn't mention that he had campaigned for Congress in 1964 against the 1964 Civil Rights Bill and didn't apologize for that?

I don't think so. I think they were happy the two Bush Presidents showed up and paid their respects. I think they were also happy that Carter mentioned the wiretaps and that Joseph Lowery mentioned that there had been no WMD's in Iraq. Because that's probably what their mother would have wanted.

You should go read the whole thing.