The Unclad Soul

Let me see if I can say this another way. HELP!! I’m trying. I’m trying like crazy to be reasonable about our country. What am I missing? What is it about our nasty national mood that seems okay with so many people? Can we agree that it’s not a good way to live if we hate others? Can we say it’s alright to try and get along with people of another race, another religion than ours, a different sexual orientation, people from other countries and cultures? Isn’t that the smart thing to do? Or, if you like this better, the Christian thing to do? Why is hate thought to be such a formidable force and love is considered weakness? What is it that makes us want to be macho, keep our guns close, to be seen as invincible, to be the badass in the crowd; while being a person of integrity, a man of character, a gentle person with compassion is seen as some kind of wimp, a pantywaist to be dismissed as a coward? I can’t get that Old Testament verse out of my head, the one where th...

I recently posted on Facebook an article from the Houston Chronicle about sexual abuse and sexual harassment from ministers within the Southern Baptist Convention. The author provided solid research that spanned the last 20 years involving pastors, youth workers, deacons, and volunteers within local SBC churches who sexually used, abused, or assaulted teens and women in their congregations. We have seen how pervasive this problem has been within the Catholic Church, but the truth is, it has been going on for years in churches across all denominations. Ministers have easy access to vulnerable teens both male and female, and, to women in their churches. Some come for counseling and end up in some sexual relationship with a pastor or youth minister. Church leaders are often so revered they are considered above reproach and this can create manipulation and taking advantage of a person’s trust by them. It is something some morally weak ministers fall into, and, something unscrupulo...

I am still bewildered by the actions of both Judge Brett Kavanaugh and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last Thursday. The anger, no, the rage in them was shocking. But it was their blatant partisanship that ended any respect I might have for either of them. Yes, Judge Kavanaugh was facing a humiliating time before the Senate Judiciary Committee, having to deny the allegations of sexual assault as a high school teenager. And of course, he would be angry about having his good name, his integrity questioned. After what, as far as we know, has been an exemplary life and an impressive career, it is natural he would be flustered by having all of that ignored because of things he may or may not have done in high school and college. And yet, as a nominee for the highest court in the nation, a position that requires, even demands, an even temperament and the ability to remain politically and religiously impartial and non-partisan, he ...

I am fascinated with TV series that deal with the seedier side of life. I loved The Sopranos. And Peaky Blinders. Also, Boardwalk Empire, Gypsy, House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, and Nurse Jackie. These shows and others like them portray people caught in their human frailties. They are deeply flawed people, wounded, sometimes by their own poor choices in life and sometimes by people who betrayed or used or mistreated them in some profoundly cruel way. I am currently making my way through Showtime’s series, “Ray Donovan.” Soon to begin its 6 th season, the series centers around the Donovan family, a father and three sons mired in old hurts, deception, corruption, and crime. Ray (Liev Schreiber) is the middle son, a “fixer” for L.A.’s elite crowd of Hollywood stars, producers, financiers, and old money people who inevitably cross the line into affairs gone wrong, crooked payoffs, illegal deals, and so forth. Mickey Donovan (Jon Voight) is the father, an old-schoo...

I keep dipping in and out of the Showtime series, “Billions.” It fascinates me. It depresses me. It wildly entertains me. It intrigues me. It infuriates me. It pushes boundaries that disturb me. It portrays people that I wonder if really exist out there, and if so, man, is society screwed. The episodes are based on the moral and ethical conflicts between billionaire financier Bobby Axelrod (Damian Lewis) and U.S. Attorney Chuck Rhodes (Paul Giamatti). Axe, as he is called, is a cunning hedge fund genius with sociopathic tendencies. Rhodes has convinced himself he is the good guy, that he's a man of principle and virtue, even though he crawls around in loathsome behavior. He sees himself as a better person than Axe, and yet he likes S&M experiences with the straps and the gags and the whips and a scantily black leather clad dominating female to humiliate him into a sexual frenzy. That’s his mild side. As U.S. Attorney for New York, the guy is insanely ruthless in his ob...

The election in Alabama yesterday to replace Senate Republican Jeff Sessions ended another high profile, tawdry political race, one that reminds us of how far our political system has fallen into disgrace. Roy Moore, a controversial evangelical firebrand, a man who had twice been removed from office as an Alabama Supreme Court justice, for blatantly ignoring federal laws, and who reportedly was banned from a mall for spooking teenage girls, and who was accused by various adult women of having made inappropriate advances toward them when they were teens, centered his campaign, unbelievably, on Christian principles. Moore made a career of using religion to bolster the support of Christians for his political ambitions. And for years it worked. But apparently many voters got tired of the hypocrisy and the manipulation and rejected him. Including a large number of Black voters who courageously stood up to Moore’s shoddy politics that were often prejudicial and intolerant of minorit...

It saddens and frustrates me to see how religion and patriotism in America have created so much confusion and division in the last many years. The late 1970s brought us the Moral Majority, a loosely held crowd of extremely conservative believers led mainly by the Rev. Jerry Falwell, the wealthy and powerful fundamentalist minister reigning then in Lynchburg, Virginia. He became the voice of the Moral Majority and he masterminded the idea that conservative Christians should take over the government in all aspects of its leadership and influence. From the president and his cabinet to all of Congress, to state governors and state legislatures, all the way down to local school boards and polling captains. It took years, but it worked. Today, our government—national, state, and local—is heavily influenced by far-right, powerful politicians and other leaders who use highly conservative, in some instances, incendiary, religious propaganda in order to convince voters and donors to bot...

“Let’s state it clearly: One great idea of the biblical revelation is that God is manifest in the ordinary, in the actual, in the daily, in the now, in the concrete incarnations of life, and not through purity codes and moral achievement contests, which are seldom achieved anyway.”   ―   Richard Rohr, Priest/Mystic/Author

Episcopal minister and author, Alan Jones, tells in one of his books about a discussion he had with the president of a fundamentalist Christian college.  They were discussing their various theological differences and at some point Dr. Jones asked the college president what was the most difficult part of his job.  The man replied, “Everyone here, faculty and students, is a born-again Christian, and we have had food stolen from the kitchens, books stolen from the library, and there’s even been a suicide.” Apparently that was the most difficult thing facing him as the president of a religious school, the violation of students and others of their Christian principles. I learned a long time ago as someone who worked for years as a leader in the church that just because a person accepts Jesus Christ as their Savior does not mean they have lost their humanity.  And accepting Christ, in my thinking, is not about salvation from hell or ridding oneself of selfish desires o...

Rick Perry’s latest commercial (see below) is another politician’s bogus attempt to use Christianity as a way to get people to vote for him. The whole performance drips with hypocrisy and slime. Perry cynically mocks gays in the military as a way to slam President Obama and in turn try to make himself look so upstanding and righteous. He deridingly and dishonestly says gays can be open in the military but children can’t celebrate Christmas or pray in school. Huh? Then he says he will end President Obama’s “war on religion.” Again, what in the world is he talking about? There is no war on religion by the president or anyone else. The whole damn country is being taken over by fundamentalist religious fanatics. What we do have in this country are politicians like Rick Perry who will do anything in order to get elected to some high office including trying to manipulate people with trite and outright dishonest religious talk. How disgraceful to insult our gay soldiers who are ris...

I saw a decal on the back of an SUV the other day. It read: “Not of this World” and had a Christian cross underneath it. I never have understood this concept. Years ago when I was a minister I used to wrestle with the idea Christians are somehow not supposed to be of this world. What are we supposed to be, aliens? As often happens I think those passages of scripture that mention that phrase are misunderstood. Jesus once said his kingdom was not of this world. But that was clearly a reference to how he dealt with life as opposed to how the Roman Empire handled it. He came from love; they came from fear. His approach was acceptance; theirs was suspicion. His mission was peace; theirs was domination. St. Paul used the phrase in one of his letters. He often spoke out of his harsh background of persecuting Christians. I think sometimes Paul pushed too hard. People who have had unhealthy, scarred, abused, intemperate pasts often use their religious beliefs in the extreme...