50 Shades of Solomon

Some of you may be familiar with the phenomenon which swept the nation recently, inspiring people's more intimate passions with an almost religious fervor. Raising up an idol of sex and BDSM. Yes. This is Fifty Shades of Grey.

Then the iconoclasts came in to smash this idol, to destroy all it stands for, to smash the idol that draws people away from their virginal piety.

There's a lot of anxiety towards the book and movie, especially coming from a lot of the more conservative Christians, as sexuality seems to become a much more celebrated phenomenon in our world. It's a blockbuster movie that people see as an edifice erected in honor of releasing our most secretly sexual desires.

I saw the movie and read part of the book, and I'm pretty familiar with the Bible and I've gotta say, the two are less different than people want to believe... Take Song of Solomon for example, a piece of erotic poetry nestled between Proverbs and Isaiah. It gets pretty risqué at points, and almost mimics the sensations and activities of Fifty Shades. For instance, there's a scene in both that involves pouring wine into the woman's navel, there are so many references to feeling "sick" or "faint," and there's even this weird part where the city guards beat the girl in Song of Solomon and i can't tell if it's supposed to be associating violence with sex or not but all I know is it makes me feel a little uncomfortable...

Taking all these into consideration, I've taken it upon myself to rewrite "Love Me Like You Do," the hit song from the movie, with pieces from Song of Solomon.

You're the wine, you're the spice

You're the perfume on my breasts

You're the flower, you're the tree

Your fruit is sweetest to my taste

Never knew that I could feel so faint, so faint

Make me sick, with your love

In my vineyard full of life

In my breasts, in their cleft

Drink my skin in like it's wine and spice

Hold my breasts as clusters on the vine, the vine

So love me like you do, love me like you do

Love me like you do, love me like you do

Touch me like you do, touch me like you do

What are you waiting for?

Fading in, fading out

In your house of finest wine

Get me drunk, on your love

Hold the jewels that are my thighs tonight

My breasts are like young fawns who graze, who graze

Yeah, my navel overflows

With wine of fragrant nose

Come to the garden and eat the choicest fruits so sweet

Without you I’m incomplete!

Love me like you do, love me like you do

Love me like you do, love me like you do

Touch me like you do, touch me like you do

What are you waiting for?

My clothes already off

Why should I put them on?

Reach your hand into the lock my body moans for you.

What am I gonna do?

Love me like you do, love me like you do

Love me like you do, love me like you do

Touch me like you do, touch me like you do

What are you waiting for?

Hopefully this captures some of the feel behind the naughtier bits of the Song of Solomon, though to be fair, I did purposefully select some of the more overtly sexual parts. So what do we do with such an erotic passage in the Bible? Well, a lot of people struggle with it, so they come up with a variety of reasons. Some call it a metaphor for God's love for the church, distancing it further from the erotic imagery, but others simply assume that the pair in the poem are married. Yes, the lover calls his beloved "bride," but in the cultural context, this does not necessarily mean they are married, but is probably a term of endearment.

The thing to realize is that this is a piece of biblical literature which celebrates sexuality and the loss of virginity, extolling the woman for not keeping herself as long as her sisters have. It's a beautiful thing to this author, which contrasts certain portions of the New Testament which exalt celibacy, recognizing even sex within the confines of marriage as a compromise because of human imperfection. It's something a lot of people have lost sight of, and many just ignore this attitude, whereas others embrace this section (and not the other attitude I mentioned ;3).

There's some interfaith within the Bible itself, a composite of all these different ideas and texts that don't always match up when you look closely, but I think that's one of the most beautiful things about it! So enjoy the song's updated lyrics, and when you're singing along in the car, try out a more pious rendition!

Interfaith, Alcohol and Country Music

I listen to country music more than I usually admit...

I also drink "more than five drinks in one night" more than I usually admit...

But I'm pretty proud of all my interfaith work!

These have all been weighing on me recently... Monday my friend asked if I'd heard Carrie Underwood's new single... And I had. The transformation was complete. I had become a country music fan.

The next day I went to the doctor's office to get medicine for my cough, and every time they asked me about my alcohol drinking habits, I had to admit to "more than five drinks in one night."

Today, I finished an essay on the importance of interfaith for this obnoxious require writing class, and I really appreciated the opportunity to learn more about interfaith on the world stage, and it made me even prouder to be working on this stuff.

This week has basically led me to this point. It's as if a sign has told me that this is the time to share my love of Toby Keith's music. Yes. The above song inspired me the first time it came on the radio. For someone who (apparently) loves country, enjoys drinking (perhaps a little too much), and works in interfaith, this song has become somewhat of an anthem. It's a celebration of diversity, honoring it, appreciating it, yet finding unity in the stupor of drunkenness. Building a community in the least likely... But somehow most likely of places.

Now... Realistically, drunkenness isn't necessarily open to everyone, as many religious groups prohibit either drunkenness or any alcohol at all (many Muslim and Christian sects for example). You probably won't see many turbans next to those ball caps considering Sikhs are also forbidden to get drunk, but I think the sentiment is nice. 

That at our most vulnerable, we can appreciate each other as human beings. That when "drunk talk is sober thought," we can become friends. That even though we're all so different, we're all part of one community. So maybe in this song, it's an American bar where we all get schwasted, but it could be a college campus, or a workplace, or a bowling league or anywhere really.

Maybe it's also because alcohol can often lead to some really bad decisions. Some really hurtful ones too. A 2004 NIBRS (the FBI National Incident-Based Reporting System) study found that hate crimes are significantly more likely when under the influence of drugs/alcohol than other, "unbiased crimes."* The dream of alcohol bringing us together rather than dividing us is an appealing one. Or does this song paint an idealized view? Does it make us think that at such parties, we grow together when we really grow apart? Does it make liberal hippies like me rejoice in the belief that we can all just take substances and sit around singing "Kum Baya My Lord", and make us forget there's really a problem, even for just a moment?

It's definitely easy for me to sit in my car listening to this song and reminiscing about the time I bonded with some Mexican and Salvadoran guys at a party and they shared their beer with me. Or the time I saw the Muslim guy from the party Thursday night at Friday prayers. Or so many other instances of my own positive experiences in the field of interfaith at college parties.

So this is the dream, for me at least. That we find unity in diversity in every situation, and especially that when we get drunk (as so many of us often do...) we will embrace our neighbors in a drunken stupor rather than striking him down in anger. Maybe we won't know who we're embracing, and maybe we won't remember in the morning, but an embrace it will be!

So thank you Toby Keith! Keep inspiring us to truck on towards a future of interfaith, diversity, cooperation and love!

Amen!...?



*Messner S., McHugh, S., & Felson R. (2004). Distinctive characteristics of assaults motivated by bias. Criminology 42: 585-618.

The Most Faithful Member of Atheist Club

"The Religious are bigoted, racist, sexist and homophobic. Fighting to eliminate religion is a form of social justice."
                                                                        -Richard Carrier

Music to the ears of an aspiring pastor such as myself, especially considering my commitment not just to my own faith, but to interfaith groups! Among the groups I participate in is, as you may remember, the Secular Student Fellowship on my campus. So this was pretty funny to me when I heard it at Richard Carrier's lecture last night; you see, the SSF had invited him to speak and I of course came excited for the discussion of Sense and Goodness Without God. Needless to say, the lecture was a little off-putting at points...

A little background on my involvement with SSF:

Freshman year, as a young, plucky Religion major I wandered the booths of my campus involvement fair and noticed the Alliance for Inquiry and Reason, subtitled: Atheist Club. Naturally I came up and told the president I was interested in joining even though I was Christian, cuz I wanted to learn more about what atheists thought about religion. Turned out it was the first year of this group, so I got to be a part of it since the beginning. I've always felt that some Christians talking about Christianity with some other Christians can turn into a big circle jerk as everyone just gets on this "Yea Jesus is the best #truth" kick and no one really questions it... Same thing happens with a lot of atheists too,  but that's another story.

I joined for two reasons:

        1). To Get a New Perspective on Religion, see what
             the non-religious like/don't like about it, hear some
             criticisms from the people outside the fold

        2). To Show People a More Progressive version of
              Christianity. Though I never really imagined
              converting them, I wanted people to know that there
              were some really progressive Christians out there
              too!

Since then, I've come whenever I could, participated deeply in discussion and had to explain numerous times that I was actually a Christian. The first meeting, everyone tip-toed around my feelings, watching their words to a hilarious degree, especially cuz it's really hard to offend me; I wouldn't even say I was offended so much as amused three years later at the Richard carrier lecture. But after a few meetings, we were having really up front conversations and really comfortable together.

In the following years, I've tried to support the club as best I can, letting my secular friends know about it, supporting and participating in club events and helping build the community. It's become really important to me to have a strong secular community, especially cuz so few atheists have a strong atheist community. This past year has been amazing, with the new Secular Humanist Chaplain and a really intentional effort to build community. That's why it's now the SSF. The group has blossomed and a lot of people are joining and gaining some really valuable stuff out of it.

Unfortunately, I don't think Carrier's lecture was any such valuable thing. He was presenting on his book Sense and Goodness Without God, a call to atheists to live moral lives, and an explanation on how to best do that. His basic premise is that opposition to religion is not enough; that atheists must also live moral lives, the natural outcome of a naturalistic worldview (that matter and energy are all that exists) and of a good epistemology. Unfortunately for all the theists in the audience (me and one other person), he was very anti-religion in his talk, as you've probably gathered.

The talk had a few remarks like that sprinkled in, and I wasn't too perturbed (as i said, hard to offend), but immediately after the lecture, people came up to me to apologize on his behalf. Several members were disturbed by the things he said and cringed at them, thinking about how I must feel... Their concern was overwhelming, and I felt so blessed that even with a speaker who was so disrespectful to religious people, the club that I had been a part of, supported and helped grow was not. I realized just how fortunate I was because nothing he could have said would hurt me at all. But hearing what the members had to say about it touched my heart deeply.

I've come away with so much more than I bargained for. This isn't just a community for me to learn more from, or for me to show a new side to religion, but a community that has supported me, transformed me, and already respects all sides of religion. This is a community which respects and loves me, supporting me in my struggles and reveling in my successes. It is a community which has inspired me to genuinely care about the secular community, and about the people that make it up, growing a sympathy for people hurt by religion, or who simply want a community outside religion. It is a community that respects my tradition even while disagreeing with it, that works with people of faith for the betterment of the whole world. I'm proud to be its most faithful member.

Interfaith Week

Hello to my faithful readers!

My... INTERfaithful readers that is! ;P

As you're all aware, I'm really involved in the Interfaith Council at my university, and this year, we're putting on our first Interfaith Week EVER! All very exciting, but also very stressful... And hopefully worth it.

A little background... When I joined, not only was the group incredibly poorly advertised and difficult to find, but they really didn't do much. Now, sitting around once a week to discuss topics and three people going on a trip each semester to a place of worship are great and all, but those were the two biggest things I wanted to change. First, I took over our Souljourn trip, the trip to a place of worship in LA, built it up to visit four different places in one day, and drew crowds of 15-20 the past couple of semesters.

As president, I've been working with the co-president and vice president to build visibility, getting a booth at our Involvement Fair and posting flyers around campus.

The next step has been planning Interfaith Week, a week we hope will become our organization's main event, and help both spread awareness of our organization, and encourage the rest of the student body to engage with a lot of the issues we raise! But it's really been a struggle to plan...

So this week we're in the thick of planning, as it comes up next week and we need a caterer for one of our events and I still need to finish planning the big Souljourn trip and we need to advertise so people come out to the events and on top of planning for my fraternity events, family visiting the same week and all the assignments I have for this writing class I'm taking, I'm drowning in work!

It's just such a difficult thing because we've never done something like this and we're still shaping and deciding exactly how we want the final product to operate. In addition, I feel like the rest of the club is dwindling. The three of us plus two other volunteers from the club are working really hard, but in the meantime, club attendance is going down, and we're worried that next year, when several of us graduate, there will be a lack of leadership to continue the club and we could see it die... Which would really suck. It would suck to see this end cuz it's something I'm so passionate about, and something that's changed my life so profoundly.

Because it's new, we're running so behind, and we have so little help, I've come to accept that this semester, we'll be laying groundwork for next semester more than anything else. If this year's a success, AMAZING! But if not... Next year will be so much easier! So even though it's driving me crazy, I think everything will be okay!

But it's times like this I have to wonder why this stuff is so important to me...

Freshman year, I came to school as a Religion Major, and I knew that I had to join the Interfaith Council. After all, you can only really understand a religion if you talk with the practitioners; studying them in class can only get you so far (and vice versa). It was very poorly advertised, but I found them after a couple of weeks combing the Religious Life website. Joining has changed my life in incredible ways, beyond anything I'd hoped for.

Learning about these other traditions deepened my understanding of my own faith and helped me appreciate other religions. It made me consider all the different ways we imagine God, through the stories we tell and the ways we worship. Perhaps most profoundly, I got to talk religion with secularists and atheists. Seeing the way they approach these issues, and the ways they find meaning without religion has been so impactful, and part of the reason I've remained a part of the Secular Student Fellowship all three years of college. It's been their perspectives that have most enhanced my own spiritual understanding of the world, and changed my life fundamentally. I feel like I'm a more welcoming, loving and kind person because of all these experiences have taught me.

And I want this for others... I want to make this available to anyone who wants or needs this! Because it has inspired me so much, I need to make sure everyone knows we're out there. I don't really proselytize, but if I did, it would be for interfaith, not for Christianity (odd... coming from the future pastor). But I'm serious. This has opened up the world to me, and I want everyone to experience what I've felt... I guess I feel the most influential thing that's happened in a while is becoming not just faithful, but INTERfaithful!

So all this work we're putting in... I think it will be worth it. I think it will make a difference in someone's life, and maybe even help bring new future leaders to our club! And next year we can make it happen again!

So here's to the future of these efforts! Let's make a difference!

Are we all the same?

"Those whose selves are extraordinary, who abide in the divine nature, offer love to me with their minds focused on none other, knowing me as the everpresent origin of beings...

"And there are also others who, sacrificing with the sacrifice of knowledge, worship me in my oneness, in my separateness, and in my many forms facing everywhere."

–Lord Krishna, The Bhagavad Gita 9:12-15

A lot of people think Interfaith Dialogue means you have to think that all religions are essentially the same, or drawing on the same divinity in different way. That it's one mountain, but there are many paths to the top, and that we will all reach the same place, that there's one god in many forms who people worship in many ways.

Seems like Lord Krishna does to. Krishna is an avatar of Vishnu, and if you've ever seen The Last Airbender, you probably . THIS avatar is a form the god Vishnu takes whenever he needs this particular form, and he has several others. It's not a chain of reincarnation, but more a manifestation of Vishnu. Here he's basically telling someone that those truly in touch with the divine worship him as Krishna, but others sacrifice to other incarnations of Krishna (other gods, for example, such as the Judeo-Christian god, the other gods of the Hindu tradition, or the gods of pagan religions, for example). The idea is that those people are really worshipping Krishna, and that they are simply heading up the same mountain by a different path.

However, not everyone thinks that way. Some do, but other people believe that their tradition is the most accurate, and that any others will suffer an eternal damnation for not following the True God. Others think that we are all headed down different paths, worshipping entirely different things, and the ends may be different for all of us. And some just think they can never know, that what will be will be, and no amount of guesswork can discern the truth.

A dear friend and mentor of mine, Jim Burklo (my guru as I refer to him) uses the analogy that there are many paths up many mountains, and we all travel up our own. When we get to the top, maybe we're on different mountains, but maybe we're all in the same mountain range. Maybe our gods are different, but maybe they're all connected. But we all make our own journeys, and arrive at different places.

But no matter what perspective people approach their understanding of other faiths from, they can all join the conversation. I've had beautiful discussions with people who think I'm burning in hell for my... unorthodox beliefs ;P and also with those who think they have no way of knowing, but we all come to the table together. A table where (ideally) everyone can be equal for the moment, and we can come to learn and love rather than to change each other.

That's the dream anyway, for people to talk regardless of how they feel about another person's beliefs. To be respectful and compassionate. But it doesn't always happen. It's hard to do. To use a less religious example, I personally find it painful to talk about vaccination with anti-vaxxers, because I so strongly oppose their ideas because I fear for not only their children, but for others. I struggle to respect and love, because I have such strong feelings. And maybe that's how others feel coming to the table of interfaith. How can they let be burn in damnation when they know what I need to hear to save my soul. It makes it hard to come and participate in a dialogue sometimes, and I understand as someone who feels similarly in a different context.

So how can we get this to happen? Bringing people together? How do we view other faiths? How can we cooperate with not only such fundamentally different views on the world, but different views on how to understand other traditions?

It's a conundrum... But it's one I think is important. Important to solve, but maybe even just important to ask the questions at all.

In Our Lives

Cousin: "Elaine, why are you so involved in Interfaith?"
Elaine: "Cuz cooperating helps make the world a better place."
Cousin: "Cooperate?? But Muslims are just trying to take over the world!"
Elaine: "... Where did you get this information?"
Cousin: "One told me so!"

Since last time's post was so international and world-shaking in scope, I figured I'd share a more personal story. Elaine's a good friend of mine and her cousin is... Less interfaith-savvy than her... The conversation actually happened, paraphrased of course, but Elaine went on to talk about how one person doesn't represent an entire religious group, and even if that one Muslim seriously believed Muslims wanted to conquer the world, you can't look at the entire group as the same as that one.

Even people like the Dalai Lama or the Pope can't represent their entire group, because not everyone follows the exact same version of their religion as those two, even though both supposedly DO represent their faiths. For example, groups of Buddhist monks are massacring people in Myanmar, and some Catholics priests have sexually abused children.

Rather than judging the religion by the few who want to rule the world, or slaughter villagers or rape children, we need to see each person as an individual representative of their personal faith. On the flip side, we can't naively assume that everyone is going to be as peaceful as the Dalai Lama, or as compassionate as the pope. We need to face the harsh reality that some of the people in these religious groups are dangerous, hurtful and/or despicable.

Interfaith isn't just big meetings for peacemaking in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but it can be any moment when you have a conversation about faith with anyone. There are opportunities everywhere to grow in our own understanding of each other, and to contribute to others' understanding, giving and taking whenever we get the chance! It's something that goes on in our daily lives.

Hopefully Elaine's cousin came away better for it, with a new appreciation for other faiths... But what if she didn't? What if all this is doing is alienating her form Elaine, making her see Elaine as "less of a Catholic" because of her interfaith involvement? (Again, this part of the conversation actually happened) What if Elaine really is less of a Catholic because she has to suspend her beliefs to discuss religion with someone she so fundamentally disagrees with?

That's one of people's biggest reservations, that they will become "less" of whatever they are. Less of a Catholic, or a Muslim or an Evangelical Christian for engaging in this dialogue. Similarly, a lot of people assume conservative people can't be involved in the dialogue, or that they won't be because they are so firmly rooted in believing their own tradition to be the only True one. Even conservative atheists are thought to shun interfaith dialogue, mostly because people think they want nothing to do with faith, which is true sometimes, but some of the greatest interfaith discussions I've personally had are so great because of the secular voices that come to the table.

I've never felt like I've had to compromise my own beliefs to participate, but I'm also super progressive (like really though... sometimes I wonder if I've progressed too far...), so maybe I'm just falling into the stereotypes. But Elaine considers herself a staunch Catholic, and on the more conservative side theologically, violating this stereotype. Atheists like Bart Campolo may believe that there is no God at all, but he certainly doesn't feel like he has to compromise his own intellect and reason to discuss what to him may seem to be an imaginary being.

Others feel differently... It's tough to get Evangelical Christians involved because they're often so conservative, and they often are so certain of their own Truth that they have trouble accepting another. Which is a shame because I think everyone has so much to offer to the discussion!

I think it all comes back to those fancy terms Abu-Nimer was using: Religiorelative vs. Religiocentric. Changing the dialogue from focusing on our religion in a central way, and more relatively. But maybe these don't work as well as they work for me... Maybe they don't work for you. But they're a starting point, and I think shifting our thinking in that way can bring us all a little closer, as we have the tough conversations with our cousins, or the chats with our friends. Ready at every moment to gain something from them, and give something if we can!

Israel & Palestine

Welcome back folks :)

I've made it clear that i think interfaith dialogue has the power to change the world, and I've talked about a few places I think it would be most important. The biggest one is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In case you haven't noticed it, there are a lot of people fighting over in the Middle East about a few sections of land, and a lot of people are dying cuz of it... Slight understatement. Point is, it's a horrible thing to see so many die over these small tracts of land.

This conflict also has a lot to do with religion, because most Jews are on Israel's side and most Muslims are on Palestine's side (for the most part), and we have a big interfaith issue. Because religion figures so heavily into the conflict, interfaith dialogue seems to be a natural avenue for the solution. I know certain organizations have been working on this, and one guy I've gotten to know recently used to work in the area. Bart Campolo (the aforementioned guy) used to work with Abraham's Path, an organization that now focuses mostly on religious tourism in the Middle East, but that used to (according to Bart) have a hand in encouraging interfaith cooperation in the area. He described people sitting around tables conversing and trying to convert each other (as many of these passionately fundamentalists often do), but ultimately discussing their ideas possibly for the first time. Communication and cooperation began in these little meetings, and Bart certainly thought the experience made an impact!

I guess I've always thought this work can be really impactful, and Bart agrees, but I've never really studied it before. So... I went searching for more scholarly information and came across:

Abu-Nimer, Mohammed. "Religion, Dialogue and Non-Violent Actions in Israeli-Palestinian Conflict." International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society 17.3 (2004): 491-511. JSTOR. Web.

Using small samples and case studies, Abu-Nimer gives the case for implementing interfaith programs on a larger scale, and provides a framework for doing so. Through his examinations, he has determined that the most effective interfaith programs are the ones that best change participants' viewpoints from what he calls "religiocentric" to "religiorelative." Basically, this means changing from understanding your religion as the only valid one and seeing others as invalid in every way to understanding people's beliefs as valid to them personally (if not true). It's the idea that religion is more RELATIVE and not necessarily CENTRAL. He discusses how to establish groups which effectively do this, and suggests that even the extremely fundamentalist can change their way of thinking.

The reason this is so important is cuz in the diplomacy over this religiously motivated conflict, no religious leaders are present. Instead, politicians discuss the political issues, and peacemakers have tried to remove religion from the discussion, seeing it as only a destructive force. However, this has only prevented diplomats from discussing the issues motivating the violence, and the ones who are condoning and encouraging the violence (often religious leaders) aren't discussing the issues. If, as the author suggests, they can turn the destructive forces of religion into tools for peace and healing, then perhaps there can be an end to the conflict.

But what if bringing more religion just bring more conflict into the mix? Can people who so vehemently disagree on such a fundamental level ever come to an agreement, or would their biases prevent cooperation? Should we leave the discussion to politicians and diplomats? Are there even answers to these questions?