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 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.
