Philocrites' notebook

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Humanism vs. science? Jeremy Stangroom attacks humanism from a secular perspective for being more committed to humanistic ethics than to science. Don't you just love it when a reductionist decides that other people are dogmatists? 8.26.03

Liberal realism. David Rieff pours cold water on the dream of global citizenship, and says it's time for a liberal realism in foreign affairs. Can a liberal be a pessimist? 8.22.03

Mrs Philocrites corner. People often ask how Mr and Mrs Philocrites manage their interfaith relationship. We like to say that it's really more of an ecumenical affair. 8.19.03

Condemn by repeating the past. Susie Linfield writes: "The reliance on historic analogies is an evasion of the particular, indeed novel, political complexities . . . that have emerged since (but are not solely the result of) September 11." 8.19.03 | more

The arrangers. Twenty-two-year-old Kimberly Devlin's mother decided that the young woman was unlucky in love. Or did she just want to get on TV? 8.19.03

Can a fundamentalist be a unitarian? The Biblical Unitarian Web site thinks so. How are the "biblical unitarians" unlike the early American Unitarians? 8.13.03

Morality vs. ethics. I have always wanted a good, simple way to describe the difference between morality and ethics, and now that I have started reading Avishai Margalit's The Ethics of Memory, I finally have one! 8.12.03

Catholic democracy. Dan Kennedy offers a blistering critique of the Pope's attack on gay rights. One quibble: Catholic conservatives aren't the only people who value the notion of "natural law." 8.8.03

Do Utahns need public space? The LDS Church just bought a fourth downtown Salt Lake City block and wants to erect a skywalk between two of them to "provide a welcoming, open atmosphere" and maintain "the 'classical' feel emanating from Temple Square and the church's headquarters to the north." In other words, where the pesky First Amendment doesn't apply. 8.8.03

Unitarians in suits. Of course it stands no chance of closing down the Mormon Church's expensive new plaza, but a new lawsuit from the ACLU and the First Unitarian Church sure will give non-Mormons something to cheer for. 8.5.03

Desperate measures. Apparently fasting and prayer didn't work in conservative Episcopalians' efforts to stop the consecration of the openly gay bishop of New Hampshire, so somebody decided to try mud. 8.4.03 | more | more | On second thought 8.6.03

Genesis for grown-ups. "Nothing mitigates Genesis's skepticism about the nature of humanity," writes Edward Rothstein. Such skepticism "sees limits on humanity's abilities to perfect itself through the use of reason alone." But is it illiberal to acknowledge human limits? 8.2.03

Mormonism + X = violence. Quick: Find the variable in this equation! 8.2.03

Uphill battle. Let's say you have the President and the Pope on one side of an issue. Who do you need on the other side to win — and how will you get them there? 8.1.03

Architecture as metaphor. How the architecture of the First Unitarian Church in Salt Lake City expresses one kind of liberal theology. Plus, other UUs in the news! 7.27.03

Subtitling the Gospel. Is Mel Gibson just a goofball for Christ? Or is he also a dirty rotten scoundrel? 7.26.03

Happy Pioneer Day! A fit of nostalgia has washed over me, thinking back to the neighborhood celebrations of "Mormonism's greatest holiday." And while we're on the subject, why did the Lafferty brothers commit murder on July 24? 7.24.03

When a man loves a woman. Just as the priest celebrating our Episcopal church wedding last Saturday began the celebration of the eucharist, the band across the street at the Amherst Crafts Fair started playing "When a Man Loves a Woman"! 7.20.03

Ignoring Africa, left and right. When it comes to Africa, both ends of the political spectrum prefer to look the other way. 7.19.03

What is a church, anyway? Whether Unitarian Universalists are fully conscious of it or not, they are drawn into the covenant of the church by a creative power that transcends them. 7.6.03

Damned laity! Mark A. Thomas says, "This is the sad and convoluted result when you let the laity run a 'church' with their flawed human wisdom." So where can one find a "church" that lacks "flawed human wisdom" in its leadership? 7.5.03 | responses

More than words. The most wonderful surprise of this General Assembly has been the reminder that expressing what is inspiring and compelling about liberal religion does not have to be so verbal. 6.29.03

Subscriber overboard! Just as I suspected, those Nation and National Review magazine cruises are chock full of true believers and tend to be, well, a tad geriatric. So what would a UU World cruise look like? 6.18.03

Best sermon contest! Find an especially well-written sermon originally delivered in a Unitarian Universalist or independent liberal church or to a UU audience, send me a link, and tell me what you liked best about it. 6.15.03 | first entry | second entry

Nationalism and its discontents. Liberals ought to embrace the twin goals of assuring both the viability and the humanity of the nation-states on which their liberal societies depend. 6.14.03 | more

Starting in despair. Sadly, the conversation among Unitarian Universalists about the conflicted and tortuous history in the Middle East is really quite appalling. 6.13.03

He liked tax collectors, too. Conservative Alabama Governor Bob Riley offers a theological argument for progressive taxation! WWJD indeed. 6.10.03

Not just horsing around. My brother Richard is getting ready to ride in the equestrian events in the Special Olympics World Games in Dublin, Ireland, later this month. 6.7.03

Relativism or pluralism? From Isaiah Berlin, on the clash of irreconcilable but equally real values. 6.2.03

Modern theology 101. My own theological thinking is probably a some kind of process-postliberal hybrid. 6.2.03

We must not postulate simplicity. Religion is not simply "what should we do?" but "how shall we respond to the ultimate mystery?" The quest for a lowest common denominator is a terrible approach to take in theology. 6.1.03

Rwanda reloaded. Do we believe that the world has a responsibility to stop genocide? Do we invest in institutions that can act? Do we pressure our governments to take this responsibility seriously? Here's the test case. 5.31.03

It isn't 1933. I know where James Traub is coming from when he blasts back at left-liberal comparisons of the post-9/11 United States to the rise of the Third Reich. When we think that anyone to our right is quasi-fascist — and we say so! — we're setting ourselves up to fail dramatically. 5.31.03

Which way to Mecca? Clifford Geertz read 50 of the new books on Islam, and has come up for air in the New York Review of Books. 5.29.03

Breached? The Bush Administration has picked a vulnerable spot in liberal doctrines about the wall separating church and state to insert the wedge of government funding: historic building preservation. 5.29.03

Elevation. A tour guide (dressed in three-corner hat and knee breeches) told a group of bored teenage tourists: "The Puritans founded Boston as a 'city set upon a hill.' They believed that the higher up you are, the closer you are to God." Whoa! 5.22.03

A vocabulary of reverence. The closest I've come to addressing this question is a bit of a hedge, I'm afraid. 5.19.03

Unitarian Universalism watch. Richard Higgins' New York Times article describes the outrage Sinkford's statements have caused as "a firestorm of protest from humanists," but it is important to note that some of this is really an expression of a battle taking place within the humanist movement. 5.17.03

The Muslim war against Islamism. Be sure to read "Pilgrims and Passages: The Flight of faith" by Amir Soltani Sheikholeslami. 5.16.03

Unitarians against Graham. In separate resolutions, the Canadian Unitarian Council the British Unitarians have opposed Franklin Graham and other Evangelicals-in-humanitarians-clothing in Iraq. Will the UUA follow suit? 5.10.03

Dogmatism watch. Here's something refreshing: some sharp candor about the dogmatism that lurks in Unitarian Universalist circles, from a UU military chaplain-in-training. 5.5.03

Irony, Utah. So, after all these years, it turns out that Utah is the promised land for intellectuals! 5.1.03

More than words. Liberals are uncomfortable with power. The word conjures up concepts that we don't often regard as liberal notions, like coercion or force. Some Unitarian Universalists even get twitchy about "authority," "rules," or "law" — as if the liberal concern is with power itself rather than the legitimate use of power. 4.28.03

Humanist revival. This year is the seventieth anniversary of the publication of "A Humanist Manifesto." Its ideological heirs have just released a brand new manifesto. 4.21.03 | more 4.25.03

Cosmology op-ed! Paul Davies writes on the Times op-ed page, "The multiverse theory may be dressed up in scientific language, but in essence it requires the same leap of faith." Why? 4.12.03 | more 4.15.03

Iraq's divided Christians. Ken Joseph Jr., an "Assyrian Christian minister," visited Iraq and was transformed from a peacenik into a hawk. There's more to this story than you'd guess. 4.8.03

Michael Kelly on the Unitarians. In December 2001, Kelly described the Unitarian Christmas pageant in which his son played a small role. After Kelly's death in Iraq, the Washington Post reprinted that column as a tribute. 4.5.03

Doomed to choose. Isaiah Berlin, my current favorite philosopher, says: "We are doomed to choose, and every choice may entail an irreparable loss." 4.3.03

The Bible's plot. "J. Clinton McCann Jr. summarizes the plot of the Bible this way: 'Sinners do not get what they deserve,' which is 'precisely what grace means.'" Plus: apatheism! 4.1.03

Puritanism today. Do we need to blame Evangelicalism for the pervasive tendency to invoke God's blessing when troops go to battle? Well, perhaps in American history we do. 3.30.03

Liberalism divided. James Luther Adams argued that liberalism promotes "liberation from tyranny, provincialism, and arbitrariness." But some historic expressions of liberalism have achieved exactly the opposite — which is why liberalism must always be a self-critical movement. 3.28.03

In support of an unjust war. Our war is unjust. So is Saddam Hussein's, says Michael Walzer. But it matters who wins — and liberals should be focusing on insuring a just victory. 3.28.03

Focus on the frame. "Why do conservatives seem to communicate better than liberals?" asks Chris Mooney. Liberals tend to overintellectualize, forgetting that if the facts don't fit the frame, most people reject the facts. How can liberals reframe the public debate? 3.26.03

Liberalism's enemies. In the 1930s, when liberalism faced serious challenges from fascism and totalitarian Marxism, two Unitarian movements offered a religious defense of liberalism. 3.26.03

War of ideas. Sayyid Qutb is the Marx of radical Islam. "His deepest quarrel was not with America's failure to uphold its principles," writes Paul Berman. "His quarrel was with the principles." Where are liberalism's prophets? 3.25.03 | Paul Berman's Terror and Liberalism watch 4.13.03 | more 4.26.03

Pacific alliance. Many Christian leaders have effectively embraced pacifism, even if they say they would support a "just war." But what is "the last resort" when military force is appropriate? 3.25.03

Grand-standing. Tufts student Elizabeth Monnin flipped off President Bush and lost her Senior Award. A case study in how progressive activists need new tactics. 3.23.03

Too many churches? Twenty-nine churches in one square mile, not only disengaged from the neighborhood but actively opposing urban renewal. Plus: urban pagans! 3.23.03

The religion variable. How do Americans' religious beliefs affect their support or opposition to war with Iraq? And why do their views diverge from the positions taken by their denominational leaders? 3.22.03

Discrimination. Our prayers shouldn't distinguish between soldiers and civilians killed in war — but our military strategy should. 3.22.03

When states fail. Jean Bethke Elshtain argues: "When a state destroys or is prepared to destroy its own citizens and to propel its violence outside its own borders, it becomes a criminal entity. Under just war theory, states themselves must often come under severe moral scrutiny." 3.22.03

Antiwar tactics. Timothy Burke writes: "You cannot stop the war. Don't even try. Don't even fantasize that you can. You can only prepare to exact a political price from the people who led us so poorly to this point." Some tips for political protesters. 3.20.03 | Todd Gitlin's priorities for dissenters 3.7.03

Just war calculator. Need help deciding whether war with Iraq meets just war criteria? Beliefnet has a quiz for you. 3.20.03

Utah's wacky prophets. Every few years, the news from Utah includes a story about a religious zealot. Consider the "prophet" who kidnapped Elizabeth Smart. 3.14.03 | 'Thou sayest' 3.16.03

Crisis of faith. Sometime soon, when the bombs start to fall, a new crisis will overtake religious people who have actively opposed President Bush's war to topple Saddam Hussein. What does it mean to "hold fast to what is good" in a time of war? 3.11.03

Liberal hawks cool down. Antiwar liberals charge that "liberal hawks" have been naive, projecting their hopes onto Bush's plan. Seeing that Bush meant to take out Saddam Hussein, though, liberal hawks have tried to help shape the outcome. 3.4.03

Theologian in chief. Some on the religious right have longed for "a Davidic ruler — a political leader like the Bible's David, who will unite their secular vision of the nation with their spiritual aspirations. All indications are that they believe they have found their David in Bush." 3.3.03 | more

Forceful opposition. Michael Walzer says we still need "a strong international system, organized and designed to defeat aggression, to stop massacres and ethnic cleansing, to control weapons of mass destruction, and to guarantee the physical security of all the world's peoples." 2.23.03

Poetry in a time of crisis. Billy Collins on Wislawa Szymborska, Robert Frost, and the poets who wanted to protest at the White House. 2.22.03

The risks of commitment. In The Metaphysical Club, Louis Menand clearly buys Oliver Wendell Holmes's assertion that "certitude leads to violence." The phenomenon is what Paul Tillich called idolatry — but unlike Menand, Tillich knew that we cannot avoid tragic commitments. 2.21.03

Iraqis on the war. It would be barbaric to destroy what little remains in Iraq if we don't leave something better, and it is scandalous that President Bush isn't even talking about the expense. 2.18.03

Bin Laden to Saddam: 'My war'. It doesn't serve bin Laden's purpose to pretend (or admit) that Saddam Hussein is the new Mullah Omar, but it does serve his purpose to make himself out to be the savior of the Iraqis in their time of need. He's rebranding the war. 2.12.03

The Rev. George W. Bush. President Bush's Christianity strikes me as a species of "all about me" theology: God saved me, God loves me, and God endorses my desires. But Bush is forgetting something. God's love is a promise to the penitent, not the arrogant. 2.11.03

'A deadline helps concentrate the mind'. As awful as war is, opponents of military action have lost this round. At this point, responsible liberals ought to turn their attention toward insuring four long-term outcomes. 2.6.03

When our tools fail and words do not console. The machine breaks, the vessel falters, and the rest of us, watching dumbfounded, ache with the loss of what we love most — not the tools, not their victory over nature, but human beings on their way home. 2.1.03

Decisions. The problem is that President Bush's case for war is different than the one that "reluctant hawks" like David Remnick, Joshua Micah Marshall, and Brian Urquhart have endorsed. Once again, I wish the Democrats had been cultivating a liberal foreign policy in the last decade. 1.29.03

Dissent from the center. Liberals who want to be taken seriously should follow the example of the civil rights movement: Talk about what makes you proud of your country, and how those are the things worth defending. Show how the policies you oppose violate the ideals and best interests of your country. 1.28.03

The varieties of religious war. Bernard Avishai argues that if demanding fidelity to one set of answers is the threat posed by religious extremism, there is another threat posed by the zealots of secularism: a world indifferent to religious questions. 1.27.03

Marching as to war. President Bush could have made quite a case against Saddam, if he had been willing to build a coalition against him slowly and intelligently. I can't wait to hear how we'll embark on nation-building through tax cuts. 1.27.03

About those weapons. What if Iraq no longer has a nuclear weapons program? Would Saddam still be a threat to the world? 1.24.03

'Little circles of the pure and the saved.' Conservative critics of the antiwar movement say that liberals aren't challenging ANSWER's absurd agenda. They're wrong, but more liberals need to speak up. 1.23.03

The mind in chains. What would motivate an Iraqi to tell an American reporter, "We love Saddam Hussein, not only love him, we adore him, he is the symbol of our unity. Without Saddam Hussein we will die, believe me"? Czeszlaw Milosz and Mario Vargas Llosa know. 1.19.03

Three faces of the antiwar movement. Most Americans recognize Saddam, Milosevic, and Jong-Il as brutal dictators. They may not want to go to war, but they're definitely not going to sign up for the pro-despot radicalism of ANSWER's antiwar rallies. 1.17.03

Apology for a tyrant. Religious leaders who oppose war with Iraq should be more honest: The opposite of war, in this case, is not peace. Life under a tyrannical regime is incompatible with a liberal vision of human dignity. 1.16.03 | More: Buehrens on war in 1998 | Buehrens on war now

What is the Unitarian Universalist "good news"? Bill Sinkford has been clarifying what he wants to share with the world. We don't need to use his language if it doesn't reflect our deepest commitments and experiences — but what do we want to share with the world? 1.15.03

God and the Seven Principles. Aside from the questionable assumption that God would improve the UUA's public relations, just how explicit was Sinkford's call for a revision of the UUA's principles? 1.14.03 | more | Holy debate 8.10.03

When Buddhists go to war. Many religious seekers in the West, horrified by Christianity's record of violence, have turned to the East looking for a less bloody faith. What then to make of Zen militarism in World War II? 1.11.03

Symbolic Palestinians. Michael Scott Doran argues that "although Palestine is central to the symbolism of Arab politics, it is actually marginal to its substance." Anti-Western powers in the Middle East use the Palestinians in a "proxy war" with the United States. 1.9.03

Art about the crucifixion. Art and religion both give us ways to encounter what would otherwise be impossible and too horrifying to encounter; they redeem or at least transform death's meaning, though neither one can change what happened. 1.8.03 | more | more

Was Channing a biblical inerrantist? William Ellery Channing treats the Bible as "the records of God's successive revelations to mankind" — a compilation of human accounts, written by human beings, about God's revelation. Channing was no "inerrantist." 1.2.03

Is there political diversity among UUs? If we don't ask people to have their religious opinions all worked out before joining us, what makes it legitimate to expect that someone have all their political opinions worked out before joining us? 12.26.02

Foreign policy for liberals. Writing in Mother Jones, George Packer offers a manifesto for a viable and genuinely liberal foreign policy. Unless we help democracy flourish in places where it is currently weak or nonexistent, no amount of "homeland security" will make us safe. 12.26.02

Who is for human rights? Where should liberals come down in current debate? For human rights, surely, which means dismissing the outrageous moral relativism of the antiwar left on the one hand and the unilateralist nationalism of the go-it-alone right on the other. 12.14.02

Liberalism's Iraq dilemma. George Packer interviews liberal intellectuals to find out why they haven't joined the antiwar movement. "This time the argument is taking place not just between people but within them, where the dilemmas and conflicts are all the more tormenting." 12.8.02

The question of empire. Well-meaning people who want to see a realistic alternative to the use of military force are confronted with the angry slogans and absolute demands of utopian radicals. American power, to them, is the source of the problem; neutralizing it is the solution. 11.21.02

Dogma and liberal doctrine. Unitarian Universalists are not and never have been anti-doctrinal: We know that what we believe matters, but we argue about definitions, believing that this process yields greater value than claiming to have the definition nailed down. 11.21.02

Is the Bible hateful? Unitarian Universalism ought to be the most historically aware, spiritually sensitive, and intellectually engaged religion — but when it comes to the Bible, we sometimes seem to lose our nerve, letting others define what the Bible "means." 10.18.02

Two views of just war theory. "Hard just war theory can make American Christians too likely to support marginal or unjust wars," writes David Gushee. "Yet soft just war theory can weaken our moral clarity ... when we must have sufficient resolve to fight truly just wars." Which applies now? 10.3.02

The ethic of morality and the ethic of vocation. E. Digby Baltzell examined key differences between Quakers and Puritans. Unitarianism inherited much of its ethics from the Puritans. 9.26.02

Malevolent freedom. I see no reason to believe that people act benevolently by default, or that, as Plato thought, people always strive to maximize the good and only err by selecting false goods. 9.20.02

Where are the liberal alternatives? Until the Democrats identify liberal principles that can effectively address real problems in the larger world, no amount of talk about root causes will generate enough public support to deter Bush from some of the zanier parts of his agenda. 9.20.02

An idea worth defending. It is in fact an idea that "no idea, ideal, or philosophy is superior to a single human life." There's bitter irony here, because if your enemy opposes this idea, and is willing to kill to oppose it, you have a terrible choice to make. 9.11.02

Tragic freedom. I think of sin and salvation primarily in terms of tragic contingency and creative freedom: We're fated to be free. We are at odds with ourselves and with each other as well as with our ideals. 8.29.02

What is 'Unitarian anthropology'? Unitarians have tended to say that human nature is inherently good and intuitively trustworthy as a moral guide. Evil, they often add, is the corruption of the individual by social forces. Universalists saw things differently. 8.29.02

How Unitarian Universalists can help. Israelis and Palestinians don't need us to dream up scenarios; they simply need us to insure that our government stays committed to resolving the conflict. 8.21.02

Want to help the Palestinians? Yossi Klein Halevi writes that taking up the Palestinian cause by condemning and isolating Israel won't help the Palestinians and will certainly harm Israel and the Jews. 7.19.02

Physical or spiritual resurrection. 1 Corinthians 15 emphasizes that the resurrected body is different from the physical body. It's not just "alive again"; something much more than resuscitation has occurred. 7.10.02

Retrograde theology?. We need what the past has to offer, or we will have to invent for ourselves from scratch the entire human heritage in each generation. 7.8.02

Revelation and relation. Unitarian Universalists need to distinguish between the ultimate commitments that characterize personal faith and the forms of allegiance that bind people together in a common cause. 7.8.02

Revelation. Revelation in most religions is the ultimate source of authority. It answers the ultimate "why" question. What — beyond personal whim — is ultimately authoritative for Unitarian Universalists? 7.3.02

Making it up. Unitarian Universalists don't have a Gautama Siddhartha, or a Jesus of Nazareth, or a Mohammed, or a Joseph Smith. We don't even pretend to. We evolve and modify, but we don't reveal. We have precious little to build a "new religion" on. 7.2.02

Is Unitarian Universalism a new religion? To the extent that we Unitarian Universalists think of ourselves as a "new religion," we consign our movement to irrelevancy, intellectual confusion, and spiritual shallowness. 6.26.02

Atheism is easy. "Atheism has somehow established itself, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, as the ordinary punter's default position," writes Jonathan Rée in Harper's magazine. It is "the 'do not disturb' sign hung out by the intellectually inert." 6.28.02

'Under God.' One's allegiance to a nation is always limited, or ought to be. The nation has strong claims to a citizen's loyalty — up to the point where more ultimate loyalties come into play. 6.28.02

Conflict and control. Some conflicts cannot be solved by accommodation without sacrificing fundamental principles. There's a proverb that says that any kind of peace is preferable to any kind of war, but I don't think that's true. 6.5.02

Spring Break amid the newsletters. I would rather have spent Spring Break sitting on a beach in the Caribbean, but getting paid to thumb through a half-decade's worth of UU newsletters wasn't a total bust. 4.17.97

Resurrection. The power of a regenerative story is that it regenerates us. If God could operate through the life of a Mediterranean peasant, why can't God operate through our lives? 12.12.96

Writings in the Unitarian Universalist tradition. Books fundamental to my understanding of liberal religion. 10.14.96

Religious absolutes and liberal religion. Each religion knows that the Truth is larger than our ability to comprehend totally, but the desire to know the truth animates every religion. 8.21.96