You shall not deprive a resident alien or an orphan of justice; you shall not take a widow's garment in pledge. Remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I command you to do this.
- Deuteronomy 24:17-18
This verse arrived in my inbox last week, via Sojourner's Verse and Voice email.
South Carolina's evangelical governor refuses to resign after disappearing for a week to be with his mistress. Comparing himself to King David, the governor stated:
A rabbi in the NY Times yesterday notes:
I just read over the Supreme Court decision that came down yesterday regarding the New Haven Caucasian firefighters' discrimination lawsuit. I especially liked Justice Ginsburg's dissent and her reference to "empathy." She is great! Although, I may be affected by the fact that one of her former clerks taught my constitutional law class last semester!
...to The Rescues' Crazy Ever After. Love love love this album and I don't think I'll ever get tired of it!
I read an article today about a pastor encouraging his parishioners to bring their guns to a church service tonight (contingent on the pastor finding a new insurance carrier, as their current one canceled their coverage for today!!).
This flies in the face of what Jesus said were the two greatest commandments. I cannot reconcile supporting gun rights with loving your neighbor. A different pastor who was shot in a different church while preaching is completely disgusted by the pro-gun pastor's actions, and commented:
“I don’t understand how any minister who is familiar with the teachings of the Bible can do this,” he added. “Jesus didn’t say, ‘Go ahead, make my day.’ ”
I just finished watching I Heart Huckabees. It was weird but funny. I loved the dinner scene with the Christian family and the Sudanese refugee! "Jesus is never mad at us if we live with Him in our hearts." Tommy Corn: "I hate to break it to you, but He is - He most definitely is." If you ever want to watch an offbeat, philosophical film that skewers our society, I recommend this film. The Shania Twain element was cracking me UP!
...about reading the Twilight series and watching the movie over and over. The final scene of the movie includes an Iron and Wine song! They are one of my favorites.
Twilight and the telenovas my husband and I watch are the two things of which I don't allow myself to perform a feminist critique. One of these days I'm sure I can enjoy a good story without getting miffed about how women are portrayed...
I read The Accidental American by Rinku Sen and Fekkak Mamdouh earlier this year. It's about Fekkak's journey of immigrating to the US, working in the restaurant industry, and organizing immigrant workers to fight for their rights, but it's also about immigration in general. Although a bit disorganized, the book does provide one of the most succint and helpful explanations of why we are in this situation today, especially with regard to immigrants from Mexico. I still have a copy if anyone would like to read it.
Racewire has a video up of Fekkak. It can be found here. I like his comment that we cannot ship the restaurant jobs to China. A lot of our jobs have been moved elsewhere, where the pay is less and the labor conditions are less stringent. But it is impossible to ship labor in the hotel/restaurant sector, construction, and other service industries overseas, which is why we need to be vigilant about making sure workers are not being exploited.
I finally get to read whatever I want for a while-- so I picked up The Nonviolent Atonement again. Maybe this time I won't let all the big seminary-level words get to me!
The main idea so far - "the crucifixion of Jesus cannot be interpreted as a divinely sanctioned or divinely willed sacrifice. [...] [V]iolence originates with humans and not with God."
Very interesting and very contrary to what I have been taught in church!
Today's Chicago Tribune Magazine features a Chicago attorney fighting for the righs of Guantanamo prisoners: The Guantanamo Labyrinth.
After a semester of constitutional law under my belt, I am even more disgusted with the Bush adminstration's tactics. Here's an exceprt from the article that explains how we got here:
In the months after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the highest-ranking officials in the Bush administration -- Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft, CIA Director George Tenet and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice -- met in the White House and quietly agreed to override some of the basic provisions of the U.S. Constitution that protect individual rights. They also decided to disregard the Geneva Conventions and to sanction the use of torture, which they renamed "enhanced interrogation techniques." All of this they did in the name of national security. To provide legal cover for these activities (and to immunize themselves against future prosecution), they enlisted a cadre of government lawyers to draft opinions that cloaked what many believe to be war crimes in an aura of respectability.
Hopefully we can keep on the current administration and undo the damage. The article is lengthy, but totally worth a read. I'm glad I found this as I'm studying for my last final and have the urge to just drop out of law school right now.
On the way home from class Friday night, I caught This American Life on NPR. The theme this week was "This I Used to Believe." I wanted to share Act II because it was my former self in a conversation with my new self--faithwise.
A woman, grieving an inexplicable death of her close friend, is a former Catholic who thinks she may be agnostic now. She has a (frustrating) conversation with an evangelical Texas football coach. He goes all arrogant and apologetics (Josh McDowell style) on her, when all she seeks are a few answers to her questions about God and why do bad things happen to good people.
I know that answers to her questions probably don't exist in this lifetime, but I grew so sad for the woman. In the middle of pain and hurt and grief, nobody CARES whether Genesis 1 is literally true or whether postmodernism is wrong. All she needed was a fellow human being to just listen and BE with her in her questioning and doubt. Act II demonstrated why (aside from the church's love affair with militarism, patriotism, and consumerism), I have no desire to be involved in an evangelical church. You can throw all the answers and arguments and facts at me you want, but if you have no way to address the gaping wounds in the world, you won't get very far!
The episode can be found here: This I Used to Believe.
I just caught this on NPR: Latino USA's report on Siler City, North Carolina's changing demographics, called "Mayberry Meets Mexico." A town that was traditionally black and white has seen an influx of Hispanic immigrants, and many are none too happy. One resident interviewed compared the newer members of his community to roaches, although he prefaced his remark with "I don't mean to be racist or anything..." Another resident complained that she feels like a minority now, and frankly admitted that she doesn't like it. I am continually amazed at the things that people feel are acceptable to say about Hispanics in the U.S.
As a side note, during the report, all I could think about was this silly Rascal Flatts song, "I Miss Mayberry," which includes the line, "I miss Mayberry, when everything was black and white." OMG I didn't know Rascal Flatts was that racist! :)
School is as usual taking up every bit of my time, but I wanted to link to a few things, just so the ol' blog isn't too abandoned by the time this semester is over.
The most recent Sightings article, discussing the violent "masculine" trend in some Christian circles, includes a quote from Mark Driscoll, one that I posted after I read Shane Claiborne's Jesus for President. Hyper-Muscular Christianity asks, "Is this hyper-muscular Christianity really a radical, transgressive approach to ministry? Or is it actually the death-throes of an outmoded patriarchy?"
A fellow Wheaton grad and former co-worker just came out with his book about Christianity and immigration: Welcoming the Stranger. This will be one of my first reads of the summer!
I knew that taking constitutional law right after George W. Bush's disastrous presidency would be interesting. We just covered habeas corpus and Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. I'm encouraged that our new president taught constitutional law.
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