John Spong’s HERE I STAND

Posted on February 4, 2000 by Michael Bailey

BOB ABERNETHY: The Right Reverend John Shelby Spong, arguably America’s most controversial church leader, has retired as the Episcopal bishop of Newark, New Jersey.

Spong was honored at events last weekend in his diocese.

Right Reverend JOHN SHELBY SPONG: Alleluia, Christ, our Passover is sacrificed for us.

ABERNETHY: For decades, Spong has been a combative advocate of liberal causes such as civil rights, women’s ordination, and gay rights. In his many books, Spong has also questioned many of the major doctrines of Christianity, from the virgin birth to the bodily resurrection. His positions have infuriated many church conservatives.

Ms. DIANE KNIPPERS (President, Institute on Religion & Democracy): Jack Spong is telling an upper middle-class secular audience that you can have a religion without cross, without the Bible, without sin, without rules about sexuality. He’s telling them what they want to hear, but it’s not the truth, and it’s not the gospel that will ultimately really set them free.

ABERNETHY: At Spong’s retirement ceremony, where he was among friends, the guest speaker was the head of the Episcopal Church of Scotland.

Reverend RICHARD F. HOLLOWAY (Bishop of Edinburgh): This is not a funeral or a requiem for Jack Spong, and I’m not up here giving a eulogy for him, although lots of people would like those circumstances.

BOB ABERNETHY: Spong’s retirement coincides with the publication of his autobiography, HERE I STAND. We asked Phyllis Tickle, contributing editor in religion for PUBLISHERS WEEKLY magazine, to tell us about Spong’s book.

Ms. PHYLLIS TICKLE (PUBLISHERS WEEKLY): Whether you love him or hate him, Jack Spong has written a very important new book, and it’s a very good book, too. HERE I STAND– it’s his autobiography, and the minute he takes that title for it, HERE I STAND, he tells you a good deal not only about why he’s frequently hated by his detractors, but also about where he sees himself. He sees himself in the tradition of Martin Luther, in the tradition of the Reformation, in the tradition of a theology — Christian theology — that once more has to evolve and has to make some strides forward in order to meet the new millennium.

This is an autobiography of a very public man. He talks about all of his activities, from the civil rights movement through the ordination of women and most currently, of course, in gay and lesbian issues, where he’s been very instrumental in pushing the church toward those — towards accepting gays and lesbians.

But it also contains something we’ve not seen in Spong’s work before. There is the story embedded here of his first wife’s descent into madness, and we see the private man briefly. He shows us a glimpse of the hurting husband, of the pastoral husband, and of how he deals with that illness and cares for her right up until the time of her death.

In addition, in HERE I STAND, there is a clear call, and Spong has always had a clear voice in everything he’s written, and he’s always been — the hallmark of his work has been that he takes no prisoners; he calls names and he accuses and he defends his position. And here he takes on his fellow bishops and others in hierarchical Christianity, saying, “The time has now come when what you say among yourselves and what you do must be one and the same. The pew and the nave must hear the same thing that you say in the academy and in the seminary, and those things must agree with what you’re doing. If you’re ordaining gays under “don’t ask, don’t tell,” shame on you. Let’s all come out and say to the people of God in the Christian tradition, “This is what we understand Christian theology to be.” It is a strong call from Bishop Jack Spong, HERE I STAND.

AIDS and the Priesthood

Posted on February 4, 2000 by Michael Bailey

BOB ABERNETHY: The KANSAS CITY STAR published a series of stories this week on AIDS and the Roman Catholic priesthood. On the basis of a survey it conducted, the paper said the death rate from AIDS among priests is four times that of the general population. But the newspaper’s conclusions have drawn sharp criticism; of the 46,000 American Catholic priests, the STAR sent questionnaires to a sample of 3,000, but only 800 priests responded, all self-selected. Warren Mitofsky, standards chairman of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, reviewed the poll and said any survey with such a low response rate is seriously flawed, and any conclusions drawn from the survey would be suspect.

We also talked about the survey with Reverend Cletus Kiley, executive director for priestly life and ministry of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Reverend J. CLETUS KILEY (National Conference of Catholic Bishops): The — my first glance was that the thing was very shocking. I looked at this headline, and there — you know, priests are four times more likely to have AIDS than the general population and so forth. It was shocking, but then I stepped back for a minute, and I — it just does not ring true to me. And I would say that the case be closed. First of all, you’ve got a population group of men, 26 and up, compared to a general population, men, women, and children. It would have been much more valid, I think, had they compared it to other men 26 and older; it would have told us a little more information.

ABERNETHY: And what is the situation?

Rev. KILEY: The situation is nothing new. The situation is something that we are — there are — we do know that there are priests who are HIV-positive. We know that there are priests who have died of AIDS. And I would say that our sense is, across the country, it’s not a large number, probably less than … of 1 percent of the priests in the United States. So that doesn’t mean it’s not — doesn’t come off as a big crisis kind of thing. But the fact is that there are — even if there’s … of 1 percent of our priests with HIV, it’s an issue that we feel we have to deal with; we have to be of comfort to priests.

ABERNETHY: If a priest acknowledges that he is HIV-positive or has AIDS …

Rev. KILEY: Yeah.

ABERNETHY: … does that mean that he can no longer be a priest?

Rev. KILEY: Oh, no. It means he might be sick. He has a disease. He’s definitely a priest, and what it means is he’s a brother who’s sick, and we need to stand with him and help him. Does it mean they’re not a priest? No. It means they’re a human being.

National Prayer Breakfast

Posted on February 4, 2000 by Michael Bailey

BOB ABERNETHY: For a few short moments this week, a spirit of reconciliation and bipartisanship descended on Washington. It was the 48th Annual National Prayer Breakfast, attended by President Clinton and nearly 4,000 religious leaders, members of Congress, and heads of state. Kim Lawton reports.

KIM LAWTON: It’s a ritual that has been practiced in the nation’s capital for nearly half a century. For a couple hours a year, government and religious leaders from around the world put politics aside and gather for a morning of prayer.

Representative DENNIS HASTERT (Speaker of the House): Would you please bow your heads and join with me in prayer.

LAWTON: The National Prayer Breakfast began in 1952, when members of Congress invited President Dwight Eisenhower to pray with them. The tradition has grown over the years, and a private group now helps organize it. This year, there were a few departures from tradition. Pope John Paul II sent greetings, which were read to the largely Protestant crowd by a Vatican representative. Franklin Graham gave the closing prayer, substituting for his father Billy, a prayer breakfast founder. Perhaps the biggest surprise: the main speaker was an Orthodox Jew, Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, who gave a well-received message.

Senator JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (Democrat, Connecticut): I want to ask all of you here to think with me about how we can strengthen and expand the current spiritual awakening so that it not only inspires us individually and within our separate faith communities but also renews and elevates the moral and cultural life of our country.

LAWTON: President Clinton attended for the last time as president. He emphasized tolerance and unity.

President BILL CLINTON: Here in Washington, we are not blameless, but we often, too, forget in the heat of political battle, our common humanity. We slip from honest difference, which is healthy, into dishonest demonization.

LAWTON: Unity may have been the theme, but controversy wasn’t far away.

Unidentified Police Officer: Again, if you don’t move out of this public space, out of this driveway at this time, we are going to place you under arrest.

Mr. MICHAEL HOROWITZ (Hudson Institute): I understand.

LAWTON: At the U.S. State Department, religious liberty crusader Michael Horowitz staged a one-man act of civil disobedience to send a message to the prayer breakfast. Horowitz said he was concerned about a business-as-usual prayer meeting while believers around the world are suffering religious persecution.

Mr. HOROWITZ: Combined with the prayer has got to be some real firm message coming out of it. Prayer is not some sappy business of people feeling good. Prayer involves responsibility. It involves commitment.

LAWTON: At the breakfast itself, many participants said they did receive a spiritual challenge.

Bishop WILLIAM MORRIS (United Methodist Church): It was made known that what is important is not just what we say, but how we live that out and how we live that out on a daily basis.

LAWTON: President Clinton admitted he would miss attending the prayer breakfast. Religious leaders were also reflective.

Reverend STAN DeBOE (Catholic Charities USA): It’s been a mixed relationship. He has always called upon clergy to help him out in times of not only national but personal crisis, and yet sometimes the clergy has been some of the strongest critics at times of national and personal crisis.

LAWTON: There’s been a lot of God talk this campaign season among the candidates who want to succeed Bill Clinton. Religious leaders at the National Prayer Breakfast said they hope the next occupant of the White House is a person of faith, but they also said they’ll be watching to see how that faith is translated into action in policy. I’m Kim Lawton in Washington.

BOB ABERNETHY: One of the pastors active in the prayer breakfast movement is the Reverend Charles Wright, whose appointment to be the next House of Representatives chaplain faced renewed controversy this week. In December, House Republican leaders selected Wright, a Presbyterian minister, to replace Chaplain James Ford, who’s retiring after 21 years at the post. But some Democrats allege that a Catholic priest was unfairly passed over for the job. Republicans denied any anti-Catholic bias and spent this week shoring up their relations with the Catholic community. Wright’s appointment will be voted on by the full House later this month.

Church Health Center

Posted on February 4, 2000 by Michael Bailey

BOB ABERNETHY: Our cover story today is about hope and healing in Memphis, Tennessee, where people of faith are taking on a major national health-care problem. According to the most recent figures from the Census Bureau, 44 million Americans do not have health insurance. Everyone agrees solving that problem will take more than church volunteers, but take a look at what a devout doctor and Memphis’s Church Health Center are doing.

Memphis is famous for music–and poverty. It’s one of the poorest big cities in the country, and that’s why Scott Morris moved to Memphis to live.

Dr. SCOTT MORRIS (Church Health Center): God’s called us all to do our piece in this, and we all have to do our own little small piece, and it’ll work just fine.

ABERNETHY: Morris’s part-time job is being associate pastor of St. John’s United Methodist Church.

Dr. MORRIS: What does it take to be a disciple of Jesus?

ABERNETHY: Morris’s full-time job is being a medical doctor, the founder and director of Memphis’s successful and revolutionary Church Health Center.

Dr. MORRIS: The mission of the Church Health Center is to reclaim the church’s biblical and historical commitment to care for the poor who are sick.

ABERNETHY: Specifically the working poor, people who earn enough so they do not qualify for Medicaid, but can’t afford private health insurance.

Ms. SHIRLEY SWIFT (Patient): You know, if you don’t have someplace like this, what are you going to do?

Dr. MORRIS: You might cough for six weeks.

ABERNETHY: Morris started the Church Health Center in 1987 by himself with church and foundation backing and 12 patients.

Dr. MORRIS: Let me just listen to your breathing.

ABERNETHY: He persuaded 150 congregations — Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish — to help. He mobilized the medical and philanthropic communities. And today, the Church Health Center has 30,000 patient visits a year, and the price is right.

RECEPTIONIST: And then your charge for today is $10.

ABERNETHY: Except for the homeless, every patient pays a little. The rest of the budget, more than $4 million a year, comes from churches, synagogues, foundations, and the majority from private donors. Morris takes no money from the government.

Dr. MORRIS: It’s not about having the government say, “You have to do what you’re supposed to do.” It is about the people of faith rising up and doing what we are called to do, and that is care for the body and the spirit.

ABERNETHY: The Church Health Center has a small paid staff. All the rest of the work is done by volunteers. They sort pills and keep records. Pharmaceutical companies donate medicine, and hospitals give lab work and take patients. Doctors and nurses in private practice work night shifts after their own workdays are over. But Morris wants no volunteer burnout, so he asks doctors to volunteer only once every three months. The generosity of the volunteers and donors has been essential.

Dr. JAMES BAILEY (Volunteer): I think, very honestly, that it has a little bit to do with the Bible Belt. There’s been a very strong, multidenominational support of this project because people are trying — not always doing a very good job, but they’re trying to practice what they preach.

ABERNETHY: One of Morris’s inventions is an insurance plan so restaurants and other small businesses could get coverage for their lowest-paid workers. Cost: $35 a month, all or most of it usually paid by the employer, and the insured see doctors in their own offices, just like anyone else.

Dr. CHRISTINE MROZ (Breast Cancer Specialist): You look pretty good for having all that surgery just recently.

I don’t even know which ones are Church Health Center and which ones are insurance. I try not to see that, and most of the time, that’s not on the chart.

ABERNETHY: However much the center does provide, there are certain services patients cannot get, for instance, prenatal or maternity care, which is available to the poor elsewhere, and there is no reproductive care. All the practitioners at the Church Health Center say they’ve learned that poverty itself causes sickness of body and soul.

Dr. MORRIS: Poverty drives people to lose hope and to lose a sense of who they are.

Dr. MARY NELL FORD (Church Health Center): I would say 80-90 percent of what we see could be prevented or ameliorated by lifestyle changes. Most of our patients are overweight, hypertensive, diabetic women, and they face horrible health problems because of that.

ABERNETHY: Dr. Morris says half of all the people who come to any primary care doctor have no medical problem.

Dr. MORRIS: Well, it’s not broken, is it?

They come because their life is falling apart, and I can’t fix that with a 15-minute office visit. And I can’t tell you how many people I’ve seen over the years who came saying, “My back hurts,” and in reality, their heart hurts. They have a broken heart.

ABERNETHY: Church Health Center pastoral counselors try to get at underlying psychological and spiritual problems. For this patient, these are family issues now. For many others, they are long-buried victimization.

Reverend KIMBERLEY CAMPBELL (Pastoral Counselor): More than half of the women that I see, maybe as much as 70 percent of the women that I see, have in their histories incest, experience of child sexual abuse, and a lot of what physicians see in their offices are results of the stress of carrying these secrets and this shame. It’s making them sick.

ABERNETHY: Their experience of treating the poor has turned Morris and his colleagues into crusaders for two fundamental changes: new lifestyles for the poor and a new emphasis on prevention in medicine.

Dr. MORRIS: Wouldn’t it be better if we had a health-care system where the doctor’s role was to, in effect, be a Maytag repairman, to try to keep you healthy rather than wait till your body is broken?

ABERNETHY: So Morris turned a former car dealership into the Hope and Healing Center. Donors gave $7 million for the renovation, creating what looks like a spectacular health club. But its director does not like that term.

Ms. LISA VASSER (Director, Hope and Healing Center): It’s not a health club at all. It is a sanctuary for health. We’re not a fitness center, not a wellness center. It’s a place where people can come and literally take care of their spirit or at least think about taking care of their spirit as well as their body.

ABERNETHY: Anyone can join and get a prescription for health, to lose weight and change diet. There are cooking classes with low-fat recipes, mashed potatoes this day made with nonfat dry milk.

Rev. CAMPBELL: Allow yourself to feel the peace of God.

ABERNETHY: There’s also a chapel and a chaplain and regular services of guided meditation.

Rev. CAMPBELL: … living in this present moment.

ABERNETHY: The question, of course, is: If the Church Health Center works so well here in Memphis, could it be duplicated in every other major city? And if so, how far would that go toward meeting the health-care needs of all the country’s working poor?

In Washington, Surgeon General David Satcher praises the Memphis approach, but says the needs are greater than volunteers alone can meet.

Dr. DAVID SATCHER (United States Surgeon General): I think those kinds of volunteer community programs are great, but I don’t think they’re an answer to the problem. We need to balance health promotion, disease prevention, early detection, and universal access to health care in this country, and it takes public-private partnerships.

ABERNETHY: Morris agrees his center is not the whole answer. For all it’s doing, it’s reaching only about a quarter of Memphis’s uninsured poor. But that’s 30,000 people who were not reached before, and Morris does think his work can be a model.

Dr. MORRIS: Every little piece of what we do, we think, can be reproduced. You don’t need Scott Morris, who’s a physician and a pastor, to do this. What you do need is one person who lives and breathes the idea, who has the commitment and the passion to make it happen.

ABERNETHY: And, day by day, an attitude of mutual respect.

Dr. FORD: I talk to the patient; the patient talks to me; we listen to each other. And that’s the way it should be in every patient-physician relationship.

Ms. MARGARET WARREN (Patient): They don’t know what race or color is. They don’t know anything what age or beauty or ugly is. They just know human beings and a patient that needs them. And that’s why I love coming here.

ABERNETHY: Meanwhile, Church Health Center doctors say their patients have had a profound effect on them.

Dr. FORD: Virtually all of our patients, if anything, teach me about what faith really means. What my patients have been through in terms of loss of children, loss of spouses, personal health problems, health problems in family members, and to come through it with a greater faith and a greater love of God.

Dr. MORRIS: That’s really the power of my experience with patients is that I learn about my own faith from being with people like that. They show me, they teach me, and I would never give that up. Nobody needs to call me for another job. This is what I’m going to do. I’m going to do this until I draw my last breath.

Okay. Well, we’re going to work really hard, and I think with Hope and Healing we can really get things on track.

Sinning: Weakness or Malice?

Posted on August 6, 1999 by Michael Bailey

MARY ALICE WILLIAMS: Seldom has sin made bigger headlines than it did the past week. Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a widely publicized article for the stylish new TALK magazine, stated that, “In Christian theology, there are sins of weakness and sins of malice,” adding that her husband’s adultery was a sin of weakness. Is there a hierarchy of sin? Are we using the insights of modern psychotherapy to excuse bad behavior instead of merely explain it? Does this foreshadow a kind of no-fault morality in America?

Joining us are Reverend Dr. Cornelius Plantinga Jr., dean of the chapel at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and a theologian in the Christian Reform Church. He is author of the book NOT THE WAY IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE: A BREVIARY OF SIN. And in Oakland, California, Catholic theologian and prolific writer Jane Redmont, whose new book, WHEN IN DOUBT, SING: PRAYER IN DAILY LIFE, has just been published.

Thank you both for being with us. Neil, weakness versus malice: Is there a hierarchy of sin?

Reverend Dr. CORNELIUS PLANTINGA Jr. (Author, NOT THE WAY IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE): The Christian church has always seen a hierarchy of sin, Catholics as well as Protestants. The Catholic tradition between mortal and venial sins is better known. The Protestants, too, have thought that some sins are more serious than others. The first lady’s distinction between sins of weakness and sins of malice is not a classical theological distinction.

WILLIAMS: Jane, what goes into making a sin?

Ms. JANE REDMONT (Author, WHEN IN DOUBT, SING): That’s the $60,000 question. I think it’s difficult for us to talk about sin outside of the context of biblical categories — it is a biblical category — and outside of the notion of relationship with God. Sin classically has to do with breaking or violating relationship with God and relationship with neighbor, which in the biblical traditions, Jewish and Christian, are understood as being one and the same.

WILLIAMS: Intentionally, with full knowledge and consent?

Ms. REDMONT: That is a traditional Catholic way of talking about mortal sin. And, yes, I think that the question that Ms. Rodham Clinton raised of the distinction between malice and weakness, while not a classical category, raises the question of intention. Was full human freedom, was the will completely involved in a particular sin?

WILLIAMS: Neil, have our notions of sin changed over time?

Dr. PLANTINGA: They certainly have. We traditionally have talked of the seven deadly sins where pride was the first. More recently, pride has actually made a real comeback in contemporary life. In fact, some folks think of self-esteem as the solution to all our problems. On the other hand, we’ve gotten more sensitive to certain sins, for example, to sins of disrespect against others.

WILLIAMS: Like bigotry?

Dr. PLANTINGA: Bigotry, racism, and sins against the whole creation, ecological sins.

Ms. REDMONT: I would add also that, in my own tradition, in the Catholic tradition, we have a renewed emphasis on the notion of social sin, so that people, in asking about sin, might well ask in, for instance, President Clinton’s welfare reform bill, which took food out of the mouths of children, was that a sin of weakness or a sin of malice, this kind of structural or social sin?

WILLIAMS: How has psychotherapy and the psychotherapeutic community changed our notions of what a sin is?

Ms. REDMONT: I think the classic example is the example of alcoholism, which, 100 years ago, we understood under the category of sin. And now, understanding physiologically and psychologically what goes into alcoholism, we know that although there may be sinful actions that come out of the condition of being addicted to alcohol, alcoholism itself is not a sin.

And so now with the field of trauma studies within clinical psychology, we’re understanding that there may be factors in people’s childhood that may not mitigate, but certainly don’t constitute in themselves a sin and may predispose people in certain directions.

WILLIAMS: Neil, does understanding the effect of, for instance, childhood trauma on adult behavior automatically absolve grownups from sin?

Dr. PLANTINGA: It can’t. We have to treat grownups as grownups, and a lot of the time when we think about how childhood events may influence grownup behavior, we’re engaged in amateur psychological speculation. At the same time, we all know that having a rocky childhood does influence how we live as adults. I think it’s instructive to notice that AA does hold alcoholics fully responsible even for managing what is, in fact, a disease.

WILLIAMS: In other words, it is, in the end, personal responsibility?

Dr. PLANTINGA: We all have it, we know it, and we try very much to keep it, but it’s one of the great human mysteries why we actually sin against the purpose of our own existence.

WILLIAMS: All right. Thank you so much, both of you, for being with us, Reverend Dr. Cornelius Plantinga Jr. and theologian Jane Redmont. Thanks.

Ms. REDMONT: Thank you.

Hinduism in America, Part 2

Posted on August 6, 1999 by Michael Bailey

MARY ALICE WILLIAMS: The tenacious durability of the world’s great religions is due in part to their ability to adapt to a changing world and still retain their core beliefs. Last week, we introduced you to an immigrant generation of Hindu Americans and their efforts to retain their faith here. Now we look at how their children are dealing with their Hindu heritage. Monika Samtani reports.

MONIKA SAMTANI: In India, Hindu wedding vows are about duty and family obligations, and the ceremonies last for days. But this is Fairfax, Virginia, and the ritual’s simplified to the most essential rites. The pledges to each other …

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: … to be my strength …

SAMTANI: … the walk around the sacred fire, are over in a few hours.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: I will take care of your entire family (foreign language spoken).

Ms. ANJU BHUSHAN: I guess when I was younger, whenever I thought of weddings, I always thought of brides in white, a guy in a tuxedo, standing at an altar. There’s a reason for me to get married this way, and the reason is, of course, the religion.

SAMTANI: The bride and groom, Anju and Salil, were both born here, and they are part of the generation that is adapting Hinduism and incorporating elements of American culture into its practices. Hinduism is a faith that has evolved over thousands of years, beginning with the Vedas, four books of scriptures compiled by priestly sages. It is currently practiced by nearly 800 million people and is considered the world’s oldest and third-largest religion.

Hindus believe in one god who has many different forms. They also believe that one’s soul is reincarnated after death. In Hinduism, the consequences of everyday actions, or karma, may end the cycle of reincarnation and lead to becoming one with Brahman, the universal soul.

But the practice of Hinduism has evolved over time. Professor Diana Eck of Harvard University.

Professor DIANA ECK (Comparative Religions & Indian Studies): Hinduism is definitely a living tradition, but living also means changing; it means dynamic. So what we have in the U.S. is a new phase of the negotiation of what it means to be Hindu.

SAMTANI: Establishing rules for the practice of Hinduism in the U.S. is one change. Another is using English in addition to the ancient religious language of Sanskrit during ceremonies. Also, arranging to celebrate holidays on weekends as opposed to the days set by astrologers in India.

These changes will be important to young Hindus in particular as they adapt their inherited religion to the American culture.

Mr. ARUN RATH: The thing is there’s never really been, I guess, any kind of coherent sense of what Hinduism is supposed to be.

SAMTANI: Many second-generation Hindus here want clear directions on how to practice their faith, since in India, Hinduism is a part of daily life.

Ms. SHRUTI CHANDRA: We’re changing it to fit our American lifestyles. We have Sunday schools now because we don’t have our grandmothers and grandfathers teaching us, like, what Hinduism is about.

Prof. ECK: The Hindu tradition in the United States is not something that the next generation can pick up by osmosis. And to a great extent, I think one of the things that temple communities have done is to succeed in building temples, but to fail in providing real educational programs for the next generation.

SAMTANI: Some young Hindus are searching for understanding by organizing discussion groups, but most still feel the ancient traditions have little relevance to their American lives.

Mr. RATH: In my particular case, you know, we don’t do puja every day in my family. My father is not particularly religious in a ritualistic sort of way.

SAMTANI: They’re fascinated by the philosophy, but are abandoning the rituals, rituals like offerings of milk and nectar to deities to welcome them into the home or temple, or taking the time to say daily Sanskrit prayers. Many in the second generation rarely go to the temple or practice rituals, and often don’t understand them. There is a danger that the beliefs the rituals embody are at risk.

Prof. ECK: There is a lot to be lost if rituals simply become punctuation marks in life rather than expressions of the way a life might be lived.

SAMTANI: Hindu immigrants like the Bhushans realize that changes are inevitable, but are concerned that traditional practices could lose their meaning.

Mr. BRIJ BHUSHAN (Anju’s Father): I may not like it, but that’s the way it is. That’s part of the religion; that’s part of the evolution, and you have to live with it; you have to evolve with it, too.

SAMTANI: But there have been tensions within families.

Mrs. CHAMPA BHUSHAN (Anju’s Mother): Now I just told Anju that, “I would prefer if you married a Hindu.” She always said that, “Mom, if I fall in love with somebody, I’m not going to see if it’s a Hindu or a Muslim or a Christian or whatever he is.”

Ms. BHUSHAN: I resented it and I was rebelling against it. But you know, I think that’s a teenage thing. And you know, when I got older, it became more about finding someone who was compatible, someone that I loved.

SAMTANI: If the Sanskrit language, the rituals, and the role of the many deities lose their significance with this second generation, what will be left? The future of the religion is in the hands of young couples like Anju and Salil.

Mr. SALIL PATEL: When we do have children, that’s going to be our opportunity to not only teach them, but learn ourselves. What will remain, I think, hopefully will be the essence of Hinduism, the concept of dharma and — of how to lead your life, combined with the western culture that we are brought up with, and that the marriage of those two cultures will hopefully live on in our children. And that will take a lot of effort, but that’s our way of keeping it alive.

SAMTANI: As this generation of Hindu Americans start their own families, they are adapting the practices of their faith. The question remains: To what extent can they retain their essential Hindu beliefs? In Fairfax County, Virginia, I’m Monika Samtani for RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY.

Welfare Reform

Posted on August 6, 1999 by Michael Bailey

MARY ALICE WILLIAMS, anchor: Our top story: it sounds like a triumph. Three years after the most radical overhaul of the nation’s welfare system ever, the number of people on welfare has been cut in half. Today, 7.3 million Americans remain on welfare, down from more than 14 million when President Clinton took office. But it has not changed other factors that effectively keep people in poverty. Chris Roberts reports.

CHRIS ROBERTS: In Chicago this week, President Clinton proclaimed the success of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act.

President BILL CLINTON: A big part of this is the decision that the American people, through their elected representatives, made to end welfare as we know it.

ROBERTS: He said there’s still work to be done and pledged new programs for job training, transportation, child care, and housing.

Pres. CLINTON: Let’s spend this money to develop the human capacity of our people. It will make the economy stronger, and we will all be better off.

ROBERTS: Janet Russell used to be on welfare, but now she’s happy to be working at a Marriott hotel in Maryland.

Ms. JANET RUSSELL (Marriott Hotel): When you don’t have money and you don’t have any income and you have to rely on the state, then people treat you differently.

ROBERTS: But Janet also highlights a problem with welfare reform. It doesn’t necessarily lift people out of poverty.

Ms. RUSSELL: I pretty much juggle from month to month — not enough for food, not enough for utilities, not enough for a couple of things.

ROBERTS: Janet’s problems are typical. A new report from The Urban Institute in Washington, DC, has found that, after leaving welfare, many people have jobs, but they’re still poor. The report’s author is Pamela Loprest.

Ms. PAMELA LOPREST (Urban Institute): The average wage is $6.60. You’re at about the poverty level for a family of three, about $13,000 a year.

ROBERTS: Loprest found that, among people who used to be on welfare, 57 percent worry about having enough money for food, 39 percent have been unable to pay housing bills, and 41 percent of adults and 25 percent of children lack medical insurance. Loprest says the priority of welfare reform is placing people in jobs, not ending poverty.

Ms. LOPREST: Right now, there’s a lot of desire to have welfare recipients work, and for some, that means kind of a punitive thing, “Well, we’re working, so they should work,” but for others, it’s a real, “Join the mainstream of America.” People are working; there’s kind of a status and dignity and self-sufficiency involved in that.

ROBERTS: Theologian Ron Sider isn’t satisfied with this kind of welfare reform.

Mr. RONALD SIDER (Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary): Well, it’s a good thing to get people off welfare. There have been incentives in the 1996 welfare bill that have moved us in the right direction. The tragedy is that the poverty level is not going down hardly at all.

ROBERTS: Over 35 million Americans live in poverty, and for Sider, this is an ethical problem.

Mr. SIDER: The Judeo-Christian heritage makes it very clear that caring for the poor is one of the top priorities of the God of the scriptures. Christians and Jews are blatantly defying what the Bible has to say when they allow that kind of poverty in the richest nation in human history.

ROBERTS: In the fall, Sider will launch what he calls the Generous Christians Campaign, hoping to mobilize churches against poverty.

Mr. SIDER: The Generous Christians prayer says, “Lord Jesus, teach my heart to share your love for the poor.” If a few million Christians would take that pledge and then live that out in moving from a quarter of a tithe to half and then a full tithe of 10 percent — and that would be very easy — that would not in any way drive middle-class Christians into poverty.

ROBERTS: All Janet Russell wants is a home and an education for her kids.

Ms. RUSSELL: I don’t think that the things that I want are that extravagant over anything anybody else wants.

ROBERTS: For many Americans, these are prosperous times. We live in an era of government surpluses, a booming stock market, and debates about tax cuts. But millions still live in poverty, and whether we can end welfare as we have known it as well as share the prosperity remains an open question. I’m Chris Roberts reporting.

Jewish Jordan: Tamir Goodman

Posted on July 30, 1999 by Michael Bailey

BOB ABERNETHY: Now the latest on the Tamir Goodman story. In Baltimore, Maryland, Tamir is both an Orthodox Jew and a star basketball player. At 17, in his junior year in high school this past season, he averaged 35 points a game and was offered an athletic scholarship next year by the basketball powerhouse University of Maryland. Tamir’s determination to be both an observant Jew and a superb athlete attracted national attention, something most schools might crave, but not Talmudical Academy, Tamir’s school, where religious studies are considered more important than sports and fame. So Tamir and Talmudical have both decided he should go to another school for his senior year. From Baltimore, Paul Miller has more.

PAUL MILLER: Out of the spotlight for a while and working hard, Tamir Goodman pursues one of his two missions in life.

UNIDENTIFIED TRAINER: C’mon, more. C’mon, Tamir. C’mon!

TAMIR GOODMAN: I’m just trying to be the best basketball player and the best Jew I can be at the same time. There’s no — I don’t see any conflict between the two.

UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Number 22, Tamir Goodman.

MILLER: That combination was irresistible to the news media, especially when they discovered just how good a player Tamir is, good enough to be offered a full scholarship to the University of Maryland while still a junior in high school, good enough for a scholarship even when he said he won’t play in Friday or Saturday games that conflict with the Sabbath.

The Jewish Jordan, they called him, and everyone wanted a picture of him davening, or praying, wrapped in tefillin, or phylacteries. The celebrity was surprising and a bit unwelcome.

GOODMAN: I didn’t realize it was going to be that crazy, but I kind of had a feeling. I still think it’s too much attention. I haven’t done anything yet.

MILLER: Tamir Goodman lives on the edge of an Orthodox neighborhood in northwest Baltimore. He attended a school that produces rabbis, not basketball players. There was some resistance within the community to his open pursuit of basketball excellence.

Mr. CHAIM KATZ (Tamir’s Coach): I think that there are some Jews who are not happy because Tamir should be learning Torah all day. They don’t complain that their lawyer’s not learning all day, or they don’t complain their accountant’s not learning all day or their doctor.

MILLER: The media and public attention kept building. But by the end of the basketball season, games had to be moved to bigger arenas to accommodate the crowds. Some people were appalled that an Orthodox Jew was being idolized, not a positive thing in Jewish law. Others worried Tamir was not keeping a strict Orthodox separation from the distractions of the secular world.

The tensions between big-time basketball and Orthodox Judaism proved to be too much for Tamir’s high school. Talmudical Academy officials apparently concluded the school’s image of Torah study was being tarnished, and it would be better off without Tamir and his outspoken coach. Basketball at the school will now be deemphasized. Tamir says there’s no ill will on either side.

As an Orthodox Jew, Tamir is more of a trailblazer and more of a role model for another part of the Orthodox community that wants to expand horizons while remaining true to the faith.

Rabbi BARRY FREUNDEL (Kesher Israel): I think it raises our profile in a very positive way. We have — it’s always been raised in a positive way. But I think it gives the entire community a focal point for pride, and I think it gives young kids somebody they can look up to who’s very, very much like them, and I think that’s really exciting.

MILLER: Every week, Tamir signs up to 150 photographs — they’ve been a hot bar mitzvah gift — part of his commitment to the community.

Rabbi FREUNDEL: He tries very, very hard to live up to the commitments of being an observant Jew. And that’s why he has been for us what we call a kiddush hashem, meaning a sanctification of God’s name. You know, he wears his kipah, he wears his skullcap, and everybody knows who he is. And the way he comports himself on the court and off the court reflects, you know, really well on our community, and I think that’s very positive.

MILLER: It also reflects the faith of his father Karl and mother Chava. She returned to Judaism as an adult with a fervor that led her to the Hasidic Lubavitcher sect. His mother gives tzedaka, or charity, every day while praying for Tamir’s safety. When he plays, she prays, outside the building, afraid to watch.

Tamir has no doubts that obligation to God comes before any aspect of basketball, and so there’s no conflict between basketball and the duties of keeping the Sabbath and praying three times a day.

GOODMAN: I have to pray before I’m going to play, because that’s my first priority; God’s my first priority now. I’m not going anywhere unless I thank God for my talents first.

MILLER: It’s an attitude that sets him apart from many of the other elite players he now comes into contact with in a world of all-star basketball camps, newsletters that rank top prospects, and heavy recruitment pressures. The expectations are enormous; the pressure will almost certainly increase. Observant Jews say even in college, Tamir will be able to keep prayer in his schedule, keep a kosher diet with a little planning, make sure his social life follows the rules. Maryland says it will reschedule as many games as possible to avoid conflicts with the Sabbath. Tamir Goodman hopes his twin goals of being the best Jew and the best player possible are still within his grasp. I’m Paul Miller for RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY in Baltimore.

Hinduism in America, Part 1

Posted on July 30, 1999 by Michael Bailey

BOB ABERNETHY: Ever since the Immigration Act of 1965 opened up this country to more and more non-Europeans, the U.S. has become a place of ever-greater religious diversity. Alongside Christians and Jews in all their variety, there are now Muslims and Buddhists and Sikhs and Hindus, a million Hindus in all, struggling, as have all other newcomers, to establish their faith and traditions in this country. Here’s part one of a two-part series on Hinduism in America. Our reporter is Monika Samtani.

MONIKA SAMTANI: Hirdaynath Harnal is an engineer from south India. He and his wife Rajrani arrived with their children in northern Virginia 21 years ago, like all immigrants, looking for a better life. Also like most immigrants, the Harnals struggled to build a home for their faith.

Mr. HIRDAYNATH HARNAL: Well, back in 1978, when I came to the United States, I couldn’t find any place of worship for Hindus.

SAMTANI: In India, Hindus of difference class or caste may not have associated with one another. But here in America, they reached out to each other to build communities and temples.

Mrs. RAJRANI HARNAL: We used to go for practice, for chanting and all, home to home, or community centers and all. But now at least we have one place that — where we can sit together and pray and chant.

SAMTANI: Professor Diana Eck of Harvard University.

Professor DIANA ECK (Comparative Religions & Indian Studies): Has the Hindu tradition come and put down roots here? Absolutely. In one big city after another, there are temple consecrations, temple dedications, virtually every month in the United States, over 200 in the last decade or two.

Mr. HARNAL: I saw kids, those who were just born here and now they’re over 20 years old. And when we see them in temple now, they feel very happy that what we were doing, though, is giving root, and it will prosper.

SAMTANI: Many of the Hindu religious traditions seem different to most Americans.

Ms. MONU HARNAL: A lot of people think Hinduism is so mystical. You know, they think it’s snake charmers and palm readers and people who can walk on fire and yogis just meditating. That’s not Hinduism.

SAMTANI: Hindus believe in reincarnation. Their goal is to reach moksha, better known as nirvana, the release of the soul into the universe. This process depends on karma, or the consequences of one’s actions. In Hinduism, there are numerous paths to one god, but God is infinitely complex and seen in many roles.

Mrs. HARNAL: God is one entity, but, like, he’s one; he’s father, but he’s a husband now, so God changed his forms when he changes his duties.

SAMTANI: Hindus appeal to whichever form of God they need, like Brahma, Vishnu, or Shiva, the images of the Hindu Trinity, or form of Davi, the female incarnation. In all, there are many hundreds of deities. Hindus also believe there is more than one way to worship God. Unlike most western religions, there are no commandments. Devotees are free to practice their faith as they wish, through ancient rituals, meditating, practicing yoga, or doing good deeds. Sonia, the Harnals’ oldest daughter, feels it is important to teach her children the traditional rituals, such as tikhas, signs of devotion to God that are often applied during prayers.

Ms. SONIA HARNAL: What do they put on your head, child?

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #1: It’s a tikha.

Ms. S. HARNAL: It’s a tikha? Oh, maybe like a dot, and then the little petals. What color do they put the tikha?

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #1: Red.

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #2: White and red. White and red.

Ms. S. HARNAL: Why is it white and red for when?

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #1: When y — when you’re done.

Ms. S. HARNAL: When you’re done doing puja?

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #1: Yeah.

SAMTANI: Puja is a ceremony of prayers most frequently said at home, but also at the temple. The prayers welcome God and are the most important ritual of Hinduism.

Ms. M. HARNAL: I would sit at the altar, light a candle, light incense, bring some flowers, and pray that the whole day goes well.

SAMTANI: Hindus believe life is based on dharma, or religious laws and duty. Traditionally, dharma has four stages: being a student, raising a family, serving the community, and entering monastic life, all done in order for the soul to reach its purest form, nirvana. But even this fundamental belief, the very essence of Hinduism, is undergoing change, adapting to American culture and society.

Ms. M. HARNAL: I think what’s more important to me is not following the four stages, the dharma. It’s right now really following what’s in my head, my dreams, my goals.

SAMTANI: Practicing their religion in this country, where it often seems so foreign to others, has been difficult for the Harnals’ children, who were born in India but raised here.

Ms. S. HARNAL: Going in front of an idol and bowing my head, that was very difficult for me when I was younger. So what I did was, as I got older, I started looking at that, and I thought, “Okay, why have they done this? Why have they done this?” An idol is just a point of focus. So if I focus on one point, I focus on that idol for long enough, I will start relaxing, and I will start, you know, praying and you get into the — you know, the spiritual side of yourself because you’re concentrating.

SAMTANI: In India, Monu may have taken Hinduism for granted, but here, she has examined and adjusted her faith.

Ms. M. HARNAL: I’m using Hinduism or my religion as an individual, and I think being in this country allows you to do that. I’ve taken the best from Hinduism, I’ve taken the best from the western culture, combined it, and, you know, I’m living it.

SAMTANI: For Monu, this means doing rituals like puja and going to the temple regularly, but feeling free to find new ways to seek nirvana.

Prof. ECK: Coming to a — you know, a sense of what really one wants to keep and what one is willing to let go is something that will need to be negotiated by both the first and second generation.

SAMTANI: For the Harnals of northern Virginia, as for all America’s million Hindus, the continuing struggle is how and how much to adapt the faith of the Ganges to life here in America. I’m Monika Samtani for RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY.

Falun Gong Spiritual Movement

Posted on July 30, 1999 by Michael Bailey

BOB ABERNETHY: Fifty years after the Communists came to power in China, they seem insecure. An apparently nonpolitical sect, Falun Gong, that emphasizes meditation and exercises has attracted so many followers, the government sees it as a threat. Last week, Chinese officials banned the group altogether and began arrests of Falun Gong followers. This week, the crackdown intensified and the Chinese government sought the arrest of the movement’s founder, who lives in New York. Kim Lawton has more.

KIM LAWTON: In Washington and in cities across the U.S., followers of the Falun Gong meditation movement are turning out to express solidarity with besieged practitioners in China. Thousands have been detained since China’s Communist government began last week’s crackdown. This week, Falun Gong literature was confiscated and very publicly destroyed.

Mr. MIKE JENDRZEJCZYK (Human Rights Watch/Asia): They’ve clearly decided that this kind of activity outside the control of the state poses a potential threat to the government and to the Communist Party, even though the organization itself says it has no political agenda.

LAWTON: Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, claims to have 100 million followers around the world, including several thousand in the U.S., but numbers are impossible to verify. The movement was founded in China in 1992 by Li Hongzhi, who spreads his teachings through the Internet, books, and videotapes.

(Excerpt from Falun Gong video)

LAWTON: The 48-year-old Li now lives in New York City. He says Falun Gong is not an organized religion, but a cultivation system of mind, body, and spiritual development.

Mr. LI HONGZHI (Falun Gong) (Through Translator): In order to have a healthy body, one must cultivate a good moral character, and only by doing that can one really make improvements.

LAWTON: Falun Gong emphasizes the principles of truth, compassion, and tolerance. It combines elements of Buddhism and Taoism with meditation and exercises. Li says the practice harnesses a strong cosmic energy field that produces peace and physical health. Followers say Falun Gong truly is a spiritual movement.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: You not only practice your physical body. At the meantime, you practice — you cultivate your heart, mind, and spirit.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: I feel like all the earthly things kind of fade away. I’m so in harmony with the universe.

LAWTON: The Chinese government considers the movement a dangerous threat. Embassy officials declined to be interviewed, but released a statement accusing Falun Gong of advocating superstition, creating disturbances, and jeopardizing social stability.

Human rights experts say the campaign is similar to crackdowns against other groups, particularly religious groups, that are able to marshal allegiances to something other than the Communist system.

Mr. JENDRZEJCZYK: China’s very nervous [about] the growing attraction of religious activity, especially to young people — for those who don’t feel that Marxist ideology gives them what they want in terms of a moral or spiritual center — are being attracted to activities that are carried out outside the control of the state.

LAWTON: Falun Gong followers insist they have no political aspirations. They say they merely want to practice their beliefs without government interference. I’m Kim Lawton in Washington.

ABERNETHY: On the Falun Gong video, you may have noticed a swastika. Falun Gong followers say it’s an ancient Asian religious symbol, not the one made infamous by the Nazis.

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