“Mitt Romney has studiously avoided the subject of religion whenever possible. He’s a technocrat. He’s very careful. He’s highly managed in his public presentation. He knows that bringing up Mormonism conjures a host of associations he’d like to avoid,” says Joanna Brooks, a senior correspondent for ReligionDispatches.org, an interfaith online magazine.
“I would say that Mormon culture, Mormon doctrine, Mormon belief have been well outside the mainstream of both American culture and Christian culture for many years,” says Warren Cole Smith, associate publisher of the Christian news magazine World.
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Should the American people harness their admiration for the military to revitalize the virtues of democratic engagement? Can we harness this admiration without undermining our ability to keep our militaristic overconfidence in check, especially in the face of increasing economic and military competition from China and beyond?
President Obama’s State of the Union address frames his understanding of the challenges and opportunities we face with the suggestion that emulating the virtues of America’s armed forces would enable us to become a more cohesive and mission-focused community. The challenges he notes are well-known—economic stagnation, declining standards of living, gross inequality, and decreasing confidence in our power both to improve our lot at home and maintain our influence abroad. For the president, however, America’s economic and geopolitical prospects are better than many believe. What we should really worry about is the increasingly prominent role that political cynicism and cultural and religious difference-mongering play in our political life. As the president rightly understands, cynicism about Washington rarely translates into energetic local efforts to address the inequalities in our midst or to put constructive pressure on our representatives for “nation building” here at home. With noteworthy understatement, the president suggests that our tendency to “obsess over [our] differences” is undermining our ability constructively to confront our challenges and opportunities. The problem is as much about our political culture as it is our political policies. The president suggests that the military provides the nation and its leaders a much-needed example of joining together in trust to accomplish a common mission.
What are we to make of this claim? To an extent, President Obama is simply calling for more cooperation in American politics. This is a valuable point, as far as it goes, but is uninteresting. If we take President Obama to suggest something bigger, then we may understand him as echoing ideas from the roots of American progressivism and replaying some of its dilemmas. John Dewey once argued that Americans were the inheritors of a democratic faith in our ability to redress social problems through conversation and cooperation. This faith, Dewey argued, is implicit in our very way of doing things, despite the still-powerful, obfuscating influences of superstition, moralism, and ideological rigidity. What we need, Dewey claimed, is to make this faith “explicit and militant,” to embrace it self-consciously as a source of our common resolve (John Dewey, A Common Faith (Yale University Press, 1934, p. 87)). Made militant, democratic faith can propel what William James once called “the moral equivalent of war”—the marshaling of civic passions for a cohesive social effort against the sorts of inequality, hopelessness, and degradation many Americans now face. For Dewey, however, democratic militancy was deeply distrustful of American militarism. War, Dewey recognized, can lead to forms of social and political discipline that are antithetical to democratic cooperation and exchange. For the democratic tradition descended from Dewey, therefore, the challenge of American life is to identify forms of democratic solidarity that do not feed off militarism abroad.
President Obama plays on these ideas—with a twist. For the president, the end of the war in Iraq, and our decreasing commitment in Afghanistan, provides more than a much-needed infusion of investment dollars that we could turn toward more productive purposes. It allows the nation to turn its militant energies from imperial policing abroad and refocus them at home. By nursing our admiration for our military’s virtues, he suggests, we can transform our beleaguered democracy into a more cohesive and mission-focused political community. Further, we can transform our admiration for the military vocation into a greater estimation of our own vocation as citizens.
The realism of this suggestion is immensely attractive. Rather than condemning the militaristic energies that got us into Iraq and Afghanistan, the president attempts to redirect those energies to more democratic purposes. William James would have been proud. Yet there are dangers here. The president’s vision of a militantly democratic community—a community characterized by at least some of the martial virtues—depends implicitly on the very militarism that the president was widely admired for criticizing. The mission-focused social cohesion that he seems to propose is fed on a diet of military exploits, of Navy SEALs working as a team to kill terrorists in far-off places.
Unless the president is merely cheerleading for more “teamwork” in American politics—an idea scarcely worth hearing—he is suggesting we buy an expanded sense of and passion for citizenship with the coin of militaristic enthusiasm. Instead of taking the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as an opportunity to rethink the vice of militaristic overconfidence, President Obama proposes simply to reduce American military action to a minor drama that gives the larger drama of domestic democracy its energy. As long as the military drama remains minor—for example, with small special operations units engaging in targeted strikes—it provides the necessary thrill without provoking the more destructive forms of solidarity to which militarized societies are prone.
The problem with this view, as I see it, is that, once the bitter lessons of the Bush-era wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are old news, there will be little to prevent an American society fed by militaristic enthusiasm from giving in to the temptations of military power. Especially in future periods of uncertainty and threat, a political society that sustains itself through an embrace of martial valor will seek to discipline itself in ways more in keeping with war than democratic ideals.
Democratic citizenship undoubtedly requires courage, selflessness, and teamwork. It takes courage to make yourself vulnerable to viewpoints with which you seriously disagree. It takes selflessness to make the care and upkeep of the community a priority alongside the demands of earning a living for oneself and for a family. It takes teamwork to organize people effectively to make a difference in the life of a community, especially in the face of entrenched interests. But one may well question whether it is plausible or desirable to promote these virtues by harnessing the nation’s admiration for the military.
Howard Rhodes has taught at the University of Iowa and is currently is a J.D. candidate at Duke University School of Law. His research interests include the ethics of war, international humanitarian law, and religion and international relations.
One of the more boisterous moments of President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech came when he stated his belief in what Abraham Lincoln believed before him: “That Government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more.” The House chamber erupted with applause and shouts of approval—none louder than from the mouths of Republicans.
But this moment was little more than another lesson in party difference. The speech actually confirmed Obama’s belief that there is a lot people cannot do better by themselves. They cannot fund massive and necessary public works projects; they cannot fund equally massive research breakthroughs like those connected to natural gas extraction; they cannot be counted on to levy fair taxes; and, as he observed several times, they cannot be trusted to uphold sound financial rules and practices.
In contrast, the GOP response from Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels confirmed that Republicans believe there is little government can do better than the individual: “government is meant to serve the people rather than supervise them.” This is Party Politics 101. To borrow from Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address, Democrats have faith in the “better angels” of the federal government while Republicans trust in the “better angels of our nature.”
Both parties trust in the better angels of the military. Obama opened and closed the speech with resounding praise for the military’s teamwork and self-sacrifice, and he called for Congress and America to emulate both traits. There is much to admire about the armed forces and the veterans who serve in them. Yet we should honor their service without elevating them beyond reproach. Otherwise we patronize our veterans—as Obama did when he said, “they exceed all expectations;” lack “personal ambition”; “don’t obsess over their differences.” We neglect the reality that “war is hell. ” And we obscure the undemocratic nature of the military. The democratic system may at times feel like hell, but it is one made from the luxuries of debate, disagreement, compromise, and representative government, not chain of command and direct orders.
By Lincoln’s Second Inaugural, after four years of bloody civil war, he no longer spoke of the “better angels of our nature.” Instead he asked for “malice toward none” and “charity for all” in an effort “to bind up the nation’s wounds” and establish “a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.” Our crisis is ideological civil war, and like his predecessor Obama urged the nation toward political cooperation in service to an “America built to last.” But he argued that its longevity depends upon whether we “settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well while a growing number of Americans barely get by” or for a country “where everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.” This economic wound will not heal without profound disagreement—that is the nature of democracy—but Obama hopes that we might bind it charitably and without malice.
Our disagreements about it and the other major issues of the day have devolved, however, into silliness, even absurdity. We are a nation of finger pointers, unrelenting, disingenuous, and uncharitable in laying blame at the feet of others for the political and economic disarray of our times. But, as Obama has argued throughout his presidency, if Democrats and Republicans see angels when they look in the mirror and demons when they look at each other, then we cannot expect that the “state of our Union will always be strong.”
The scariest commentary on our natures is that there are national leaders and everyday Americans who believe in political angels and demons, and there are those who do not but allow the charade to go on anyway.
Andrew Finstuen is director of the Honors College and associate professor of history at Boise State University.
President Obama’s State of the Union speech marks a major shift in strategy for the Democratic Party. During the 2008 campaign, Democrats caught the religion bug from the GOP. Apparently they have finally killed it. Obama is back on message. Echoing Franklin Roosevelt, he preached economic liberty to the poor and justice to the oppressed without pandering to religious prejudices. For decades Republican leaders have used faith to cloak exploitative economic policies that favored the rich and the powerful. No more. I am encouraged that going into the 2012 campaign the president is not going to let them set the terms of the debate.
Matthew Avery Sutton is an associate professor of history at Washington State University and the author of Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America (Harvard University Press, 2007).
Director Terrence Malick’s new movie “The Tree of Life” is a meditation on traditional Christian questions about evil, suffering, grace, and beauty, says Calvin College professor of English Roy Anker. Watch our recent interview with him about the film. Produced by Steven Niedzielski. Edited by Fred Yi. Special thanks to Matt Kucinski and Calvin Video Productions.
BOB ABERNETHY: The last of the U.S. troops in Iraq came home last month, and we want to explore today how they are being received. Are they getting the help they need? How do they feel about the violence in the country they left behind? Meanwhile, what can be said about the incident in Afghanistan when four Marines defiled the bodies of Taliban fighters, and the picture of that went online around the world? Kim Lawton, managing editor of this program, joins me to talk with Nancy Sherman, a University Professor at Georgetown University in Washington. Her specialty is the ethics of war, including what she has called “moral wounding.” Her most recent book is The Untold War. Nancy, thank you for being with us.
NANCY SHERMAN (University Professor, Georgetown University): My pleasure.
ABERNETHY: When people see the pictures of the Marine incident, everybody says that’s terrible, reprehensible, no excuse for it. But, you know, here are guys who may have been on several tours, they’re tired, they see their friends, their buddies, blown up, killed, maimed. It would seem to me a fairly natural reaction to demonize the enemy, hate the enemy and want to do something despicable to express your feelings about this enemy.
SHERMAN: You’re right. The angry responses increased as the weapons have gotten dirtier and the enemies more invisible, and the rules of engagement have clamped down, and so there is a lot of frustration and, as you say, lots of deaths and maimings, and if you can’t exercise your frustration at the living you may do it toward the dead. That said, officers are furious that there was this kind of misconduct, this lack of professionalism, and a sense of not really having compassion for the respect due for the dead.
KIM LAWTON (Managing Editor, Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly): Nancy, we’ve seen in the news this past week, but over successive weeks, ongoing sectarian violence in Iraq between Sunnis and Shiites, tensions in the government. How does all of this contribute to this notion you talk about, the moral wounding of those troops who served there?
SHERMAN: Well, I think troops have been on a roller coaster these ten years, especially in Iraq. They were exhilarated with the fall of Baghdad, frustrated with not finding WMDs, ambivalent about a mission, and reluctantly took on the role of being city builders, city planners, school builders, and the like. And now they see that whole project of stability and democratization unraveling, and they feel, I think, frustration. You know, some come home, their marriages have exploded, they’ve lost custody of the children. They come home carrying heavy, invisible wounds, of a sense of betrayal and PTSD. That’s hard. Was it worth it?
LAWTON: Was it worth it?
ABERNETHY: A sense of their having carried the whole burden and the whole rest of the country not having done so?
SHERMAN: That’s right. They are a volunteer force, but they’re still only, you know, one percent or fewer than the country, and that makes them a kind of isolated group.
ABERNETHY: But they are getting the medical care they need.
SHERMAN: Well, yes, they are getting medical care. It’s better than ever, but it’s massive, and we’re in the process of DOD budgetary constraints. We have to make sure that at primary care they get psychological screening, and that it carries through to the end of their days.
LAWTON: Is there an ethical obligation, a moral obligation we as a society have toward these troops?
SHERMAN: Absolutely, absolutely. They may come home with a sense of resentment because they carried so much. We have to reach out through community organizations, creation of jobs, and simply talking to the vet who comes home.
ABERNETHY: Is that hard to do?
SHERMAN: Yeah, but first thing to do, no judging and a lot of empathy, because it could have been your son or daughter, and it probably is your neighbor.
LAWTON: And is that happening? Do the troops feel that that is happening enough?
SHERMAN: More and more, but don’t be surprised if when you say, “Thank you for your service,” you get a mixed response.
ABERNETHY: Really?
SHERMAN: They want you to know it was harder than just your utterance of that remark.
ABERNETHY: Nancy Sherman of Georgetown University, many thanks.
SHERMAN: Thank you so much.
ABERNETHY: And Kim Lawton of this program. Thank you.
KIM LAWTON (Correspondent): In New York’s Times Square, it was an unexpected sight: Nestled amid ads for rum and hit TV shows, a sign proclaiming that Muslims are for peace. The billboard was part of a high-profile campaign by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA.
HARRIS ZAFAR (National Spokesman, Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA): We just want people to know if you’re going to judge Islam, judge it based off its true teachings, not based off of this political ideology that’s now all over the Internet and all over television.
LAWTON: Ahmadis have been active in several cities across the country sponsoring bus ads and leafleting drives, trying to get out the message that Muslims are for peace, for loyalty, and for life. They say ten years after 9/11, that message is more important than ever.
ZAFAR: We want to stress that there are Muslims, especially living in America, that emphasize on peace, liberty, democracy and just the freedoms that Americans love, and there have been so many people that ask where are these modern Muslims that promote these ideals, and we’ve been promoting these ideals for a long time.
LAWTON: The campaign has disturbed some Muslims who resent the idea of the controversial Ahmadiyya Muslim Community speaking for Islam. Many mainstream Muslims say they, too, hold those ideals, although they have significant theological differences with Ahmadis. John Esposito teaches Islamic studies at Georgetown University.
JOHN ESPOSITO (Professor of Islamic Studies, Georgetown University): The majority of Muslims would view the Ahmadiyya— the Ahmadiyya would either be seen as not Muslim, or they would certainly be seen as a very, very marginal group, you know, at best by most mainstream Muslims.
LAWTON: The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is a reform movement that grew out of Sunni Islam. It was founded in 1889 in India by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who claimed to be the metaphorical second coming of Jesus and the divine guide, whose appearance was foretold by the Prophet Muhammad. Most Ahmadis believe he was the long-awaited mahdi or messiah.
SALIHA MALIK (National President, Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA Women’s Auxiliary): We believe that the promised messiah has come, as he was promised by the Holy Prophet so many years ago, 14 centuries ago. He came according to all those prophecies at the right time, and we have accepted him.
LAWTON: Naseem Mahdi is national vice-president and missionary-in-charge of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA. He says Mirza Ghulam Ahmad came to bring Muslims back to the true teachings of Islam.
NASEEM MAHDI (National Vice President, Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA): According to the prophecies of Prophet Muhammad, that when the messiah would come he will be a sort of an arbitrator. He used the word arbitrator. That he will tell you what is right and what is wrong, because with the passage of time, Muslims have practically abandoned the real teaching of Islam, the real teaching of the Holy Qur’an.
ESPOSITO: In Islam, the notion is that the Prophet Mohammad is the final prophet, the last of the prophets, and so then the question becomes for, in the eyes of many other Muslims, are these people really Muslims or not?
LAWTON: Many Ahmadis respond that while they do believe Muhammad was the final prophet to bring the law, that didn’t preclude a prophet like Mirza Ghulam Ahmad from coming to bring Muslims back to that final law.
ZAFAR: He came to revive the teachings of God, and he came bringing the truth.
LAWTON: Mirza Ghulam Ahmad preached what he called “jihad of the pen” or persuasion through discourse, saying that violence was not necessary to defend and propagate Islam.
ZAFAR: He said we live in a time where jihad, an aggressive jihad by the sword, is no longer needed, because you don’t have to ever defend freedom of religion physically. He said we live in a time where you’re no longer physically attacked simply for being a Muslim. So he said jihad by the sword is done.
ESPOSITO: For many Muslims, and certainly in South Asia as the movement was developing, extraordinarily controversial, rejected, it was seen as the equivalent of heresy.
LAWTON: And that view persists. Today there are millions, some say tens of millions, of Ahmadi Muslims spread across 195 countries. In many parts of Asia and the Middle East they face severe persecution. In Pakistan, Ahmadis are even officially declared non-Muslim. They are legally forbidden to call themselves Muslims or their houses of worship mosques. And they are frequent targets of violence.
MAHDI: I go with this fear that during the night I might get a phone call that some of my very close loved ones have been kidnapped or killed or their properties have been looted, and this kind of fear is going on, and nobody can do anything.
LAWTON: Mahdi says it’s painful, but his faith forbids any kind of retaliation.
MAHDI: Islam promotes peace, and Islam does not need any kind of blood-shedding in the name of Islam.
LAWTON: According to Esposito, despite the persecution, Ahmadis have a strong missionary tradition.
ESPOSITO: Ahmadiyya in general are very concerned about spreading their faith. That’s very much part of what they do.
LAWTON: Ahmadis established a community in the US in 1920. They claim they were the first official American-Muslim organization. Their US headquarters is in Maryland, and they have thousands of members here. After the events of 9/11, Ahmadi leaders say they realized the need to do even more aggressive outreach, and the Muslims for Peace campaign began. They ratcheted the campaign up even further after the failed terrorism plot by a Muslim-American in Times Square.
ZAFAR:We noticed that after the failed Times Square bombing attempt by Faisal Shahzad in May of 2010, that there was what people kept referring to as a deafening silence within the Muslim community. So that’s where we decided, well, hey, we’ve been here the longest, It’s incumbent upon us to do something.
LAWTON: They developed another project called Muslims for Loyalty, which emphasized the Prophet Muhammad’s teachings that Muslims should be loyal to the countries where they live.
LAWTON: For the tenth anniversary of 9/11, they launched a blood drive called Muslims for Life. Their goal was to collect 10,000 units of blood.
MAHDI: Ten-thousand units would save 30,000 lives, which would be ten times the lives lost on that day of heinous crime against humanity ten years ago. We are promoting a religion which gives life and not destruction, which promotes peace and not terrorism, and this is not just a statement, but giving our blood.
LAWTON: They ended up collecting nearly 12,000 units of blood, and they’re continuing to hold other blood drive events. Ahmadi outreach includes an active women’s movement.
MALIK: We are given a voice. Our community, the women have a voice. And we have, we are very well educated, and we are very knowledgeable about our religion.
LAWTON: And in many communities, Ahmadis are deeply involved in interfaith dialogue, although that can complicate relationships with mainstream Muslims. Esposito says US Ahmadis have an influence beyond their numbers.
ESPOSITO: Although they are a relatively small percentage of the American Muslim community, they play a significant role. They’ve been out there doing their work, but far more, I think, well organized and visible in terms of the public-relation side of things.
LAWTON: Ahmadis say they are just trying to live out the tenets of their faith.
ZAFAR: As part of the Ahmadi Muslim community, we believe that we have a true message, and we want people to know it.
LAWTON: And they pledge to continue those efforts, despite the controversy they may generate.
I’m Kim Lawton reporting.
LUCKY SEVERSON (Correspondent): Few cities around the world can match the stunning skyline of Hong Kong. Architecture here is a big deal, and so is the 3,000 year old Chinese practice of Feng Shui. Few skyscrapers are constructed without the advice of a Feng Shui master, and Raymond Lo is one of a handful of “grand” masters.
RAYMOND LO (Feng Shui Grand Master): Definitely, Hong Kong is a Feng Shui city. You can see Hong Kong is such a tiny spot in such a big country. Why Hong Kong is so unique? Because it enjoys the best Feng Shui.
SEVERSON: Nury Vittachi is an internationally syndicated columnist and author of over 30 books, including several about Feng Shui.
NURY VITTACHI (Author): One of the great things about Hong Kong is that it’s very rational and businesslike but at the same time, we believe in magic and we take it very seriously.
SEVERSON: Feng Shui is about more than tall buildings. People here practice it in their apartments and gardens and in their lives.
LO: Feng Shui means that it is an ancient Chinese knowledge which is talking about how the environment will affect people’s well-being. So the Chinese has discovered in their environment that different kind of energy. Some are good energy, which make you improve your health, improve your relationship with people and also improve your money. And there are negative energy which will do the opposite.
SEVERSON: Mr. Lo views himself as a scientist who, with the right tools, can actually measure good and bad energy.
LO: Of course this is an instrument we need. This is a compass, and those characters and numbers are actually the formula which the Feng Shui master, they have invented. So basically this is an instrument we use to measure the direction of the building and then based on the direction and based on the time the building was built, we can establish where is the good energy and where is the bad energy.
SEVERSON: Nury Vittachi’s columns are known for their humor and irony, and he finds plenty of both among the power structures of downtown Hong Kong.
VITTACHI: So you’d think this would be the most rational, number-focused place on earth, but in fact, Feng Shui rules even here. As the building was being put up and finishing touches were being arranged, a Feng Shui master said, “Oh, it’s too regular. Everything is on a grid shape here and you’ve got to put something askew.”
SEVERSON: So plans for the escalators were changed. They are no longer perpendicular, they run askew.
VITTACHI: It does seem to have worked because over the last 20 years since this building was created, HSBC has grown to become literally one of the biggest banks in the world.
SEVERSON: This being Hong Kong, our next building is another bank and more Feng Shui.
VITTACHI: This is the Standard Charter bank building which has taken the idea of mixing money and spirituality very seriously in that, although it’s the headquarters of a major bank, it has a church-like feel or a temple-like feel, right up to the extent of having stained glass windows. But instead of religious icons, you have the trappings of modernity, you have computers, a gold mobile phone, aircraft, that sort of thing. It’s done in a good spirit and the community loves it.
SEVERSON: Our next building is the Bank of China which was built by an architect from the States who apparently didn’t realize that the diamond designed exterior is a negative shape in Feng Shui, and the diamonds were pointed directly at the governor’s house.
VITTACHI: And the governor lost his job, so they built a swimming pool between this and the governor’s house so that the water would take away the negative energy. It didn’t work. The replacement governor had a heart attack.
SEVERSON: Today the bank has a moat around it.
VITTACHI: You notice the fish are mostly different shades of gold, and they represent, of course, gold flowing around your life. So, definitely a prosperity theme at this bank.
SEVERON: As an example of how seriously Hong Kong takes Feng Shui, in recent years, the city has spent more than 8 million dollars compensating people living next to construction sites because all that activity disturbed their Feng Shui.
Nury says some people go a little overboard when it comes to Feng Shui.
VITTACHI: If you move your desk over here a bit, you know, suddenly grandma will feel better. You know, if you move your desk a bit there, she’ll feel great. You move your desk too far and she dies. You know, there’s that sort of feng shui which I think is very… It’s clearly superstitious. But I think underpinning all that, there’s just good psychological sense. If you make your environment feel good, if you focus away from material things to spiritual things, it’s good for everybody.
LO: Actually Feng Shui encompass every walk of your life. Everything in life. There’s always a logic, a reason, behind things happening. So therefore you have an answer. If you don’t know Feng Shui, don’t care about Feng Shui, that means everything seems to be mystery.
SEVERSON: Raymond Lo has taught Feng Shui classes all over the world, including the U.S. where an increasing number of architects are using the practice in their house designs.
WILLIAM PAGE (Architect): The good energy that you are bringing in, it funnels into the front entrance.
SEVERSON: William Page is a Seattle-based architect who builds and sells houses. He uses Feng Shui principles in his designs.
PAGE: A curved wall lets the good energy that comes in, the good Chi that comes in, dissipate throughout the building.
SEVERSON: He says the Feng Shui must be working, at least for him. It’s helped him sell houses.
PAGE: It is said that you should not have a stove directly across from a sink because one is fire and one is water and they do not mix. It is important not to have the head of the bed backing up against a bathroom because it tends to flush the energy down the drain.
SEVERSON: Back in Hong Kong, Nury Vittachi takes us to a Buddhist shrine in the middle of a lively business district. In his view, the shrine is part of the Feng Shui of this neighborhood, the calming and centering part.
VITTACHI: There’s a big tree actually growing right here, you know, in between the floor and the ceiling of this temple. What a lovely unity between man and nature. I mean, I actually think it is a very religious community. Behind every temple, every village, every modern skyscrapers, including the stock exchange, you will find something like this. You’ll find a little shrine. Spirituality, Feng Shui, is very much woven deeply into the fabric of a very rational, scientific, business-obsessed community.
SEVERSON: A business community so rational that executives decided to shift the angle of the entrance to the Hong Kong Disneyland theme park by 12 degrees after a Feng Shui master said the change would result in the park’s prosperity.
For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, I’m Lucky Severson in Hong Kong.
