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Category: Peace & Justice

George is Cool

When the Saints Go Marching Out:
Redefining St George for a New Era

Paper by Ekklesia Staff Writers

Abstract

This paper proposes that the figure of St George should be reclaimed according to his true, hidden story – as a dissenter against the abuse of power, a contrast to religious crusades, a global figure we share with other nations, someone who offered hospitality to the vulnerable, and a champion of right rather than might.

It proposes that St George’s Day should be re-branded as a national day to celebrate an English contribution to the history of dissent – the witness of people like the abolitionists, the suffragettes and those who have sought to combat racism, nationalism, debt, poverty, colonialism and war with the vision of a nation and world open to all.

For the churches, we believe, St George can be a post-Christendom saint. He is a Christian figure, but he does not ‘belong’ to Christians. However, in his faithful nonconformity he invites the churches to become better servants of Jesus by abandoning reliance on a romanticised past and (in the case of the Church of England) a legacy of Establishment privilege – and seeking a better way.

Introduction: the English problem?

St George is a figure who embodies the curious ‘traditional’ relationship between religion and social order, nation and identity. More-or-less emptied of its (chequered) Christian history, his flag and symbolism has increasingly been adopted as an emblem of ‘Englishness’ in recent years. At football matches, in pubs and on houses the red and white has displaced or augmented the red, white and blue. [1]

But what does it all mean? No-one is very sure. In an age of digital and online gaming, ordinary dragons don’t quite cut the cultural muster. Politically things are changing, too. Recognising the strides the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish have made towards a new sense of national selfhood, the government seems to recognise that there remains (though they don’t quite put it this way) ‘the English problem’.

The English retain a global reputation, in some cases deserved, in others not, for xenophobia and insularity. Others see them as being hospitable and fair, but also aggressive and suspicious. The English have ‘lost’ an Empire with which they strongly identified – had is wrested from them, more like – and they have gained… what? This is where there seems a lack. The flag of St George seems to be a cipher for nostalgic longing, where once it was monopolised by those wanting to assert a mythical and exclusive ‘whiteness’ (a dangerous idea which still threatens to fill the void).

1. Calling power to account

In face of this confusion, Ekklesia believes that the St George and his national Day needs to be ‘re-branded’ (re-thought and re-defined) for the 21st century – not in a superficial way that conveniently adjusts the past in our own interests, but to regain a global sense of how those who identify with St George have been shaped by history (good and bad) and how they can be enriched through embracing a diverse cultural inheritance.

When we re-read the story of his origins and literary interpretation, St George, it turns out, was a dissenter. Starting out as an establishment figure, a military leader, his Christian faith led him to forsake his weapons and wealth in order personally to confront the Emperor Diocletian (303 AD) [2] with the wrong he was doing in persecuting minorities.

St George’s conversion towards the cause of the persecuted started out, so legend has it, with an act of hospitality towards someone else, a Christian as it happens. These days we often feel threatened by strangers and those who seek refuge with us. For St George it was a spur to challenge the source of oppression by going directly to the Imperial Court. His action cost him his life. He was beheaded. But he became a symbol of courage for others. [See section 6. for more details]

Here, then, is a tale of the just person calling power to account through truth, something very relevant to the quest for post-imperial identity in a global world divided by power and violence, including religious violence. It also fits well with the long English tradition of dissent and with a renewed sense of internationalism.

Yet it is a story largely lost amid self-assertive flag-waving and harmless tales of dragons. Worse, St George has been co-opted to justify the 11th century crusades (which still blight modern history, especially the encounter with Islam), and in recent times has been manipulated into being a standard bearer for narrow nationalism – though he was, according to the tradition, black and Middle Eastern.

2. An open-hearted sense of identity

We say that it is high time St George was reclaimed from the dragon, from past associations with racism and the far right, from religious crusades, from inward-looking nationalism, and from images of arrogant flag-waving. Instead his hidden story encourages us to celebrate an open-hearted sense of identity by recognising:

• Our role as global relations, not narrow nationalists
• The need for dissenters to call power to account
• Black Britons as vital contributors to our culture
• Shared values of social justice arising from the past
• Hospitality to migrants in an interdependent world
• Exemplars of faith, hope and love, not thin celebrity

When we take a second look at the legend of St George as defender of the vulnerable, we see that he does not truthfully belong to those who seek to dominate or exclude others. He belongs to those who are persecuted, to ‘the awkward squad’, to Black history, to many nations and regions, to those who sojourn and travel, to those who look for something more enduring than celebrity culture.

To consider St George a symbol of ‘England alone, above, better’ is narrative nonsense, as well extremely damaging to the English as a people with a delightfully mongrel heritage [3] and a global future. When we study the hagiography, we discover that we actually share his patronage with Turkey (his attributed birthplace), Syria (his probable nationality), Palestine (where he served), and Portugal, Aragon, Catalonia, Lithuania, Germany, Greece, Moscow, Istanbul, Genoa and Venice (where he is also honoured as a saint). [4]

On closer examination, St George turns out to be a global icon, not a local hero.

One important task, therefore is to take the sin out of his sainthood. Just as he was co-opted by the crusaders, so St George’s misappropriation as an excluding figure has continued in recent history. And it is not just the BNP who have done this [5]. It has happened in the political mainstream, too. In parliament, he sits over the exit from the Central Lobby of the House of Lords, lending presiding authority to the vestiges of an unelected, top-down social order.

But as the story of St George’s defiance of the Emperor Diocletian shows (and there are many who actually did what is claimed of him, even if he is a largely constructed figure), this particular patron belongs somewhere other than established order. He belongs to the people, not their overlords.

3. St George’s Day – celebrating the dissenters

It therefore makes sense that St Georges’s Day should become a Day of Dissent when we mark and celebrate the noble, alternative English tradition of rebellion against the abuse of power (the pro-democracy Putney Debates [6], the equality-seeking Levellers, the anti-slavery abolitionists, the women’s suffrage movement, conscientious objectors and peacemakers, anti-racism campaigners, human rights activists, those struggling against debt and poverty, and many others).

In shared stories such as these – some with a particular religious component, others not – we discover that to be ‘English’ is not to exist in splendid isolation, but in solidarity and friendship. [7] It is not about whiteness but blackness and diversity too. The values human beings cherish are not ours to possess, but things shared and developed with others. Our identity is formed by what enables us to relate positively, not what makes us ‘different’. Drawing boundaries is often far less useful than pooling resources.

Re-branding St George, re-assessing his history and significance (and the interests it has been developed to serve) also involves a new honesty about ourselves. England has been a land of freedom and fairness. But it has also sought to rule the waves and waive the rules. It has been built on injustice and exploitation as well as courage and adventure. Trying to tell the story only one way, for good or ill, misrepresents it. The question is: how do we take the best of our inheritance into a future which will continue to involve radical change?

In order to address this question we don’t need ‘patron saints’ who simply justify who and what we are. We need people – living and dead, historical and mythological – who point us to what we can become as people of character. Increasingly, these will be people of many nations – Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Desmond Tutu, Dorothy Day, Vaclev Havel, Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi… the cloud of witnesses is huge in number, especially when we begin to delve beyond those who are ‘well known’.

The Black Britons project [8] is but one way of looking for fresh examples of hope. The British (perhaps especially the English) tend to elevate the ‘heroic individual’, but those we come to see as symbols were often part of much larger movements that had their origins in the grassroots.

St George is one name among many who resisted waves of persecution by kings, dictators and tyrants. Wilberforce’s action against the transatlantic slave trade needs to be read alongside the resistance of the plantation workers and the endeavours of the abolitionists who went before him, and who are still working against new forms of slavery (sex trafficking, indentured labour) today. Many women who struggled for equality and justice still find their names hidden from history. [9]

4. Saints, celebrities and converts in post-Christendom

There is also an important religious twist in all this. George is a ‘saint’ in the Christian tradition, albeit a minor one for some. Rightly understood, saints are not impossible heroes – they are ordinary people who, in some important aspect of their lives, show us a better way of living before each other and in the transforming presence of God. They give us practical examples of courage, truth-telling, holiness (integrity), justice (right relations), selfless love, reconciliation and hope. [10]

Such figures have, of course, been abused in church history. St George gave up his symbols of power to confront a ruler who was a tyrant, not least toward Christians. But subsequently the church, under the Edict of Milan, became incorporated into the imperial order itself, and its gospel of love and justice was deeply compromised.

When the bloody crusades (wars of religion) were launched in the 11th century the genuine example of St George was forgotten, and he was turned into a symbol of violence in God’s name. The ‘Christian Empire’ had no use for an emblem of resistance from within the system. On the contrary, it needed someone to buttress its claims and ways. This, sadly, has often been the case with ‘patron saints’, where faith, government and territory have been aligned as interests to be defended across national borders.

For Constantine, who bequeathed what became Christendom (the variegated history of the alliance of religious and governing powers in Europe), the red cross of St George was a symbol of domination: “In this sign you shall conquer” (In hoc signo vinces).

By contrast, the early followers of Christ saw the cross as the abolition of sin and sacrifice, a confrontation with ‘the powers that be’ whereby God in Christ absorbed, defeated and transformed the death-dealing that swallows us all. Jesus’ sacrifice was divine because it embodied the power of love overcoming the love of power. [11]

Christians, therefore, need to reclaim the St George story as an exemplification of what theologian Brian McLaren has called “the secret message of Jesus” – resistance to abusive power and injustice which uses active love, peacemaking, protest, personal transformation, self-sacrifice and the politics of forgiveness as its tools – not weapons of war and coercion. [12]

But can nations be expected to behave like this? Not unless their mini-communities of identity, geography and interest (civic groups, associations, churches, religious and non-religious networks, and campaigns for human betterment) start to think and behave differently. We get the governance we deserve. And we get the saints – these days, merely the celebrities – we deserve, too.
That is a particular challenge to the churches, too. Their role is to be exemplary communities demonstrating a different way of living on the basis of God’s love, not human force. But historically, under Christendom, they have often aligned with dominant cultures and elites, colluding with institutions such as slavery and the subjugation of women and minorities. This represents a reversal of their origins among those who were persecuted and cast out by the ruling religious and political authorities. [13]

St George, perhaps, provides a route back. He was a person, it seems, from a relatively privileged background who became a servant of the state, a tribune in the army. But he turned in a different direction to speak out for the victims of a system which lurched into tyranny.
In a less dramatic way, maybe, St George can become a post-Christendom saint for the churches today. He is a Christian figure, but he does not ‘belong’ to Christians. However, in his faithful nonconformity he invites the churches to become better servants of Jesus by abandoning reliance on a romanticised past and (in the case of the Church of England) an Establishment legacy of privilege – and seeking a better way.

5. Telling a different kind of story – ‘gospel truth’

What we call ‘re-branding’ is about reconsidering what is important in a story about someone or something, and telling it afresh. In a cynical advertising culture where products and vested interests rule, however, this can easily be seen as nothing more than ‘spin’. But in politics, in national identity and in religion, ‘spin’ mostly fails to work – in the longer run anyway. People have an innate sense of what has dignity, truth and value, and what is simple propaganda. It is the role of dissenters to encourage this awareness.

The Christian faith speaks not just of a change of image or appearance, but more fundamentally of a change of heart, of relationships and of life-direction. The New Testament’s distinctive word for this is metanoia – that is conversion, a turnaround enabling us to head in a new direction.

In the liberating story of Jesus, so the Gospel suggests, who we are and who we can be is radically redefined. [14] We are not isolated individuals, we are persons-in-relation. We are not consumers, we are people free to give and receive in non-monetarized ways. We are not subjects of a nation, race or ideology – we are citizens of an all-embracing realm (God’s) whose unendingly generosity is not mortgaged to imperial domination.

According to the hagiography, St George was a high ranking army officer at a time when many Christians still took Christ’s words about love of enemies seriously. Should they leave a profession which appeared incompatible with Jesus’ example? Should they remain soldiers but refuse to kill or make sacrifice to the Emperor? Some apparently tried to deal with the dilemma by leaving their sword arms above the water line when they entered the baptismal waters – the beginning of a ‘two kingdoms’ doctrine.

However St George resolved this church-state tension, when he came to face down the Emperor, he realised that force of arms would be of little help. He was outnumbered, and his appeal was to right not might.

This, not nationalism, is what a true patriotism is about – commitment to ‘another country’, one where all have a place, not just those with wealth and power. If there is anything to be gained from the public debate about ‘progressive patriotism’ [15] and a sense of national identity that does not put others down (such as is being discussed elsewhere in Britain), this kind of global vision should surely be at the heart of it.

6. Re-visiting St George’s mythologized history

Very little, if anything, is known about the real St George. Pope Gelasius said that George is one of the saints “whose names are rightly reverenced among us, but whose actions are known only to God.”

Tradition has is that he was born in about 280 AD in Turkey (Cappadocia). A Roman Army Officer, some suggest that he had Christian parents, others that he converted to Christianity after sheltering a Christian.

Christians were a small, but growing minority in the Empire. They faced periods of intense persecution. They often saw themselves as aliens in a foreign land. Things came to a head for George, quite literally, when Diocletian unleashed his terrible persecution of the Christians in 303 AD. He is said to have divested himself of his rank and worldly possessions and journeyed to Nicomedia to plead with Diocletian. He didn’t raise an army, but confessed to his faith and challenged the Emperor’s authority without force of arms. It was an action that he paid for with torture and decapitation.

It is suggested that the witness of his suffering convinced Empress Alexandra and Athanasius, a pagan priest, to become Christians as well, and so they joined George in martyrdom. His body was returned to Lydda for burial, where Christians soon came to honour him as a martyr.

Eusebius of Caesarea, writing c. 322, tells of a soldier of noble birth who was put to death under Diocletian at Nicomedia on 23 April 303, but makes no mention of his name, his country or his place of burial. The historicity, or otherwise, of this story may never be known. However the story took on a life of its own, as was often the case in the ancient world (and is not unknown in a modern, tabloid culture). [16]

Originally, veneration of a saint was authorized by local bishops but, after a number of scandals, the Popes began in the twelfth century to take control of the procedure and to systematize it. A lesser holiday in honour of St George, to be kept on 23 April, was declared by the Synod of Oxford in 1222; and St George had become acknowledged as Patron Saint of England by the end of the fourteenth century. Others in Portugal, Palestine and elsewhere have their own affinities and claims, but they did not have the power to exercise them in the same way. [17]

Timeline

303 – George challenges Emperor Diocletian
1098 – George adopted as patron saint of soldiers after he was said to have appeared to the Crusader army at the Battle of Antioch
1191 – Richard 1, campaigning in Palestine, puts the army ‘under the protection’ of St George
1222 – A lesser holiday to honour St George, to be kept on 23 April, declared by the Synod of Oxford
1344 – 1348 Edward proclaims St George Patron Saint of England
1348 – George adopted by Edward III as principal Patron of his new order of chivalry, the Knights of the Garter
1415 – Archbishop Chichele raised St George’s Day to a great feast and ordered it to be observed like Christmas Day.
1778 – Holiday reverts to a simple day of devotion for English Catholics
1940 – George V1 institutes the George Cross for ‘acts of the greatest heroism or of the most conspicuous courage in circumstances of extreme danger’
1969 – Revision of Calendar of Saints by the Roman Catholic Church leads to downgrading the recollection of St George to the lowest category, commemoration, an optional memorial for local observance.

Throughout Christian history, the details and diversities of the cult of St George are many and complex. [18]

7. Reclaiming St George from the shadow of empire

Claimed by the resurgent Christian Empire seven centuries after Constantine, St George was branded ‘an English hero’ during the crusades against the Muslim armies in the 11th century. He became a symbol of religious war and conflict.

His image was also used to foster patriotism in 1940, when King George VI inaugurated the George Cross as the UK’s highest award for bravery by a civilian or a military person where the award of the Victoria Cross (VC) was not applicable. [20] The medal bears a depiction of the saint slaying the dragon – a legend which possibly has its origins in the Greek story of Perseus, Andromeda and the sea-monster. [21]

‘Re-branding’ St George is about rediscovering forgotten elements of his early story and interpreting them after Christendom. The fact that the dissenting aspect of George’s life has been played down might perhaps account for part of its failure to capture the public imagination in other than a vague, nationalistic sense. We propose bringing his story back to its subversive origins. [22]

England has no other national day besides St George’s. In other countries, the national day is often associated with independence, liberation or deliverance from oppression – for example, the 4th July in the US, Bastille Day in France, and the various celebrations of Simon Bolivar in South America. There is also Martin Luther King Day and Holocaust Memorial Day.

To reframe St George’s Day in terms of the English traditions of non-conformity, enfranchisement and freedom for women, slaves, refugees and many others would both honour in its widest sense the story of someone who spoke for the persecuted, and it would also fit well with the theme of shared freedom – as well as highlighting how far we still have to go.

No doubt those concerned with the situation of migrants, asylum seekers, travellers, gay people, minority religious groups and others who have experienced marginalisation and mistreatment would have much to contribute to the debate about an inclusive ‘Englishness’. Both people of faith and humanists and those of no faith could own the theme of creative dissent and the development of living space for all.

It is also important to stress that ‘re-branding’ in this way is nothing new, trendy or ‘politically correct’. In 1958 Empire Day was renamed Commonwealth day, for example – broadening its appeal, recognising the significance of historical change, and creating a fresh understanding of Britain’s place in the world.

8. Some practical possibilities

We offer these as some ideas and recommendations to stimulate further debate and discussion:

1. That St George’s Day could become a national public holiday in England.
2. That its theme could be to celebrate historic English traditions of creative dissent and non-conformity in the spirit of St George’s challenge to Diocletian’s persecution.
3. That is could also be an occasion to reinforce links with other inheritances (such as our ex-enemy Gandhi’s) which have enabled us to re-assess our own history, policy and self-understanding.
4. That civic events could be held to mark the contribution to national life of dissenters, martyrs, minorities and migrants – with particular attention to the plight of the excluded, the displaced and oppressed in history and today.
5. A focus on hospitality – street parties, concerts, exhibitions, multicultural events, and projects to encourage reconciliation within local communities.
6. An emphasis on those ‘hidden from history’ in school and education programmes.
7. An examination of non-violent techniques for tackling injustice and violence, given the failures of Iraq and the desire to relinquish war and terror as instruments of policy – recalling St George’s costly decision to seek moral persuasion rather than force of arms.
8. A renewed focus within the churches on the history of Christian non-conformity, which has increasing relevance as we transition into a post-Christendom era.

Simon Barrow & Jonathan Bartley
April 2007
———-

Notes

[1] This development is noted and documented by Ian Bradley, Believing in Britain: The spiritual identity of ‘Britishness’ (I. B. Taurus, 2006), pp. 3-4.
[2] Rosamie Moore, ‘An abridged history of Rome, Part i-xi, From Diocletian to Constantine’, 22 April 2006.
[3] For accounts of the diverse cultural make-up and roots of English and British identities, see the Runnymede Trust educational project, ‘The Real Histories Directory’.
[4] For summaries of St George, his attributes and those who use him as a model see: BBC Religion and Ethics – St George, and Michael Collins, St George – England’s Patron Saint (Britannia History, 1996-7). Earlier accounts include those by I. H Elder, George of Lydda (1939).
[5] On the far-right British National Party (BNP) website, Alan O’Reilly offers what he calls “a traditional Christian narrative of England’s national saint.”
[6] In 1647, among the pews of Putney parish church in southwest London, the rank and file of the Roundheads, led by Leveller agitators, argued their case for a transparent democratic state based on suffrage, religious toleration and the rule of law. Ekklesia associate Giles Fraser is current vicar of Putney and writes about A church that still embodies Britain’s radical tradition (30 October 2006).
[7] For a full General Bibliography of English Dissenters, see the ExLibris online project (1997-2006).
[8] George of Lydda features as part of the 100 Black Britons documentary project. See also: National Archives in association with the Black and Asian Studies Association, Black Presence: Asian and Black History in Britain, 1500 – 1850, an online exhibition.
[9] See Sheila Rowbotham, Hidden from History. 300 Years of Women’s Oppression and the Fight Against It (Pluto Press, 1975).
[10] Markus Gilbert (Ed.), Radical Tradition: Saints in the struggle for justice and peace (DLT, 1992).
[11] Simon Barrow & Jonathan Bartley (Eds.), Consuming Passion: Why the killing of Jesus really matters (Darton, Longman and Todd, 2005).
[12] Brian McLaren, The Lost Message of Jesus (Thomas Nelson, 2005).
[13] Jonathan Bartley, Faith and Politics After Christendom (Paternoster, 2006); Stuart Murray, Post-Christendom (Paternoster, 2004).
[14] Brian McLaren, The Story We Find Ourselves In: Further Adventures of a New Kind of Christian (Jossey Bass Wiley, 2003).
[15] On the progressive patriotism’ debate, see for example: Billy Bragg, They’re not just British values – but we need them anyway The Guardian, Tuesday April 10 2007.
[16] Eusebius of Caesarea, The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine (Penguin Classics, 1989), pp. 367 ff.
[17] For a fascinating scholarly survey, which illustrates the ambiguity and multivalence of the myth, see: The Martyrdom of St. George in the South English Legendary (c. 1270-80), edited by E. Gordon Whatley, with Anne B. Thompson and Robert K. Upchurch. Originally published in Saints’ Lives in Middle English Collections (Medieval Institute Publications, USA, 2004).
[18] See also: David Woods, The Origin of the Cult of St George (May 2002).
[19] Thomas F. Madden, The Real History of the Crusades. The Wikipedia entry on Crusades has a good bibliography.
[20] The George Cross Database: The Decoration (Chameleon HH Publishing Ltd).
[21] BBC, The Great St George Revival, 23 April 1998.
[22] This has been done many times before. Giles Morgan comments: “St George is also identified with the Islamic hero Al Khidr, who is said to have discovered the fountain of youth. He has been associated with the coming of spring and has functioned as fertility symbol, and been closely linked to the Green Man of Pre-Christian Myth. St George has also acted as a symbol of chastity and served as a healing saint. His flag has been appropriated by the far right but in recent times come to identify a multi-cultural England.” See his St George: Knight, patron saint and dragon slayer (Pocket Essentials, 2006).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Simon Barrow & Jonathan Bartley (Eds.), Consuming Passion: Why the killing of Jesus really matters (Darton, Longman and Todd, 2005).
Jonathan Bartley, Faith and Politics After Christendom (Paternoster, 2006).
Tony Benn, Writings on the Wall: Radical and Socialist Anthology, 1215-1984 (Faber & Faber, 1984).
Ian Bradley, Believing in Britain: The spiritual identity of ‘Britishness’ (I. B. Taurus, 2006).
Andrew Bradstock, Radical Religion and the English Civil War (Davenport Press, 2001).
_______________, Faith in the Revolution: The political theologies of Muntzer and Winstanley (SPCK, 1997).
_______________, Winstanley and the Diggers 1649-1999 (Cassell, 2000).
Andrew Bradstock & Christopher Rowland, Radical Christian Writings: A Reader (Blackwell, 2002).
Norman Davies, The Isles: A History (Papermac, 2000).
Eusebius, The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine (Penguin Classics, 1989).
Giles Fraser, A church that still embodies Britain’s radical tradition (Ekklesia, 30 October 2006).
Markus Gilbert (Ed.), Radical Tradition: Saints in the struggle for justice and peace (Darton, Longman and Todd, 1992).
Alexander Grant & Keith Stringer, Uniting the Kingdom? The making of British history (Routledge, 1995).
Andrew Marr, The Day Britain Died (Profile, 2000).
Brian McLaren, The Lost Message of Jesus (Thomas Nelson, 2005).
____________, The Story We Find Ourselves In: Further Adventures of a New Kind of Christian (Jossey Bass Wiley, 2003)
Giles Morgan, St George: Knight, patron saint and dragon slayer (Pocket Essentials, 2006).
Stuart Murray, Post-Christendom (Paternoster, 2004).
Tom Nairn, After Britain (Granta, 2000)
Jeremy Paxman, The English: A portrait of a people (Penguin, 1999).
Sheila Rowbotham, Hidden from History. 300 Years of Women’s Oppression and the Fight Against It (Pluto Press, 1975).
Christopher Rowland, Radical Christianity: A reading of recovery (Wilpf & Stock, 2004).

No Comments by George Swanson on April 19, 2007

filed in Peace & Justice

Ineffable & Unspeakable

An Optimism Too Far for Palestine-Israel?

By Timothy Seidel in Ekklesia 12 Apr 2007

United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently travelled through the Middle East, making visits with Israelis and Palestinians, bringing with her, many have speculated, little more than another round of optimism.

This familiar aura of hard-to-pin-down optimism was also found following the statements Secretary Rice delivered in her keynote address at the American Task Force on Palestine Inaugural Gala in Washington DC in October 2006.

In these statements, Dr Rice gave a strong endorsement of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and reiterated phrases from President Bush’s United Nations General Assembly speech in September regarding ending the “daily humiliation of occupation” and establishing a Palestinian state with “territorial integrity.” But what garnered the most praise was the statement of her “personal commitment” to the goal of a “Palestinian state living side by side in peace with Israel.”

Whatever sense of anticipation one might draw from such statements, it is predictably shattered when confronted with the worsening situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. In a recent report, for example, UN human rights expert John Dugard observed that the human rights situation here continues to deteriorate and called the conditions “intolerable, appalling, and tragic for ordinary Palestinians.”

And in an article titled ‘Israelis adopt what South Africa dropped,’ Dugard made striking parallels between the situation in the Occupied Territories and his home country of South Africa under apartheid, going so far as to say: “Many aspects of Israel’s occupation surpass those of the apartheid regime. Israel’s large-scale destruction of Palestinian homes, leveling of agricultural lands, military incursions and targeted assassinations of Palestinians far exceed any similar practices in apartheid South Africa” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 29 Nov 2006).

The situation in Gaza, with a poverty level approaching 80 per cent and Israel’s ongoing siege that has, since late June of last year, claimed the lives of over 400 Palestinians there, leaving over 5,000 injured and Gaza’s children severely traumatized, is just one example of how bleak the situation is. Palestinian dispossession due to Israeli colonization and the construction of the separation barrier or Wall that continues unabated is another sad indicator, one that Dugard, again speaking of South Africa during apartheid, points out “No wall was ever built to separate blacks and whites.”

Unfortunately, the construction of this 430-mile or 700-kilometer Wall is just one more chapter in a long history of Palestinian dispossession. Whether it is more land being expropriated for the construction of this separation barrier, the dramatic growth of illegal settlements, including in and around Jerusalem, the proliferation of a closure system of checkpoints and roadblocks that obstruct mobility, the demolition of homes and other forms of collective punishment, the one-big-prison-status of Gaza, or the continuing state of dispossession of seven million Palestinians refugees worldwide, Palestinian livelihoods are devastated by military occupation and their experience of dispossession continues unabated. Not a very optimistic scenario.

Yet optimism persists. It is in the context of such experiences of dispossession and occupation that Secretary Rice’s comments over her “personal commitment” to the goal of a “Palestinian state living side by side in peace with Israel” need to be examined.

To the extent to which these words echo past commitments, especially from US officials, one cannot help but feel disappointed. The first question that comes to mind is similar to the one Palestinians, upon whom demands are placed to recognize the state of Israel, voice — namely: “Which Israel are we to recognize? Israel within the borders of the Green Line or Israel with a colonizing presence in and absolute control over Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem?”

In that same vein one might ask Secretary of State Rice, or any representative of the ‘quartet’ for that matter: “Which Palestinian state are you committed to? Is it a state secure on all territory occupied by Israel since 1967, including East Jerusalem, or a cantonized joke of a state with Palestinians isolated in large open-air prisons?”

Regardless of where one stands in the “one-state solution” versus “two-state solution” debate, what is important to see is what the language of “two-states” has come actually to mean on the ground, and what its consequences will be for Palestinians.

Due to what many identify as the dynamics of power, what matters at this point in the conversation is the meaning that the state of Israel gives to the language of “two states.” This has been articulated by Prime Minister Olmert in his goal to unilaterally set the borders of Israel by 2010 — which will also, to speak to another language problem, essentially “end the occupation” in a manner not unlike that one used to describe the situation in Gaza post-“disengagement,” described by many as the largest open-air prison in the world.

In this version of the language of “two states,” “the state of Israel” essentially equals formally annexing all major colonies in the West Bank, including “greater Jerusalem” and the Jordan Valley, with control over all of historical Palestine (fulfilling the vision of Ariel Sharon, et al, of “maximum territory, minimum Arabs”). Subsequently, “the state of Palestine” essentially equals several isolated islands of land on roughly 40 to 50 per cent of the occupied West Bank with Palestinians confined to these “reservations,” or, evoking South Africa under apartheid, “Bantustans,” which will be rendered “contiguous” by a network of tunnels controlled by the Israeli military—completely unrealistic, completely unviable, and completely lacking any sense of human security for the people here.

A recent report from the Foundation for Middle East Peace, (http://www.fmep.org/), paints an even more depressing picture in which as little as 30 per cent of the West Bank will remain for Palestinian autonomous regions.

The fact that it is Israel’s understanding of what “two states” means that truly matters was emphasized by comments emerging from the US State Department following Olmert’s declarations last year, affirming his vision of Israeli unilateralism. Though still trying to keep the ‘Road Map’ and its understanding of negotiations afloat, Secretary Rice then voiced acquiescence.

Dr Rice was reported to have said: “I wouldn’t on the face of it just say absolutely we don’t think there’s any value in what the Israelis are talking about.” The BBC pointed out that this was “the first time the US appears to have dropped its insistence that the conflict must be solved bilaterally.”

In this context, it is difficult to find anything terribly comforting about Secretary’s Rice’s comments on a Palestinian state until they are backed up by tangible actions on the part of Israel and the United States. But looking back on how the US has postured itself in the past regarding moves Israel has made, there is little that indicates any movement away from a trajectory that will lead to the concretizing of apartheid in this land.

Dr Rice’s visit to Palestine/Israel leaves many wondering what exactly she is doing here. She herself has recognized that she has nothing new to offer except another round of cheap optimism. Some have speculated that she intended to discuss the idea of a “Palestinian state” with provisional borders, defined by the path of the Wall, with Palestinian Authority President Abbas, who has rejected this outright. Indeed, recent reports that the US State Department may go ahead and recognize such a state with provisional borders by the end of 2007.

It is this lack of a realistic perspective of events that clouds the language of “two states,” and which only makes the hope for a legitimate “two-state solution” to this terrible conflict seem all but lost.

And it is about the persistence of such dangerously misplaced optimism — the “too many mendacious statements of optimism from George W Bush or Tony Blair or Condoleezza Rice” — that veteran British journalist Robert Fisk continuously warns his readers. It is what he calls the “reluctance to confront unpleasant truths” that must concern us when we reflect on our efforts at advocacy.

How do we speak a word of hope that is not a “cheap hope” veiled in dangerously misplaced optimism? How should advocates for justice, peace and real security for Palestinians and Israelis respond to this current reality?

One point for us to consider might be to move beyond the conceptual bind of “statehood” — whether Palestinian or Israeli. Our concern and advocacy for a just and lasting peace should not ultimately be concerned with whether or not a Palestinian state comes into being because statehood, from a Christian perspective, is not an end in itself.

Rather, what is a good in and of itself is the well-being of all who inhabit “Mandate Palestine” — that is, present-day Israel, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. If current realities have indeed rendered a two-state solution unfeasible, then those who care about the well-being and security of Palestinians and Israelis must imagine new ways for Palestinians and Israelis to live side by side in justice, freedom, and equality.

A much-discussed and controversial alternative to consider might be that of one bi-national state. The struggle in this scenario would become one against an apartheid reality in the Occupied Territories and for equal citizenship in a binational state, in which Palestinians and Israelis are equal citizens before the law, in all of Mandate Palestine.

This vision of one bi-national state poses several challenges to those who would advocate a just peace in this land, both in terms of discerning the on-the-ground meanings behind the language of “two states” as well as moving beyond that language to which we have become so wedded.

But what is more challenging is the necessary theological reckoning with Zionism that this vision would require of Christians, a reckoning that would lead to a confrontation with the question of whether the creation of a state which denies Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homes and insists on maintaining a “Jewish demographic majority” is a theological, let alone moral or legal, good.

However one chooses to confront these unpleasant truths and challenging questions, recognizing that statehood is not an end in itself, begins with the confession that from a Christian perspective, we are called first and foremost to practice and witness for a politics of jubilee, one which brings liberty to the oppressed and a secure existence in the land (Luke 4; Leviticus 25) and to work for the day when each will sit under vine and fig tree without fear (Micah 4.4) — a vision that cannot be confined to our notions of “one state” or “two states.”

Despite the declarations of personal commitments, the “facts on the ground” largely remain the same. Palestinians and Israelis know more than anyone else that “peace” talk is cheap, and that rhetoric meant to foster such an optimism is dangerous, serving as a distraction and hindrance to genuine and sincere efforts to struggle for a just peace in this broken land.

Timothy Seidel is a peace development worker with Mennonite Central Committee in the Occupied Palestinian Territories where he has lived for the past two and a half years.

Source: http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/5035

No Comments by George Swanson on April 17, 2007

filed in Peace & Justice, Racism

One Beggar to Another

St. Saviour’s is Beautiful People

A Sermon by George Swanson

Second Sunday of Easter, 2007

Jesus said to Thomas, “Happy are those who have not seen me.”

In the name of Jesus, our dead and risen Saviour.

Chilton Knudsen, the Bishop of Maine, visited St. Saviour’s this winter. At a meeting before the service she was asked, “Why is the Episcopal Church declining in Maine? Our membership has really gone down.” The bishop answered the question then – and in the sermon at the Eucharist – encouraging us to take charge of our situation. That afternoon I found myself almost in tears. I thought of the expensive work that was going on in our building – repairing the Tiffany windows and repointing the Victorian stone walls. Huge buckets of money are being spent to preserve the building. I remembered an impressive brick church I saw in the Kalahari Desert in Botswana years ago. Totally empty. Not even a single house or building near it. It must have been thirty or forty feet high, with a beautiful tower, nicely proportioned, maybe capable of holding a thousand people. It had been built at great cost most likely when Victoria ruled. British people had probably given their money, maybe even imported good British bricks, to build NOT A CHURCH, but a home for the church. For a church is the people.

Here we are today in this building. What will this building (it’s not a church – we’re the church) what will this beautiful pile of expensive stones be like a hundred years from now? Most of us are old here. At 73 I am middle aged! None of us will be alive 50 years from now. Will God’s people gather here? Will it be converted to condominiums? A disco? Or turned into a municipal parking lot?

I almost wept.

I phoned Jonathan on Monday and told him I had some completely wild ideas of how we might welcome people into our beautiful church, which is US! WE ARE THE BEAUTIFUL CHURCH. The building isn’t bad either.

I offered to walk through the building and grounds with him and share my off-the-wall ideas. Jonathan said, “Why don’t we invite everyone to join us.” I said, “Sure.” And that is what we will do on Saturday, April 28. Morning Prayer is at 8:30 a.m. George’s “Pipe Dreams” will start at 9 a.m. in the parish hall with coffee.

Then Jonathan sent me a great booklet by Charles Fulton and James Lemler. It’s called Faith and Hope. I would have bought copies to give to you all, but it costs $3 for heaven’s sake. So I’ll tell you about it – later. I’ll end up with some of their ideas of what we can do to keep the disco out.

So far this has just been an introduction. Setting the scene. Why I am talking to you today.

I’m going to raise three questions and SUGGEST some answers. Your answers will be better because you know the parish and Bar Harbor better than I ever will. Here are the questions:

Who’s hurting?

What do they need?

How can we help?

ONE – Who’s hurting?

You’ll be able to answer this so much better than I can. I am FROM AWAY. I have very shallow roots here. I’m a transplant from San Francisco, Botswana, Kansas City, Jersey City and other blessed points on this revolving planet. Yet I love it here, I love you. Katrina and William and Hélène and I have received your love here. I know what it is to be welcomed and included by beautiful people. I like it.

Who is hurting in Bar Harbor? On Mt. Desert Island? Well let me suggest three groups of people I think are hurting. Check me out. You may think of more.

PARENTS AND KIDS – How hard it is to raise children! God, it is so hard. It was not easy for me and Katrina. I suspect it is harder now. Two families left St. Saviour’s because we do not have a Sunday school. One of my crazy ideas is that BECAUSE we do not have a Sunday school we can welcome many families with children into our beautiful Church – not the building! But into the circle of our love and relationship with God and with each other – helping them in their difficult and eternally important work of raising their children. They will become OUR children too.

I’ll offer my suggestions at the end.

GAYS AND LESBIANS – Yes, I have rejected gays and lesbians as REAL Christians. Not publicly. But in my mind. “They must not be QUITE RIGHT.” I should be kind to them. Etc Etc Etc. Racism all over again.

Katrina and I had – and I have now – gay and lesbian friends – dear friends – people who stood with us in our troubles and with whom we attempted to stand in theirs. But deep down I wasn’t sure. I mean, the BIBLE and all that!

Newspaper people can really be a pain right where we sit. They ask so many questions that they make a person THINK. That happened to me.

Seven year of trouble began in 1986 after a wooden gothic Victorian building in Jersey City burned almost to the ground. This was where the beautiful people who were Ascension Church had worshipped for generations in Jersey City. Newspapers, TV, and the radio described the conflict between the people of Ascension and our bishop over the fire insurance settlement. Big bucks.

Ari Goldman, the religion editor of the New York Times quizzed me on the telephone – asking why we would not just let the bishop and the diocese have the money. Were we against him because he welcomed and ordained gays? Goldman came to Jersey City and continued that line of questioning. “Would I marry gays?” “I don’t want to marry anyone. If they end up getting divorced and hating each other, they may hate me too.” “What about lesbians?” “I don’t know. Some young women asked me about that. I happened to have a priest staying in the rectory next door who had publicly identified herself as a lesbian – so I got them together.” On and on with the questions. Finally I lost my temper and shouted very very slowly and distinctly to make him understand. (I think God was really trying to make ME understand.) WE’RE IN THE BLESSING BUSINESS, WE’RE NOT IN THE CURSING BUSINESS!

The article in the New York Times accurately explained our reason for fighting the diocese’s attempt to take the money: “Father Swanson says, ‘The people of Ascension Church paid the insurance premiums and they expect to receive the settlement.’”

And as a gift from the dear God – I learned what business we are really in!

I have since read James Alison’s beautiful books. He is at once firmly rooted in the Bible, in Catholic theology, and with the gift of a seeing what God is doing today. I have had the pleasure of becoming a friend of his. His viewpoint is, I think, a gift from our dear God to a world that has persecuted and rejected and marginalized gay and lesbian people IN GOD’S NAME. Alison is a Roman Catholic priest, is he openly gay, he is able to show reasonably and theologically and biblically that the Bible verses about men-sleeping-with-men and women-sleeping-with-women are most likely talking about worshipping other gods with sexual intercourse. Idolatry and blasphemy is condemned – not gay and lesbian relationships.

So – are gays and lesbians hurting in Bar Harbor? I expect so – both them and their families and friends. I subscribe to a gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender email sharing. The suffering is real. So much rejection.

Probably 10% of the people in Bar Harbor and MDI are gay or lesbian. They are certain not welcome AS THEY ARE in some congregations.

PEOPLE WITH ADDICTIONS – What suffering here! I live in the Heroin capital of Hancock County, Southwest Harbor. How about that. Actually that was a few years ago. Today it may be oxycontin. Or meth.

Think of our beautiful, promising teenagers who die every year in alcohol driven automobile accidents! And the “drain board drunks” – women who nip all day to cope with unbearable inner pain. Some of our neighbors suffer from addiction to alcohol.

We can be addicted to food – harming our bodies, shortening our lives, and numbing our enjoyment of life itself. Some of our children are obese.

There is so much pain around us in town and on the island.

We, the wounded people of St. Saviour’s can welcome, embrace, and love many hurting people into our healing family.

TWO – What do they need?

They need HOPE.

And to get hope they need to know the TRUTH.

Here’s the truth about God and every human being. The Episcopal bishops wrote it on March 20th, this year. Hey, it ain’t perfect, maybe, but it’s pretty good. Here it is:

We proclaim the Gospel of what God has done and is doing in Christ, of the dignity of every human being, and of justice, compassion, and peace. We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ there is no Jew or Greek, no male or female, no slave or free. We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ all God’s children, including women, are full and equal participants in the life of Christ’s Church. We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ all God’s children, including gay and lesbian persons, are full and equal participants in the life of Christ’s Church. We proclaim the Gospel that stands against any violence, including violence done to women and children as well as those who are persecuted because of their differences, often in the name of God.

Like good listeners our bishops have observed where WE were going. They have spoken and we can ratify what they said. We can say to the world, to MDI and to Bar Harbor, THIS IS THE GOOD NEWS FROM JESUS!

How do we share this TRUTH with Bar Harbor? With our island?

In their booklet, Truth and Hope, Fulton and Lemler imply “Don’t tell them that this building is a church!” Here’s an adaptation of what they say about us folks over 50.

When St. Saviour’s embraces evangelism fully, it will be different from TV evangelism. It will be respectful and graceful, inviting mutual sharing.

Americans see religion differently now – especially those under 50.

Over 50, we want to talk about where we go to church, about the sacred place which is reverenced, decorated, and “close to God.”

Those under 50 are interested in everything but where. They ask, How do you pray? What difference does it make in your life? How do you experience God?

So . . . if we want St. Saviour’s to grow (or even survive after we all die) us old dogs will have to learn new tricks. We will have to learn how to tell anyone in Bar Harbor how we pray, what use it is to us, and listen to their experience.

THREE – How can we help?

Finally! You thought I would never get here. These are just suggestions. These thoughts came to be on that afternoon in February when my eyes were moistening with tears.

PARENTS & KIDS – We can make our worship a REAL thanksgiving meal. Eucharist means Thanksgiving. None of us would send our kids away from the table on thanksgiving. But when we have little children and grandchildren we make some adjustments so they don’t suffer too much. We don’t force them to act like adults.

What changes would that be? I don’t know. Together we can find what works. It might be more repetitions in the music: possibly Taize responses sung to the Prayers of the People. Maybe a Bible story told in contemporary language rather than a lesson read in boring language. Maybe processions, marching around. That’s an old Christian tradition. Young or old, can march around (if they wish) at the opening hymn, and when we perhaps all go to the altar for the great thanksgiving, etc. Maybe less stuff from a book and more call and response as in the Black church. Less paper and more soul.

GAYS & LESBIANS – First of all we have to be sure what the good news is. Can’t fake it. I have had some beautiful conversations with exceedingly patient gay and lesbian friends – as they answer my blunt and basic questions.

We had these sorts of conversations after Katrina’s ordination. Good people were offended or at least really uncertain about what we had done on July 29, 1974. And with many people the conversations were special and sacred and sometimes painful.

St. Paul says we should be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in us. It may take some discussion for us to understand that hope.

What can we do? As we come to KNOW that this is the Gospel of our dead and risen Saviour:

We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ all God’s children, including gay and lesbian persons, are full and equal participants in the life of Christ’s Church.

Then we will be led, I believe, to embrace and love and accept gays and lesbians as ordinary cussed parishioners like the rest of us. Just family.

PEOPLE WITH ADDICTIONS – This is so hard. So painful. There is a young man, perhaps even today, in a British jail. He is addicted to cutting himself. He is covered with scars. He says that he has so much pain inside himself that when he cuts himself he really hurts LESS. As someone with an addiction to food, I can understand that. Inner pain requires medication.

Now-a-days he is not cutting himself. He has found silent prayer. How about that? The pain within him is not gone but it is much less. We have had this available all our lives from the beautiful people who have told us about God. Some of these beautiful people are here around us today – like those who went before us. They built a building and invited God into their lives for US. Pretty good. We get medication here that is better than cutting ourselves or overeating.

A bishop in India said that inviting people into the Christian family is like one beggar telling another where to find food. We might say it is like one sick person telling another where to find a really good doctor. The treatment is free. One doesn’t have to sign anything. It is given without any cost to us. There are no requirements for joining the family. Jesus saved every human being. Already done.

Pope John Paul was not one of my heroes. However, he has been quoted as saying something like this:

Is there a Hell? Yes. Hell is certainly here on earth. And, yes, there is hell after death. But I think the hell after death is probably empty.

Sure, it’s good to let AA and other Twelve Step groups meet free in our building. But what is so much more healing is our welcoming, embracing, and sharing the incredibly wonderful medication that God gives us here – sharing it with others who suffer as we do.

There are 75 places to sit at the 7:30 a.m. thanksgiving meal. There are 25 to 50 empty seats every Sunday. They belong to the people in Bar Harbor who desperately need what God has given us. Without a word from us they will never enter the door.

There are 325 places to sit at the 10 a.m. thanksgiving meal. More than one hundred seats are always empty. They do not belong to us. They belong to people on Mt. Desert Island who have not yet found what God has given to us. There is only one way they will find it. You or I will tell them what God has done for us.

Summing it all up:

We can share with others – listening & talking – beggar to beggar – wounded to wounded – the beautiful God who is within us ALL.

We can grow – for our own sake and for the sake of those around us who are still hurting so much – we can grow closer and closer, always closer to the dear God who is at the center of who we really are. And closer to each other.

Thanks to Bishop Knudsen, I am in touch with Maggie Ross, an Anglican teacher of prayer. Ross recommended a book to me, Into the Silent Land, by Martin Laird. It is helping me get close to God who has always been within me. There are slips in your bulletins about the book. The Archbishop of Canterbury likes it. Desmond Tutu likes it too.

Next Sunday I will have copies of the book to loan or sell after each service. I will meet with you at 9 a.m. in the Rectory Commons next Sunday and we can talk about silent prayer.

Aren’t we lucky to be St. Saviour’s Church!

Happy are we who have not seen.

Amen

Into the Silent Land

By

Martin Laird

“This book is different. There are plenty of books on contemplation that feel tired—either wordy and labored or unhelpfully smooth and idealistic. But this is sharp, deep, with no clichés, no psychobabble and no short cuts. Its honesty is bracing, its vision utterly clear; it is a rare treasure.”

— Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury

“Often they say ‘you learn how to swim by swimming’ but a good coach or swimming manual is essential. Equally, we could say ‘you learn how to be contemplative by contemplating’ and a good guide or mentor is necessary. Into the Silent Land is just that. I tried it and it works. Try it.”

— Desmond Tutu, Nobel Prize Winner & Former Archbishop and Primate of South Africa

“We are built for contemplation. Communion with God in the silence of the heart is a God-given capacity, like the rhododendron’s capacity to flower, the fledgling’s for flight, and the child’s for self-forgetful abandon and joy. If the grace of God that suffuses and simplifies the vital generosity of our lives does not consummate this capacity while we live, then the very arms of God that embrace us as we enter the transforming mystery of death will surely do so. This self-giving God, the Being of our being, the Life of our life, has joined to Himself two givens of human life: we are built to commune with God and we will all meet death.” — Martin Laird in the Introduction

3 Comments by George Swanson on April 15, 2007

filed in Evangelism, Lost in the Stars?, Peace & Justice, Silent Prayer, Women & Justice

Fellowship of Reconciliation

Free Online Magazine from UK Peaceniks

For current issue click here.

To sign up click here.

No Comments by George Swanson on April 13, 2007

filed in Peace & Justice

Fox vs Blacks

Examples of Racism on Fox

Thanks to Dick Atlee

Check out:

http://foxattacks.com/

No Comments by George Swanson on April 10, 2007

filed in Peace & Justice, Racism

Alleluia is our Battle Cry

Archbishop of Wales:

Easter Fights Racism, Militarism, Nationalism, Sexism and Poverty

By Ekklesia staff writers 8 Apr 2007

To believe in the resurrection of Jesus is to be incorporated in a spiritual and political struggle for life against death, empowered by God’s love rather than by the forces of oppression and division, says the Anglican Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan, in a tough-talking Easter Message.

“Jesus preached about the forgiveness and graciousness of God and sought to free people from everything that enslaved and oppressed them,” declared the Archbishop, highlighting the radical impact of the Gospel. “For him there were no prior conditions for being accepted by God, whatever your sex, status or position. You were a child of God made in his image. His resurrection was a triumph over the forces of evil – the forces of racism, militarism, nationalism, sexism and poverty.”

He continued: “To be ‘in Christ’ then is an invitation to join in that struggle, to take part in Christ’s mission and to fight against everything that enslaves and de-humanises human beings and, of course, to do so non-violently.”

Dr Morgan elaborated: “There are enough issues in our world, country and church that show clearly that men and women are still being oppressed and treated as slaves. Not just child soldiers in Angola or Korea, sweat labour in Thailand and China, and the oppressive regime of Mugabe in Zimbabwe. But also here in Wales where in 2005 there were 20,000 homeless people, 7,000 of whom were children. Sexual trafficking in young people and women is still rife in this country, and foreign nationals are often forced to live on the poverty line because their employers take back for their keep the little they pay them in wages.”

His message also hit tackled the problems of the Christian community. “[W]e still live in a church where it is not possible for women to be bishops and in a church too where most worshippers are women but all the major committees and councils of most dioceses and province are run by men and in a[n Anglican] Communion where gay people feel increasingly isolated and marginalised and even persecuted.”

Concluded the Archbishop of Wales: “In the end it is not enough to believe in the resurrection as a proposition or as an article of faith, because resurrection is not just about a dead Jesus coming to life again, it is about us allowing God’s spirit to work afresh in us as he worked in Jesus. Resurrection means joining in God’s recreation of his world as and when and where, we can.”

No Comments by George Swanson on April 10, 2007

filed in Bible, Church Politics, Gay & Lesbian, Money, Peace & Justice

Homophobic Bill

Progress Halted on Same-Sex Bill in Nigeria

By Ekklesia Staff Writers 30 Mar 2007

The progress of a bill in Nigeria that that would impose brutal penalties on shows of affection between lesbian and gay people has been halted in the face of national elections in the country.

It has been suggested that the Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act 2006 which was debated on 22 March by the Nigerian House of Representatives may be lost if the Nigerian election takes place soon.

The Nigerian Federal elections are scheduled to be held on 21 April and the ceremonial opening of the new session of Parliament on May 29, 2007, which the constitution recognizes as the hand over date to a new government.

Allafrica.com reported on Sunday, 25 March 2007 that the House of Representatives would soon be prorogued but this has yet to be confirmed by other sources.

If the election takes place as timetabled however, the present House of Representatives will be officially dissolved in May and the handover to the new House will take place.

The present sitting of the House has finished. Politicians asked the panel of Human Rights which continues to meet, to go and review the bill again.

However Changing Attitude Nigeria (CAN), a group of gay Christians in the country, say it is difficult to say categorically that the current House has been totally suspended because a lot of ‘manoeuvring; is still taking place ahead of the election.

Nigerian Anglicans including Archbishop Akinola have faced international criticism from Christian leaders and human rights groups around the world for giving their backing to the bill.

The new measures would impose brutal penalties on all relationships, activism, advocacy, and shows of affection among lesbian and gay people. It would introduce criminal penalties for any public advocacy or associations supporting the rights of lesbian and gay people, as well as for same-sex relationships and marriage ceremonies.

“What we are hearing from CAN members in Anglican congregations in Nigeria is that the church leaders have been feeling big pressure on them and some are very angry because they expected the bill to be voted on prior to the end of this session. There are also rumours that money has exchanged hands, American money, and yet it has not proved easy for the Anglican Church leaders to push the bill through the House of Representatives. Corruption remains widespread at every level of Nigerian society” Changing Attitude in Nigeria said in a statement.

It is also theoretically possible for the next government to reintroduce the bill. But campaigners against the bill say this would be unlikely to happen in the first term when they would be trying to satisfy many different expectations. It remains a possibility that the bill could be reintroduced in the next government’s second term.

Davis Mac-Iyalla, Director of Changing Attitude Nigeria, said: “Because of the continuing uncertainty, Changing Attitude Nigeria will not celebrate the defeat of the bill publicly until after May 29. We are quietly confident and feeling more happy, but there is still the potential for lobbying in favour of the bill to take place by the Church of Nigeria and for the Government to spring a surprise. However, if the Church was confident about the success of the bill, we think they would be issuing a confident public statement now, which they are not.”

No Comments by George Swanson on March 30, 2007

filed in Gay & Lesbian, Peace & Justice

Day Care

Day Care Debate Misses the Point

By Ruth Conniff March 28, 2007

From the headlines about the latest day care study you’d think something big had happened. For the report click here;

The Fox News story was typical: “Study Links Child Care and Bad Behavior”. Click here for Fox story:

Local television news ran teasers like “Day Care Takes a Beating,” and “Today’s Hot Topic: Are You a Bad Parent If You Put Your Child in Day Care?” Click here for story.

Instead of focusing on the rather modest results of a study that shows the difference between kids in child care and those not in it, the media would do well to focus on the extreme scarcity of quality care, and what a huge difference there is between the good and bad places for parents to leave their children.

So ready are U.S. audiences for a rehash of the stay-at-home versus working mom debate, the story fit neatly into a media niche: Score one for stay-at-home parenting–down with day care!

It might come as a surprise, then, that the National Institutes of Health press release describing the study actually led with the good news: Children in high-quality day care score significantly higher on vocabulary tests than their peers. The headline was “Early Child Care Linked to Increases in Vocabulary, Some Problem Behaviors in Fifth and Sixth Grades.” With all the recent emphasis on testing and grade-schoolers academic skills, you’d think that this news might jump out at people.

The long-term, NIH-funded study recruited new mothers of 1,364 babies in hospitals at ten different locations in the United States, and monitored their child care until they were four and a half years old. “Child care” was defined as care by anyone other than the child’s mother — including fathers — for at least ten hours a week. Researchers followed up with tests that showed vocabulary gains in the children from higher-quality child care backgrounds in grade school, and with teacher surveys that showed greater aggressiveness and other problem behaviors in all kids who came from some kind of child care.

Keep in mind that the types of child care arrangements measured included families in which children stay with their dad or a grandparent for two hours a day, go to an enriching morning preschool program, and those who are in low-cost, high-turnover, chain day care centers from seven in the morning until seven at night. It’s quite a range. Children who had been in center care scored higher on teacher evaluations of aggressiveness and disobedience.

“The study authors suggested that the correlation between center care and problem behaviors could be due to the fact that center-based child care providers often lack the training, as well as the time, to address behavior problems,” the NIH press release notes. “For example, center-based child care providers may not be able to provide sufficient adult attention or guidance to address problems that may emerge when groups of young children are together, such as how to resolve conflicts over toys or activities.”

On the other hand, in high-quality child care settings, these are exactly the skills that children learn.

How often do we parents marvel at our favorite preschool teachers’ calm, patient, skilled handling of toddler tantrums and scuffles over toys? A good teacher not only shows little children how to use their words, master their emotions, and solve conflicts peacefully, she (or, less frequently, he) models these critical social and emotional skills for parents. Having the support and good example of someone who really knows how to handle children is a precious resource for parents. After all, how often do stay-at-moms and working parents alike go to bed feeling guilty because they lost their cool when their willful tots tested their patience one last time after a long day? And how often does the image of the calm, good-humored, professional child care teacher float into our heads to help us remember the right way to deal with our children? Use your words, don’t yell, calm down, take a break, keep your sense of humor–above all, when confronted with toddler rage, remember that you are the adult. All of that is a lot easier said than done. But if we want our kids to learn to control themselves and turn into the kind of people others can live with, we have to give them a good example. Good preschool teachers do it every day, under battle conditions.

But here is the real news, obscured by the flap over the NIH study: there aren’t enough good preschool teachers. The chaotic center environment that the researchers postulate might account for children’s anti-social behavior is the norm in this country. So much the norm, in fact, that it would be hard to find a significant number of truly high-quality child care settings even in a group of 1,364 children.

The National Association for the Education of Young Children has a set of standards for judging quality and awarding a kind of Good Housekeeping seal to centers that meet its criteria. But the child care centers that meet NAEYC standards represent only about 10 percent of all child care in the United States. For standards click here.

More common is the revolving door of overworked, underpaid staff who receive little or no training in children’s social, emotional, and intellectual development. The harried staffers at the average for-profit center, or the family day care providers with little training or support who take on tons of kids whose parents rush to work all day, are not
necessarily great models for parents.
But in our nonsystem of child care in the United States, the kinds of places where kids are stashed while parents go to work is of very little interest. Instead of focusing on the rather modest results of a study that shows the difference between kids in child care and those not in it, the media would do well to focus on the extreme scarcity of quality care, and what a huge difference there is between the good and bad places for parents to leave their children.

Instead of talking about stay-at-home motherhood versus child care, reporters and policymakers should take a look at what we are doing for a group of kids who have received a lot of media attention in the last two decades–the children of women on welfare.

Under welfare reform, supports for child care in states across the country have been frozen or are going down. In some states, the government will dock child care payments if a child doesn’t attend at least half time in any given week–which can happen easily due to illness and other temporary problems. As federal pool of money for child care has been shrinking, parent co-pays and child care rates are going up. Without adequate child care, welfare reform is nothing but punishment for parents and children alike.

Aggressiveness and inadequate social, emotional, and intellectual stimulation and learning are bigger problems for kids from the poorest families. But the lack of good child care is a problem that reaches way up into the middle class.

If only our society could get more interested in that problem, instead of an imagined cat fight between working and stay-at-home moms, which, in my experience, ended a long time ago.

No Comments by George Swanson on March 29, 2007

filed in Injustice to Women, Peace & Justice, Women & Justice

Casandra May Be Right

What’s Going to Happen

As we Start Running out of Cheap Gas to Guzzle?

By JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER

Thanks to Dick Atlee

A few weeks ago, the price of oil ratcheted above fifty-five dollars a barrel, which is about twenty dollars a barrel more than a year ago. The next day, the oil story was buried on page six of the New York Times business section. Apparently, the price of oil is not considered significant news, even when it goes up five bucks a barrel in the span of ten days. That same day, the stock market shot up more than a hundred points because, CNN said, government data showed no signs of inflation. Note to clueless nation: Call planet Earth.

Carl Jung, one of the fathers of psychology, famously remarked that “people cannot stand too much reality.” What you’re about to read may challenge your assumptions about the kind of world we live in, and especially the kind of world into which events are propelling us. We are in for a rough ride through uncharted territory.

It has been very hard for Americans — lost in dark raptures of nonstop infotainment, recreational shopping and compulsive motoring — to make sense of the gathering forces that will fundamentally alter the terms of everyday life in our technological society. Even after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, America is still sleepwalking into the future. I call this coming time the Long Emergency.

Most immediately we face the end of the cheap-fossil-fuel era. It is no exaggeration to state that reliable supplies of cheap oil and natural gas underlie everything we identify as the necessities of modern life — not to mention all of its comforts and luxuries: central heating, air conditioning, cars, airplanes, electric lights, inexpensive clothing, recorded music, movies, hip-replacement surgery, national defense — you name it.

The few Americans who are even aware that there is a gathering global-energy predicament usually misunderstand the core of the argument. That argument states that we don’t have to run out of oil to start having severe problems with industrial civilization and its dependent systems. We only have to slip over the all-time production peak and begin a slide down the arc of steady depletion.

The term “global oil-production peak” means that a turning point will come when the world produces the most oil it will ever produce in a given year and, after that, yearly production will inexorably decline. It is usually represented graphically in a bell curve. The peak is the top of the curve, the halfway point of the world’s all-time total endowment, meaning half the world’s oil will be left. That seems like a lot of oil, and it is, but there’s a big catch: It’s the half that is much more difficult to extract, far more costly to get, of much poorer quality and located mostly in places where the people hate us. A substantial amount of it will never be extracted.

The United States passed its own oil peak — about 11 million barrels a day — in 1970, and since then production has dropped steadily. In 2004 it ran just above 5 million barrels a day (we get a tad more from natural-gas condensates). Yet we consume roughly 20 million barrels a day now. That means we have to import about two-thirds of our oil, and the ratio will continue to worsen.

The U.S. peak in 1970 brought on a portentous change in geoeconomic power. Within a few years, foreign producers, chiefly OPEC, were setting the price of oil, and this in turn led to the oil crises of the 1970s. In response, frantic development of non-OPEC oil, especially the North Sea fields of England and Norway, essentially saved the West’s ass for about two decades. Since 1999, these fields have entered depletion. Meanwhile, worldwide discovery of new oil has steadily declined to insignificant levels in 2003 and 2004.
Some “cornucopians” claim that the Earth has something like a creamy nougat center of “abiotic” oil that will naturally replenish the great oil fields of the world. The facts speak differently. There has been no replacement whatsoever of oil already extracted from the fields of America or any other place.

Now we are faced with the global oil-production peak. The best estimates of when this will actually happen have been somewhere between now and 2010. In 2004, however, after demand from burgeoning China and India shot up, and revelations that Shell Oil wildly misstated its reserves, and Saudi Arabia proved incapable of goosing up its production despite promises to do so, the most knowledgeable experts revised their predictions and now concur that 2005 is apt to be the year of all-time global peak production.

It will change everything about how we live.

To aggravate matters, American natural-gas production is also declining, at five percent a year, despite frenetic new drilling, and with the potential of much steeper declines ahead. Because of the oil crises of the 1970s, the nuclear-plant disasters at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl and the acid-rain problem, the U.S. chose to make gas its first choice for electric-power generation. The result was that just about every power plant built after 1980 has to run on gas. Half the homes in America are heated with gas. To further complicate matters, gas isn’t easy to import. Here in North America, it is distributed through a vast pipeline network. Gas imported from overseas would have to be compressed at minus-260 degrees Fahrenheit in pressurized tanker ships and unloaded (re-gasified) at special terminals, of which few exist in America. Moreover, the first attempts to site new terminals have met furious opposition because they are such ripe targets for terrorism.

Some other things about the global energy predicament are poorly understood by the public and even our leaders. This is going to be a permanent energy crisis, and these energy problems will synergize with the disruptions of climate change, epidemic disease and population overshoot to produce higher orders of trouble.

We will have to accommodate ourselves to fundamentally changed conditions.

No combination of alternative fuels will allow us to run American life the way we have been used to running it, or even a substantial fraction of it. The wonders of steady technological progress achieved through the reign of cheap oil have lulled us into a kind of Jiminy Cricket syndrome, leading many Americans to believe that anything we wish for hard enough will come true. These days, even people who ought to know better are wishing ardently for a seamless transition from fossil fuels to their putative replacements.
The widely touted “hydrogen economy” is a particularly cruel hoax. We are not going to replace the U.S. automobile and truck fleet with vehicles run on fuel cells. For one thing, the current generation of fuel cells is largely designed to run on hydrogen obtained from natural gas. The other way to get hydrogen in the quantities wished for would be electrolysis of water using power from hundreds of nuclear plants. Apart from the dim prospect of our building that many nuclear plants soon enough, there are also numerous severe problems with hydrogen’s nature as an element that present forbidding obstacles to its use as a replacement for oil and gas, especially in storage and transport.

Wishful notions about rescuing our way of life with “renewables” are also unrealistic. Solar-electric systems and wind turbines face not only the enormous problem of scale but the fact that the components require substantial amounts of energy to manufacture and the probability that they can’t be manufactured at all without the underlying support platform of a fossil-fuel economy. We will surely use solar and wind technology to generate some electricity for a period ahead but probably at a very local and small scale.
Virtually all “biomass” schemes for using plants to create liquid fuels cannot be scaled up to even a fraction of the level at which things are currently run. What’s more, these schemes are predicated on using oil and gas “inputs” (fertilizers, weed-killers) to grow the biomass crops that would be converted into ethanol or bio-diesel fuels. This is a net energy loser — you might as well just burn the inputs and not bother with the biomass products. Proposals to distill trash and waste into oil by means of thermal depolymerization depend on the huge waste stream produced by a cheap oil and gas economy in the first place.
Coal is far less versatile than oil and gas, extant in less abundant supplies than many people assume and fraught with huge ecological drawbacks — as a contributor to greenhouse “global warming” gases and many health and toxicity issues ranging from widespread mercury poisoning to acid rain. You can make synthetic oil from coal, but the only time this was tried on a large scale was by the Nazis under wartime conditions, using impressive amounts of slave labor.

If we wish to keep the lights on in America after 2020, we may indeed have to resort to nuclear power, with all its practical problems and eco-conundrums. Under optimal conditions, it could take ten years to get a new generation of nuclear power plants into operation, and the price may be beyond our means. Uranium is also a resource in finite supply. We are no closer to the more difficult project of atomic fusion, by the way, than we were in the 1970s.

The upshot of all this is that we are entering a historical period of potentially great instability, turbulence and hardship. Obviously, geopolitical maneuvering around the world’s richest energy regions has already led to war and promises more international military conflict. Since the Middle East contains two-thirds of the world’s remaining oil supplies, the U.S. has attempted desperately to stabilize the region by, in effect, opening a big police station in Iraq. The intent was not just to secure Iraq’s oil but to modify and influence the behavior of neighboring states around the Persian Gulf, especially Iran and Saudi Arabia. The results have been far from entirely positive, and our future prospects in that part of the world are not something we can feel altogether confident about.

And then there is the issue of China, which, in 2004, became the world’s second-greatest consumer of oil, surpassing Japan. China’s surging industrial growth has made it increasingly dependent on the imports we are counting on. If China wanted to, it could easily walk into some of these places — the Middle East, former Soviet republics in central Asia — and extend its hegemony by force. Is America prepared to contest for this oil in an Asian land war with the Chinese army? I doubt it. Nor can the U.S. military occupy regions of the Eastern Hemisphere indefinitely, or hope to secure either the terrain or the oil infrastructure of one distant, unfriendly country after another. A likely scenario is that the U.S. could exhaust and bankrupt itself trying to do this, and be forced to withdraw back into our own hemisphere, having lost access to most of the world’s remaining oil in the process.

We know that our national leaders are hardly uninformed about this predicament. President George W. Bush has been briefed on the dangers of the oil-peak situation as long ago as before the 2000 election and repeatedly since then. In March, the Department of Energy released a report that officially acknowledges for the first time that peak oil is for real and states plainly that “the world has never faced a problem like this. Without massive mitigation more than a decade before the fact, the problem will be pervasive and will not be temporary.”

Most of all, the Long Emergency will require us to make other arrangements for the way we live in the United States. America is in a special predicament due to a set of unfortunate choices we made as a society in the twentieth century. Perhaps the worst was to let our towns and cities rot away and to replace them with suburbia, which had the additional side effect of trashing a lot of the best farmland in America. Suburbia will come to be regarded as the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world. It has a tragic destiny. The psychology of previous investment suggests that we will defend our drive-in utopia long after it has become a terrible liability.

Before long, the suburbs will fail us in practical terms. We made the ongoing development of housing subdivisions, highway strips, fried-food shacks and shopping malls the basis of our economy, and when we have to stop making more of those things, the bottom will fall out.

The circumstances of the Long Emergency will require us to downscale and re-scale virtually everything we do and how we do it, from the kind of communities we physically inhabit to the way we grow our food to the way we work and trade the products of our work. Our lives will become profoundly and intensely local. Daily life will be far less about mobility and much more about staying where you are. Anything organized on the large scale, whether it is government or a corporate business enterprise such as Wal-Mart, will wither as the cheap energy props that support bigness fall away. The turbulence of the Long Emergency will produce a lot of economic losers, and many of these will be members of an angry and aggrieved former middle class.

Food production is going to be an enormous problem in the Long Emergency. As industrial agriculture fails due to a scarcity of oil- and gas-based inputs, we will certainly have to grow more of our food closer to where we live, and do it on a smaller scale. The American economy of the mid-twenty-first century may actually center on agriculture, not information, not high tech, not “services” like real estate sales or hawking cheeseburgers to tourists. Farming. This is no doubt a startling, radical idea, and it raises extremely difficult questions about the reallocation of land and the nature of work. The relentless subdividing of land in the late twentieth century has destroyed the contiguity and integrity of the rural landscape in most places. The process of readjustment is apt to be disorderly and improvisational. Food production will necessarily be much more labor-intensive than it has been for decades. We can anticipate the re-formation of a native-born American farm-laboring class. It will be composed largely of the aforementioned economic losers who had to relinquish their grip on the American dream. These masses of disentitled people may enter into quasi-feudal social relations with those who own land in exchange for food and physical security. But their sense of grievance will remain fresh, and if mistreated they may simply seize that land.

The way that commerce is currently organized in America will not survive far into the Long Emergency. Wal-Mart’s “warehouse on wheels” won’t be such a bargain in a non-cheap-oil economy. The national chain stores’ 12,000-mile manufacturing supply lines could easily be interrupted by military contests over oil and by internal conflict in the nations that have been supplying us with ultra-cheap manufactured goods, because they, too, will be struggling with similar issues of energy famine and all the disorders that go with it.

As these things occur, America will have to make other arrangements for the manufacture, distribution and sale of ordinary goods. They will probably be made on a “cottage industry” basis rather than the factory system we once had, since the scale of available energy will be much lower — and we are not going to replay the twentieth century. Tens of thousands of the common products we enjoy today, from paints to pharmaceuticals, are made out of oil. They will become increasingly scarce or unavailable. The selling of things will have to be reorganized at the local scale. It will have to be based on moving merchandise shorter distances. It is almost certain to result in higher costs for the things we buy and far fewer choices.

The automobile will be a diminished presence in our lives, to say the least. With gasoline in short supply, not to mention tax revenue, our roads will surely suffer. The interstate highway system is more delicate than the public realizes. If the “level of service” (as traffic engineers call it) is not maintained to the highest degree, problems multiply and escalate quickly. The system does not tolerate partial failure. The interstates are either in excellent condition, or they quickly fall apart.

America today has a railroad system that the Bulgarians would be ashamed of. Neither of the two major presidential candidates in 2004 mentioned railroads, but if we don’t refurbish our rail system, then there may be no long-range travel or transport of goods at all a few decades from now. The commercial aviation industry, already on its knees financially, is likely to vanish. The sheer cost of maintaining gigantic airports may not justify the operation of a much-reduced air-travel fleet. Railroads are far more energy efficient than cars, trucks or airplanes, and they can be run on anything from wood to electricity. The rail-bed infrastructure is also far more economical to maintain than
our highway network.

The successful regions in the twenty-first century will be the ones surrounded by viable farming hinterlands that can reconstitute locally sustainable economies on an armature of civic cohesion. Small towns and smaller cities have better prospects than the big cities, which will probably have to contract substantially. The process will be painful and tumultuous. In many American cities, such as Cleveland, Detroit and St. Louis, that process is already well advanced. Others have further to fall. New York and Chicago face extraordinary difficulties, being oversupplied with gigantic buildings out of scale with the reality of declining energy supplies. Their former agricultural hinterlands have long been paved over. They will be encysted in a surrounding fabric of necrotic suburbia that will only amplify and reinforce the cities’ problems. Still, our cities occupy important sites. Some kind of urban entities will exist where they are in the future, but probably not the colossi of twentieth-century industrialism.

Some regions of the country will do better than others in the Long Emergency. The Southwest will suffer in proportion to the degree that it prospered during the cheap-oil blowout of the late twentieth century. I predict that Sunbelt states like Arizona and Nevada will become significantly depopulated, since the region will be short of water as well as gasoline and natural gas. Imagine Phoenix without cheap air conditioning.
I’m not optimistic about the Southeast, either, for different reasons. I think it will be subject to substantial levels of violence as the grievances of the formerly middle class boil over and collide with the delusions of Pentecostal Christian extremism. The latent encoded behavior of Southern culture includes an outsized notion of individualism and the belief that firearms ought to be used in the defense of it. This is a poor recipe for civic cohesion.

The Mountain States and Great Plains will face an array of problems, from poor farming potential to water shortages to population loss. The Pacific Northwest, New England and the Upper Midwest have somewhat better prospects. I regard them as less likely to fall into lawlessness, anarchy or despotism and more likely to salvage the bits and pieces of our best social traditions and keep them in operation at some level.

These are daunting and even dreadful prospects. The Long Emergency is going to be a tremendous trauma for the human race. We will not believe that this is happening to us, that 200 years of modernity can be brought to its knees by a world-wide power shortage. The survivors will have to cultivate a religion of hope — that is, a deep and comprehensive belief that humanity is worth carrying on. If there is any positive side to stark changes coming our way, it may be in the benefits of close communal relations, of having to really work intimately (and physically) with our neighbors, to be part of an enterprise that really matters and to be fully engaged in meaningful social enactments instead of being merely entertained to avoid boredom. Years from now, when we hear singing at all, we will hear ourselves, and we will sing with our whole hearts.

Adapted from The Long Emergency, 2005, by James Howard Kunstler, and reprinted with permission of the publisher, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

No Comments by George Swanson on March 29, 2007

filed in Life & Death, Peace & Justice

Reparations?

From Apology…to Moral Action on Slavery

By Pearl Duncan on Ekklesia 28 Mar 2007

Duncan lives in New York is Author of the book-in-progress, “DNA Birthright Says Nobles, Slaves, Rebels & Roots.” You can visit her website at: http://www.pearlduncan.com/

My ancestors had a folk saying, “One hand don’t clap.” In that respect, words without actions do not uplift the boats, the little people who’ve been left behind.
On March 12, 2000, Pope John Paul II said a Day of Pardon Mass, and asked forgiveness from the descendants of the oppressed people of the world, for the atrocities committed against their ancestors by the Church. These were very moving words, but no actions by the Church followed his words.
On Wednesday, February 8, 2006, the Church of England, leaders of Anglicans and Episcopalians, apologized for its role in the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, and for slavery on American soil. This time, with this apology, if enough of us speak up, we will find enough voices and hands to help lift the boats, the little people, who were sunk or left behind.
How many people have we heard say, especially on T.V.’s talking head shows, “I bear no responsibility for slavery – moral, historic, economic, or otherwise, for my ancestors were not in America when the business of slavery happened”? But today, the consciousness has been raised, and we know now that the slavery that plagued America was a worldwide war.
So, unless some of us have ancestors who came from Mars or Venus, they participated in churches, synagogues, mosques, businesses, families, colleges, and other institutions that were involved in trading, owning, profiteering from slaves, and whose people were having children with the slaves who were brought to America.
I found records of my own ancestors, both African slaves from Ghana and other places in Africa, and burgesses, noble merchants and traders, from Glasgow, Scotland. The records I found in the Archives of the Church of England. The ministers who kept these records were threatened and called, “ministers to the slaves.” My African American ancestors were slaves and free people who rebelled and escaped the institution of slavery and lived in the wilderness. The rectors and curates traveled under threats against their lives to assist these Maroons.
A few years ago, during Princess Diana’s funeral ceremony, I remember calling my father, a Baptist minister, and asking him, “Why are they singing the same hymns we sing in our church and Sunday School?” Even though I’d uncovered records of my ancestors from the Church of England files, I did not make a connection between the living history of my family and the religious groups that led slavery.
My African ancestors’ records from 1655 to 1838, prior to the years when they were emancipated from slavery in the Jamaican Colony, I found in the Church of England Archives under the heading, “Dissenters Births” “Dissenter Baptisms, ” “Dissenter Marriages,” “Dissenter Deaths.” Prior to Emancipation, these ancestors and others were banned from registering their children’s births or their marriages and deaths in the government’s civil records.
Church leaders sanctioned the trade of African slaves by royals, nobles and merchants until the legal slave trade was suspended in 1807. (The illegal slave trade continued.) Church of England leaders owned thousands of slaves on vast plantations in Barbados until the 1834 Emancipation, and with other leaders of churches and colonial governors, set the tone for how slaves should be treated in the Colonies. The Church of England’s slave-owning leaders, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, which thought it was mandated by God to own slaves, branded each of its slaves’ flesh with fire-red-hot-irons, so that others would know that humans with the letters, S O C I E T Y, were theirs.
Now, as in Colonial times, actions not words, of people, brought about change, even on a tiny scale.
A few Anglicans shared the Church of England book of hymns in 1707 with Africans, who were not allowed in the church, but who worshipped outdoors. Quakers and Moravians were the first to build schools to teach African settlers to read and write, and record the documents of their lives. The Catholic Church, in 1667, gave permission to the Danish government in the Virgin Islands to minister to African slaves. Ursuline nuns from 1720 to 1834 organized a Catholic mission, school and hospital for African Americans in New Orleans. The Lutherans ministered to slaves in 1757; the Methodists, nonconformists to the Church of England banned slaveholding in 1780 and 1784 and formed a mission for slaves in the South in 1820. The Baptists ordained a Virginia freed slave and minister, Rev. George Leile, who built and led the first African church in America, in 1775.
And earlier, Puritans defied the penalty of the Colonial regime and, some, like Cotton Mather, published an article in 1706 saying Africans were full human beings. The Quakers, Society of Friends, protested slavery in Pennsylvania in 1688; and the Huguenots protested in New England in 1641. Presbyterians helped shelter and defend Maroons and the children of escaped slaves such as my Scotts Hall Maroon ancestors in Jamaica in the 1600s and early 1700s. But it was the charismatic styles of the Baptists and Methodists Great Awakening in Massachusetts in 1734 that blended with the Africans’ spiritual styles, and assisted those who built a free life on the run, in hiding, and with seared flesh on the plantations.
The Church of England of Anglicans was established at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607, but the Archbishop of Canterbury had no representatives in the Colonies, so ministers of various denominations did the moral thing, among the human devastation. After the American Revolutionary War in 1776, both the Church of England’s missionary arms, the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, were established, but they too owned slaves and plantations.
The ministers who registered my African slave’s and free people’s records in the 1700s in the West Indian Colonies did not have to get the permission of the Archbishop of Canterbury. There were no bishops in the Colonies, not until a Scottish bishop set down in Connecticut in 1783, then two more in New York and Philadelphia in 1787. They were consecrated by the Archbishops of Canterbury in 1792, and one more in 1824 in the West Indies Colonies. Episcopalians organized in Philadelphia in 1789. The people who did the moral thing did not need leaders to do so.
So the vote by the Church of England’s General Synod, its national assembly, apologizing for the Church’s role in slavery, in anticipation of the 200th celebration of the legal end of the slave trade, should serve as a wake-up call to all of us to get involved in the solutions. The Church’s leaders voted 238 to 0.
But legal, moral and historical actions must follow an apology. In 2005, after I applied to Scotland’s Court of the Lord Lyon, a Parliamentary group formed in the 13th-century to review and verify the ancestry of the kings, queens and nobles of Scotland, and presented civil certificates of my post-Emancipation ancestors, and the will, property lists and Church of England records of my pre-Emancipation ancestors, Scottish burgesses, nobles, merchants, who had children with my African ancestors from Ghana and other places, the Court granted me a coat of arms. I like to think that my requests for national, church, archival, and ancestral families’ records motivated some of these leaders to apologize. That’s the first step.
The second step to airing the history and researching-telling-and-acting on what happened requires searching the records. The next step is granting these ancestors what they lost, that they are due.

No Comments by George Swanson on March 28, 2007

filed in Money, Peace & Justice

It Might Help

Email the Most Rev. Peter Akinola

Ask Him to Stop Persecuting Gays

See the Ekklesia Article Below

His web site gives the following email address:

The Rev. Canon Akintunde A. Popoola
24 Douala Street, Wuse Zone 5, Abuja,
Nigeria.

Tel:+234 9 5236950, 5230987, 5230989
Fax: +234 9 5231527
E-mail: communicator1@anglican-nig.org

Tell us what you think about our web site, our organization, or anything else that comes to mind.
We welcome all of your comments and suggestions.

The Nigerian Anglican web site is at:

http://www.anglican-nig.org/contact.htm

SAMPLE LETTER:

Archbishop Akinola,

You have committed yourself to the Windsor Report which includes the process of listening to LGBT people. If you are listening to LGBT members in Nigeria you must speak out now in condemnation of this bill and ensure that it is defeated.

Yours in Christ,

Gay Christians in Nigeria

Appeal to International Community over Repressive Laws

By Ekklesia Staff Writers 26 Mar 2007

Gay Christians in Nigeria are urging international action against a new repressive law which is being backed by the Anglican church in the country.
The proposed law, that would impose brutal penalties on shows of affection between lesbian and gay people, or even on those who would advocate for lesbian and gay people, has already been condemned by more than 250 Christian leaders from the US, as well as the church in Canada and Christian in the UK. However, the Anglican Archbishop of Nigeria is giving it his support.
The new measures would impose brutal penalties on all relationships, activism, advocacy, and shows of affection among lesbian and gay people. It would introduce criminal penalties for any public advocacy or associations supporting the rights of lesbian and gay people, as well as for same-sex relationships and marriage ceremonies.
The bill, entitled ‘The Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act 2006′, goes much further than the name suggests. The bill provides for five years’ imprisonment to anyone who “goes through the ceremony of marriage with a person of the same sex,” “performs, witnesses, aids or abets the ceremony of same sex marriage” or “is involved in the registration of gay clubs, societies and organizations, sustenance, procession or meetings, publicity and public show of same sex amorous relationship directly or indirectly in public and in private.”
Any priest or cleric aiding or abetting such a union could be subject to the five-year prison term. The law would also prohibit adoption of children by lesbian or gay couples or individuals.
Homosexuality is already criminalized in Nigeria. Nigeria’s criminal code penalizes consensual homosexual conduct between adults with 14 years’ imprisonment. Shari’a penal codes in effect in northern Nigeria continue to punish ‘sodomy’ with the death penalty.
The “Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act 2006“ was debated on Thursday last week, by the Nigerian House of Representatives.
The version of the Bill presented is the original “Sani” version that was presented last March. No amendments have been made and the public hearing has not influenced the Bill in anyway say campaigners. The bill does not take into consideration the views of the Human Rights Committee of the House that the bill will create a fundamental abuse of human rights. The Committee is understood to be trying to block the Bill and the chair of the Committee reported that they are going to present a minority report. It is clear that no consensus has been reached on the content of the bill between certain of the house committees.
Changing attitude in Nigeria report that Archbishop Peter Akinola is said to be doing last minute lobbying of Anglicans in the House of Representatives and the Government to ensure the bill is voted on soon and passed into law.
Davis Mac-Iyalla, Director of Changing Attitude Nigeria (CAN), said: “Changing Attitude Nigeria stands as a reminder to the world-wide Anglican Communion that the Church of Nigeria is promoting and supporting a bill which will erode the most basic human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.
“Archbishop Peter Akinola has committed himself to the Windsor Report which commits him to the process of listening to LGBT people. If he is honest and serious about listening to LGBT members in his Province he must speak out now in condemnation of this bill and ensure that it is defeated.
“I am very worried because very few Nigerian LGBT activists are free to speak out in a country which already has repressive anti-gay legislation on the statute book. The bill is moving very fast and although some people think the bill will fall, the Church sponsors are not giving up and neither are we.
“Conservative Christians want to use Nigeria as an example to other African countries to demonstrate that anti-gay legislation can be passed which criminalizes all affection and activity between LGBT people.”

No Comments by George Swanson on March 26, 2007

filed in Gay & Lesbian, Peace & Justice, Take Action

Light Your Blowtorch

NO! Katrina’s Dream is NOT a Democratic Site.
Both Parties are Nightmares

H O W E V E R

If you would like to put a blowtorch to gutless Democratic Representatives and Senators (who speak against the stupid war and still keep it going) — check out:

http://capwiz.com

Their home page is at:

http://pdamerica.org/index.php

No Comments by George Swanson on March 23, 2007

filed in Peace & Justice

Angels Hold Their Breath

Archbishop Says He is Ready to be Shot

Whilst Resisting Mugabe

By Ekklesia Staff Writers 22 Mar 2007

Pius Ncube

A Roman Catholic Archbishop has said he is ready to face bullets in anti-government street protests in President Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe.
Pius Ncube, archbishop of the southern Bulawayo diocese who has called for a nonviolent uprising against Mugabe, told a news conference on Thursday that Zimbabweans must take to the streets over rights abuses by Mugabe’s government.
It comes as Mugabe faces international criticism over a crackdown on the opposition.
“The biggest problem with Zimbabweans is they are cowards, myself included, but as for me I am ready to stand in front, even of blazing guns,” he said.
“If only Zimbabweans are prepared to stand, so am I prepared to stand … we are not going to be bullied,” Ncube said.
Ncube accused the government of maintaining an “ugly oppressive” system and denying citizens basic rights.
“Human rights are God-given. No one has a right to just trample over them … people are justified to practice non-violent civil disobedience,” Ncube said.
“Starvation stalks our land and government does nothing to correct our situation. People are angry now and should stand up, fill the streets and demand that this man (Mugabe) steps down now,” he added.
Ncube was speaking at a news conference called by Christian Alliance, a group of church leaders who are part of the Save Zimbabwe Campaign, the organisers of a prayer meeting at which opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and 49 others were arrested almost two weeks ago.
The opposition officials have said they were severely assaulted in police custody and images of a bruised and cut Tsvangirai sparked a world outcry against Mugabe’s government.
The government has cracked down on protests using strict security laws which bar political gatherings without police clearance.

No Comments by George Swanson on March 23, 2007

filed in Peace & Justice

Bishop Katharine, Copy the Brits

Reforming Bishop to Head up Prison Monitoring Group

By Ekklesia Staff Writers 21 Mar 2007

A network of prison monitoring groups is to be headed up by the Bishop of Worcester when he leaves his current post.
Dr Peter Selby’s move will take place when he retires in September after 10 years in charge of his diocese.
He was appointed by Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams as the Church of England ‘Bishop to HM Prisons’ in 2001, and will become the President of the National Council for Independent Monitoring Boards in January 2008.
Dr Selby has spoken out firmly in favour of the retention of an independent inspectorate of prisons, forcing the government onto the back foot on the issue.
He is also an advocate of methods of restorative justice – which the Church of England has backed in a recent Synod report that he made a major contribution to, and he has been a critic of prison privatisation.
Peter Selby, a former research professor in practical theology at the Universities of Durham and Newcastle, said he had worked in prisons since 1965.
His first eucharist as Bishop of Worcester was at Long Lartin prison. The prisoners there sent him a wall-hanging.
He said that he had decided to take the National Council for Independent Monitoring Boards job because he felt it was “a bullet with my name on it”.
He added: “Although I wasn’t actually looking for a retirement task at this stage I didn’t really think I could say no to it.”
Each prison has an independent monitoring board made up of ordinary members of the public whose role is to monitor the day-to-day life within the jail and ensure inmates are treated correctly.

No Comments by George Swanson on March 21, 2007

filed in Injustice to Women, Peace & Justice

$lavery Today

Slavery not yet Abolished, Say Archbishops

By Ekklesia Staff Writers 17 Mar 2007

Forsaking the formalities of officialdom in their attempt to reach a new audience, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York have gone online to talk about the nature of the slave trade in readiness for the Walk of Witness to take place in London on Saturday 24 March 2007.

They highlight those elements of slavery that have not yet been ended – including the debt burden on the poorest and sex trafficking.

The joint reflection has been posted on YouTube. CLICK ON: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBTErUDIcz8

It is also accessible through the Archbishop of Canterbury’s web site. Go to: http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/sermons_speeches/

It was filmed at the site of the Slave Market in Zanzibar, now the island’s Anglican Cathedral, during the recent Anglican Primates Meeting – where the media focus had been more on the church’s row over sexuality.

The Archbishops were shown two small preserved slave pits, where up to 175 men, women and children were held in appalling conditions, chained and in darkness, often without food and water. Dr Sentamu spent some time at a memorial to the slaves which features some of the original chains used when the market was operating.

In the film, Dr Williams says that the experience brought home the reality of the trade: “You see there the fetters that were used for slaves, the fetters used to bring slaves in convoy, so that they could barely stand and walk, they were so closely shackled together; and to see some of the real, the actual shackles that were used until really very recently in this part of the world as part of the paraphernalia of the slave trade, it’s a reminder that it really happened, it really happened not very long ago.”

He says that the instinct to enslave is still very much present in the modern world: “It’s as if slavery is a kind of compulsion for human societies, people go back again and again to treating people as objects, as possessions, and I don’t think we can simply sit back and say ‘it’s a thing of the past and no more’. All those modern forms of slavery, economic slavery, debt slavery in effect, the slavery of sex trafficking; these things are still with us.”

Dr Sentamu says that holding the original chains was a harrowing experience: “I found the whole experience heart-rending … When I went outside and actually saw those figures – how slaves were tied together – and touched the actual chains that were used, I was rendered absolutely speechless. I felt I was going back in history, but I was also in the present where still slavery in some parts of the world still happens.

He declares: “Every person is made in the image and likeness of God, of great worth and of great value and to be treated with great dignity. In that place was almost I felt, almost like an altar where you couldn’t but take off your shoes … you were on holy ground – holy ground.”

The Archbishops’ YouTube talk has been issued in the run up to the Church’s Walk of Witness, to be held in London on 24 March. The walk will be led by both Archbishops and will culminate in an act of public worship in Kennington Park, where the two Anglican leaders will offer further reflections on the nature of the slave trade and its modern legacies.

More details of the walk can be found at http://www.makingourmark.org.uk/. The event has been organised by the Church of England’s Committee for Minority Ethnic Anglican Concerns (CMEAC).

Other church and civic leaders will join in, though there has been some criticism that the Established church is putting itself to the fore – just as there have been concerns that the focus on William Wilberforce has overlooked others who played a key role in ending the transtlantic slave trade – from which the Church of England itself profited at the highest levels.

Black historians and activists are furious that slave rebellions in the Caribbean are being marginalised in the way the story of abolition is being told. Indeed, black people are virtually invisible in the film Amazing Grace – even though there were 20,000 of them in London at the time, many taking an active interest in ending the iniquitous trade.

No Comments by George Swanson on March 19, 2007

filed in Injustice to Women, Money, Peace & Justice

Flowers of Evil

Most Mother’s Day Flowers
Will come from Exploited Workers says Report

By Ekklesia Staff Writers 15 Mar 2007

Flowers handed to mothers this Sunday will come from workers in developing countries who have risked their health for unsafe, insecure jobs supplying UK supermarkets, a new report suggests.

‘Growing Pains’ by anti-poverty charity War on Want investigates the human cost of cut flowers in British supermarkets, and calls on consumers to buy fair-trade flowers.

Supermarkets sell 70% of all the flowers bought in the UK – the highest proportion in Europe. But the workers in Colombia and Kenya supplying those flowers to the supermarkets face low wages, health problems and miscarriages through exposure to pesticides the report alleges.

Marks & Spencer, Tesco, Waitrose and Sainsbury’s are all named as sources from one or both of these countries. The report suggests that they have enormous influence over flower producers and ultimately the health and safety of workers.

Many UK businesses have adopted voluntary standards for their suppliers, but these are still failing to protect the health and safety of workers, the charity says.

War on Want is calling on the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry Alistair Darling to urge the government to introduce binding legislation to enforce corporate accountability. This, campaigners say, should give overseas workers the right of redress in the UK, i.e. the ability to seek compensation for damage to their health and loss of earnings as the result of actions of UK companies or their suppliers.

Flowers are likely to be the most popular Mother’s Day gift with £225m lavished on seven million bunches.

Although shoppers are increasingly aware of the environmental damage caused by pesticides and air miles, the report said they were “largely unaware” of the human price paid for their flowers by workers in poor countries.

A study of 8,000 flower workers in Bogota in 2002 found they had been exposed to 127 different pesticides, one fifth banned in the US for their toxicity.

Colombian flower workers – 65 per cent of whom are women – are being paid 50p an hour. In Kenya, the wage is £23 a month. Overtime is “compulsory” and workers have to put in longer hours in the run-up to celebrations such as Mother’s Day. Sexual harassment is “widespread”.

No Comments by George Swanson on March 16, 2007

filed in Injustice to Women, Money, Peace & Justice

Our Armed Forces

New Report Estimates

65,000 Lesbian and Gay Americans

Serving in Armed Forces

WASHINGTON, DC A new report from the Urban Institute estimates that, by even conservative counts, 65,000 lesbian and gay Americans are serving in the United States Armed Forces, on active duty, in the reserves and the National Guard. The report, Gay Men and Lesbians in the U.S. Military: Estimates from Census 2000 finds that the length of service for gay men is equal to their heterosexual colleagues, while lesbians typically serve longer than their straight counterparts. The Urban Institutes estimates are based on an analysis of year 2000 census data. The data is subjected to a rigorous review by the Institute, a non-partisan economic and social policy research organization. The positive contributions of 65,000 gay and lesbian Americans to our armed services and our national security cannot be ignored, said C. Dixon Osburn, Executive Director of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN). The number of “The 65,000 brave men and women serving today could staff the entire crew and aircrews of a dozen aircraft carriers.

The one million before them have made unmistakable and historic differences in the course of our national defense. There is no more appropriate thanks for their service than the repeal of the militarys gay ban.” lesbians and gays in service today is equal to half the total force strength currently serving in Iraq and is more than twice the 30,000 additional troops the Army Chief of Staff says he needs to fight the war on terrorism.

There is no doubt that America needs her lesbian and gay patriots fighting on the front lines. According to the Urban Institute, conservative estimates suggest 36,000 gay men and lesbians are serving on active duty. When the National Guard and reserve are included, the number grows to 65,000. According to the report, lesbians comprise 5% of all female military personnel, while gay men account for 2% of all male military members. The total number of lesbians and gays serving represents 2.8% of the nations military forces. The report also finds that lesbians and gays have served in all military eras in the latter part of the 20th century. The report finds that lesbians have a long history of service in the armed forces.

The Urban Institute reports that nearly one in ten coupled lesbians aged 63-67 report they served in the Korean War, compared to less than one in 100 of other women. And, even in the ten years from 1990 to 2000, service rates among coupled lesbians aged 18-27 are more than three times higher than rates among other women. Lesbians also tend to serve longer than other women, the report says, noting that nearly 82 percent of coupled lesbians report serving more than two years, compared with 74 percent of other women. In 2003, the Institute also reported that approximately 1 million lesbian and gay veterans are living in the United States.

Todays report shows a concentration of those veterans in specific areas. The three states with the largest population of gay and lesbian veterans, according to the report, are California (137,000), Florida (67,000) and Texas (66,000). Among metropolitan areas, Los Angeles (26,599), Washington DC (25,399), San Diego (21,465), Chicago (18,246) and New York (17,057) have the highest populations of gay and lesbian veterans.

The District of Columbia leads all states with a rate of just over ten lesbian or gay veterans per one thousand adults, more than double the national average, the report finds. Per capita rates are also high in Vermont (7.2), Hawaii (6.9), Maine (6.7), and Washington (6.5). Santa Rosa (14.2), Pensacola (12.2), San Francisco (11.3), San Diego (10.3), and Norfolk (8.6) are among the metropolitan areas with the highest per capita rates of gay and lesbian veterans.

Lesbian and gay Americans have always served, are serving today and should be able to do so openly, said Osburn. The 65,000 brave men and women serving today could staff the entire crew and aircrews of a dozen aircraft carriers. The one million before them have made unmistakable and historic differences in the course of our national defense. There is no more appropriate thanks for their service than the repeal of the militarys gay ban. Approximately 10,000 service members have been discharged under Dont Ask, Dont Tell since its passage in 1993. The law prohibits lesbian, gay and bisexual service members from serving openly in the armed forces.

The question is not, as opponents to gays serving openly suggest, whether there should be a ban, said Osburn. The question is how should America support all of our troops with equal dignity, respect, and honor? We cannot continue to treat men and women who have sacrificed for our nation as second class citizens.

Copyright 2007-1995, Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, All Rights Reserved. Designed by Audrey Denson. Photography by Judy G. Rolfe. Engineered by Mediapolis, inc.

No Comments by George Swanson on March 15, 2007

filed in Gay & Lesbian, Peace & Justice

Girls’ Empowerment

Anglican Women’s Empowerment Confronts Plight of the Girl Child

More than 80 Anglican delegates gather for
United Nations Commission on the Status of Women

By Nan Cobbey Monday, February 26, 2007

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori joins 11 teenage girls, aged 13 to 18, at Trinity Church, Wall Street, on February 24 for Girls Claiming the Future: Hopes and Challenges, a celebration ahead of the United Nations Commission of the Status of Women. (Trinity Church photo by Leo Sorel)
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori assures Chantelle Amy Nicole Douglas from Australia — a child raised in foster homes — that the church is made up of people and their job is reconciliation. (Trinity Church photo by Leo Sorel)
[Episcopal News Service] It is by investing in the girls of today “that we empower the women of tomorrow,” declared Rima Salah, deputy executive director of UNICEF, to 300 women on February 24 at Trinity Church, Wall Street. The more than 80 Anglican delegates to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (UNCSW) had gathered there with friends ahead of their February 26-March 9 meeting in New York City.
“Girls Claiming the Future: Hopes and Challenges,” billed as a celebration of the delegates and their focus on global issues of the girl child, offered the women from every region of the world a chance to hear the good news of their growing strength and the brutal news of their suffering children, especially girl children.
The effort to bring the women from all 38 provinces of the worldwide Anglican Communion is that of the Office of the Anglican Observer at the United Nations and Anglican Women’s Empowerment (AWE) — an international grassroots movement founded in 2003 to use the power of women’s voices and presence to pursue a humane agenda for women worldwide.
The Anglican delegation is the largest non-governmental delegation to the UNCSW, an annual meeting that brings thousands of women from around the world to New York in part to address the challenges raised by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), especially Goal 3 which calls for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women.
The delegates, selected by their Primates — the Communion’s presiding bishops, archbishops and moderators — attend nearly two weeks of meetings with the commission, an arm of the United Nations Economic and Social Council. The delegation this year includes 10 teenage girls, aged 13 to 18. All were present at Trinity. Several would speak.
“Our gathering here proclaims that the time is now more than ever for women to answer the Gospel call,” said the Rev. Margaret Rose, director of women’s ministries for the Episcopal Church, in her introduction. “Women for eons have been doing Isaiah’s work — repairing, restoring, feeding, clothing, caring for the sick. In the work at the United Nations, Anglican women are going public and claiming a public voice for this work calling on governments and churches to implement policies for change.”
In her welcome, Rose tempered the celebration. “This year, as we rejoice in seeing women taking top leadership positions in the church, in government and in civil society, we become ever more aware of the gaps in the well being of those whose opportunities are circumscribed by poverty, cultural norms, or a society that does not truly recognize them as made in the image of God. This year’s theme of the UNSCW, ‘The Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination and Violence Against Girls,’ points this out sharply.”
The evening’s three main speakers delivered sharp messages of warning, reality and challenge.
The first, Salah, born in Jerusalem and raised in a refugee camp in Jordan, spelled out the dangers faced by girl children around the world. They are the last to be fed, the first to be kept home from school. They are at the greatest risk of violence, the greatest risk of HIV/AIDS, she said. Sex selection and too early child bearing will kill thousands of them. Nearly 3 million will suffer genital mutilation. In conflict situations and war, girls are always most at risk. “They are raped, tortured, forced into prostitution.”
Yet, said Salah, a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology, when she talks to girls about their dreams, she feels hope and a renewed dedication to change the reality. “We have the means,” she said, naming two United Nations initiatives — CEDAW (The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, which was adopted in 1979 by the General Assembly) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted in 1948. “We need to ensure these are implemented,” she said to applause.
Carol Jenkins, president of the Women’s Media Center and the second speaker, told of traveling in Africa and Asia and seeing girls involved in the sex trade. In Madagascar, when she asked about what was happening, she learned that the children being exploited were ages 4, 5 and 6. “How can there be so many demented people in the world?”
Part of the blame, she said, belonged to the media and its failure to “urgently tell these stories.” The media is still sending out distorted messages and women still hold only 3 percent of the top positions, “the positions with clout,” she said.
She illustrated her point by telling the story of Abeer, age 14, an Iraqi girl gang raped and murdered by US soldiers along with other members of her family. As the Women’s Media Center attempted to get journalists to pay attention to the story, they were continually rebuffed. The too-frequent response to their insistence, she said, was “How important can a 14-year-old be?”
“Go to our website,” she asked. “Read her story.”
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, the third speaker of the afternoon, issued a challenge: “Continue to agitate, nag, pester and challenge the people and systems of this world so that all children, all girl children and all boy children, can have an appropriate sense of pride in the way in which they have been created.”
Three teenage delegates invited to ask questions of the speakers followed. Anne Wenk, 14, of Brooklyn asked Jenkins what responsibility the media bore for women’s difficulties. Jenkins handed the responsibility right back to her: “Write those letters, pick up that phone, send e-mails and say ‘I am expecting to see women in your stories.’ The media belongs to you and you have the ultimate responsibility to shape what you see there.”
Chantelle Amy Nicole Douglas from Australia, a child raised in foster homes – 20 of them in 10 years, she said – and a victim of child abuse, asked Jefferts Schori how the Christian church could help families. In a soft voice, and while holding Douglas’ hand, the presiding bishop assured her that the church is made up of people and their job is reconciliation. She told of hunger for a world where such abuse does not occur, where “your mother would have known that she was loved and wouldn’t have taken her frustrations out on you.”
Deepti Steffi from North India, lamenting the inequality of girls’ education and the ways in which they are too frequently treated and abused, asked Salah how the injustices could be overcome. “We have to hold our elected leaders accountable,” she said, explaining how they all came to the United Nations and committed themselves to the Millennium Development Goals.

As the program drew to a close, Jefferts Schori announced the formation of the AWE Global Fund. The fund and its projects around the Communion will enable girls 8 to 18 “to claim a better life.” It will address “unequal education, family reunification, rape, child marriage, domestic violence and war,” said Jefferts Schori. “Be generous.”
Words of assurance
The day before the celebration at Trinity, a standing-room-only crowd of women packed the chapel at the Episcopal Church Center for a Eucharist celebrated by Jefferts Schori. The faces, dress and languages of the women revealed their many nations as their voices blended in hymns from the Americas, Scotland, Ireland and Nigeria.
After a lament from Jeremiah — “the young girls of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground. My eyes are spent with weeping” — the women sang a lyric by Brigid Pailthorp from Voices Found: “Strike our binding chains asunder, liberate our cramping ways. May our lives reflect your splendor, in abundance, Lord we ask. God, our guide and our befriender, give new meaning to our task.” Then they listened to Jefferts Schori who brought them words of assurance.
“God’s vision is stronger than death … His command … is a call to the whole world –- get up, expect and demand the kind of healing God envisions for us all, and then go and feed the world.”
Jefferts Schori told of women whose lives had brought healing, had changed the communities around them. “Somaly Mam was sold into slavery as a young girl. When she finally emerged from her chains and found some healing herself, she went back into those dungeons and brought other girls out of their bondage. She bought them, redeemed them for life, and took them to a refuge where they might begin to heal. She continues that work today, one girl as a time.”
She told of a woman she met last fall who aids women in Afghani villages. “Connie Duckworth, through an enterprise called Arzu, has helped women weavers to improve their product, and pays them 150 percent of the going rate for their rugs, but only if they agree to send their daughters to school.”
The presiding bishop concluded her sermon by reaffirming that one can indeed change the world. “Together women can lead this world into the vision God has for us all. Bless your labors, that there may come a time when children do not die in their mothers’ arms, when girls everywhere live in freedom and equality, without fear of violence or oppression. May God’s reign be known on earth.”
Hesitant hopes
When the delegates arrived at the Episcopal Church Center on their first day they walked into a lobby where the art, poetry and missives of their younger sisters across the Communion had been pinned up in colorful array, reminding them of injustices faced by girl children and of the tender, hesitant hopes many had for futures free of past limits.
“I want to live fearlessly,” wrote 12-year-old Isha George of Christ Church in Guwahati, Diocese of North India, “but my questions remain unanswered. Is it my parents or society who will provide me safety and let me live free from inequality just because I am a girl?”
George’s letter, illustrated with her picture — a smiling girl with good posture in a crisp school uniform — drew stares and sighs. “When I look around I see girls often become victims of rape, murder, dowry, and what is known as ‘bride burning.’ Young girls are forced to marry against their choice, parents want to get rid of them because for them girl is a burden … Sometimes parents are ashamed of having baby daughters instead of boys and then the girl babies are killed.”
A 16-year-old from Thailand identified only as Pui had written: “I don’t understand about a mother’s care. Is it true that a mother’s hug is warm? Eating a family dinner is only a dream for me. I’ve never heard a mother’s lullaby. I’ve never felt the warmth of someone tucking me into bed. My heart has never been warm even when I’m warm in bed. I always sleep alone.”
The note below Pui’s poem reports that Pui’s mother, sold into prostitution as a young girl, died of AIDS. The last line of Pui’s poem begs: “Mother, if you are still alive, wherever you are, whoever you are, please send love to me. If you hear me now, please think of me a little bit … I promise. I will be a good child.”
Further information about AWE and the UNCSW is available at: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/uncsw.htm. Trinity Church’s telecast of the gathering is available here.

– Nan Cobbey is associate editor of Episcopal Life,
The Episcopal Church’s national newspaper.

No Comments by George Swanson on March 12, 2007

filed in Peace & Justice

Primates Feb 18

In Zanzibar, Anglican Primates

Join in Repentance at Former Slave Market

See realities of suffering, Archbishop of Canterbury says in sermon

Episcopal News Service article

February 18, 2007By Bob Williams

[ENS, Zanzibar] A slave market whipping post once stood where the high altar now rises inside Zanzibar’s 127-year-old Christ Church Cathedral.

Here the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, opened Eucharist February 18 with prayers asking “forgiveness for the past, mercy for the present, and humility for the future.”

More than 600 people overflowed the historic nave. Some, seeking shade from the equator-hot sun, filled a tented area on the cathedral close, grounds that were until the 19th century a nexus of the Arabian-European-American slave trade.

Fellow Primates — the Anglican Communion’s chief presiding bishops, archbishops and moderators — joined Williams around the copper-and-wood paneled chancel as he asked God to “help us to find hope at times of bondage and fear.”

Gathered in Tanzania for a five-day meeting through February 19, the Primates are expected to close their proceedings with a communiqué addressing topics including a proposed covenant that would ask the 38 autonomous Anglican Provinces to deepen their communion amid differing viewpoints, notably on human sexuality and same-gender relationships. [Related stories are online at http://www.episcopalchurch.org.]

“Grant that we may be faithful witnesses against violence, hatred and oppression,” Williams prayed, adding later that his own Church of England joins this year in observing the bicentennial of Britain’s abolition of the slave trade — an occasion to be marked in a late-March liturgy in Westminster Abbey.

It was to the Abbey for burial that the body of English medic-explorer David Livingstone was dispatched from Tanzania, carried some miles across the bush, in 1873, the same year English missionaries bought the slave market for the cathedral close. Memorials to Livingstone and his advocacy against slavery grace the nave of Zanzibar’s cathedral.

>From its carved pulpit, Williams preached a homily based upon scripture lessons addressing Genesis’s account of the rainbow after Noah’s flood; the “patient, kind” attributes of love as expressed in I Corinthians 13; and Luke’s gospel account of Jesus restoring the sight of the blind man on the road to Jericho.

“Today it is very appropriate to think how God makes us see,” Williams said. “One thing we might reflect upon today is what thing are we blind to — who is it now whose suffering we cannot see, we cannot understand.

“In some societies it may be women, the elderly, or children,” he said. In others, “it may be minorities of one kind or another…. It is the case in our wealthy countries that we don’t see the realities of suffering in other parts of the world.”

These international connections were underscored at the service’s conclusion when the Archbishop installed Ugandan-born Hellen Wangusa as Anglican Observer at the United Nations.

[Full text of Williams's sermon will be available at http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org]

God’s love helps believers see “who we really are” … and “truly because of that we see others in new ways. … So we begin to be able to set about the task of setting others free … the chains, the shackles of our own fears fall away.”

Williams cited the conclusion of hymn writer-priest John Wesley, who said near the end of his life, “I remember two things: that I am a great sinner, and Jesus is a great Savior.”

The congregation had earlier sung Wesley’s classic “Amazing Grace” as part of its “Act of Commemoration, Reparation, Hope” repenting the evils of slavery.

Hymns and prayers alternated between Swahili and English during the liturgy, with loudspeaker calls to prayer from the neighboring mosque occasionally overheard between organ strains.

Most Zanzibaris are Muslim, dating from when the island was colonized and under the rule of Oman’s Sultan before becoming a British Protectorate. In 1964, Zanzibar and the mainland Tanganyika were joined into the united nation of Tanzania.

Welcoming all to the cathedral, Tanzania’s Archbishop Donald Mtetemela celebrated the Eucharist in Swahili and brought greetings from his host Province, which includes 21 dioceses.

Provincial officials joined in presenting gifts to all of the visiting Primates, including Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori of the Episcopal Church “in the United States and 15 other nations.”

After the service — and the Primates’ seaside-hotel luncheon with Zanzibar’s President Amani Abeid Karume — Jefferts Schori returned to the cathedral’s chancel for several moments of reflection at the high altar.

There she had been among the Communion’s 13 newest Primates seated in choir stalls facing the congregation. Seated on the chancel steps were other more senior Primates, except Nigeria’s Peter Akinola, who absented himself from the morning’s service — and the two-hour Indian
Ocean boat trips to and from Dar es Salaam.

For his part, Uganda’s Archbishop Henry Orombi — although he opposes other provinces’ inclusion of gay and lesbian Christians — exchanged the peace by cordially shaking hands with several Primates, including Jefferts Schori.

Returning through the cathedral’s traditionally carved Zanzibar doors, the Presiding Bishop was met by cathedral volunteers who took pride in showing her the high altar’s mosaic of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection.

“This church is seen as God’s intervention in human affairs through men and women of good will,” notes diocesan secretary Nuhu J. Sallanya, writing about the cathedral. “The place of horror and despair has been transformed” into an “area of worship and praise.”

– Canon Robert Williams, the Episcopal Church’s director of communication, is reporting for ENS from Zanzibar.

1 Comment by George Swanson on February 18, 2007

filed in Church Politics, Gay & Lesbian, Peace & Justice

God Bless ‘em

Primates Convene; Windsor Response Leads agenda

By Matthew Davies

[ENS, Dar es Salaam] The Primates’ Meeting of the worldwide Anglican Communion has convened February 15 for its five-day agenda near Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, with every indication that all participants are present at the table.

Three of the 38 Primates — the Communion’s presiding bishops, archbishops and moderators — are unable to attend the meeting: Archbishop Barry Morgan of Wales, who is on sabbatical; and Archbishop Joseph Marona of Sudan, who cited health reasons; and the Most Rev. Joel Vidyasagar Mal, Moderator of the Church of North India, for reasons unspecified.

The Episcopal Church is represented by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, who said before the meeting that she looked forward to the Primates’ collaborative work.

Upon arriving in Tanzania, the Presiding Bishop — who is one of 13 Primates to attend the meeting for the first time — said she welcomes “the opportunity to meet new colleagues and build upon existing relationships for common mission.”

In an earlier statement she said: “There is much we can achieve together in building the Reign of God, but it will require us to see that God’s larger purposes transcend our internal differences. That willingness to trust in God’s leading despite our own fears and divisions is the trust Jesus showed us. May we seek to follow in his road.”

Contact with the Primates is prohibited during business sessions, as a matter of policy for the meeting. Media and other visitors are housed in a separate area of the White Sands Hotel complex in Jangwani Beach, where internet access is intermittent.

One of the first items on the Primates’ agenda was the response of the Episcopal Church’s 75th General Convention to the Windsor Report, a document that recommends ways in which the Anglican Communion can maintain unity amid differing viewpoints.

All Primates present are believed to have attended the sessions despite some ‘Global South’ Primates indicating last October, through their spokesman Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi of Uganda, that they would not sit at the same table with Jefferts Schori because of her support of gay and lesbian Christians.

The Joint Standing Committee of the Primates and the Anglican Consultative Council, the Communion’s main policy-making body, joined the meetings for the day’s proceedings.

Three U.S. Episcopal bishops have been invited by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, to address the Primates about their own experiences and perspectives of the state of the Episcopal Church: Bishop Christopher Epting, the Episcopal Church’s ecumenical and interfaith officer; Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh, moderator of the Anglican Communion Network of Dioceses and Parishes; and Bishop Bruce MacPherson of Western Louisiana, chair of the Presiding Bishop’s Council of Advice.

The three bishops were present in Jangwani Beach in advance of their presentations.

A letter from the ‘Global South’ Primates, who had met in a nearby hotel beforehand to strategize, was presented to Williams on February 14, according to Canon James Rosenthal, communications director of the Anglican Communion. The letter’s contents have not yet been officially confirmed.

At Williams’ request, the Archbishop of York, Dr. John Sentamu, joined the meeting for the first time as the official representative of the Church of England and to give the Archbishop of Canterbury the freedom to chair the meeting unequivocally.

A February 15 evening media briefing — chaired by the Primates’ official spokesperson for the meeting, Archbishop Phillip Aspinall of Australia — is scheduled to recount of the day’s proceedings.

– Matthew Davies is international correspondent for the Episcopal News Service.

No Comments by George Swanson on February 15, 2007

filed in Bible, Church Politics, Gay & Lesbian, Peace & Justice

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