Atheism Rising, But God Is Not Dead Yet

10 Ways Religion Is Changing Around the World

 

Photo Credit: Dima Konsewitch

AlterNet / By Sara Robinson 

 

Religion is alive and well in the 21st century -- but it also looks very different now.

 

For most of the 20th century, smart people assumed -- with smug certainty and probably more wishful thinking than they'd be willing to admit -- that humanity's long obsession with religion is finally winding down. God is dead -- done in at last by the forces of enlightenment and reason. Humanity is now free to chart a new course, without worrying about the Big Bad He-God In the Sky.

But, as the last 30 years have rather brutally demonstrated to American progressives (religious and otherwise), those reports of the death of religion turned out to be greatly exaggerated. Here we are, with a firm foothold in the 21st century, and it's pretty clear that God is very much alive and well and living almost everywhere on the globe (except Europe and Canada, as we shall shortly see).

God or no God, the religious landscape of the planet isn't what it was in the last century. In fact, it's changing in some essential ways. And whether you're a person of faith or no faith, those changes have deep implications for the way other important factors -- culture, technology, economics, the environment, and politics -- play out as this new century unwinds. 

What follows is a quick summary of some of the key drivers that are changing the landscape of faith around the world. It's hardly comprehensive, but I did try to hit the high spots. (Agree? Disagree? Got another one to add, or a point to amplify? Drop a comment below, and let's talk about it.)

1. God Is Not Dead

In 2007, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life went around the world asking people a straight-up question: "Religion is very important to me." Yes, or no?

The numbers in Europe were low to middling. In Great Britain, 33 percent of those polled said religion was "very important" in their lives. The number was 27 percent in Italy, 21 percent in Germany and 11 percent in France. Poland came in at 36 percent, with Russia at 14 percent and the Czech Republic at 11 percent. 

Closer to home, the numbers in Canada looked pretty much like those in England. And in the US, you will not be surprised to learn, the numbers were about twice as high as they were in Europe. Here, about six out of 10 respondents said that religion was very important in their lives.

But when Pew went to Latin America, Asia and Africa, the numbers were radically different. In Guatemala, 80 percent of those polled said religion was "very important" to them. That number was 77 percent in Brazil and 72 percent in Honduras -- but only 39 percent in Argentina.

In Asia, the "yes" total was 95 percent in Indonesia, 92 percent in India, 91 percent in the Philippines, but only 12 percent in Japan. And in Africa, Senegal checked in at 97 percent, Nigeria at 92 percent and Angola at 80 percent.

So the world is still a very religious place, indeed, though it's still not well understood why Europe should be such a secular anomaly. (My own guess is that its long and bitter history of religious wars simply exhausted Europeans, and they've given up religion as too divisive to tolerate.) These numbers show pretty clearly that modernism didn't kill religion, and postmodernism isn't likely to, either. Faith may be on the wane in a few spots, but it's still kicking hard everywhere else.

2. The Center of Gravity for the Christian World Is Moving South

A few years back, a spate of books like Philip Jenkins' The Next Christendom and Globalizing The Sacred: Religion Across The Americas by Manuel Vasquez and Marie Marquart argued that Latin America is going evangelical at such a furious rate that Protestants could outnumber Catholics as early as 2025. 

Further examination of this trend suggests that it's not happening quite that fast. While people in these countries often do succumb to the charms of Christian missionaries, a lot of those conversions don't stick for very long. Even so: Protestantism is growing in the global south, and the conversion cycle is rapidly introducing Protestant ideals and values into these cultures, which could over time create some deep shifts in Latino culture.

In Africa, Christian and Muslim missionaries are squaring off in turf battles that transcend national borders, and researchers from the Pew study cited above are frankly worried that conflict and competition between the two conversion-oriented faiths could eventually lead to political disruptions and military confrontations. Increasingly, an African's most defining affiliation isn't his or her tribe or nation, but his or her faith.

Meanwhile, here at home, American Catholics have noticed that a growing number of the priests serving their churches are coming up from the global south -- and are often far more traditional than their comparatively liberal congregations. As these priests move up through the church hierarchy in the years ahead, this southern traditionalism may make the church even more conservative as the century rolls on. Over the long term, this trend could easily alienate North Americans and Europeans to the point where the Catholic Church becomes largely a phenomenon of the southern hemisphere in another generation or two.

3. The Kids are Different

The religious trends of the country over the past 40 years have been dominated by the religious preferences of the Baby Boomers and Generation X -- two generations that have been highly individualistic and inner-directed, generally preferred individual "spirituality" over group-oriented "religion," and distrusted all forms of institutional authority -- especially religious authority. By and large -- and especially as they've aged -- the religious focus of these two generations has been on personal salvation, rather than changing the world.

The Millennials, on the other hand, distrust religion for somewhat different reasons. 

According to research conducted by Barna, this is an ethnically diverse generation that was born connected, and does almost everything in tribes and teams – a tendency that is already making them more communal and outer-directed in their spirituality than any group we've seen since the GI generation. For them, faith is meaningless unless it leads to action. The thousands of community service hours they logged as teenagers instilled in them a strong sense of social justice, huge confidence in their own ability to make a difference, a growing trust in their ability to create effective and inclusive institutions, and an conviction that religion should be about serving the world instead of perfecting yourself.  

This shift has implications for every religious institution in the country, but it's particularly rocking the foundations of Christian fundamentalism. A Barna Research study last year found that large numbers of young adults from evangelical homes are leaving the faith because they dislike their churches' limiting attitudes toward science, the arts and sexuality. They don't like the right-wing culture war. They grew up with it, they're tired of it, and they want their elders to knock it off.

Because of this, the ones who were raised in megachurches are abandoning those churches in droves. They're not particularly interested in policing theological boundaries; if they affiliate with a faith at all, it will be because they're looking to join a community where people are coming together to work on the stuff that really matters: social justice, poverty and the environment. 

4. Atheism Ascendant -- and Not Just in the Cities

We're also seeing a resurgence of atheism. Much to the surprise of both the very religious and the entirely irreligious, non-theism consistently shows up as the second or third most popular philosophical worldview across most of the US. According to a 2008 survey by the City University of New York, atheism is cited as the number one orientation (by proportion of adherents) in Washington and Idaho, and it's number two or three in almost all the other states.

Nationwide, atheists rank #3 overall, just behind the Catholics and the Baptists -- and the numbers are even higher among Americans under 30. 

But what's really weird about this is that it's not just a phenomenon of the liberal coasts. Non-religious people make up a higher percentage of the populations of Idaho, Montana and Nevada than of California, Massachusetts or New York. It turns out that rural does not equate to religious after all -- a trend that has some interesting political implications in the decades ahead.

5. Environmental Ethics Go Mainstream

The global inter-religious dialogue on the theology of environmentalism has been going on for about 20 years now, which is long enough that it's soaked through an entire generation of young clergy, and is now being absorbed into their congregations.

The idea that the living earth and its vast matrix of interlocking systems are inherently sacred was a heretical idea just 25 years ago. But when Pat Robertson goes on TV and tells his flock that climate change is serious and real and Jesus wants them to fix it (though he's very recently recanted), you know there's some real change afoot in the way even some conservative Christians are assessing their relationship to the planet. As we look ahead to solving some of our big problems, it's good to note that (with a handful of very noisy exceptions on the right-wing Christian Nationalist side) most of the world's most prominent religions have taken up the task of teaching people what's required, and priming them to act.

6. The Marketplace of Spiritual Ideas Is Going Global

It's a small world, and it keeps getting smaller. We've got twice as many people as we did 50 years ago. But we've also got far more access to all those people, through trade and the Internet and social networks, than we could have even imagined a decade ago. And that interconnectivity stands to change our religions along with everything else.

The Internet has opened up a virtual global souk of religious ideas. Last year, I went online and downloaded the PDF of an 80-year-old book that was the only account in English of life among the traditional Yezidi tribes of Kurdistan. They're almost extinct now, since their remote homeland has been a war zone for the past 30 years. But if you're interested in their unique folkways -- or in Apache girls' coming-of-age rites, or what goes on in Mormon temples, or reading comparable translations of the Kama Sutra -- well, there's a vast feast of amazing material just a quick Google search away.

This is already resulting in massive religious cross-pollination -- a trend that could move us toward a sort of syncretic, celebratory sharing of traditions that could be very healthy for everyone. But, on the downside, it's getting easier for fundamentalists to find each other, too. Some scholars of Islam report that apocalyptic stories of the Hidden Imam, long suppressed by ayatollahs and mullahs, are taking on new themes that were clearly borrowed from Christian fundamentalist end-times tales. (Startling, yes -- and also proof that not all change is for the better.)

And for some faith groups, especially those that thrive on secrecy and restricting information or criticism, it's making life just plain hard. One wonders if the full scale of the Catholic sexual abuse scandal would ever have been known if the victims hadn't been able to find each other on the Internet. Mormonism isn't faring at all well in this new environment, either: members and would-be converts can easily find accurate historical information about the church's early history that church leaders had been suppressing for decades, out of (apparently justified) fear that it would undermine the testimony of the faithful. 

7. Religion as a Way of Reclaiming Cultural Identity

All this syncretic sharing and blending may yield some weird and wonderful things, but there's a counter-trend here, too. In the developing world, some groups are very consciously re-connecting to their traditional religious roots as part of their struggle to resurrect national and cultural identities that have been lost through generations of colonial oppression.

The best example of this is the re-emergence of the hijab among Muslim women the world over. While women have no choice about this in many Islamic countries, a woman wearing a hijab on a Western street is likely making a voluntary statement of pride in her Islamic identity, and affirming her own culture. Likewise, in Russia, the Orthodox Church is re-emerging as Russians reconnect with their lost culture and history in the aftermath of the Soviet era.

While it's great to embrace the global spiritual marketplace where we're welcomed in, it's also important to recognize and respect when people are leaning harder than they might otherwise on religious traditions because they offer a fragile lifeline back to a lost cultural identity.

8. New Empires, New Religions

It's a historical truth that religions tend to spread and grow right alongside rising economic and political powers. In this century, the world's two up-and-comers are India and China. As they become bigger players on the world stage, we can expect that those countries' dominant religions -- Hinduism, Confucianism and Buddhism in particular -- will become far more visible and influential on the global religious scene. 

9. The Hardest Truth: Fundamentalism Isn't Going Away

The best we're ever going to do is contain it. Authoritarian religion, like authoritarian politics, takes root wherever people feel like they're losing control over their traditional ways of life. This is why fundamentalists are taught in their churches to look for potential converts who are going through important life transitions, or have just sustained some kind of heavy emotional loss. They know those people are vulnerable, and may be receptive to the idea of having someone else make their decisions for them.

Unfortunately, there are going to be a lot more of these vulnerable souls in the world as we go through wrenching process of moving off of carbon fuels, rebuilding our economy and our infrastructure, and coping with the dislocations caused by climate change. A lot of people's well-ordered lives are likely to be devastated by events, and in the aftermath, they may be willing to follow anyone who promises to restore structure and meaning to their lives. 


It seems likely that these movements could become far more prevalent in the transitional years ahead of us. They could even become big and powerful enough to slow the transition process down, or stop it altogether. This is yet another reason we need to plan a responsible and intelligent transition to a new economic and energy paradigm. As long as people see themselves moving toward a better future, we'll probably be able to keep the religious and political authoritarians at bay. But the risk is real, and we need to be thinking about it now.

10. Technology Changes Everything -- Including Faith

Technology is already challenging our ideas of what it means to be human, to be alive, to be a spiritual being. Genetic engineering, cloning, nanotechnology, bionics, and computers that can outsmart us have been the stuff of science fiction for 60 years, but that future is now here, and it's going to be interesting to watch our current crop of religions wrestle with the new ethical and theological questions these technologies raise.

Probably unsurprisingly, the biggest breakthroughs on these fronts are being made in the very same countries that Pew found (back in item #1) to be the least religious. And yet the world's religions are going to have to find ways to deal with these changes. in fact, this rethinking of the whole human enterprise as we've understood it for the past couple of millennia may be the biggest challenge faced by all the world's faiths in the coming century.

If they do the job well,  I think we may end up with a far more expansive and inclusive sense of the sacred than we can possibly imagine right now. In fact, this century may be giving us the best chance humans have ever had to create a global spirituality built on enduring human values: compassion, justice, community, and the common drive to share and celebrate the wonder of our lives. 

But if they do it poorly, religion may continue to be the biggest obstacle to taking the decisive steps we need to deal with our growing number of human-created crises.

Religion changes, and will continue to change. But if the last century didn't knock the religious impulse out of us, it may be time to accept that it's here to stay. 

  
Sara Robinson, MS, APF is a social futurist and the editor of AlterNet's Vision page. Follow her on Twitter, or subscribe to AlterNet's Vision newsletter for weekly updates.

 

 

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Can America’s Descent Possibly Be Reversed?

By Scott Lazarowitz
[REPRINT]

March 30, 2012 ""LRC" --  My articles for LRC have been increasingly difficult and frustrating to write. More recently I have been trying to get people to understand America’s current police state. Yes, I have received some favorable emails when my articles have appeared, but there are also ones from those in denial, who refer to me as “nuts,” “conspiracy theorist,” and so on.

Now, to say that America is becoming like Nazi Germany is not an exaggeration. But too many people glance over such assertions in disbelief, perceiving such things as absurdities. They are in denial, and just do not want to believe what’s going on.

In my article on martial law, I emphasized that public officials are obligated to disobey unlawful orders, even those issued by the President of the United States. If the President orders suspension of civil liberties and basic rights protected by the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights, then governors, mayors, state troopers, police officers and military personnel must disobey those unlawful orders. Those officials have sworn to an oath to obey the Constitution, not to obey the President of the United States.

“But we’re at war!” some people cry. No, sorry. Regardless of what the warmongers say, there is no time ever to excuse violations of the people’s rights and their liberty, during war or peacetime.

America is dangerous now, but the reason isn’t because of Islamic terrorists – it’s because of government bureaucrats, central planners run amok.

The problem is that bureaucrats who MUST have war and expanded powers, including suppression of civil liberties, will change the laws to suit their narcissistic needs for more power.

And America is dangerous because too many amongst the general population are no longer raised with a sense of moral values and personal responsibility. Americans seem to get easily swept up into a national fervor for war, for killing and death. Just look at these past ten years of destruction that our government has caused overseas, and the American people’s passive acceptance of it based on the government’s emotion-driven propaganda.

One item of evidence of America’s decline in decency and values is how America’s youngsters are so bloodthirstily drawn to the latest pop culture phenomenon called The Hunger Games, #1 on Amazon.com this week. Because of modern Americans’ craving for war and sadism, and because of their widespread support for the Bush-Obama wars of the past decade, Americans have become even more desensitized to violence.

But this series of books supposedly has an anti-war tone or message. However, I wonder how many people who have read the books (or have seen the movie) are more “anti-war” than they were previously.
In continuing their apparent militantly exceptionalist attitude, and with much ignorance as well (especially of Muslims), many Americans now seem to have an insatiable craving for violence, sadism, cruelty, torture, murder, blood and death.

Fifty or sixty years ago, when America was perhaps a little more decent and moral in general than it is now, in no way would so many parents have let their kids see this movie or read the books.

Like The Hunger Games, America has a corrupt, degenerate central government that has grown into a monstrous Leviathan, consisting of professional bureaucrats and politicians who seem to delight in pitting one group of Americans against another, with class warfare and governmental-provocation of racial conflicts, and struggles between police and civilians. It is as though Washington’s political class wants to see conflicts between armed government agents and everyday civilians, via the drug war, the “war on terror,” and thousands and thousands of needless regulations and laws that could cause the most innocent amongst us to be on the receiving end of a criminal S.W.A.T. team raid.

And now, Barack Obama is taking full advantage of the post-9/11 police state apparatus that the Bush-Cheney Administration set up. This is being used, in the name of “keeping us safe” and along with the massively intrusive ObamaCare in the name of “keeping us healthy and insured,” to gain even more control over the people’s lives, their fortunes, their businesses, associations and contracts.

Recent Unconstitutional Acts by Barack Obama and Congress:
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) gives the President the power to have the military arrest and detain indefinitely anyone the president says is a “terrorist,” or a “terrorist supporter,” without providing any evidence against the accused.

NDAA is a clear and present danger to American liberty, a codification of dictatorship, and a treasonous act of turning the U.S. military against the people. And it is the reason why author Chris Hedges is suing Barack Obama.

Some legislators are claiming that they weren’t aware that in NDAA they voted for such removal of due process of Americans, but in fact, they knew exactly what they were doing.

And just recently, Attorney General Eric Holder defended the President’s self-granted power to assassinate Americans based on the President’s own judgment of guilt, without due process, without presenting any evidence of any kind.

But every human being who is accused of something has an inherent right to require that the accuser show evidence to prove such alleged guilt. No circumstances are too important – not wars, terrorism, and not economic collapse – that the government or Presidents be relieved of their burden to show evidence against the accused.

Infowars.com recently compared these Washington policies to similar police state policies of Chile’s dictator General Augusto Pinochet during the 1970s. The NDAA law could now be considered as Washington’s reactionary and desperate response to political dissent and economic collapse.

Obama’s most recent extreme overreach was his signing the Executive Order, the National Defense Resources Preparedness (NDRP) order, which gives the President complete control over all resources within the U.S. territory including water and agriculture, energy, transportation and food, during war or emergency. But this revised version gives the President such supreme powers in peacetime.

In this new example of totalitarianism the President also seizes control over the nation’s labor forces, and it is not merely a demand to conscript Americans into the military, but to conscript Americans to serve in other non-military labor capacities, and during peacetime as well. (Hmmm. Sounds a little like communism, if you ask me.)

And with the FEMA camps, there is plenty of evidence that the U.S. government either foresees or is planning for some sort of catastrophic event, economic collapse, or civil unrest. In an intensive investigation by former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura and Alex Jones, the investigators found one “residential center” (video here, starts at about 25 minutes) with locked doors, barbed wire fencing facing the inside of the property, and a children’s playground. Officials at the center refused to give information about what the place was for. Investigators also found stacks of hundreds of thousands of coffins and plans for mass graves. Investigators found plenty of evidence that camps and rendition sites are to be used to deal with possible massive political dissent in America. (more here, here, here, here, here, and here)

Analysis
No doubt many readers dismiss all this as “conspiracy theory,” and FEMA probably has its explanations such as preparations for possible biological warfare, mass epidemics, and so forth. (And we all know, after Katrina, just how competent FEMA is in managing disasters.) That all these acts by federal U.S. government bureaucrats – NDAA, NDRP, the power to detain or assassinate Americans without showing evidence against the accused, the FEMA camps and prison-like facilities – could actually be meant for devious purposes by political power-grabbers is something that most people just would not want to acknowledge. The thought that the U.S. government and U.S. military could be designating the American people as the enemy is a frightening thought.

Now, some people believe that Obama is using his new military dictatorship and detainment camps on behalf of various left-wing groups, such as the Weather Underground, to “transform America” into communist rule. But many of these police state policies and Homeland Security intrusions were begun by the Bush Administration and even by previous administrations, such as Jimmy Carter who first signed FEMA into existence, and the Reagan Administration that included Oliver North acting out of the White House basement and who eagerly called for martial law at the drop of a hat.

However, we also have seen testimony from the 1970s by an FBI agent who infiltrated the Weather Underground, and who described how academic types such as Bill Ayers were allegedly plotting to bring down the U.S. government to make way for foreign communist regimes to occupy America, and that resisters and dissenters would be “eliminated.” Here is a brief video of the FBI agent’s descriptions:






Now, here is what I would say if I were really conspiratorial: I would suggest that the neocons’ aggressions overseas, with invasions and occupations, sanctions, and destroying Muslim countries to create blowback against America and to expand U.S. governmental powers abroad and at home, were to intentionally weaken America’s security and economy to help those leftist organizations. But I’m not saying that. (Although, those incompetent neocon central planners sure have been useful idiots for those leftists, at the very least).

But then, there really could be reason to suspect the neocon architects who screwed up the Middle East as having possible communist sympathies, given that several founding members of the neoconservative movement had been unapologetic “former” Trotskyites who seemed just as devoted to spreading their vision globally as were the communists.

These Cheney-Wolfowitz-Kristol neoconservatives are certainly not “conservative.” Their policies are fascist, with their passion for coveting the wealth and natural resources of foreigners and seizing control over so much property and resources in their own country.

But in my opinion, fascism is really communism with a mere façade of “private property.” Like the communists (and the Nazis), the neocons have been invading country after country (as has been their plan, especially in the Middle East), some covertly. Since 1990 the invasions and occupations have been more overt and for the purpose of expanding U.S. government bureaucracies and military and for U.S. government hegemony worldwide. (Hmmm. They sound like communists to me.)

Ben O’Neill’s recent article on the West’s economic structure tells us of the government-corporate complex, the breakdown of the rule of law, and how the political elites strive to maintain and strengthen their political and police powers at all costs.

The one major commonality between the neoconservatives and the Obama leftists is that both groups love central planning. But it is central planning that has been the cause for much of the destruction of modern civilization, in the Soviet Union, the current European Union and the United States. The left and the neocons have their utopian views of the ideal society, both being authoritarian, with total government control over the people.

As O’Neill points out, the central planning elites use war and conquest to foment nationalist fervor from the masses to get them to passively accept the elites’ massive intrusions, predations and crimes against them. The latest hysteria is the rush to war with Iran, based on propaganda that the government spoon-feeds the masses, despite Iran’s being completely surrounded by U.S. military bases and Israel having hundreds of nukes.

Obama has taken on the neocons’ warmongering abroad and domestic police state, combined with his seizing control over just about every aspect of daily life in America (e.g. ObamaCare). Now many Americans are leaving the country in droves, even though the government has been making it difficult for the people to leave, just as it was with the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.

This East German-born woman describes how the communists took everything away from the people and attempted to indoctrinate them to love the communist State. America was not meant to be this way.

Conclusion
The way out of this is to accept the fact that compulsory central planning leads to tyranny, and that we must decentralize America in order to save it. The Soviet Union learned the hard way.
But at least some states are trying to defend themselves from federal tyranny through nullification, of ObamaCare, and now of the NDAA law especially. So at least there’s some hope. (In this video, Hans-Hermann Hoppe explains the dangers of centralization and the advantages of small states.)
In our current situation of de facto martial law, now is a good time to remind governors, mayors, police, national guardsmen and military that any federal orders to arrest or detain Americans without charges or evidence, any suspension of one’s civil liberties and right to due process, are unlawful orders that military, state and local officials are obligated to disobey. If you know you have done nothing wrong, you have a right to defend yourself against unlawful arrest or detainment, and a right to resist being brought against your will to rendition camps.
____________________________
***End of article at LewRockwell.com***
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Addendum:
After I sent that article in, I then asked that the last line be removed. It is still there, which is fine, whatever. I just wanted to clarify that I do not want people to risk any harm to themselves, by “resisting arrest,” if that situation might occur. You have to take each situation on an individual basis. If you are in a situation and police are arresting you, resisting arrest could very likely get you hurt, or more charges (for “resisting arrest”) brought against you, or possibly even get you killed.

However, what I meant to refer to was, if there really is a situation in which martial law has been directly declared, and authorities are attempting to relocate people out of their homes against their will, and you know you have done nothing wrong, you are within your rights to defend yourself, your family, and your right to not be taken off to rendition camps. That is what I meant by the very last line of the article.

Scott Lazarowitz's Blog

Copyright © 2012 by LewRockwell.com

What's Next for Occupy?

[REPRINT]

Now, regarding Occupy this Spring - we, like everyone everywhere, wonder what will emerge. Here is an article about just that - or, more accurately, about some concerns that might inform choices to be made.
 

 

By Michael Albert

Friday, March 30, 2012

 

The world is as it is. If we arrive at a shared vision for a better future, that too will be what it is. But strategy and tactics are different. To get poetic about it, this one time, they aren't what they are. One place, one strategy or tactic makes sense. Another place, a different strategy or tactic makes sense. One time, do this. Another time, do the opposite. 

Anyone saying what a movement should do in all places and at all times is confused. There is no single correct path for Occupy. Oakland is not New York. Madrid is not Athens. What makes local sense differs from place to place and from time to time.

There is something about strategy and tactics, however, that does stay pretty much constant. It is the criteria we ought to have in mind when we choose among paths to take. 

Yes, of course, even those criteria depend on things like the resources at the disposal of a movement, the size of a movement, the character of opponents of the movement, and the state of mind of the population surrounding a movement. Still, for the question "what's next for Occupy?," while there is no one right path, perhaps we can at least specify concerns that Occupy should account for in choosing among all possible paths. For myself, here are a few such concerns. 

Occupy doesn't have 99% of the population supporting it, or, far more importantly, 99% participating in its endeavors. Instead, Occupy has some significant support, though not very deep, and still has quite low participation in its endeavors. To win anything, and especially to win a new world, it needs much more support and involvement.

A wise path forward, a wise set of things to do, is therefore going to be a path which is traversable given the present reality of Occupy's numbers and resources, and which increases the levels of support in society for Occupy and, even more so, increases the numbers of participants in Occupy activities, including the number who are actively conceiving and self managing Occupy. 

To favor some acts or actions because one would enjoy doing them, or because they have the appearance of being radical or audacious, or conversely because they appear sober and calm, or because one exaggerates that if they were to be done well all would be wonderful - makes no sense. First, what is undertaken must be within the range of things Occupy can do well, given where it is at, so that there is a very good prospect they would be carried out well. Second, what is undertaken, if it is carried out well, must along with whatever other more proximate aims it may have, enlarge support for Occupy and involvement in Occupy, as well as strengthen Occupy's commitment and its means of future engagement.

What might qualify as having those implications in different countries and cites, or at different times, will differ, perhaps greatly. But to fall short on these concerns, no matter where or when, is to follow paths that will not lead to steadily growing influence and success. 

Can we consider some specific possibilities? If we are cautious, and if we realize that we are doing so only hypothetically and that different parts of Occupy would have to do it for themselves, in light of their own situations, to decide what makes sense and what doesn't make sense for them - then, yes, we can offer some tentative observations. 

Demands

A demand seeks some end. It is typically made to powers that can enact that end, often a government or employer. Such a demand focuses energy on some gains and tells the powers that be what they have to agree to if they wish to reduce the costs the movement is imposing on them. Examples are demands for higher wages or for shorter hours, demands for cultural rights or for day care, or school reform, demands for an end to a war, and so on. 

Suppose Occupy wanted to have some demands. What might it sensibly opt for? 

Given what we said above, the answer is going to be that it could opt for demands which, in fighting for them, and in eventually winning them - and that possibility should be real - will enlarge support for Occupy, increase the numbers of Occupy participants, increase the commitment of Occupy participants, elevate their consciousness and desires, and, if possible, even enlarge their material means of future struggle. 

What are some demands that might qualify, pending thinking them through in specific settings? 

As a first example, Occupy relates to how people live, and attacks on them. Occupy in some place, or places, or even around the world, might demand cessation of foreclosures and rehousing those who have lost homes. Could Occupy fight for this in ways that have the desired effects on its members, on others viewing the struggles, and on winning? Sure. Banks and mortgage companies could be targets for rallies, pickets, and perhaps, when support is sufficient, occupations. Families in houses to be foreclosed could be collectively protected from eviction. One could also imagine picketing the houses of bank owners that are holding mortgages that are being foreclosed. One could imagine empty buildings being taken over as housing. And one could even imagine, demands made of hotel and motel chains, to allot some rooms to the homeless. And here is a big one. One could imagine demanding reallocation of some military bases to building low income housing, first for the GI's at the bases who would be released from the military if they sign on to work in the new project, and then for people in the area. Doing any or all these things, no doubt among many other possibilities, could, if there was sufficient support, have the desired effects. Doing these things in many places, as an overarching campaign, could make each instance much stronger, much more inspired, and much more likely to win gains.

Or take a second example. Occupy relates to the economic crisis which in turn has at least two obvious dimensions: budget and employment. So what could Occupy demand for budgets - local and national - and for employment, that would benefit people who are suffering when won, that in the fighting would raise consciousness and support and increase movement power, as spelled out earlier?

How about demanding for budgets, a reallocation of resources from war and programs overwhelmingly on behalf of the wealthy, to social programs redressing injustices? And how about to enlarge budgets, demanding serious tax reform that, benefits the poor by reducing their payments, and that dramatically reduces the advantages of the rich by very aggressively diminishing their wealth? Yes, it is redistributive, of course. 

And for employment, how about demanding that everyone who wants to work has a place to do so - full employment? How can we have full employment in an economy that isn't consuming what it now produces, even with harsh unemployment? How about the above mentioned redistribution, plus a change in employment practices. Not only is there work for all, but minimum wages are raised and a cap is put on maximum income, as well as curtailing overtime. Indeed, how about demanding a shorter work week, thus more jobs available, but with no reduction in total pay (despite working fewer hours) for those earning under society's average? very redistributive.

This set of demands would appeal, quite obviously, very widely. One could fight for it talking not only about the immediate benefits, but about how it is a route toward real equity and justice. It is not the end, but is instead a big step along a path. Indeed, winning less work time would also yield a constituency for change that had more time to give the movement. All kinds of actions would be possible, ranging from rallies and teach-ins, to educate, to marches and occupations to raise social costs on behalf of the demands. And, as with the housing program, we can imagine what it would be like if Occupy movements all over the world took up demands for a shorter work week, redistribution of income, and full employment, all worldwide, and all acting to an extent together, with mutual aid.

War - demand peace. Rally at, picket, or even occupy - this last, only when there is tremendous support - recruitment stations, and even military bases and government offices. 

Media - demand new sections under the auspices of oppressed communities and movements, an end to willful manipulation, public support and no ads, and so on. Then, press the press. Rally at, picket, or even occupy - this last, only when there is tremendous support - media institutions.

The trick isn't coming up with something worth demanding because it would be desirable to win. Think health, education, daycare, food, income, race relations, gender relations, ecology, there are an infinite number of desirable gains to be had. The trick is thinking up demands that are not only worth winning, but that would galvanize support and continually grow it, that can be fought for in ways that educate beyond the moment, and that inspire and organize beyond the moment.

Rallies, Marches, and Occupations

What about more general actions, like rallying, marching, or occupying town centers - sometimes without any specific demands? What shared logic can that adopt, even if it rejects having demands as limiting? 

For rallies and marches, even without demands, there can be spirit, desire, and education - expressed via the signs, talks, and face to face gatherings - and there can be the strength and solidarity of the gatherings. 

For occupations, however, something more is possible. Why not be explicit about what seems to me, and I hope to others, already implicit. Why not say, loud and over and over, that Wall Street is occupied, or whatever town or square, or workplace, or media institution, or other target, as a harbinger of things to come - which is self management by the population and not domination by overlords? And then why not see Occupy's assemblies as schools of self management as well as sources of decision making for events and projects? There are problems here. What does self management really look like? Is it thousands upon thousands at very long sessions that lack prior focus, and in which consensus is always employed. Or does it have different contours if it is to deliver to those involved a say proportionate to the effect of decisions on them? These clarifications must be worked out - and doing so is thinking through, carefully and patiently, part of what we want for a better future. And that too is good.

And what about more "militance"? What about fighting back against cops, breaking windows, and so on. The logic is no different. Do these acts enhance the support of those beyond Occupy for Occupy? Do these acts increase the number of participants and their mutual aid and solidarity? Do these acts yield a stronger movement and a weaker opposition? If, in some context, the answer is yes to all the above, than these type acts may well make very good sense - in that context. But, if in some context, as is the case now in almost any context anyone can imagine for Occupy engagements, these acts have exactly the opposite effects, then they make no sense. Finally, there can be disagreement. But the idea that small minorities should be respected in causing larger groups to not do what they would otherwise want to (not always, but sometimes) is very different than the idea that small minorities should be permitted to impose their will on everyone else, dramatically changing the conditions of all, against the will of nearly all. That is not something to permit, much less extoll. 

Consider Internal Organization and Culture

All the above is simple. There are simple broad aims. Grow. Deepen. Enrich. One evaluates one's options largely in light of them, and of proximate aims, in specific settings. One thing that is often not considered, though, is that the internal organization and culture of a movement like Occupy is a part of its strategy and involves tactics. The same thinking works. 

Should a movement have means for new people to be mentored into participation? Should a movement share certain assets among its members? Should a movement have provision for participation of people of all sorts - those with families and without, those with jobs and without, those young and mobile and older and not so mobile? Should a movement have mechanisms to elevate minorities and women and guarantee them space and influence? Should a movement provide for its members needs, as one part of what it does - not debilitating them with boredom, or badgering them with holier than though rhetoric - but inspiring, educating, and enriching their lives? Is a movement having libraries and even schools good? Is a movement having areas to play, organized sports, and perhaps dances, good? Does a movement need ways to address disputes and to resolve them? 

One could continue. The point is, all these matters and more, are obviously strategic and tactical once one raises the issue. They all can impact the likelihood of people outside the movement supporting it and even admiring it and they can impact the spirt and effectivity of the movement's members, their likelihood of staying, and so on. 

So, Which Way Occupy?

The answer to which way Occupy - or which way any movement - is always the same. Follow a path - and there is no one right path - but a path (and ideally leave open and explore other options at the same time) that by its out-facing actions and statements, and by its in-facing structures and relations, leaves itself steadily larger, stronger, and more appealing - as well as better able to win gains. 

It is when movements leave aside these norms, simple as they are, and instead ask only - is this choice what some tract or leader says to do, and then I will, or I won't - or does this choice correspond to my personal preferences for pleasuring myself, and then I will or I won't, or will we look sufficiently radical if we do this, or will we like what so and so says about us if we do this, and then I will or I won't - that movements get off track and devolve from activist sense to factional nonsense. That is what we should avoid.

Captive Virgins, Polygamy, Sex Slaves

AlterNet / By Valerie Tarico

 

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What Marriage Would Look Like if We Actually Followed the Bible

How many so-called Biblical literalists have actually read the whole Bible? Let's see what God really has to say about marriage.

Traditionally, Republicans tend to run on a platform of God, guns and gays. This time, it’s God, gyne-policy and gays – a set of urgent priorities straight from the mouths of conservative bishops and evangelists who call themselves Bible believers.

There’s no way to understand politics anywhere without understanding religion, but to an outsider American Christianity -- and so American politics -- can seem almost incomprehensible. Over the last 2,000 years, Christians have quarreled themselves into 30,000 different denominations. On top of that, American Christianity, like American culture more broadly, tends to flout hierarchy and authority, which means that a sizable number of American Christians consider themselves “nondenominational."

The ever faster splintering of denominations and non-denominations, from crystal cathedrals to house churches gives a particularly elevated status to the Bible, which is why, along with the Catholic bishops and charismatic preachers we find the Good Book in the middle of our public policy debates. “Bible-believing” Christians, also called “biblical literalists,” believe the Bible is the literally perfect word of God, essentially dictated by God to the writers. Thanks to the determined work of historical revisionists like David Barton, many of them also believe (very, very wrongly) that America’s Constitution and legal system also were founded on principles and laws drawn from the Bible.

Not all Christians share this view. Biblical literalists are at the opposite end of the theological spectrum from modernist Christians, who see the Bible as the record of our imperfect spiritual ancestors who struggled to understand what is good and what is God and how to live in moral community with each other.

A Christian’s view of the Bible often dictates social and moral priorities, which brings us back to the current political context. The Catholic bishops are well organized and so, under the banner of "religious freedom" (for institutions, not women), they have lead the charge against women's reproductive rights. But they have been able to limit contraceptive and abortion access in this country for decades only because FEB (fundamentalist/evangelical/born-again) Bible-believing Christians rally to the cause. In my home state of Washington, conservative Catholics and Bible believers rallied by the hundreds this week to protest against universal contraceptive coverage. As I write they are gathering signatures to reverse our historic gay marriage legislation.

Even though divorce and teen pregnancy rates are lower in more secular parts of the country, Bible believers see both as problems caused primarily by America’s loss of faith. To hear them tell it, from the time of America’s founding until the 1970s (when gays, atheists and bra-less women began tearing down the social order) this country prospered because we attended church and lived as God commanded, and our courts protected the righteous institution of biblical marriage. Now gay marriage laws are creeping across the nation, threatening the last shreds of our moral fabric.

Let me tell you a secret about Bible believers that I know because I was one. Most of them don’t read their Bibles. If they did, they would know that the biblical model of sex and marriage has little to do with the one they so loudly defend. Stories depicted in the Bible include rape, incest, master-slave sexual relations, captive virgins, and more. Now, just because a story is told in the Bible doesn’t mean it is intended as a model for devout behavior. Other factors have to be considered, like whether God commands or forbids the behavior, if the behavior is punished, and if Jesus subsequently indicates the rules have changed, come the New Testament.

Through this lens, you find that the God of the Bible still endorses polygamy and sexual slavery and coerced marriage of young virgins along with monogamy. In fact, he endorses all three to the point of providing detailed regulations. Based on stories of sex and marriage that God rewards and appears to approve one might add incest to the mix. Nowhere does the Bible say, “Don’t have sex with someone who doesn’t want to have sex with you.”

Furthermore, none of the norms that are endorsed and regulated in the Old Testament law – polygamy, sexual slavery, coerced marriage of young girls—are revised, reversed, or condemned by Jesus. In fact, the writer of Matthew puts these words in the mouth of Jesus: 

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke or a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law [the Old Testament] until everything is accomplished. (Matthew 5:17-18)  

The Law of which Jesus speaks is the Law of Moses, or the Torah, and anyone who claims the Bible as the perfect word of an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent God should have the decency to read it carefully—and then keep going.

Polygamy is a norm in the Old Testament and accepted in the New Testament. Biblicalpolygamy.com has pages dedicated to 40 biblical figure,s each of whom had multiple wives. The list includes patriarchs like Abraham and Isaac. King David, the first king of Israel may have limited himself to eight wives, but his son Solomon, reputed to be the wisest man who ever lived had 700 wives and 300 concubines! (1 Kings 11)

Concubines are sex slaves, and the Bible gives instructions on acquisition of several types of sex slaves, although the line between biblical marriage and sexual slavery is blurry. A Hebrew man might, for example, sell his daughter to another Hebrew, who then has certain obligations to her once she is used. For example, he can’t then sell her to a foreigner. Alternately a man might see a virgin war captive that he wants for himself.

In the book of Numbers (31:18) God’s servant commands the Israelites to kill all of the used Midianite women who have been captured in war, and all of the boy children, but to keep all of the virgin girls for themselves. The Law of Moses spells out a purification ritual to prepare a captive virgin for life as a concubine. It requires her owner to shave her head and trim her nails and give her a month to mourn her parents before the first sex act (Deuteronomy 21:10-14). A Hebrew girl who is raped can be sold to her rapist for 50 shekels, or about $580 (Deuteronomy 22:28-29). He must then keep her as one of his wives for as long as she lives.

A man might acquire multiple wives whether he wanted them or not if his brother died. In fact, if a brother dies with no children, it becomes a duty to impregnate his wife. In the book of Genesis, Onan is struck dead by God because he fails to fulfill this duty – preferring to spill his seed on the ground rather than providing offspring for his brother (Genesis 38:8-10). A New Testament story shows that the tradition has survived. Jesus is a rabbi, and a group of scholars called Sadducees try to test his knowledge of Hebrew Law by asking him this question:

Teacher,” they said, “Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for him. Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother. The same thing happened to the second and third brother, right on down to the seventh. Finally, the woman died. Now then, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since all of them were married to her?” (Matthew 22:24-28).

Jesus is too clever for them and points out that in Heaven, that place of perfect bliss, there is no marriage.

Having a brother act as a sperm donor isn’t the only biblical solution to lack of offspring.  The patriarch Abraham is married to his half-sister Sarah, but the two are childless for the first 75 years or so of their marriage. Frustrated, Sarah finally says, “The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her." Her slave, Hagar, becomes pregnant, and then later Sarah does too and the story gets complicated (Genesis 16).  But that doesn’t stop Abraham’s grandson Jacob from participating in a competition, in which his two wives repeatedly send in their slaves to get pregnant by him, each trying to get more sons than the other. (Genesis 19:15-30)
These stories might be irrelevant to the question of biblical marriage were it not that Bible believers keep telling us that God punishes people when he dislikes their sexual behavior. He disliked the behavior of New Orleans gays so much, according to Pat Robertson, that he sent a hurricane to drown the whole city – kind of like Noah’s flood. And yet, according to the Bible story, both Abraham and Jacob were particularly beloved and blessed by God. 

The point is that marriage has changed tremendously since the Iron Age when the Bible was written. For centuries, concubines and polygamy were debated by Christian leaders – accepted by some and rejected by others. The nuclear family model so prized by America’s fundamentalist Christians emerged from the interplay between Christianity and European cultures including the monogamous tradition of the Roman Empire. As humanity’s moral consciousness has evolved, coerced sex has become less acceptable even within marriage while intertribal and interracial marriage has grown in acceptance. Today even devout Bible believers oppose sexual slavery. Marriage, increasingly, is a commitment of love, freely given. Gay marriage is simply a part of this broader conversation, and opposition on the part of Bible believers has little to do with biblical monogamy.

Since many Christians haven’t read the whole Bible, most “Bible believers” are not, as they like to claim, actually Bible believers. Bible believers, even those who think themselves “nondenominational,” almost all follow some theological tradition that tells them which parts of the Bible to follow and how. Yes, sometimes even decent people do get sucked into a sort of text worship that I call bibliolatry, and Bible worship can make a person’s moral priorities as archaic and cruel as those of the Iron Age tribesmen who wrote the texts. (I once listened, horrified, while a sweet, elderly pair of Jehovah’s Witnesses rationalized the Old Testament slaughter of children with the same words Nazis used to justify the slaughter of Jewish babies.)

But many who call themselves Bible believers are simply, congenitally conservative – meaning change-resistant. It is not the Bible they worship so much as the status quo, which they justify by invoking ancient texts. Gay marriage will come, as will reproductive rights, and these Bible believers will adapt to the change as they have others: reluctantly, slowly and with angry protests, but in the end accepting it, and perhaps even insisting that it was God’s will all along.

Valerie Tarico is a psychologist and writer in Seattle, Washington and the founder of Wisdom Commons. She is the author of "Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light" and "Deas and Other Imaginings." Her articles can be found at Awaypoint.Wordpress.com.