tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/seminaries-and-religious-teaching-87643/articlesSeminaries and religious teaching – The Conversation2022-08-10T12:27:41Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1879592022-08-10T12:27:41Z2022-08-10T12:27:41ZAmerican Sikhs are targets of bigotry, often due to cultural ignorance<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478344/original/file-20220809-15464-qsfa3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C5499%2C3536&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A candlelight vigil in Oak Creek for the victims of a mass shooting at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in August 2012.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SikhTemple-Shooting/7cb40719da8c4c9bb2219192e64a18b7/photo?Query=sikhs%20united%20states&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=735&currentItemNo=61">AP Photo/Tom Lynn, File</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ten years ago, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/08/05/1115931555/remembering-the-oak-creek-killings-a-harbinger-of-white-supremacist-violence">a white supremacist opened fire</a> on a Sikh congregation in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, killing six people and injuring several others before taking his own life. An eighth person, <a href="https://www.wpr.org/priest-paralyzed-2012-sikh-temple-shooting-dies">Baba Punjab Singh, was left partially paralyzed and died from his wounds</a> a few years later.</p>
<p>At the time, it was among the deadliest mass shootings in a place of worship since the <a href="https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/education/teachers/curricular-resources/high-school-curricular-resources/the-sixteenth-street-baptist-church-the-response-from-the-white-house">16th Street Baptist Church bombing</a> by the Ku Klux Klan in 1963. It was also the most lethal assault on Sikh Americans since they began migrating to the U.S. more than a century ago.</p>
<p>I recall journalists covering the massacre not knowing much about the Sikh community. One anchor referred to the gurdwara as a mosque and referred to the murdered as Muslims. Another reporter described the gurdwara as a Hindu temple. A third described the Sikh religion as a sect of Islam, using the term “sheikhs” rather than “Sikhs.” </p>
<p>Scholars and government officials estimate the Sikh American population to <a href="http://pluralism.org/religions/sikhism/sikhism-in-america/the-sikh-community-today/">number around 500,000</a>. Cultural ignorance has often made them targets of bigotry. </p>
<p>As the author of “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/623324/the-light-we-give-by-simran-jeet-singh/">The Light We Give: How Sikh Wisdom Can Transform Your Life</a>” and as a practicing Sikh myself, I have studied the prejudices and barriers that many Sikhs in America face. I also experienced racial slurs from a young age.</p>
<p>The bottom line is there is little understanding in the U.S. of who exactly the Sikhs are and what they believe. So here’s a primer. </p>
<h2>Founder of Sikhism</h2>
<p>To start at the beginning, the founder of the Sikh tradition, Guru Nanak, was born in 1469 in the Punjab region of South Asia, which is currently split between Pakistan and the northwestern area of India. A majority of the global Sikh population <a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203982600">still resides in Punjab on the Indian side of the border</a>.</p>
<p>From a young age, Guru Nanak was disillusioned by the social inequities and religious hypocrisies he observed around him. He believed that <a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315014449">a single divine force</a> created the entire world and resided within it. In his belief, God was not separate from the world and watching from a distance, but fully present in every aspect of creation. </p>
<p>He therefore asserted that all people <a href="http://www.iuscanada.com/journal/archives/2011/j1312p42.pdf">are equally divine</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfj002">deserve to be treated</a> as such.</p>
<p>To promote this vision of divine oneness and social equality, <a href="https://www.bl.uk/sacred-texts/articles/origins-and-development-of-sikh-faith-the-gurus">Guru Nanak created institutions and religious practices</a>. He established community centers and places of worship, wrote his own scriptural compositions and appointed successors, known as gurus, who would carry forward his vision. </p>
<p>The Sikh view thus rejects all social distinctions that produce inequities, including gender, race, religion and caste, the predominant structure for social hierarchy in South Asia. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478348/original/file-20220809-16002-mtzcdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Men and women seated on the floor in two rows, being served food." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478348/original/file-20220809-16002-mtzcdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478348/original/file-20220809-16002-mtzcdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478348/original/file-20220809-16002-mtzcdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478348/original/file-20220809-16002-mtzcdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478348/original/file-20220809-16002-mtzcdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478348/original/file-20220809-16002-mtzcdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478348/original/file-20220809-16002-mtzcdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A community kitchen run by the Sikhs to provide free meals irrespective of caste, faith or religion, in the Golden Temple in Punjab, India.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/shankaronline/38938496121">shankar s.</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>Serving the world is a natural expression of Sikh prayer and worship. <a href="https://therevealer.org/why-sikhs-serve/">Sikhs call this prayerful service “seva</a>,” and it is a core part of their practice.</p>
<h2>The Sikh identity</h2>
<p>In the Sikh tradition, a truly religious person is one who cultivates the spiritual self while also serving the communities around them – or a <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2005/06/03/june-3-2005-sikh-saint-soldier/12270/">saint-soldier</a>. The saint-soldier ideal applies to women and men alike.</p>
<p>In this spirit, Sikh women and men maintain <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=TJb_i97CG70C&pg=PT149&dq=sikh+identity+articles+of+faith&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiXx4TZtszcAhWm44MKHU-ICfQQ6AEIQTAE#v=onepage&q=sikh%20identity%20articles%20of%20faith&f=false">five articles of faith, popularly known as the five Ks</a>. Those are: kes (long, uncut hair), kara (steel bracelet), kanga (wooden comb), kirpan (small sword) and kachera (soldier-shorts). Sikh philosophy teaches that all Sikhs are responsible for standing up against injustice, and that doing so is an act of service and love.</p>
<p>Although little historical evidence exists to explain why these particular articles were chosen, the five Ks continue to provide the community with a collective identity, binding together individuals on the basis of a shared belief and practice. As I understand, Sikhs cherish these articles of faith as gifts from their gurus.</p>
<p>Turbans are an important part of the Sikh identity. Both women and men may wear turbans. Like the articles of faith, Sikhs regard their turban as a gift given by their beloved guru, and its meaning is deeply personal. In South Asian culture, wearing a turban typically indicated one’s social status – kings and rulers once wore turbans. The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17448720500132557">Sikh gurus adopted the turban</a>, in part, to remind Sikhs that all humans are sovereign, royal and ultimately equal.</p>
<h2>Sikhs in America</h2>
<p>Today, there are <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=7QEjPVyd9YMC&pg=PA275&lpg=PA275&dq=sikhs+30+million&source=bl&ots=urtHXKjCPx&sig=nyZTGrreOK6owh5EmmPA16YVD8A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj_8Lbk9M7cAhXis1kKHWCPB-UQ6AEwFXoECAIQAQ#v=onepage&q=sikhs%2030%20million&f=false">approximately 30 million Sikhs worldwide</a>, making Sikhism the world’s fifth-largest religion. </p>
<p>After British colonizers in India seized power in Punjab in 1849, where a majority of the Sikh community was based, <a href="http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/books/9789004257238">Sikhs began migrating to various regions controlled by the British Empire</a>, including Southeast Asia, East Africa and the United Kingdom itself. Based on what was available to them, Sikhs played various roles in these communities, including military service, agricultural work and railway construction.</p>
<p><a href="https://pioneeringpunjabis.ucdavis.edu/eras/1899-1922/">The first Sikh community entered the United States</a> via the West Coast during the 1890s. They began experiencing discrimination immediately upon their arrival. For instance, <a href="http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/bham_intro.htm">the first race riot in the U.S. targeting Sikhs</a> took place in Bellingham, Washington, in 1907. Angry mobs of white men <a href="http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/bham_history.htm">rounded up Sikh laborers</a>, beat them up and forced them to leave town.</p>
<p>The discrimination continued over the years. For instance, after my father moved from Punjab to the United States, around the time of the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/middle-east/iran-hostage-crisis">Iran hostage crisis in 1979</a>, racial slurs like “Ayatollah” and “raghead” were hurled at him. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2013/09/15/world/meast/iran-hostage-crisis-fast-facts/index.html">Fifty-two American diplomats and citizens had been taken captive in Iran</a>, and tension between the two countries was high. Sikhs had nothing to do with it, but they faced a racist backlash as their appearance corresponded with how Americans viewed their new enemies in Iran. Our family faced a similar racist backlash when the U.S. engaged in the Gulf War during the early 1990s. </p>
<p>The racist attacks spiked again after 9/11, particularly because Americans did not know about the Sikh religion and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17448727.2013.822138">conflated the unique Sikh appearance with popular stereotypes</a> of what terrorists look like.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-trump-sikhs-20170509-htmlstory.html">rates of violence against Sikhs surged</a> after the election of President Donald Trump. The Sikh Coalition estimated in 2018 that Americans Sikhs were being targeted in hate crimes <a href="https://www.sikhcoalition.org/blog/2018/new-wave-hate-crimes-demands-vigilance/">about once a week</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478350/original/file-20220809-16002-u88r0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A colorful tableau with a horse and men and women in bright attire standing on it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478350/original/file-20220809-16002-u88r0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478350/original/file-20220809-16002-u88r0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478350/original/file-20220809-16002-u88r0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478350/original/file-20220809-16002-u88r0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478350/original/file-20220809-16002-u88r0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478350/original/file-20220809-16002-u88r0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478350/original/file-20220809-16002-u88r0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Sikh American parade in Pasadena, California.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/RoseParade/3dbb167c0ea74c9ba4f269f4b8aeaa0b/photo?Query=A%20Sikh%20American%20Journey%20parade%20in%20Pasadena,%20Calif&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=4&currentItemNo=2">AP Photo/Michael Owen Baker</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a practicing Sikh, I can affirm that Sikhs’ <a href="http://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1296&context=law_facultyscholarship">commitment to the tenets of their faith</a>, including love, service and justice, keeps them resilient in the face of violence. For these reasons, many Sikh Americans, including those affected by the massacre in Wisconsin, I believe, will continue to proudly maintain their unique Sikh identity. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-are-the-sikhs-and-what-are-their-beliefs-97237">first published</a> on Aug. 9, 2018.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simran Jeet Singh is affiliated with the Aspen Institute</span></em></p>On the 10th anniversary of the Oak Creek massacre, a Sikh scholar writes that there is little understanding of the Sikh faith in the U.S.Simran Jeet Singh, Visiting Lecturer, Union Theological SeminaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1869562022-07-14T12:34:33Z2022-07-14T12:34:33ZItching to get away this summer? Remember the six stages of transformative travel<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473909/original/file-20220713-12-gxnkpa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C13%2C2910%2C1971&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sightseeing buses at a pullout popular for taking in views of North America's tallest peak, Denali, in Denali National Park and Preserve, Alaska, in 2016.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/DenaliParkRoad/1f4f9a3effe44e1d986d1cc77d85b334/photo?Query=alaska%20park&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=674&currentItemNo=20">AP Photo/Becky Bohrer</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In June 2022, I set off on a 10,650-mile, six-week motorcycle trip from Tennessee to Alaska and back again, carrying not too much more than my GPS and phone. The ride kick-started a year of travel for research – and despite <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2022/07/11/10000-flight-delays-worldwide/?sh=420621c04a00">the horror stories</a> of delayed and canceled flights, I couldn’t be happier.</p>
<p>Just about everywhere I went, even in remote parts of the Yukon and British Columbia, folks were traveling. Many of the trailers being pulled were brand-new, suggesting the owners had bought them recently. After yet another cooped-up pandemic winter, it seems people’s appetite to get away is just as keen. </p>
<p>But why do we travel in the first place? What is the allure of the open road? </p>
<p>As a professor of <a href="https://divinity.vanderbilt.edu/people/bio/jaco-hamman">religion, psychology and culture</a>, I study experiences that lie at the intersection of all three. And in my <a href="https://www.fortresspress.com/store/product/9781506472065/Just-Traveling">research on travel</a>, I’m struck by its unsolvable paradoxes: Many of us seek to get away in order to be present; we speed to destinations in order to slow down; we may care about the environment but still leave carbon footprints. </p>
<p>Ultimately, many people hope to return transformed. Travel <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02508281.2017.1292177">is often viewed</a> as what anthropologists call a “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Arnold-van-Gennep">rite of passage</a>”: structured rituals in which individuals separate themselves from their familiar surroundings, undergo change and return rejuvenated or “reborn.”</p>
<p>But travelers are not just concerned with themselves. The desire to explore may be a defining human trait, as I argue <a href="https://www.fortresspress.com/store/product/9781506472065/Just-Traveling">in my latest book</a>, “<a href="https://www.fortresspress.com/store/product/9781506472065/Just-Traveling">Just Traveling: God, Leaving Home, and a Spirituality for the Road</a>.” The ability to do it, however, is a privilege that can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2017.11.002">come at a cost</a> to host communities. Increasingly, the tourism industry and scholars alike are interested in <a href="https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cog/tri/2012/00000016/F0020003/art00003">ethical travel</a>, which minimizes visitors’ harm on the places and people they encounter. </p>
<p>The media inundate tourists with advice and enticements about where to travel and what to do there. But in order to meet the deeper goals of transformative, ethical travel, the “why” and “how” demand deeper discernment.</p>
<p>During my book research, I studied travel stories in sacred scriptures and researched findings from psychologists, sociologists, ethicists, economists and tourism scholars. I argue that meaningful travel is best understood not as a three-stage rite but as a six-phase practice, based on core human experiences. These phases can repeat and overlap within the same journey, just as adventures twist and turn.</p>
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<img alt="About half a dozen people in brightly colored clothes sit and chat on a fence with hills in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473910/original/file-20220713-9357-wvskck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473910/original/file-20220713-9357-wvskck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473910/original/file-20220713-9357-wvskck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473910/original/file-20220713-9357-wvskck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473910/original/file-20220713-9357-wvskck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473910/original/file-20220713-9357-wvskck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473910/original/file-20220713-9357-wvskck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Tourists sit on public benches in Dharmsala, India, June 17, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/VirusOutbreakTheRebound/f6840725a0c24f6f8bf34f57cb4774d3/photo?Query=tourists&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=38056&currentItemNo=32">AP Photo/Ashwini Bhatia</a></span>
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<h2>1. Anticipating</h2>
<p>Traveling begins long before departure, as we research and plan. But anticipation is more than logistics. The Dutch aptly call it “voorpret”: literally, <a href="https://www.wordsense.eu/">the pleasure before</a>.</p>
<p>How and what people anticipate in any given situation has the power to shape their experience, for better or worse – even when it comes to prejudice. Psychology experiments, for example, have shown that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000899">when children anticipate greater cooperation between groups</a>, it can reduce their bias in favor of their own group.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://iep.utm.edu/phenom/">phenomenology</a>, a branch of philosophy that studies human experience and consciousness, emphasizes that <a href="http://ummoss.org/gall17varela.pdf">anticipation is also “empty</a>”: our conscious intentions and expectations of what’s to come could be fulfilled or dashed by a future moment. </p>
<p>With that in mind, travelers should try to remain open to uncertainty and even disappointment.</p>
<h2>2. Leaving</h2>
<p>Leaving can awaken deep emotions that are tied to our earliest experiences of separation. The attachment styles psychologists study in infants, which shape how secure people feel in their relationships, <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-attachment-and-how-does-it-affect-our-relationships-120503">continue to shape us as adults</a>. These experiences can also affect how comfortable people feel <a href="https://www.proquest.com/openview/cdd5594c53a7864881fb71e54a7422f1/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1819046">exploring new experiences</a> and leaving home, which can affect how they travel.</p>
<p>Some travelers leave with excitement, while others experience <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0047287520966392">hesitation or guilt</a> before the relief and excitement of departure. Mindfulness about the stages of travel can help people <a href="https://web.ebscohost.com/abstract?direct=true&profile=ehost&scope=site&authtype=crawler&jrnl=1931311X&asa=Y&AN=31381043&h=nduDC2UXNGxscORELrBj%2fjZ6b4Xdbo4r5mkTwNhY2n2D7Oi0KAOPOw%2fsqhqshijmc4%2bMd%2fLjR2%2b3rONsdCopzg%3d%3d&crl=c&resultNs=AdminWebAuth&resultLocal=ErrCrlNotAuth&crlhashurl=login.aspx%3fdirect%3dtrue%26profile%3dehost%26scope%3dsite%26authtype%3dcrawler%26jrnl%3d1931311X%26asa%3dY%26AN%3d31381043">manage anxiety</a>.</p>
<h2>3. Surrendering</h2>
<p>Travelers cannot control their journey: A flight is canceled, or a vehicle breaks down; the weather report predicts sunshine, but it rains for days on end. To some extent, they have to surrender to the unknown.</p>
<p>Modern Western cultures tend to see “surrendering” as something negative – as hoisting a white flag. But as a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00107530.1990.10746643">therapeutic concept</a>, surrendering helps people let go of inhibiting habits, discover a sense of wholeness and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1215/10407391-2005-006">experience togetherness</a> with others. The perfectionist learns that a changed itinerary doesn’t mean a diminished travel experience and lets go of the fear of failure. The person with a strong sense of independence grows in vulnerability when receiving care from strangers.</p>
<p>In fact, some psychological theories hold that the self longs for surrender, in the sense of liberation: letting down its defensive barriers and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0022167820975636">finding freedom</a> from attempts to control one’s surroundings. Embracing that view can help travelers cope with the reality that things may not go according to plan.</p>
<h2>4. Meeting</h2>
<p>Meeting, traveling’s fourth phase, is the invitation to discover oneself and others anew. </p>
<p>All cultures have unconscious “<a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Location-of-Culture/Bhabha/p/book/9780415336390">rules of recognition</a>,” their own ingrained customs and ways of thinking, making it more difficult to forge cross-cultural connections. Carrying <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Serene-Tse-2/publication/347739970_Assessing_explicit_and_implicit_stereotypes_in_tourism_self-reports_and_implicit_association_test/links/60ad92f1299bf13438e82cbe/Assessing-explicit-and-implicit-stereotypes-in-tourism-self-reports-and-implicit-association-test.pdf">conscious and unconscious stereotypes</a>, travelers may see some people and places as uneducated, dangerous, poor or <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/su12229405">sexual</a>, while hosts may see travelers as rich, ignorant and exploitable. </p>
<p>Going beyond such stereotypes requires that travelers be mindful of behaviors that can add tension to their interactions – knowing conversational topics to avoid, for example, or following local dress codes.</p>
<p>In many parts of the world, those challenges are intensified <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1468797603049658">by the legacy of colonization</a>, which makes it harder for people to meet in authentic ways. Colonial views still influence Western perceptions of nonwhite groups as <a href="https://hrcak.srce.hr/index.php?show=clanak&id_clanak_jezik=80794">exotic</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2012.762688">dangerous</a> and inferior.</p>
<p>Starting to overcome these barriers demands an attitude known as <a href="https://melanietervalon.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/CulturalHumility_Tervalon-and-Murray-Garcia-Article.pdf">cultural humility</a>, which is deeper than “cultural competence” – simply knowing about a different culture. Cultural humility helps travelers ask questions like, “I don’t know,” “Please help me understand” or “How should I …?” </p>
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<img alt="A man in a white shirt pulls two small suitcases on a small, crowded pedestrian street." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473911/original/file-20220713-16-dhee92.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473911/original/file-20220713-16-dhee92.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473911/original/file-20220713-16-dhee92.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473911/original/file-20220713-16-dhee92.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473911/original/file-20220713-16-dhee92.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473911/original/file-20220713-16-dhee92.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473911/original/file-20220713-16-dhee92.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Tourists walk in downtown Rome on June 20, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/VirusOutbreak-TheRebound/1ece9b0908074defa61b5fd16bf0a348/photo?Query=tourists&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=38056&currentItemNo=43">AP Photo/Andrew Medichini</a></span>
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<h2>5. Caring</h2>
<p>Caring involves overcoming “<a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003070672/moral-boundaries-joan-tronto">privileged irresponsibility</a>”: when a traveler does not recognize their own privilege and take responsibility for it, or does not recognize other people’s lack of privilege.</p>
<p>[<em>3 media outlets, 1 religion newsletter.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/this-week-in-religion-76/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=religion-3-in-1">Get stories from The Conversation, AP and RNS.</a>]</p>
<p>Travel becomes irresponsible when tourists ignore injustices and inequities they witness or the way their travels contribute to the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/TR-03-2017-0066">unfolding climate crisis</a>. Ethically, “empathy” is not enough; travelers must pursue solidarity, as an act of “<a href="https://www.fortresspress.com/store/product/9781506472065/Just-Traveling">caring with</a>.” That might mean hiring local guides, eating in family-owned restaurants and being mindful of the resources like food and water that they use. </p>
<h2>6. Returning</h2>
<p>Travels do end, and returning home can be <a href="https://doi.org/10.4337/9781786438577.00025">a disorienting experience</a>. </p>
<p>Coming back can cause <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/90015633">reverse culture shock</a> if travelers struggle to readjust. But that shock can diminish as travelers share their experiences with others, stay connected to the places they visited, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2016.05.004">deepen their knowledge</a> about the place and culture, anticipate a possible return trip or get involved in causes that they discovered on their trip.</p>
<p>I believe that reflecting on these six phases can invite the kind of mindfulness needed for transformative, ethical travel. And <a href="https://www.scielo.br/j/aabc/a/76CfqdL5pPBZLcQy9FdWwxn/?lang=en&format=html">amid a pandemic</a>, the need for thoughtful travel that prioritizes host communities’ well-being is clear. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/looking-for-transformative-travel-keep-these-six-stages-in-mind-167687">an article originally published on Sept. 28, 2021</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jaco J. Hamman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The pandemic has intensified wanderlust – but also the need for mindful, ethical travel.Jaco J. Hamman, Professor of Religion, Psychology and Culture, Vanderbilt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1794492022-06-28T11:57:18Z2022-06-28T11:57:18ZThe Episcopal saint whose journey for social justice took many forms, from sit-ins to priesthood<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468590/original/file-20220613-26-78wxsx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C0%2C650%2C470&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pauli Murray: priest, activist, lawyer and more.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:UNCPauliMurray.png">Carolina Digital Library and Archives/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>July 1 is <a href="https://www.episcopalchurch.org/lectionary/pauli-murray/">the annual feast day</a> for Episcopal saint Pauli Murray, the first Black woman to be ordained by the denomination: an affirmation of her many contributions not only to the church, but to social justice in the United States. </p>
<p>Saints exemplify “what it means to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and make a difference in the world, and Pauli Murray is one of those people,” Episcopal Bishop <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120715080740/http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/07/13/2197752/durhams-pauli-murray-to-be-named.html">Michael Curry said</a> when Murray gained the status of a saint in 2012.</p>
<p>I am a <a href="https://utsnyc.edu/faculty/sarah-azaransky/">scholar of religion and ethics</a> and have written a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199744817.001.0001">biography of Murray and her faith</a>. Throughout her life as an activist, author, lawyer and priest, Murray developed new ways of thinking about justice and identity – ideas important in the U.S. today.</p>
<h2>Front line for racial justice</h2>
<p>Born in 1910 in Baltimore, Murray jumped into civil rights activism after she graduated from New York’s Hunter College. In the 1940s, she was in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190262204.001.0001">the vanguard of Black Christian activists</a> who studied Indian independence leader Mohandas Gandhi’s <a href="https://www.mkgandhi.org/articles/ahimsa-Its-theory-and-practice-in-Gandhism.html#:%7E:text=For%20">practice of nonviolent direct action</a> and applied it to the struggle for racial justice in the U.S.</p>
<p>More than a decade before <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-was-rosa-parks-and-what-did-she-do-in-the-fight-for-racial-equality-51539">Rosa Parks’ arrest</a> for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white rider, Murray <a href="https://newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn83045120/1940-04-06/ed-1/seq-1/">was arrested</a> for integrating an interstate bus. She <a href="https://snccdigital.org/events/pauli-murray-organizes-howard-student-sit-ins/">organized sit-ins in segregated restaurants</a> in Washington, D.C., a strategy other activists famously replicated in <a href="https://northcarolinahistory.org/encyclopedia/greensboro-sit-in/">Greensboro, North Carolina</a>.</p>
<p>In 1956 Murray published “<a href="https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/exhibitions/pauli-murrays-proud-shoes">Proud Shoes</a>,” a family memoir that brought attention to <a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315210285">how central sexual violence was in the history of U.S. slavery</a>. Murray offered her family – who was Black, white and Indigenous, and whose ancestors were both enslaved and free – as an emblem of the nation, and an example of the history all Americans needed to reckon with.</p>
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<img alt="A young woman in thick pants, jacket and scarf leans against a tree on a snowy day." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468591/original/file-20220613-19-1fa9y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468591/original/file-20220613-19-1fa9y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=987&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468591/original/file-20220613-19-1fa9y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=987&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468591/original/file-20220613-19-1fa9y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=987&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468591/original/file-20220613-19-1fa9y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1240&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468591/original/file-20220613-19-1fa9y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1240&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468591/original/file-20220613-19-1fa9y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1240&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Murray photographed in or before 1955.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pauli_Murray_approx._1955.jpg">FDR Presidential Library & Museum/Flickr/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Feminist and priest</h2>
<p>As a lawyer, Murray used her career to advocate for racial justice. But she also grew increasingly involved with advocacy for women’s rights, to which she made landmark legal contributions.</p>
<p>In the 1960s, Murray laid the groundwork by encouraging feminist lawyers to move away from seeking special protections for women and instead argue for equal rights. Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg <a href="https://time.com/5896410/ruth-bader-ginsburg-pauli-murray/">credited Murray</a> with teaching her how appealing to <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/equal_protection#:%7E:text=The%20Fourteenth%20Amendment's%20Equal%20Protection,to%20a%20legitimate%20governmental%20objective.">the equal protection clause</a> of the 14th Amendment could be an effective method to fight sex discrimination. After hearing Murray argue that there should be an NAACP – <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-century-ago-james-weldon-johnson-became-the-first-black-person-to-head-the-naacp-149513">the country’s oldest civil rights organization</a> – just for women, feminist leader Betty Friedan invited Murray to a strategy session where <a href="https://now.org/about/history/finding-pauli-murray/">the National Organization for Women</a> was founded.</p>
<p>A lifelong Episcopalian, Murray made a dramatic-seeming move to enroll in a seminary when she was in her mid-60s. Yet to Murray, it made perfect sense. She described preparing for the ministry as one more way to address questions of human rights and social justice. </p>
<p>Murray entered seminary before the Episcopal Church began ordaining women and organized with others to push for women’s ordination. In January 1977, she became one of the first women, and the <a href="https://www.episcopalchurch.org/glossary/murray-pauli/">first Black woman</a>, to be ordained.</p>
<p>Murray indeed contained multitudes, <a href="https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/pauli-murray-lgbtq-historical-figure#:%7E:text=Pauli%20Murray%20had%20at%20least,were%20attracted%20to%20her%20masculinity">including when it came to gender identity</a>. At some points in life Murray identified as a man; at others, as a woman. Murray was in long-term romantic relationships with women, but did not publicly identify as lesbian or queer. </p>
<p>When she prepared <a href="https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/8/resources/4874">her papers to be archived</a>, Murray included writings about her multiple gender and sexual identities so they would be available for future generations. During her life, categories like “nonbinary” or “trans” were not used, but many scholars and admirers today see her as an early icon for transgender people.</p>
<h2>Written into law</h2>
<p>Another way Murray’s work seems prescient today is her focus on what’s now called “<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-intersectionality-all-of-who-i-am-105639">intersectionality</a>”: how multiple aspects of a person’s identity, such as race, gender, income and nationality, intersect to shape their privilege or oppression.</p>
<p>A prime example is Murray’s phrase “<a href="https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/1347">Jane Crow</a>” – a spin on “<a href="https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/video/understanding-jim-crow-setting-setting">Jim Crow</a>” – <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/509052/summary">which she coined</a> to describe Black women’s experiences of being discriminated against because of racism and sexism. In a world where “male supremacy” and “white supremacy” are prevalent, a Black woman “finds herself at the bottom of the economic and social scale,” <a href="https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/8/archival_objects/1405968">Murray wrote in 1947</a>.</p>
<p>Murray’s “Jane Crow” has <a href="https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1014&context=ijlse">made important contributions in American history</a>. In 1964, for example, she employed the concept to keep “sex” as a category in Title VII of <a href="https://www.dol.gov/agencies/oasam/civil-rights-center/statutes/civil-rights-act-of-1964#:%7E:text=The%20Civil%20Rights%20Act%20of%201964%20prohibits%20discrimination%20on%20the,hiring%2C%20promoting%2C%20and%20firing.">the 1964 Civil Rights Act</a>, making it unlawful to discriminate against someone in employment based on race, color, national origin, sex or religion. Some lawmakers thought “sex” was a distraction in a law that focused on discrimination based on race. As a Black woman, Murray argued that both race and sex needed to be included if the law were to protect people like her.</p>
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<img alt="A middle-aged woman holding a briefcase and purse and wearing a raincoat walks between cars in a parking lot." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468592/original/file-20220613-18-ewgc0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468592/original/file-20220613-18-ewgc0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=982&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468592/original/file-20220613-18-ewgc0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=982&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468592/original/file-20220613-18-ewgc0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=982&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468592/original/file-20220613-18-ewgc0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1234&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468592/original/file-20220613-18-ewgc0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1234&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468592/original/file-20220613-18-ewgc0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1234&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Murray, who taught law at Brandeis University, arrives for classes in Waltham, Mass., in 1971.</span>
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<p>Murray’s insistence on including sex in Title VII has become essential to LGBTQ rights today. The landmark 2020 Supreme Court ruling in <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/17-1618_hfci.pdf">Bostock v. Clayton County</a> prohibits employers from firing people because they are gay or trans. Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, who wrote the majority opinion, wrote, “It is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.” </p>
<p>Murray’s capacious sense of being a human, which she gleaned in part from her own experiences, inspired her many contributions to social justice. In a letter to friends soon after her ordination, <a href="https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/8/resources/4874">Murray wrote</a>, “we bring our total selves to God, our sexuality, our joyousness, our foolishness. … I’m out to make Christianity a joyful thing.”</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Azaransky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Pauli Murray, the first Black woman to be ordained by the Episcopal Church, was an advocate for women’s rights and racial justice.Sarah Azaransky, Associate Professor of Social Ethics, Union Theological SeminaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1804892022-05-06T20:50:46Z2022-05-06T20:50:46ZThe Catholic saint who dedicated his life to a leprosy colony in Hawaii – and became an inspiration for HIV/AIDS care<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461138/original/file-20220504-20-mhvgtd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=18%2C21%2C976%2C659&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The headstone of Father Damien, a Catholic saint who was canonized in 2009.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/news-photo/1081384530?adppopup=true">Richard A. Cooke III/Corbis Historical via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Jan. 3, 1865, the Kingdom of Hawaii, then a sovereign state, <a href="https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session2021/bills/SB697_CD1_.HTM">enacted “An Act to Prevent the Spread of Leprosy</a>.” Any person suspected of having the ancient disease – which is mentioned <a href="https://theconversation.com/quarantines-have-tried-to-keep-out-disease-for-thousands-of-years-130680">as far back as the Bible</a> – would be inspected and, if deemed incurable, permanently exiled to a peninsula on the island of Molokai.</p>
<p>More than 8,000 people with leprosy fell victim to this policy of permanent segregation over the next century. Native Hawaiians renamed leprosy “ma'i ho'oka'awale ‘ohana”: <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-separating-sickness-mai-hookaawale-ted-gugelyk/1114591870">the sickness that separates family</a>. Surrounded by steep cliffs and treacherous ocean, the peninsula served as a natural prison and soon gathered a reputation as a de facto death sentence.</p>
<p>But in the Catholic Church, May 10 commemorates the day one man moved to Molokai willingly: Father Damien. Born <a href="https://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/2009/ns_lit_doc_20091011_de-veuster_en.html">Jozef De Veuster</a> in Belgium, he came to Hawaii as a young Catholic missionary and spent the last 16 years of his life <a href="https://www.nps.gov/kala/learn/historyculture/damien.htm">voluntarily living in the leprosy colony</a>, before contracting the disease himself and dying in 1889.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/homilies/2009/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20091011_canonizzazioni.html">Canonized as a saint</a> in 2009, Father Damien was designated the patron saint of people with leprosy, or Hansen’s disease.</p>
<p><a href="https://divinity.uchicago.edu/directory/mark-lambert-1">My research</a> focuses on how Christian theology views socially stigmatized diseases, such as leprosy. Since the HIV/AIDS epidemic began in the 1980s, Damien has also become linked with the virus and inspired many Catholic groups that care for patients. His legacy
illustrates the church’s complicated, often harmful views on HIV/AIDS – but has also helped people see those who suffer from stigmatized diseases with more agency and dignity.</p>
<h2>Joining the community</h2>
<p>Damien <a href="https://www.damien-hs.edu/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=2177609&type=d&pREC_ID=2182501#:%7E:text=I%20">landed at Molokai</a> on May 10, 1873. In a now famous letter to his brother, he wrote that he would make himself “a leper with lepers,” to “gain all to Christ.”</p>
<p>For over 2,000 years, “care” for people with leprosy has often been <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/344062">reduced to segregation</a>. This was the case <a href="https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/kalaupapa-a-collective-memory/">in Hawaii</a>, where the Board of Health offered bounties to those who turned in suspected patients. The widespread belief that leprosy was an advanced stage of syphilis added an air of moral condemnation to the policy.</p>
<p>According to accounts such as “<a href="https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/kalaupapa-a-collective-memory/">Kaluapapa: A Collective Memory</a>,” which documents residents’ experiences in the colony, Damien employed his carpentry skills to build two chapels, new shelters for the residents, and a multitude of coffins. He provided rudimentary medical care, secured a fresh water supply, and established an orphanage. At a time when fear of being near people with leprosy was the norm, the priest also ate with residents from the same pot, and shared his pipe with them.</p>
<p>By the beginning of 1885, Damien began to show signs of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/9780824865801-017">having contracted leprosy</a>, and in 1886 the priest formally became known as Admission #2886 to the settlements. Three years later, he succumbed to the disease. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black and white photograph shows a small group gathered in front of a church in front of a misty mountain." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461143/original/file-20220504-23-u8dw70.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461143/original/file-20220504-23-u8dw70.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461143/original/file-20220504-23-u8dw70.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461143/original/file-20220504-23-u8dw70.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461143/original/file-20220504-23-u8dw70.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461143/original/file-20220504-23-u8dw70.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461143/original/file-20220504-23-u8dw70.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Father Damien stands with patients outside his church on Molokai Island.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/father-damien-stands-with-patients-outside-his-church-on-news-photo/615231942?adppopup=true">Corbis Historical via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Patron saint</h2>
<p>Damien’s ministry garnered an international audience, elevating him to something of a celebrity, and his death prompted an immediate response. The future king of England, Edward VII, <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-spirit-of-father-damien-jan-de-volder/1123972273?ean=9781586174873">proposed</a> to erect a monument to Damien on Molokai, to establish a ward devoted to leprosy in a London medical institution and to fund research on leprosy in India. Damien’s example inspired the creation of several other organizations devoted to the study and treatment of leprosy, from <a href="https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/222066044">the U.S.</a> and <a href="https://damiaanactie.be">Belgium</a> to Congo and Korea.</p>
<p>In 1967, the French journalist and humanitarian Raoul Follereau presented the pope with <a href="http://fides.org/en/news/23980-EUROPE_FRANCE_Raoul_Follereau_Foundation_rejoices_at_the_canonization_of_Belgian_missionary_Fr_Damien_De_Veuster_Apostle_of_the_Lepers">a petition</a> signed by almost 33,000 leprosy patients, calling for the beatification of Father Damien. In 1977, Pope Paul VI declared Damien “venerable,” the first <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-becomes-a-saint-in-the-catholic-church-and-is-that-changing-81011">step toward canonization</a> – which eventually occurred <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/homilies/2009/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20091011_canonizzazioni.html">in 2009</a>, under Pope Benedict XVI.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Three women wearing flowers in their hair and dressed in yellow smile at the camera." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461141/original/file-20220504-19-kn49f4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461141/original/file-20220504-19-kn49f4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461141/original/file-20220504-19-kn49f4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461141/original/file-20220504-19-kn49f4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461141/original/file-20220504-19-kn49f4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461141/original/file-20220504-19-kn49f4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461141/original/file-20220504-19-kn49f4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hawaiian pilgrims attend a 2009 ceremony at the Vatican to canonize five new saints, including Father Damien.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/hawaian-pilgrims-attend-pope-benedict-xvis-a-new-saints-news-photo/527601302?adppopup=true">Alessandra Benedetti/Corbis Historical via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>From leprosy to HIV/AIDS</h2>
<p>But how did <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/father-damien-aid-to-lepers-now-a-saint/">the patron saint of people living with leprosy</a> become, informally, a patron saint of people living with HIV and AIDS? Given the Catholic Church’s traditional stances against homosexuality, condoms and extramarital sex, the notion can seem paradoxical.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1988/02/28/magazine/when-fear-conquers-a-doctor-learns-about-aids-from-leprosy.html">Comparisons between the two diseases</a> were made from the early days of the AIDS crisis: Both were considered mysterious and frightening and severely stigmatized, with sufferers often viewed as “dirty” or “sinful.” Many caregivers were afraid to even touch AIDS patients. </p>
<p>Invoking Father Damien’s example became a way for religious organizations to legitimize their HIV/AIDS outreach in the eyes of the church and to emphasize their concern for patients’ social stigma – even if the Catholic Church itself was helping to perpetrate that stigma, and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/12/01/783932572/how-the-catholic-church-aided-both-the-sick-and-the-sickness-as-hiv-spread">arguably the disease itself</a>.</p>
<p>In 2003, for example, Cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, <a href="https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/family/documents/rc_pc_family_doc_20031201_family-values-safe-sex-trujillo_en.html">wrote that</a> “the use of condoms goes against human dignity. Condoms change the beautiful act of love into a selfish search for pleasure – while rejecting responsibility. Condoms do not guarantee protection against HIV/AIDS. Condoms may even be one of the main reasons for the spread of HIV/AIDS.”</p>
<p>Even in 2009, the year Damien was canonized, Pope Benedict <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(09)60627-9">remarked</a> that the AIDS epidemic “cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms; on the contrary, they increase it” – an attitude out of touch with <a href="https://www.upi.com/Archives/1992/06/19/Poll-says-Catholics-support-female-priest/8826708926400/">most U.S. Catholics’ views</a>, not to mention <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/basics/hiv-prevention/condoms.html">medical science</a>. The pope’s statement provoked <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rbmo.2011.02.007">such outrage</a> that the Belgian Parliament even <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/belgium-condemns-pope-over-condom-issue-bk3kzgzbnrb">condemned it</a>.</p>
<p>But many in the Catholic Church <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/after-the-wrath-of-god-assistant-professor-of-religion-and-womens-gender-and-sexuality-studies-anthony-m-petro/1132140644?ean=9780190064778">responded to the AIDS crisis</a> with empathy. In 1985, for example – just a few years after the disease <a href="https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2021/06/420686/40-years-aids-timeline-epidemic">had been identified</a> – the New York Archdiocese <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/22/nyregion/aids-helps-rescue-ailing-hospital.html">opened a treatment facility</a> at St. Clare’s Hospital, the state’s first specialized AIDS unit.</p>
<p>A number of ministries turned to Father Damien as inspiration for AIDS-related work, years before the church officially made him a saint. Likely the oldest is <a href="https://damienministries.org/">Damien Ministries</a>, founded in 1987 “to serve the poorest of the poor living with HIV and AIDS, as inspired by the life of the Blessed Father Damien.” The Washington, D.C.-based ministry adopted a solidarity approach modeled after Damien’s ministry on Molokai, citing parallels between leprosy and HIV/AIDS.</p>
<p>Other Damien-inspired organizations include the <a href="http://www.albanydamiencenter.org/our-history.html">Albany Damien Center</a>, <a href="https://damien.org/about/our-history">the Damien Center of Indiana</a> – founded as a collaboration between Catholics and Episcopalians – and <a href="https://saintdamienhospital.nph.org/history/">St. Damien Hospital in Haiti</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A tapestry with a colored border depicts a portrait of Father Damien, wearing a hat and glasses." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461144/original/file-20220504-13-wdr2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461144/original/file-20220504-13-wdr2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461144/original/file-20220504-13-wdr2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461144/original/file-20220504-13-wdr2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461144/original/file-20220504-13-wdr2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=953&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461144/original/file-20220504-13-wdr2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=953&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461144/original/file-20220504-13-wdr2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=953&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A tapestry depicting Father Damien, born Jozef De Veuster, hangs from the St. Peter Basilica facade during a canonization ceremony at the Vatican.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/HIYEYearender/81db85f170ae4bbc9579419ffd9ee866/photo?Query=father%20damien&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=16&currentItemNo=9">AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Damien serves as what <a href="https://history.northwestern.edu/people/faculty/affiliated-faculty/robert-orsi.html">religion historian Robert Orsi</a> calls an “<a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691127767/between-heaven-and-earth">articulatory pivot point</a>”: a way people – HIV/AIDS patients, in this case – can use their faith to reshape their experience and gain agency, even as that same religion stigmatizes them as powerless “others.”</p>
<p>As a canonized saint, Damien is embraced by the highest levels of the church. Yet as a man who embraced those the rest of society had rejected, joining them and even dying for them, he also represents people at the margins.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark M. Lambert does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Father Damien’s legacy has inspired health providers and humanitarians for over a century.Mark M. Lambert, Teaching Fellow, University of ChicagoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1783582022-03-23T12:36:53Z2022-03-23T12:36:53ZWhy the future of the world’s largest religion is female – and African<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453364/original/file-20220321-27-p64010.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=68%2C17%2C5682%2C3811&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nigerian women greet each other at St. Charles Catholic Church in Ngurore, Nigeria, on Feb. 17, 2019. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Nigeria/7f8bd9097e334061b0682fc308102a86/photo?Query=women%20church%20africa&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=74&currentItemNo=10">AP Photo/Sunday Alamba</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>At the start of 2019, Bill and Melinda Gates <a href="https://www.gatesnotes.com/2019-Annual-Letter">released a list of facts</a> that had surprised them the previous year. Number four on their list: “Data can be sexist.”</p>
<p>“There are <a href="https://carolinecriadoperez.com/book/invisible-women/">huge gaps</a> in the global data about women and girls,” they explained.</p>
<p>My interest was piqued – not only as <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=GNpr3fAAAAAJ&hl=en">a demographer</a>, but as a woman and mother of girls.</p>
<p>I research <a href="https://louisville-institute.org/our-impact/awards/project-grant-for-researchers/14306/">women in global Christianity</a> and am frequently asked what percentage of the religion is female. <a href="https://worldchristiandatabase.org/">The short answer is 52%</a>. But the long answer is more complicated – women make up a much more substantial part of Christianity than that number makes it seem.</p>
<p>The goal of my research is to put the spotlight on Christian women’s contributions to church and society and fill in gaps in our data. Headlines about religion may be focused on the words and actions of Western male leaders, but the reality of the worldwide church is quite different. More and more Christians live outside Europe and North America, especially in Africa – and women are central to that story.</p>
<h2>Measuring faith</h2>
<p>Social scientists have shown for decades that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199608102.001.0001">women are more religious than men</a> by a variety of measures – everything from frequency of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/22/women-more-religiously-devout-than-men-new-study-finds">private prayer</a> to worship service attendance. Christianity, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/05/christians-remain-worlds-largest-religious-group-but-they-are-declining-in-europe/">the world’s largest religion</a>, <a href="https://blog.oup.com/2009/03/women-and-christianity/">is no exception</a>. <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2016/03/22/the-gender-gap-in-religion-around-the-world/">Data from the Pew Research Center</a> show that, compared to Christian men, Christian women are more likely to attend weekly church services (53% versus 46%), pray daily (61% versus 51%), and say religion is important in their lives (68% versus 61%).</p>
<p>It’s not a new trend. In the Gospels, women were the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+27&version=KJV">last at the foot of Jesus’s cross</a>, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+28&version=KJV">the first at his tomb</a>. Research has shown they were <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/3711820">critical to the growth of the early church</a>, being more likely to convert to Christianity than men, and most of the early Christian communities were majority female. <a href="https://utorontopress.com/9781487593841/a-women-and-x2019s-history-of-the-christian-church/">Throughout history</a>, women were exemplars of the faith as <a href="https://columbabooks.com/four-of-the-great-female-mystics/">mystics</a> and martyrs, royal women <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Clotilda">converting their husbands</a> and supporting convents, and <a href="https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/mary-eddy">founders of denominations</a> and churches that are now all over the world. Women make up the majority of Christians today.</p>
<p>What researchers don’t have is comprehensive data on women’s activities in churches, their influence, their leadership or their service. Nor are there comprehensive analyses of Christians’ attitudes around the world about women’s and men’s roles in churches.</p>
<p>“Women, according to an old saying in the Black church, are the backbone of the church,” <a href="https://core.ac.uk/display/46959968">notes</a> religion and gender scholar <a href="https://hds.harvard.edu/people/ann-d-braude">Ann Braude</a>. “The double meaning of this saying is that while the churches would collapse without women, their place is in the background,” behind male leaders.</p>
<p>But there’s not much actual data, and without good data, it’s harder to make good decisions.</p>
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<img alt="Two women wearing head coverings pray inside a church." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453360/original/file-20220321-14075-16j7zj6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453360/original/file-20220321-14075-16j7zj6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453360/original/file-20220321-14075-16j7zj6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453360/original/file-20220321-14075-16j7zj6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453360/original/file-20220321-14075-16j7zj6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453360/original/file-20220321-14075-16j7zj6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453360/original/file-20220321-14075-16j7zj6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Christian women pray during a Christmas Mass in Our Lady of Fatima Church in Islamabad, Pakistan, in 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/VirusOutbreakPakistanChristmas/a2b52709542e41d4a7cb9c1007e6053d/photo?Query=women%20church%20&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1822&currentItemNo=28">AP Photo/Rahmat Gul</a></span>
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<h2>At the center of the story</h2>
<p>My current research is illustrating that <a href="https://louisville-institute.org/our-impact/awards/project-grant-for-researchers/14306/">women are the majority of the church nearly everywhere in the world</a>, and that its future is poised to be shaped by African women, in particular.</p>
<p>Christianity continues its demographic shift to the global south. In 1900, 18% of the world’s Christians lived in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Oceania, <a href="https://brill.com/view/db/wceo">according to my research</a>. Today that figure is 67%, and by 2050, it is projected to be 77%. Africa is home to 27% of the world’s Christians, the largest share in the world, and by 2050, that figure will likely be 39%. For comparison, the United States and Canada were home to just 11% of all Christians in the world in 2020 and will likely drop to 8% by 2050. Furthermore, the <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/sub-saharan-africa/">median age of Christians in sub-Saharan Africa</a> is just 19.</p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-140K">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>One of the most common refrains about the church in Africa is that it is majority female. “The church in Africa has a feminine face and owes much of its tremendous growth to the agency of women,” <a href="https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-atlas-of-global-christianity-hb.html">writes</a> Kenyan theologian Philomena Mwaura.</p>
<p>Or as a Nigerian Anglican bishop recently told me, “If anyone tells you a church in Nigeria is majority male, he’s lying.” </p>
<p>It’s clear that women have been a crucial part of Christianity’s seismic shift south. For example, consider Catholic sisters, who <a href="https://www.vaticanum.com/en/annuarium-statisticum-ecclesiae-2019-statistical-yearbook-of-the-church-2019-annuaire-statistique-de-l-eglise-2019">outnumber</a> priests and religious brothers in Africa – and <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/vatican/vatican-statistics-show-continued-growth-number-catholics-worldwide">on every continent</a>, in fact. Mothers’ Union, an Anglican nonprofit that aims to support marriages and families, has 30 branches in Africa, including <a href="https://www.mothersunion.org/what-we-do/where-we-work/nigeria">at least 60,000 members</a> in Nigeria alone. In Congo, women have <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.17570/stj.2016.v2n2.a16">advocated for peacebuilding</a>, including through groups like the National Federation of Protestant Women. Next door, in the Republic of the Congo, <a href="https://iupress.org/9780253220554/catholic-women-of-congo-brazzaville/">Catholic sisters</a> were at the forefront of providing shelter, education and aid in postwar recovery efforts.</p>
<p>Yet here, too, more precise data about African women’s contributions and religious identities is lacking. And beyond quantitative data, African women’s narratives have often been ignored, to the detriment of public understanding. As African theologians <a href="https://wipfandstock.com/9781597524742/the-will-to-arise/">Mercy Amba Oduyoye and Rachel Angogo Kanyoro</a> have stated, “African women theologians have come to realize that as long as men and foreign researchers remain the authorities on culture, rituals, and religion, African women will continue to be spoken of as if they were dead.”</p>
<p>Far from dead, African women live at the center of the story – and will continue to do so as healers, evangelists, mothers and the heartbeat of their churches.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gina Zurlo receives funding from the Louisville Institute. </span></em></p>Women’s contributions to global Christianity are immense, but scholars’ understanding is hampered by limited data.Gina Zurlo, Co-Director of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, Gordon-Conwell Theological SeminaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1781742022-03-10T13:25:38Z2022-03-10T13:25:38ZWhat’s a natural burial? A Christian theologian explains<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449148/original/file-20220301-15-9jfm39.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=49%2C0%2C5472%2C3628&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some people are drawn to the idea of a natural burial to bring more of the dying ritual into their homes.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/hospice-nurse-visiting-an-elderly-male-patient-royalty-free-image/895072326?adppopup=true"> LPETTET/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Death is not a subject people typically have an easy time discussing. But for Christian scholar <a href="https://www.csl.edu/directory/beth-hoeltke/">Beth Hoeltke</a>, it’s one she’s <a href="https://www.christiancentury.org/article/features/green-burial-act-faith">devoted much time to</a>, focusing particularly on the growing interest in natural or green burials.</em></p>
<p><em>Here, Hoeltke explains how people can go about having a natural burial and why it’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/eco-friendly-cemeteries-more-people-preferring-green-over-standard-burials/2019/11/29/af9de6ce-0fc5-11ea-bf62-eadd5d11f559_story.html">attracting more interest among Christians and people of other faiths</a>.</em></p>
<h2>What is a natural burial?</h2>
<p>Natural burial is actually what we would say is the closest we can come to the way Christ was buried. This idea looks at how we would care for the body from baptism all the way through burial as a Christian. When a person dies, instead of calling a funeral director, their loved ones would call the church or other family members and ask them to come and help to wash and clean the body. And then dress the body, whether it be in clothing or wrapped in a shroud, and then place them in a coffin. A vigil then could take place at home. It would not need to be done at a funeral home. No embalming would take place. And then a loved one could journey with the body to the final resting place. Or all of this could take place in the church. There are lots of different options. </p>
<p>But natural burial is <a href="https://theconversation.com/life-after-death-americans-are-embracing-new-ways-to-leave-their-remains-85657">much more environmentally structured</a>. It doesn’t cause damage to the Earth as much as modern burial methods. Modern burial adds wood that doesn’t break down as easily and decomposition takes much longer than natural burial. It also can include other materials, such as metal, that don’t belong in the ground.</p>
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<h2>How did we go from natural burials to embalming? And what does Christianity have to say about that?</h2>
<p>People have allowed the funeral directors to order the funeral homes to take over a task that nobody wanted to do anymore. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-lincolns-embrace-of-embalming-birthed-the-american-funeral-industry-86196">embalming process started back in the Civil War time</a> when people needed to get the bodies home. And so at that time, bodies were filled with embalming fluid before being taken home to their loved ones.</p>
<p>The Christian church would say that Christ had a natural burial. When Christ was born, he would have been wrapped in a shroud. Upon his death he was again wrapped in a linen cloth and set in a grave. First-century burials were slightly different, but it was very similar. The body was actually laid on a bench first, probably a rock bench, until the body had decomposed, and then they would gather the bones and put the bones in an ossuary, a container or room in which the bones of dead people are placed.</p>
<h2>What kind of people are interested in green burials?</h2>
<p>The term “green burial” is what is heard most often by the public. I believe we have to change it to natural burial, because it’s much more natural in the sense of what’s taking place. The term green burial came from the environmental movement. The people who would be interested in a natural burial are people who do not want to be embalmed, don’t want to die in a hospital and want to have the care and love of their loved ones at home. </p>
<p>But people who are really involved in it right now, especially with the green burial movement, are the people who really don’t want to do damage to the Earth. And so that’s where the movement actually started. And what my writing partner <a href="https://www.csl.edu/directory/kent-burreson/">Kent Burreson</a> and I are doing is trying to <a href="https://concordiatheology.org/2019/12/natural-burial-the-final-journey/">bring that into the Christian church</a>. And hence we’ve changed the language from a green burial to natural burial so that there’s a more of an understanding that this is the way Christ died.</p>
<h2>In what circumstances is embalming required?</h2>
<p>Embalming is required in <a href="https://funerals.org/2007/11/26/what-you-should-know-about-embalming">a few states</a> if someone is going to take the body across state lines. Let’s say you were in an area where a natural cemetery is not available and you need to take it to the next state. There are embalming fluids that are more natural than traditional chemicals and don’t contaminate as badly, so there are some options becoming available. </p>
<h2>Could you talk about home funerals and their value?</h2>
<p>In the past, there was something called the parlor in our homes. And the parlor was actually used for engagements, for weddings, for burials, for births, for all kinds of things that would take place within the home. That’s what funeral parlors have taken on, and they’ve tried to make it look homey. So we’re suggesting bringing the parlor back into our homes, by caring for our ill ones at home, and then when they die, caring for them by washing their bodies, washing their hair, dressing their bodies.</p>
<p>Think of the beauty that could be in caring for your husband or your wife or your child when they have died, to be able to be part of that and washing and caring for them. It not only keeps you busy, but it also allows you to mourn in a much more healthy way, because today death has been pushed out of our lives. We have this time period when we just don’t have the ability to mourn anymore because we go from shock to loss. This way, if we’re doing it in our homes and we’re participating in the death, we are able to actually engage in the activity and realize that death has taken place.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192137/original/file-20171026-13331-1oyles2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192137/original/file-20171026-13331-1oyles2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192137/original/file-20171026-13331-1oyles2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192137/original/file-20171026-13331-1oyles2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192137/original/file-20171026-13331-1oyles2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192137/original/file-20171026-13331-1oyles2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192137/original/file-20171026-13331-1oyles2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Traditional funerals are becoming less common as more Americans look for cheaper, greener options.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alzbeta/Shutterstock.com</span></span>
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<h2>What are people’s concerns when it comes to a natural burial?</h2>
<p>Most people are a little nervous about the whole idea. Even though it’s something very traditional, it’s very different from people’s understanding right now. Most of the questions that are asked are, “Is this really OK to do? What do I need to do to be trained?” There are guides that can help with the process called death midwives, death doulas, death guides or funeral guides. People are a little nervous about touching a dead body. For the most part, dead bodies can be touched very easily and very lovingly. </p>
<p>The other question that comes out is, “What if I can’t do this? What if I want to do it but I can’t?” What I say is engage your church community. Reach out to them, talk to them, ask if there are members of the congregation who might participate. In the Jewish faith, they actually have a ceremony called the <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/tahara/">tahara</a> where they come together upon death and care for the body. They wash it and they say prayers over it and they wrap it and they put it in the coffin. So if you are not able to do that yourself, you might ask your church body or your congregation, or you might hire a death midwife. They could guide you along the way on how to do this. So there shouldn’t be much fear in that. </p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Beth Hoeltke does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Green burial is not a new concept, but it is gaining interest among consumers, and some religious groups are leading the way. A theologian explains what’s involved and who natural burials appeal to.Beth Hoeltke, Director of the Graduate School, Concordia SeminaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1769492022-02-25T13:46:16Z2022-02-25T13:46:16ZCan churches be protectors of public health?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447903/original/file-20220222-21-1ntyhbh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C10%2C1016%2C671&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The relationship between public health and faith is far older than the COVID-19 pandemic.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/bible-in-a-church-with-a-disposable-mask-to-avoid-news-photo/1227371856?adppopup=true">Fred de Noyelle/Godong/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the past two years of living with COVID-19, many churches have had to think in new ways. Congregations across the country are experimenting with practices such as virtual worship and Bible study or masking and social distancing – even as others go “back to normal.”</p>
<p>While scholars have studied the relationship between religion and health for decades, the pandemic has put a spotlight on it. Often, this attention emphasizes examples of churches opposing safety recommendations, such as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/14/us/covid-vaccine-evangelicals/index.html">vaccines</a> or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/22/let-us-disobey-churches-defy-lockdown-with-secret-meetings">lockdowns</a>, but this misses the complexity and variety of religious responses to public health problems.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.hartfordinternational.edu/our-faculty/andrew-gardner">a scholar</a> of Christianity in the United States, I believe understanding how churches have navigated health crises in the past can help us better understand our present. Over the past two years, I have worked with <a href="https://www.covidreligionresearch.org/">an interdisciplinary team of researchers</a> based at the <a href="http://hirr.hartsem.edu/">Hartford Institute for Religion Research</a> to understand how churches are confronting the realities of COVID-19. U.S. history, coupled with <a href="https://www.covidreligionresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Navigating-the-Pandemic_A-First-Look-at-Congregational-Responses_Nov-2021.pdf">our survey of congregations</a>, suggests that a commitment to public health has long been a part of ministry, but there is room to make it stronger.</p>
<h2>A history of protecting health</h2>
<p>Christian leaders have been advocating for public health in the United States since the Colonial period. Historian <a href="https://www.missouristate.edu/relst/PhilippaKoch.aspx">Philippa Koch</a> has <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=W2wDEAAAQBAJ&newbks=0&printsec=frontcover&hl=en&source=newbks_fb#v=onepage&q&f=false">argued</a> that the religious worldview of American Protestants in the 18th century helped them “accept the new promises and insights of modern medicine.” According to Koch, this unwavering faith in God’s plan for creation helped spur individuals like the Puritan minister <a href="https://doi.org/10.1136/qshc.2003.008797">Cotton Mather</a> to promote inoculation for smallpox as a gift from God.</p>
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<img alt="A black and white illustration shows a portrait of a man in a large white wig." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447902/original/file-20220222-267-1oolmii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447902/original/file-20220222-267-1oolmii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447902/original/file-20220222-267-1oolmii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447902/original/file-20220222-267-1oolmii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447902/original/file-20220222-267-1oolmii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447902/original/file-20220222-267-1oolmii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447902/original/file-20220222-267-1oolmii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Cotton Mather, an influential minister in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, supported smallpox vaccines.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/an-engraved-portrait-of-cotton-mather-a-boston-news-photo/517387846?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Bettmann via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>During the 1918 influenza pandemic, too, congregations were on the front lines of public health. Churches in <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/clip/82848315/the-wilmington-morning-star/">North Carolina</a>, for example, sought to make sure their worship space was “well ventilated” to avoid spreading the virus. They also required members to wear “germ proof” gauze masks. <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/clip/82848809/the-spokesman-review/">Churches in Washington state</a> prohibited public singing and roped off pews to ensure that congregants would be spread out around the sanctuary. </p>
<p>Many churches also canceled in-person worship gatherings and turned to the technology of the day: newspapers. In Los Angeles, ministers encouraged their congregants to “<a href="https://www.newspapers.com/clip/55370413/go-to-church-in-your-home-today/">go to church in your own home today</a>” with sermons printed in the paper. In Indianapolis, the newspaper printed an <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/clip/95484327/the-indianapolis-star/">order of worship</a> with hymns, Scripture and prayers. The paper also included sermons from local congregations, including Episcopalian, Catholic, Baptist and Jewish. </p>
<p>Presbyterian minister Francis Grimke later reflected on his church’s decision to close, <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=emu.010002585873&view=1up&seq=1&skin=2021">stating</a>, “If avoiding crowds lessens the danger of being infected, it was wise to take the precaution and not needlessly run in danger and expect God to protect us.”</p>
<p>Not all churches responded to the health precautions with enthusiasm. Many ministers <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/clip/72471253/the-washington-times/">insisted</a> that communal prayers were necessary to get the country through the sickness. Others blatantly disobeyed public health orders. In Harrison, Ohio, the Rev. George Cocks of Trinity Methodist Church and 16 members of his congregation were <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/clip/78666410/the-cincinnati-enquirer/">arrested and jailed</a> for a staged protest. After being locked up, he preached through the window of his jail cell to approximately 500 individuals who had gathered to hear him. </p>
<p>Over the past few decades, more recent church practices that intersect with health include holding <a href="https://www.redcrossblood.org/donate-blood/how-to-donate/how-blood-donations-help.html">blood drives</a>, hosting 12-step programs for addiction, <a href="https://theconversation.com/nearly-half-of-all-churches-and-other-faith-institutions-help-people-get-enough-to-eat-170074">running soup kitchens</a> and providing basic <a href="https://theconversation.com/americans-are-in-a-mental-health-crisis-especially-african-americans-can-churches-help-167871">mental health counseling</a>.</p>
<h2>Churches and COVID-19</h2>
<p>The past two years have been difficult on churches. Our team at the <a href="https://www.covidreligionresearch.org/">Exploring the Pandemic Impact on Congregations</a> project <a href="https://www.covidreligionresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Navigating-the-Pandemic_A-First-Look-at-Congregational-Responses_Nov-2021.pdf">surveyed more than 2,000 churches</a> and found that the vast majority – 83% of those surveyed – reported that a member had tested positive for the virus. Thirty-seven percent had a staff member who had tested positive.</p>
<p>While our data shows that nearly all churches in the United States have been affected by COVID-19, not all of them have responded to the pandemic in the same way. Political polarization around public health measures has only complicated how congregations have responded to COVID-19. </p>
<p>Twenty-eight percent of the 2,074 churches we surveyed invited a medical professional to speak to their membership about the pandemic. Evangelical Christian <a href="https://www.nih.gov/farewell-dr-francis-collins">Francis Collins</a> – who recently stepped down as director of the National Institutes of Health and is now <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/02/16/president-biden-announces-ostp-leadership/">acting science adviser</a> to President Joe Biden – has modeled how the science of public health can be <a href="https://religionnews.com/2021/04/27/francis-collins-urges-evangelicals-love-your-neighbor-get-covid-19-vaccine/">framed in religious terms</a>, such as loving one’s neighbor. </p>
<p>Just 8% of churches volunteered to serve as <a href="https://religionnews.com/2021/01/29/black-clergy-offer-churches-as-covid-19-vaccination-sites-roll-up-their-sleeves/">a testing or vaccination location</a>. These churches were more likely to have more than 250 members, have been founded recently, and be racially diverse.</p>
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<img alt="Masked workers in safety vests walk between cars in a parking lot by a sign reading COVID vaccine, appointments only." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447904/original/file-20220222-17-185ptz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447904/original/file-20220222-17-185ptz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447904/original/file-20220222-17-185ptz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447904/original/file-20220222-17-185ptz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447904/original/file-20220222-17-185ptz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447904/original/file-20220222-17-185ptz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447904/original/file-20220222-17-185ptz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Health care workers greet people at a drive-thru vaccination site at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Mount Dora, Fla.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/health-care-workers-greet-people-as-they-arrive-in-cars-to-news-photo/1230810750?adppopup=true">Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Before the pandemic, many clergy had a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/21645515.2020.1736451">positive attitude toward vaccinations</a> but did not see them as particularly relevant to their faith communities. There is reason to believe that this is changing. <a href="https://www.covidreligionresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Navigating-the-Pandemic_A-First-Look-at-Congregational-Responses_Nov-2021.pdf">Our survey</a> found the majority of clergy across the country, 62%, have encouraged their congregants to be vaccinated against COVID-19.</p>
<p>This varies significantly across different segments of Christianity in the U.S., however. Of <a href="https://www.covidreligionresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Navigating-the-Pandemic_A-First-Look-at-Congregational-Responses_Nov-2021.pdf">clergy surveyed</a> from historically Black denominations, 100% had encouraged their congregations to get vaccinated. Over three-quarters of mainline Protestant congregations and nearly two-thirds of Latino churches had clergy publicly encouraging members to take the vaccine. Half of Roman Catholic and Orthodox clergy advocated for their congregants to take the vaccine, and among white Evangelicals, only 29% of clergy offered similar advice.</p>
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<p>Among churches with a senior woman clergy leader, 82% encouraged their members to get vaccinated, as compared with 58% of those with senior male leaders. Small churches were also more likely to recommend the vaccine to their congregants.</p>
<p>Our project has also conducted <a href="https://www.covidreligionresearch.org/research/national-survey-research/extraordinary-social-outreach-in-a-time-of-crisis/">a survey on how churches have adapted social outreach programs during COVID-19</a> and is currently fielding a survey about the pandemic’s effect on Christian education.</p>
<p>Given the results of our first survey, there is significant room for U.S. congregations to think more deeply about how their work intersects with public health. But before taxing clergy with something else to add to their already overburdened schedules, we believe it’s worth encouraging congregational leaders to consider their churches as institutions of public health: places that can promote the physical, spiritual and emotional health of both their members and the local community.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Gardner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Responses to COVID-19 health guidelines have been polarized, including in churches. But religious communities have a long history of involvement in public health.Andrew Gardner, Visiting Faculty Associate of American Religious History, Hartford International University for Religion and PeaceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1731772022-02-17T13:11:22Z2022-02-17T13:11:22ZCan religion and faith combat eco-despair?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445731/original/file-20220210-41044-1j2534b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=104%2C120%2C3393%2C2098&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There's a growing belief that teachings from religious faiths belong in the discussion around environmental protection.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/man-praying-in-the-forest-royalty-free-image/134059500?adppopup=true"> ImagineGolf/E+/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Scientists regularly study the ongoing degradation of Earth’s environment and track the changes wrought by a warming planet. Economists warn that intensifying disasters are harming people’s quality of life. And policymakers focus on crafting rules to diminish the health and environmental effects of humanity’s growing footprint.</em></p>
<p><em>What is the role of philosophers and people of faith in this bigger discussion around the environment and sustainability? <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rita-Sherma">Rita D. Sherma</a> is co-chair of a <a href="https://www.gtu.edu/projects/s360">research initiative</a> aimed at bringing the beliefs of religion, spirituality and ethics to the study of sustainability. Here she explains the core ideas behind “green spirituality,” how religion and environmental protection are closely intertwined and the role faith can play in restoring hope amid the drumbeat of discouraging environmental news.</em></p>
<h2>What is green spirituality?</h2>
<p>Green spirituality is an orientation to the divine, or supreme reality, that is grounded in our experience of life on planet Earth. It respects the miracle of life on this planet and recognizes our relationship with it. Such a spirituality can have God or the divine as the focus, or it can be oriented toward the Earth and its ecosystems for those outside of organized religion. It encourages a contemplative and harmonious relationship to the Earth. </p>
<p>Green spirituality seeks to harness the spiritual traditions of the world to energize the effort to restore planetary ecosystems and stop future harms. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The rights of nature movement wants to give sacred rivers the same legal protections as people.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Why do spiritual and religious teachings belong as part of the global conversation on the environment?</h2>
<p>First, <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2012/12/18/global-religious-landscape-exec/">80% of the world’s population practices</a> an established religion or a spiritual tradition that offers community, support and resources for resilience.</p>
<p>Second, as I have written in my <a href="https://www.bookdepository.com/Religion-Sustainability-Interreligious-Resources-Interdisciplinary-Responses-Rita-D-Sherma/9783030793005">new book on religion and sustainability</a>, better technology will help human communities restore ecosystems. More and better data, such as computations to forecast disasters, will also be helpful. But both are inadequate in the face of human denial and recalcitrance. </p>
<p>In my book, I write: “Planetary survival is now predicated upon the alignment of our notions of both human and ecological rights with our highest principles. As such, ways of knowing that are embedded in religion, philosophy, spiritual ethics, moral traditions, and a culture that values the community and the commons – as an essential resource for the transformation necessary for environmental regeneration and renewal – are indispensable.” In other words, people on Earth need to tap into the ways of thinking from these faith traditions to address the environmental crises we face now.</p>
<h2>Can faith and religion help counter rising eco-anxiety?</h2>
<p>Catastrophic wildfires across the planet, extreme weather patterns that destroy homes and histories, degraded soil, toxic air, unsafe water and the desecrated beauty of places we have loved are causing climate trauma and <a href="https://theconversation.com/ten-years-to-1-5-c-how-climate-anxiety-is-affecting-young-people-around-the-world-podcast-171566">eco-anxiety</a>. For those who are acutely aware of the cliff edge on which we stand as a species and as a planetary community, the despair evoked by the magnitude of the disaster is almost unbearable. </p>
<p>Religions, faiths, and spiritual practices can help in unique ways. In this space people can find community, peaceful practices of meditation, prayer, embodied sacred actions that include rituals and liturgies, and a ‘long view’ informed by the tragedies and triumphs faced by spiritual ancestors. Faith can provide hope and resilience in the midst of crises. </p>
<h2>How do different faith traditions treat respect for nature?</h2>
<p>Religions may disagree on many things, but each contains philosophical or theological orientations that can be interpreted and applied in ways that protect the Earth.</p>
<p>Some traditions such as <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12070465">Hindu, Yogic, Indigenous</a> and others see the self as a microcosm of macrocosm, or a part of the greater whole. And, a profound sacred immanence, or integral divine presence, is woven through their philosophies. For these spiritual traditions, religious practice integrates trees, flowers, sacred groves, sanctified terrains, rivers, mountains and elements of the entire ecosphere into liturgical and personal practice. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1089/env.2017.0009">Christian ecotheology</a> focuses on stewardship and the ethics of Earth justice. A well-known <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/575948/green-deen-by-ibrahim-abdul-matin/">Muslim ecotheologian</a> speaks of the Earth as a mosque in reference to a saying (hadith) of the prophet – which renders the entire Earth as sacrosanct. Jewish ecological thinkers have envisaged the idea of “<a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/2013/10/31/shomrei-adamah-guardians-of-the-land/">Shomrei Adamah</a>” (Keepers of the Earth), which connects humanity and the Earth through divine love. </p>
<p>Buddhism’s spiritual aim is the absolute awareness of interconnectedness and mutual causality. <a href="https://www.uvic.ca/humanities/pacificasia/assets/docs/pdf-department/PDFs%20Faculty/Adam%20-%20PDFs/Adam-atc06-Nonviolence.pdf">Ahimsa</a>, or noninjury to living beings and the Earth, is the highest doctrinal principle in <a href="https://sunypress.edu/Books/N/Nonviolence-to-Animals-Earth-and-Self-in-Asian-Traditions">Hinduism and Buddhism, and it is intensely followed in Jainism</a>.</p>
<h2>How are organized religions putting environmental protection into practice?</h2>
<p>Many initiatives and conversations are happening among religions, and among interreligious leadership and international bodies – most importantly, the United Nations initiatives. </p>
<p>Some important conversations include the <a href="https://www.interfaithrainforest.org/">Interfaith Rainforest Initiative</a>, which brings the dedication, impact, and moral authority of different faiths to restore the world’s rainforests and help empower the Indigenous peoples who view themselves as their protectors. <a href="https://greenfaith.org/">Greenfaith</a> is a global, multireligious climate and environmental movement. I also serve on the advisory board of the <a href="https://fore.yale.edu/">Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology</a>, a pioneering international interreligious project at Yale University started by scholars <a href="https://environment.yale.edu/profile/tucker">Mary Evelyn Tucker</a> and <a href="https://environment.yale.edu/profile/grim">John Grim</a> that ignited the academic field of religion and ecology as a global engaged force for the greening of religion. </p>
<h2>How are environmental advocacy groups drawing in religion?</h2>
<p>In 1985, the World Wildlife Fund established the U.K.-based <a href="http://www.arcworld.org/">Alliance of Religion and Conservation</a> for developing partnerships with religious groups for collaborating on environmental protection. WWF’s <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/initiatives/sacred-earth-faiths-for-conservation">Sacred Earth: Faiths for Conservation</a> program collaborates with faith groups and religious communities who are committed to the view that the Earth is a sacred charge that demands the commitment of our care. </p>
<p>In November 2017, the U.N. “Environment Programme,” realizing the significance of religious communities as key actors, founded the <a href="https://www.unep.org/about-un-environment/faith-earth-initiative">Faith for Earth Initiative</a> to engage with faith-based organizations as partners, at all levels, toward achieving the sustainable development goals and realizing the 2030 agenda. The initiative affirms that “<a href="https://www.unep.org/about-un-environment-programme/faith-earth-initiative/why-faith-and-environment-matters">Spiritual values drive individual behaviours for more than 80 per cent of people</a>.”</p>
<p>In fall 2020, the Parliament of the World’s Religions and the U.N. Environment Programme jointly published a book titled “<a href="https://www.unep.org/resources/publication/faith-earth-call-action">Faith for Earth – A Call for Action</a>,” which provides an overview of the diversity of religious principles and practices that support action for the protection of the Earth.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rita D. Sherma is affiliated with Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology. John Grim, PhD, and Mary Evelyn Tucker, PhD have presented lectures at events convened by Rita D. Sherma. </span></em></p>As anxiety over the climate and environmental degradation rises, a scholar argues that teachings from religion and spirituality need to inform discussions on sustainability.Rita D. Sherma, Associate Professor of Dharma Studies, Graduate Theological UnionLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1741932022-01-07T13:29:19Z2022-01-07T13:29:19ZWomen are finding new ways to influence male-led faiths<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439740/original/file-20220106-23-wdopex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C5742%2C3828&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The number of women religious leaders is growing, but the 2018-2019 National Congregations Study, which surveyed 5,300 U.S. religious communities, found that only 56.4% of these communities would allow a woman to “be head clergy person or primary religious leader.”</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/PatriarchalFaithsWomensRolesBuddhists/9235011302194770bf3fe7dc798ed7d3/photo?Query=women%20in%20religion&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=418&currentItemNo=75">AP Photo/Young Kwak</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In some religions, women are barred from serving as clergy or excluded from top leadership roles. Nonetheless, women have broken into influential roles in these male-led faiths. How are these women forging new pathways in these traditionally patriarchal religions? </p>
<p>The Associated Press, Religion News Service and The Conversation held a webinar with academics, journalists and religious leaders to discuss the future of women in faith leadership on Dec. 9, 2021.</p>
<p>The panel featured <a href="https://huronatwestern.ca/profiles/faculty/ingrid-mattson-phd/">Ingrid Mattson</a>, chair of Islamic Studies at Huron University College at Western University; <a href="https://divinity.vanderbilt.edu/people/bio/emiliem-townes">Emilie M. Townes</a>, dean and distinguished professor of Womanist Ethics and Society at Vanderbilt Divinity School; <a href="https://www.purdue.edu/research/staff/biographies.php?id=122">Carolyn Woo</a>, distinguished president’s fellow for global development at Purdue University; and <a href="https://denison.edu/people/jue-liang">Jue Liang</a>, visiting assistant professor of religion at Denison University. <a href="https://twitter.com/roxyleestone">Roxanne Stone</a>, managing editor of Religion News Service, acted as moderator. </p>
<p><em>Below are some highlights from the discussion. Please note that answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.</em></p>
<p><strong>Some of the women [faith leaders I’ve spoken] with [talk] about how leadership isn’t just in titled positions, but in influence. What is your definition of leadership? In the male-led faiths that you’re paying attention to, are you seeing any examples of women taking on nontraditional, unofficial leadership roles?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Carolyn Woo:</strong> I think leadership is the ability to have a vision that really advances that particular organization and serves that organization, and the capacity to translate that vision into action. I think influence is very important. I think informal influence for women comes from the fact that perhaps [they] are very invested with [their] work and have expertise and have good relationships with people and credibility. Those are informal sources of influence, but it is not fair. Women shouldn’t only operate with informal power – not because it is not useful, but because they also deserve formal recognition of their position. Formal positions allow you to have a vote. You don’t have to whisper it to somebody else. </p>
<p><strong>Jue Liang:</strong> The Buddhist way of thinking about leadership is more in the identity or the role of a teacher or a role model. Everyone has the potential to become enlightened, just like the Buddha. [In Buddhism] leadership is considered, at least in theory, open to all. [Historically, it has not been] the case. But through education and ordination, we’re [seeing] more [role] models that are inhabiting the body of women. [Leading] more women to think, “Maybe I can do that too.”</p>
<p><strong>Are women who have informal or non-clergy roles of influence – say in publishing, social media or academia – able to maintain that informal influence long term?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Emilie M. Townes:</strong> I think our ability to lead and influence is going to be tenuous [in any circumstances]. Influence is always going to be dependent on whether or not people are listening. I think it becomes even more tenuous if you are in a more conservative setting that has a hierarchy of roles where the thought of challenging is just not a part of everyday life. </p>
<p><strong>Ingrid Mattson:</strong> I see a lot of self-censorship. When I speak to women religious leaders about issues that impact women, there’s a lot of caution that the majority exercise. They feel like their authority is very tentative and that all it takes is a few guys calling them a radical feminist [to lose their influence]. The women who are ready to step out have other sources of support. They are at universities or women’s organizations, so that even if they are dismissed in this way, they still have a basis for support.</p>
<p><strong>When we talk about these issues [that women in male-led major religions face], there is almost an assumption that change is inevitable, that younger generations are just not going to stand for this. And that if women do not start to have more top leadership posts in some of these traditions, that they’re not going to survive. What are your thoughts on that, and where do you think we’re headed?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Carolyn Woo:</strong> Changes are inevitable, but the direction and the sources of those changes are not homogeneous. You have young people who walk away from the church and become disaffiliated. On the other hand, I also see women who have started ministries for women athletes. Within the Catholic Church, [women have started ministries] to try to understand our own menstrual cycles so that they could appreciate the female body. </p>
<p><strong>Emilie M. Townes:</strong> Change is happening, but I always look at the structures of the change happening. [We may have more women seminary students than men], but if the basic structure of the church remains the same, the roles perpetuate the structure. I like to think more in terms of transformation. I think it pushes us further along. </p>
<p><em><a href="https://vimeo.com/655441151/80896b131a">Watch the full webinar</a> to hear more detailed answers to these questions and to hear the panelists discuss stereotypes women leaders face, the future of women’s leadership in the Catholic Church, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Muslim women leaders and more.</em> </p>
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Three female academics discuss how women are forging new pathways in faith leadership throughout religions that traditionally have been patriarchal.Emily Costello, Director of Collaborations + Local News, The Conversation USThalia Plata, EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1716372021-12-16T15:30:10Z2021-12-16T15:30:10Z‘Twas the night before Christmas’ helped make the modern Santa – and led to a literary whodunit<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437839/original/file-20211215-15-ztgkjq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C0%2C1004%2C413&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">If you picture Santa Claus as plump and jolly and pulled by reindeer, you may have this poem to thank.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_Visit_From_St._Nicholas,_by_Clement_C_Moore_(cropped).jpg">Clement Clark Moore/New-York Historical Society</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The poem “<a href="https://poets.org/poem/visit-st-nicholas">A Visit from St. Nicholas</a>,” better known by its opening line “‘Twas the Night before Christmas,” has a special place among Christmas traditions, right alongside hot chocolate, caroling and bright lights. It has also inspired <a href="https://www.cmu.edu/cmnews/extra/031215_nitebeforexmas.html">the modern image of Santa Claus</a> as a jolly old man sporting red and a round belly.</p>
<p>But this poem has been steeped in controversy, and debate still looms over who the true author is. Traditionally, Clement C. Moore – a 19th-century scholar at the General Theological Seminary in New York, where I work as a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Melissa-Aaronberg/publication/346574231_Distance_Learning_at_General_Theological_Seminary/links/5fce3b3445851568d146df50/Distance-Learning-at-General-Theological-Seminary.pdf">reference librarian</a> – <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Gpw7MwEACAAJ&newbks=0&hl=en&source=newbks_fb">has been credited with writing the poem</a> in 1822 for his children. Every December, library staff shares our multiple copies of the poem in an exhibit to celebrate the holiday season. </p>
<p>No matter who wrote it, the poem is a fascinating object that has shaped <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-charles-dickens-redeemed-the-spirit-of-christmas-52335">Christmases past, present – and maybe yet to come</a>.</p>
<h2>A changing Santa Claus</h2>
<p>Santa Claus had undergone many makeovers in the Western imagination by the time readers were introduced to “‘Twas the Night before Christmas.”</p>
<p>Some scholars argue that the idea of a magical being bringing gifts and good cheer can be traced all the way back <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1542-734X.1995.1804_17.x">to the Greek goddess Artemis</a>. St. Nicholas, <a href="https://www.baylorpress.com/9781602586352/the-saint-who-would-be-santa-claus/">an early Christian bishop</a> in what is now Turkey, was said to have destroyed a temple to Artemis, which he believed was idolatrous. Afterward, some of Artemis’ traits began showing up in legends as characteristics of St. Nicholas. He became known for generosity, such as giving children presents and gifting dowries to young women in need.</p>
<p>His feast day, Dec. 6, became a popular celebration in medieval Europe. By the modern era, <a href="https://www.cmu.edu/cmnews/extra/031215_nitebeforexmas.html">images of St. Nick</a> portrayed him as a tall, thin, stern man in a bishop’s hat who brought children both gifts and punishments. In German legend, he was <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Krampus#ref1276135">accompanied by Krampus</a>, a half-goat, half-demon creature that meted out a range of punishments to bad children, from mild to violent. </p>
<p>In Victorian Britain, Christmas became a festive holiday, with much feasting and drinking in addition to a religious celebration. In the early 19th century, <a href="https://nines.org/print_exhibit/1378">Santa was sometimes depicted</a> as a reveler from the lower classes – someone in need of charity, rather than a gift-giver himself. </p>
<p>As Christmas began to evolve into a family holiday, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-advertising-through-the-ages-has-shaped-christmas-129147">the image of Santa changed as well</a>. Now, his jolliness came from the Christmas spirit, not feasting, and his rosy cheeks were the result of joy, not alcohol.</p>
<p>“‘Twas the Night before Christmas” was instrumental in crafting <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/chq.0.0095">the modern American version</a> of Santa Claus. <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43171/a-visit-from-st-nicholas">The poem</a> describes St. Nicholas as “dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,” with twinkling eyes, rosy cheeks, a snow white beard and a round belly. Throughout the poem, Santa is depicted as a jolly elf bringing joy with his reindeer-led sleigh to both children and adults. </p>
<p><a href="https://northcarolina.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.5149/9780807837351_halloran/upso-9780807835876">Thomas Nast</a>, a Civil War-era cartoonist with the magazine Harper’s Weekly, <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/civil-war-cartoonist-created-modern-image-santa-claus-union-propaganda-180971074/">created the enduring image</a> of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-christmas-became-an-american-holiday-tradition-with-a-santa-claus-gifts-and-a-tree-172479">Santa Claus</a> in a series of <a href="https://rockwellcenter.org/news/150-years-ago-harpers-weekly-published-the-union-christmas-dinner/">33 drawings</a> published between 1863 and 1886. The first of these drawings is inspired by the poem’s depiction of Santa carrying a sack full of presents with his sled pulled by reindeer.</p>
<p>Our library holds a copy of Nast’s book “<a href="https://gts.bywatersolutions.com/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=17707">Christmas Drawings for the Human Race</a>,” containing his illustrations for “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.” The introduction to our copy is written by Nast’s grandson, Thomas Nast St. Hill, who inscribed and donated it to the library in 1971. In some images, Nast used Santa to <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/civil-war-cartoonist-created-modern-image-santa-claus-union-propaganda-180971074/">send a political message</a> – such as one illustration that depicts him with toys related to battle, showing his support for Union soldiers.</p>
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<img alt="A black and white magazine cover shows an image of Santa visiting soldiers." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437845/original/file-20211215-21-kdgjeb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437845/original/file-20211215-21-kdgjeb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437845/original/file-20211215-21-kdgjeb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437845/original/file-20211215-21-kdgjeb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437845/original/file-20211215-21-kdgjeb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1031&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437845/original/file-20211215-21-kdgjeb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1031&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437845/original/file-20211215-21-kdgjeb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1031&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Thomas Nast’s cartoons, such as this one during the Civil War, helped shape Americans’ modern image of St. Nick.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/santa-claus-in-camp-january-3-wood-engraving-sheet-14-3-4-news-photo/1288544718?adppopup=true">Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Authorship debate</h2>
<p>Two hundred years after the poem debuted, one fundamental question remains: Who is its true author? </p>
<p>The poem first appeared anonymously in a New York newspaper, the Troy Sentinel, <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Who_Wrote_The_Night_Before_Christmas/SP0WDAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=twas+the+night+before+christmas+modern+image+of+santa&printsec=frontcover">on Dec, 23, 1823</a>, and was reprinted many times. The New York Book of Poetry cited Moore, the 19th-century biblical scholar, as the author in 1837, and in 1844 he included it in his <a href="https://www.baumanrarebooks.com/rare-books/moore-clement-c/poems/100894.aspx">book of poems</a>. Several years after the poem’s publication in the Sentinel, editor Orville Holley wrote that the author was “by birth and residence [belonging] to the city of New York, and that he is a gentleman of more merit as a scholar and writer than many of more noisy pretensions.” That’s an apt description of Moore, according to Niels Sonne, a librarian at General Theological Seminary in the 20th century who <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/42973358">published an article</a> about the authorship controversy. Moore was officially cited as the author in The New York Book of Poetry in 1837.</p>
<p>But the descendants of Henry Livingston Jr., a poet and farmer from an influential New York family, argue that <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Author_Unknown.html?id=Q017AgAAQBAJ">he wrote the famous poem</a> as early as 1808 and was never properly credited. Relatives of Livingston have claimed that his manuscript was brought to Wisconsin, where it was destroyed in a fire in 1847. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2000/12/24/who-was-that-poet-anyway/9fa4e99f-476d-467d-b586-1538f3f9ac50/">His defenders</a> point to similarities with other poetry and witty satires he wrote, and argue that his fun personality was much more in keeping with “A Visit from St. Nicholas” than Moore’s. His grandson, William Sturgus Thomas, spent years collecting evidence in his grandfather’s favor, and <a href="https://researchworks.oclc.org/archivegrid/data/58780316">his papers</a> are housed at the New York Historical Society.</p>
<h2>The story continues</h2>
<p>Every December, the Seminary library displays all the original copies of the poem we own in addition to more modern retellings and illustrations. Our copy of Moore’s 1844 “Poems” has one significant detail: it’s signed by Moore to the Reverend Samuel Seabury, who was a professor at General Theological Seminary and also the grandson of the first Episcopal American bishop, Samuel Seabury. The inscription says: “To the Reverend Dr. Seabury, with the respect of his friend the author, July 1844.”</p>
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<p>The library also owns Moore’s rare follow-up work, titled “<a href="https://gts.bywatersolutions.com/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=77412&query_desc=ti%2Cwrdl%3A%20the%20night%20after%20christmas">The Night after Christmas</a>,” which was published after his death in 1863. In this version, the children are visited by their doctor after having too many treats delivered by Santa – and the physician shares some similarities with Santa himself:</p>
<p>“His eyes how they twinkled! Had the doctor got merry?
His cheeks looked like Port and his breath smelt of Sherry… </p>
<p>But a wink of his eye when he physicked our Fred
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread…”</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Melissa Chim does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>‘A Visit from St. Nicholas’ is one of the most famous American poems. But who wrote it?Melissa Chim, Adjunct Professor and Reference Librarian, General Theological SeminaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1697212021-11-01T12:24:40Z2021-11-01T12:24:40ZWhat the ‘spiritual but not religious’ have in common with radical Protestants of 500 years ago<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429181/original/file-20211028-25-jfjjqp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C9%2C988%2C599&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Reformation's leading figures had diverse views, and some might have recognized themselves in "spiritual but not religious" people today.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.440991">Rijksmuseum</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For over a decade, one of the biggest stories in American religion has been <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/">the rise of the “Nones”</a>, a broad term for people who do not identify with a specific faith. The religiously unaffiliated now make up just over one quarter of the U.S. population. </p>
<p>While the Nones include agnostics and atheists, most people in this category <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2018/04/25/when-americans-say-they-believe-in-god-what-do-they-mean/">retain a belief in God or some higher power</a>. Many describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious,” or “SBNR,” as researchers refer to them. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.sksm.edu/people/christopher-l-schelin/">professor of theology</a> at a <a href="https://www.uua.org/">Unitarian Universalist</a> and multireligious seminary, I encounter many students who fit within the SBNR mold. They are studying to become chaplains, <a href="https://chaplaincyinstitute.org/why-interfaith/">interfaith</a> ministers and social activists. But they may be surprised to know how much they resemble certain Protestants who lived five centuries ago – some of the so-called <a href="https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-940474-15-4.html">radical reformers</a> who split off from <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-lasting-impact-of-luthers-reformation-4-essential-reads-105953">Martin Luther’s Reformation</a>.</p>
<h2>Spiritual but not religious</h2>
<p>Scholars fret over the <a href="https://nccc.georgetown.edu/body-mind-spirit/definitions-spirituality-religion.php">slippery definitions</a> of “spiritual” and “religious.” What the average person tends to mean by “spiritual” is seeking or experiencing a connection with a greater reality, however they understand it. Meanwhile, “religious” often means belonging to a group with specific doctrines and rituals.</p>
<p>The spiritual but not religious are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199341221.001.0001">independent seekers</a>, many of whom pray, meditate, do yoga and other spiritual practices outside the confines of a particular tradition.</p>
<p>The theologian <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=cByiqiMAAAAJ&hl=en">Linda Mercadante</a> spent several years interviewing SBNRs. In her book “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199931002.001.0001">Belief without Borders</a>”, she identifies some common values. SBNRs tend to be individualistic, trusting their own experience and intuition as a guide. They reject claims that any one religion contains the ultimate, exclusive truth, but they also believe religions possess wisdom and offer “<a href="http://www.worldwisdom.com/public/viewpdf/default.aspx?article-title=Paths_That_Lead_to_the_Same_Summit_by_Ananda_Coomaraswamy.pdf">many paths</a> to the same summit.”</p>
<p>Repudiating “organized religion” as a bastion of dogmatism and moral hypocrisy is common among SBNRs. They often <a href="https://collegevilleinstitute.org/bearings/listening-spiritual-religious/">explicitly reject</a> what they understand to be central Christian beliefs. They don’t welcome a message that God loves them but will send them to hell for not accepting Jesus. But many continue to experiment with rituals and prayers that draw on established religions, <a href="https://religionnews.com/2019/04/16/for-millennials-mysticism-shows-a-path-to-their-home-faiths/">including Christianity</a>.</p>
<h2>A Spiritual Reformation</h2>
<p>In 1528, Lutheran pastor <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sebastian-Franck">Sebastian Franck</a> decided he’d had enough of organized religion. Deeply disturbed by the moral failures of professing Christians, he resigned his pulpit. </p>
<p>The Protestant Reformation had recently split the Christians of Western Europe into various factions, pitting Roman Catholics against Lutherans, <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/moversandshakers/ulrich-zwingli.html">Zwinglians</a> – whose influence lives on in <a href="https://new.crcna.org/welcome/beliefs/reformed-accent/what-reformed">Reformed churches</a> today – and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Anabaptists">Anabaptists</a>, who practiced adult baptism. They couldn’t all be right, so Franck concluded they must <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=bN1PuDsP4ocC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=a%20letter%20to%20john%20campanus&f=false">all be wrong</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A crowd stands around a flame as a man burns papers in this black and white drawing." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429403/original/file-20211029-13-1r5g4ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429403/original/file-20211029-13-1r5g4ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429403/original/file-20211029-13-1r5g4ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429403/original/file-20211029-13-1r5g4ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429403/original/file-20211029-13-1r5g4ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429403/original/file-20211029-13-1r5g4ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429403/original/file-20211029-13-1r5g4ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Martin Luther, drawn here burning the pope’s threat to excommunicate him, is the most famous Reformation-era reformer, but there were many more.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector via Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Franck declared that the true church was the invisible fellowship of people who were instructed, not by the pope or the Bible, but by <a href="https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004393189/BP000007.xml">the divine spark</a> within. He became a leading figure in a form of radical Protestantism that scholars would later call the <a href="https://archive.org/stream/RenaissanceAndReformationWilliamGilbert1997/Renaissance%20and%20Reformation%2C%20William%20Gilbert%20%281997%29_djvu.txt">“Spiritualists”</a> or <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24934">“spiritual reformers”</a>. This diverse cast of characters downplayed or rejected the outward trappings of religion, such as rituals and sacraments. What really mattered was each individual’s direct encounter with God.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hans-Denck">Hans Denck</a>, who is sometimes credited as the first <a href="https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789047411048/Bej.9789004154025.i-574_008.xml">Spiritualist</a>, described this experience as the “inner Word” speaking from within a person’s soul. “The Word of God is already with you before you seek it,” <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=umpCQSQmsfMC&pg=PA107&lpg=PA107&dq=denck+%22The+Word+of+God+is+already+with+you+before+you+seek+it%22&source=bl&ots=rQYx8LlKaN&sig=ACfU3U2vZckP9juI-hnXIcidVyOl_gM7rQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiX0PeM_-3zAhXBneAKHUQ8CNMQ6AF6BAgCEAM#v=snippet&q=the%20word%20of%20god%20is%20already%20with%20you&f=false">he wrote</a>. Unlike typical Protestants, Denck and the other Spiritualists saw the Bible as redundant. Its purpose was to confirm what the believer already knew from the heart.</p>
<p>Because the inner Word resided within all human beings, certain Spiritualists held that salvation was not limited to Christians. </p>
<p>“Consider as thy brothers,” <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=umpCQSQmsfMC&pg=PA107&lpg=PA107&dq=denck+%22The+Word+of+God+is+already+with+you+before+you+seek+it%22&source=bl&ots=rQYx8LlKaN&sig=ACfU3U2vZckP9juI-hnXIcidVyOl_gM7rQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiX0PeM_-3zAhXBneAKHUQ8CNMQ6AF6BAgCEAM#v=snippet&q=%22consider%20as%20thy%20brothers%22&f=false">wrote Franck</a>, “all … who fear God and work righteousness,” even those who never heard of Christ. There was no need to send missionaries to other nations. They already had the Holy Spirit to teach and spiritually “baptize” them.</p>
<p>Partly because of persecution and partly because of their emphasis on the individual, the Spiritualists rarely formed structured communities. Today, they are mostly forgotten outside of church history courses. But their influence shaped the founding of <a href="https://quakerinfo.org/index">Quakerism</a>, a branch of Christianity that, to this very day, seeks the guidance of the <a href="https://www.pym.org/faith-and-practice/experience-and-faith/the-light-within/">inner light</a>.</p>
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<h2>What’s old is new again</h2>
<p>The parallels between the Protestant Spiritualists and <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/08/24/why-americas-nones-left-religion-behind/">many contemporary SBNRs</a> can be striking. Both are repulsed by the ethical failings and exclusivism of religious communities. Both emphasize the responsibility of the individual to follow their own spiritual quest. Both believe that authentic experience of God or ultimate reality is available to all people, regardless of their specific beliefs. Whereas Franck and Denck used the early printing press to spread their message, today a spiritual teacher might record a podcast or YouTube video.</p>
<p>But it is important to emphasize that the Spiritualists were still decidedly Christian. Contrary to most SBNRs, they considered Jesus Christ the authoritative revealer of truth. Some believed he would soon return to Earth for <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/millennialism/Millennialism-from-the-Renaissance-to-the-modern-world">his Second Coming</a> and waited as expectantly as any end times-focused fundamentalist does today. They may have seen other religions as valid paths, but they didn’t turn to them as resources for spiritual practice.</p>
<p>Even so, the Spiritualists demonstrate that the values and attitudes of SBNRs are far from a new development. They wrestled with similar difficulties in religion and came up with similar answers. As <a href="http://www.skylightpaths.com/page/product/978-1-59473-515-8">the spiritually independent continue to seek wisdom</a> and meaning, they can find good company in the radical reformers of a bygone age.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Schelin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>So-called Spiritualists split off from Martin Luther’s Reformation 500 years ago, but some of their ideas carry on.Christopher Schelin, Assistant Professor of Practical and Political Theologies, Starr King School for the Ministry Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1700772021-10-27T12:19:51Z2021-10-27T12:19:51ZIn Biden’s visit with the pope, a page from Reagan’s playbook?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428291/original/file-20211025-17-lnj3tp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=53%2C38%2C1943%2C1293&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pope John Paul II met with President Ronald Reagan in Miami in 1987.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/PopesandPresidents/15692286ae92405fa139bab157480ce2/photo?Query=reagan%20pope&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=41&currentItemNo=32">AP Photo/Arturo Mari, File</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Joe Biden, who will <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/14/politics/joe-biden-pope-francis/index.html">meet Pope Francis</a> at the Vatican on Oct. 29, is Catholic. The country’s’ first Catholic president, John F. Kennedy, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqvQEIchix4">visited the Vatican</a> too. But meetings between U.S. presidents and popes have been a staple of politics since the Kennedy era, whether the president was Catholic or not.</p>
<p>Woodrow Wilson was the first sitting president to meet a pope, <a href="https://www.rte.ie/centuryireland/index.php/articles/woodrow-wilson-becomes-first-us-president-to-visit-vatican-city#:%7E:text=Rome%2C%206%20January%201919%20%2D%20Woodrow,playing%20the%20American%20national%20anthem.">visiting Pope Benedict XV</a> amid peace negotiations after World War I. Dwight Eisenhower <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/john-xxiii/en/speeches/1959/documents/hf_j-xxiii_spe_19591206_usa.html">met John XXIII</a> as part of an international goodwill tour. Lyndon Johnson first <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGcLSSUns04">met with Paul VI</a> when the pontiff came to New York for <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/speeches/1965/documents/hf_p-vi_spe_19651004_united-nations.html">a historic address</a> at the United Nations in 1965. Richard Nixon twice met with Paul VI, despite the Pope’s clear <a href="https://thecatholicnewsarchive.org/?a=d&d=ca19671228-01.2.4&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN--------">opposition to the war in Vietnam</a>. Gerald Ford <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:President_Gerald_R._Ford,_Pope_Paul_VI,_and_Secretary_of_State_Henry_Kissinger_Examine_a_Silver_Eagle_Statue_in_the_Pontifical_Residence_at_the_Vatican_-_NARA_-_23898471.jpg">met with Paul VI</a> in 1975, and Jimmy Carter <a href="https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/eyewitness/html.php?section=21">greeted the new pope, John Paul II</a>, in 1979. </p>
<p>Those meetings all preceded the establishment of <a href="https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-the-holy-see/">formal diplomatic relations</a> between the United States and the Holy See, as the Vatican city-state is known in formal diplomacy. The two states finally exchanged ambassadors <a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1984/01/11/168525.html?pageNumber=1">in 1984</a>, under Ronald Reagan and John Paul II. Both were committed anti-communists, and their move to establish official ties marked an important geopolitical alliance.</p>
<p>In my research <a href="https://ctu.edu/faculty/steven-millies/">on the relationship between Catholicism and U.S. politics</a>, their partnership stands out as a turning point – and a boon for Reagan. At the time, he needed a Catholic ally, and found one in John Paul II. </p>
<p>And today, Biden faces a somewhat similar situation.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Pope Francis reaches up to shake the hand of Joe Biden, then vice president, in Congress." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428294/original/file-20211025-21-18q8y0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428294/original/file-20211025-21-18q8y0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428294/original/file-20211025-21-18q8y0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428294/original/file-20211025-21-18q8y0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428294/original/file-20211025-21-18q8y0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428294/original/file-20211025-21-18q8y0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428294/original/file-20211025-21-18q8y0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Joe Biden’s Oct. 2021 audience with Pope Francis will not be the pair’s first meeting. Here, the two shake hands before the pope’s 2015 address to Congress.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/BidenPope/c14de37987474fee8e25cc31dd204049/photo?Query=biden%20pope&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=115&currentItemNo=2">AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Common cause</h2>
<p>The Holy See has been an independent city-state <a href="https://vatican.com/The-Lateran-Treaty/">since 1929</a>, but in reality, the pope has been a head of state at least since the eighth century.</p>
<p>It is a unique situation: a religious leader functioning fully as a head of state. Yet the Roman Catholic Church occupies a unique place in world history. <a href="https://www.theglobalist.com/the-catholic-origins-of-globalization/">As the first global power</a>, the church has shaped world politics for centuries. Today the church is not only home to more than a billion believers, but it directly and indirectly supports <a href="https://blogs.shu.edu/unstudies/2017/10/31/the-role-of-the-holy-see-and-catholic-organizations-at-the-united-nations/">a tremendous amount of nonprofit work</a> around the world.</p>
<p>When Reagan formalized the long-standing U.S. diplomatic relationship with the Holy See in 1984, the church’s wide influence provided a good reason. But not the only one. </p>
<p>The previous year, shortly ahead of his reelection campaign, Reagan had reason to worry that Catholic voters might not support him. U.S. bishops had published <a href="https://www.usccb.org/upload/challenge-peace-gods-promise-our-response-1983.pdf">a pastoral letter</a>, “The Challenge of Peace,” which said that “good ends (defending one’s country, protecting freedom, etc.) cannot justify immoral ends (the use of weapons which kill indiscriminately and threaten whole societies).” It was a direct challenge to the Reagan administration’s arms buildup, which had <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-world-reached-the-brink-of-nuclear-war-not-once-but-twice-in-1983-68998">heated up</a> the Cold War. </p>
<p>The administration went to lengths to discredit the bishops, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1982/12/16/us/minuet-with-catholic-bishops-over-nuclear-war.html">suggesting they were out of step with the pope</a>. American public opinion was turning against the arms race, and Reagan needed a powerful ally who could help him <a href="https://litpress.org/Products/4467/Good-Intentions">hold on to Catholic voters</a>.</p>
<p>Reagan <a href="https://isi.org/books/a-pope-and-a-president/">found that ally</a> in John Paul II, who shared his wariness toward the Soviet Union. While the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1162/JCWS_a_00533">bishops’ pastoral</a> was being drafted – a process journalist Jim Castelli <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Bishops_and_the_Bomb.html?id=8ptsAAAAIAAJ">has traced in depth</a> – John Paul warned that the church must not call for the U.S. to disarm unilaterally. The Polish pope had experienced Soviet domination and hoped <a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bal-te.communism02apr02-story.html">to liberate the world</a> from communist influence.</p>
<p>Given the president and the pope’s common cause, Rome likely would be more sympathetic to Reagan’s perspective than the U.S. bishops. The U.S. established diplomatic relations with the Holy See eight months after publication of “The Challenge of Peace” and 10 months before the 1984 election. </p>
<p>Abortion politics <a href="https://litpress.org/Products/4467/Good-Intentions">heated up</a> in the run-up to the election, as pro-choice Catholic Mario Cuomo, the Democratic governor of New York, <a href="https://sites.middlebury.edu/presidentialpower/2015/01/02/why-didnt-mario-run-that-was-always-the-question/">considered running for president</a>. The Democrats eventually nominated Walter Mondale, with another pro-choice Catholic, <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/geraldine-ferraro-unprecedented-1984-campaign-vice-president-180975491/">Geraldine Ferraro</a>, as his running mate. Reagan, who positioned himself as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01707-1_7">pro-life</a>, focused attention on the issue in another effort to win back Catholic voters, one assured to carry approval from the pope. </p>
<p>Reagan won the 1984 election in <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/20079853">a historic landslide</a>. He carried 49 states and took the greatest share of <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Catholic_Voter_in_American_Politics/B9nFwo5B1BQC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA191&printsec=frontcover">the Catholic vote</a> that any Republican had won to that point in history.</p>
<h2>Another timely trip?</h2>
<p>Today, 37 years later, the Biden presidency faces its own Catholic dilemma – the latest chapter in a long struggle about Catholics in American public life, highlighting <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-bishops-set-collision-course-with-vatican-over-plan-to-press-biden-not-to-take-communion-162820">a deeper rift</a> between U.S. bishops and the Vatican. </p>
<p>Many U.S. bishops want to bar public figures from receiving the sacrament of Communion – the focus of every Catholic Mass – if they support the right to an abortion, which the church considers a grave sin. In 2019, a South Carolina priest <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/pastors-denial-eucharist-biden-stirs-recurring-debate">refused to offer Communion</a> to Biden because of the politician’s pro-choice stance.</p>
<p>In November, U.S. bishops <a href="https://www.usccb.org/events/2021/usccb-fall-general-assembly">will gather</a> to debate a document on “<a href="https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/what-is-at-stake-in-eucharistic-coherence/">Eucharistic coherence</a>,” which may contain instructions about who is eligible for Communion.</p>
<p>But the Vatican has all but urged the bishops <a href="https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2021-05/vatican-letter-ladaria-bishops-us-communion-politics-abortion.html">not to go ahead</a> with the document.</p>
<p>“I have never refused the Eucharist to anyone,” Pope Francis <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/15/world/europe/pope-francis-biden-abortion.html">told reporters</a> in September 2021, urging priests to think about the issue “as pastors” rather than from a political viewpoint.</p>
<p>As Biden prepares for his papal visit, the administration may have Reagan’s instructive history in mind. The president – like Reagan – may find a more receptive ear in Rome than at home.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Millies was a member of the Biden/Harris 2020 Campaign's National Catholic Advisory Council.</span></em></p>Joe Biden may be only the country’s second Catholic president, but a long line of U.S. leaders have met with popes over the years.Steven P. Millies, Professor of Public Theology and Director of The Bernardin Center, Catholic Theological UnionLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1685692021-10-21T13:03:34Z2021-10-21T13:03:34ZHow do you spot a witch? This notorious 15th-century book gave instructions – and helped execute thousands of women<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426808/original/file-20211017-13-1f32vd0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=77%2C38%2C5098%2C3220&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The 'Malleus Maleficarum,' a medieval handbook, was used to try and execute supposed witches. Its influence lasted for centuries – including at the Salem Witch Trials. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/copy-of-the-malleus-maleficarum-is-on-view-at-the-salem-news-photo/1229237900?adppopup=true">Jonathan Wiggs/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Books have always had the power to cast a spell over their readers – figuratively. </p>
<p>But one book that was quite popular from the 15th to 17th centuries, and infamously so, is literally about spells: what witches do, how do identify them, how to get them to confess, and how to bring them to swift punishment.</p>
<p>As fear of witches reached a fever pitch in Europe, witch hunters turned to the “Malleus Maleficarum,” or “Hammer of Witches,” for guidance. The book’s instructions helped convict some of the tens of thousands of people – <a href="https://theconversation.com/most-witches-are-women-because-witch-hunts-were-all-about-persecuting-the-powerless-125427">almost all women</a> – who were executed during the period. Its bloody legacy stretched to North America, with 25 supposed “witches” killed in Salem, Massachusetts, in the late 1600s.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://doi.org/10.31046/tl.v13i2.1941">a reference librarian</a> and adjunct professor at the General Theological Seminary in New York, I have the rare opportunity to hold <a href="https://gts.bywatersolutions.com/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=126371&query_desc=kw%2Cwrdl%3A%20Malleus%20maleficarum">an original copy</a> of the “Malleus” in my hands and share this piece of history with my students and researchers. Much has been written about the contents, but the physical book itself is a fascinating testament to history.</p>
<h2>Witches 101</h2>
<p>The “Malleus” was written circa 1486 by two Dominican friars, Johann Sprenger and Heinrich Kraemer, who present <a href="https://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/mm/index.htm">their guide</a> in three parts. </p>
<p>The first argues that witches do in fact exist, <a href="https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526137814">sorcery is heresy</a>, and not fearing witches’ power is itself an act of heresy. Part Two goes into graphic detail about witches’ sexual deviancy, with one chapter devoted to “the Way whereby Witches copulate with those Devils known as Incubi.” An incubus was a male demon believed to have sex with sleeping women.</p>
<p>It also describes witches’ ability to turn their victims into animals, and their violence against children. The third and final part gives guidelines on how to interrogate a witch, including through torture; get her to confess; and ultimately sentence her.</p>
<p>Twenty-eight editions of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Malleus-maleficarum">the “Malleus”</a> were published between 1486 and 1600, making it the <a href="https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/35002/341393.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">definitive guide</a> on witchcraft and demonology for many years – and helping the prosecution of witches take off.</p>
<h2>Targeting women</h2>
<p>The authors of the text reluctantly admit that men can be agents of the devil, but argue that women are weak and inherently more sinful, making them his <a href="https://theconversation.com/you-think-this-is-a-witch-hunt-mr-president-thats-an-insult-to-the-women-who-suffered-129775">perfect targets</a>.</p>
<p>Accusations were often rooted in the belief that women, especially those who did not submit to ideals about obedient Christian wives and mothers, were prone to be <a href="https://theconversation.com/most-witches-are-women-because-witch-hunts-were-all-about-persecuting-the-powerless-125427">in league with the devil</a>.</p>
<p>The authors detail “<a href="https://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/mm/mm01_11a.htm">four horrible crimes</a> which devils commit against infants, both in the mother’s womb and afterwards.” They even accuse witches of eating newborns and are especially suspicious of midwives.</p>
<p>Women on the fringes of society, such as healers in Europe or <a href="https://nyupress.org/9780814712276/tituba-reluctant-witch-of-salem/">the slave Tituba</a> in Salem, were convenient scapegoats for society’s ills.</p>
<h2>Hand-held history</h2>
<p>At the General Theological Seminary, anyone interested in examining our copy of the “Malleus” needs to make an appointment to visit the special collections reading room. Due to the book’s fragility, visitors are asked to wash their hands before touching it.</p>
<p>One striking aspect is its size. The “Malleus” is just under 8 inches long, with 190 pages – this book was meant to travel with its reader and be stored in a coat or bag. </p>
<p><a href="https://gts.bywatersolutions.com/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=126371&query_desc=kw%2Cwrdl%3A%20Malleus%20maleficarum">Our copy</a> is from 1492, and it was published by the famous bookbinder Peter Drach from Speyer, Germany. This makes it a rare example of “incunabula,” as scholars call European books published before about 1501 – the earliest period of printing.</p>
<p>After much wear and tear, this copy was rebound in leather in the 19th century. Small handwritten notes cover most of the pages. On page 48, for example, a reader numbered three points and wrote the words “delightful religious journey” on the opposite page. Numerous pages feature hand-drawn arrows pointing to paragraphs. </p>
<p>Another point to consider when looking at this edition is its provenance, meaning who has owned it over the years. This copy is originally from the collection of the Rev. <a href="https://www.episcopalhighschool.org/news-detail-heads--faculty?pk=901981">Edwin A. Dalrymple</a>, who was the rector of a school and Episcopal church in Virginia in the mid-19th century. The book moved from his shelves to the <a href="https://marylandepiscopalian.org/2020/10/28/from-the-archives-history-of-the-maryland-diocesan-archives/">Maryland Diocesan Library</a> until it entered our library system.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this “Malleus,” in addition to the text itself, is a bookplate pasted on its back cover. This bookplate states: “It was the handbook of the Witchcraft Persecution of the 15th and 16th centuries. This copy possesses much the same interest as would a headman’s ax of that date in as much as it has probably been the direct cause of the death of many persons accused of sorcery.” </p>
<p>It’s unclear who attached this statement, but its sentiment rings very true: The “Malleus” represents the power of ideas – for good or ill.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Melissa Chim is affiliated with the Atla Scholarly Communications and Digital Initiatives Committee. </span></em></p>Witch trials relied on a medieval text called the “Malleus Maleficarum” – a book this reference librarian can hold in her hands.Melissa Chim, Adjunct Professor and Reference Librarian, General Theological SeminaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1677602021-10-06T12:28:01Z2021-10-06T12:28:01ZBecoming a parent through surrogacy can have ethical challenges – but it is a positive experience for some<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424528/original/file-20211004-13-1ggnsgp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=47%2C31%2C5176%2C3554&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nurses holding babies born to Ukrainian surrogate mothers in capital city, Kyiv.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/nurses-hold-babies-as-foreign-couples-gather-to-collect-news-photo/1219071333?adppopup=true">Sergei Supinsky/ AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article was <a href="https://theconversation.com/pope-francis-called-surrogacy-deplorable-many-women-who-become-surrogates-feel-otherwise-while-the-parents-who-choose-it-find-it-humbling-and-miraculous-220761">updated on Jan. 10 2024</a>.</em></p>
<p>In her new book, actress Gabrielle Union became the latest celebrity to <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/you-got-anything-stronger-gabrielle-union?variant=39325216112674">discuss her decision</a> to become a <a href="https://time.com/6096588/gabrielle-union-surrogacy/">parent via surrogacy</a>. She joins the ranks of household names such as Neil Patrick Harris, Nicole Kidman, Kim Kardashian, all of whom have hired a surrogate to give birth to their future child. </p>
<p>The publicity Union generated about surrogacy <a href="https://www.today.com/parents/gabrielle-union-reveals-surrogacy-journey-heartbreaking-essay-t230825">reignited ethical questions</a> about this <a href="https://oneill.law.georgetown.edu/a-lack-of-consensus-around-surrogacy-regulation-at-the-national-level/">controversial</a> form of assisted reproduction that range from whether women should be able to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0963180117000445">sell their reproductive abilities</a> to what <a href="https://www.baylorpress.com/9781481310567/conceiving-family/">it means to be a parent</a>.</p>
<p>There is global disagreement about the ethics of surrogacy. Several <a href="https://surrogate.com/intended-parents/surrogacy-laws-and-legal-information/what-are-the-international-surrogacy-laws-by-country/">countries</a> have banned it, while others have limited its scope. In the United States, laws permitting surrogacy vary by <a href="https://surrogate.com/intended-parents/surrogacy-laws-and-legal-information/surrogacy-laws-by-state/">state</a>.</p>
<p>The legal range is due to ethical concerns, ranging from the potential <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8519.00331">exploitation</a> of surrogates to worries that surrogacy <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025292">negatively affects</a> the life of the resulting child.</p>
<p>In the decade that <a href="https://www.baylorpress.com/9781481310567/conceiving-family/">I’ve been researching this form of assisted reproduction</a>, I’ve discovered that surrogacy can be exploitative, but it can also be a positive experience when undertaken with appropriate societal support and when all participants practice mutual respect, kindness and empathy. At its best, it can also encourage people to adopt a more expansive view of what it means to be a family.</p>
<h2>Myths and fears</h2>
<p>One could argue that the concept of surrogacy dates back to a biblical story in the book of <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2016-18&version=NRSV">Genesis</a> in which Sarah, the wife of Abraham, <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/religion/articles/2008/01/25/why-scholars-just-cant-stop-talking-about-sarah-and-hagar">pleads with him</a> to have children with the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301577539_Hagar_the_Egyptian_Wife_Handmaid_and_Concubine">slave Hagar</a> because of Sarah’s inability to conceive. </p>
<p>Fast forward to modern times, and surrogacy is now performed predominantly in high-priced in vitro fertilization centers in one of two ways. In “traditional surrogacy,” the fertilized egg belongs to the surrogate. In “gestational surrogacy,” which is <a href="https://surrogate.com/about-surrogacy/types-of-surrogacy/what-is-traditional-surrogacy/">more common today</a>, the fertilized egg comes from either the intended mother or a donor. In both cases, that egg combines with a sperm to become an embryo that grows in the surrogate’s womb and not the intended mother’s.</p>
<p>Gestational surrogacy may be preferable because it allows intended mothers to maintain a genetic connection with their child. Others may prefer it because of fears that a surrogate could lay claim to the child <a href="https://www.americansurrogacy.com/blog/the-legal-and-emotional-risks-of-traditional-surrogacy/">with whom she had a biological connection</a>.</p>
<p>The fear that a surrogate will try to steal or adopt a child is one of many legal and ethical fears surrounding surrogacy. In the 1980s, the <a href="https://law.justia.com/cases/new-jersey/supreme-court/1988/109-n-j-396-1.html">Baby M Case</a> in the United States attracted much media attention because it tapped into these fears. In this situation, the surrogate named Mary Beth Whitehead attempted to retain custody of the baby she birthed. </p>
<p>The case fueled <a href="https://academic.oup.com/humrep/article/30/2/373/728908">a stereotype</a> of surrogates as emotionally unstable, defying the reality that surrogates undergo psychological testing before participating in a procedure.</p>
<p>Documented instances of surrogates retaining children are rare. Research shows that surrogates often experience pregnancy and birth differently than they did with their <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/humrep/dey048">own children</a>. They also often see themselves as <a href="https://california.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1525/california/9780520259638.001.0001/upso-9780520259638">heroes or gift givers</a> instead of mothers. </p>
<p>If the public perceives surrogates negatively, intended parents often fare no better. They are often categorized as selfish, desperate and filthy rich, especially when they choose surrogacy without a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/may/25/having-a-child-doesnt-fit-womens-schedule-the-future-of-surrogacy">medical reason</a>.</p>
<p>Those popular images of intended parents fail to account for the reproductive trauma many of them experience prior to turning to surrogacy. Psychologists have shown that the inability to start a family can be a form of <a href="https://www.apa.org/pubs/books/4317229">reproductive trauma</a>. The decision to hire a surrogate, then, is often the last option for parents who have tried everything else. What is seen as desperation, in other words, is actually, as <a href="https://www.baylorpress.com/9781481310567/conceiving-family/">I’ve proposed in my own research</a>, an attempt to write a happy ending to the story of their reproductive lives.</p>
<h2>Ethical concerns about surrogacy</h2>
<p>It is true that this way of becoming a parent is expensive, at least in the United States, where use of the technology routinely costs <a href="https://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/family-finance/articles/how-much-surrogacy-costs-and-how-to-pay-for-it">over US$100,000</a>. The cost is so extreme because intended parents pay health care fees for both themselves and the surrogate, many of which aren’t covered by insurance. </p>
<p>They also have to pay legal fees, agency fees, and compensate the surrogate, which alone can range from <a href="https://www.westcoastsurrogacy.com/become-a-surrogate-mother/surrogate-mother-compensation">$45,000 to $75,000</a>. Contrast that price tag to one in India prior to its ban on international surrogacy in 2015: Couples who traveled there could expect to spend between <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2010/04/surrogacy-tourism-india-nayna-patel/">$15,000 to $20,000</a> in total for their surrogacy journey.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424575/original/file-20211004-12705-rfkwei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Actress Gabrielle Union at Will Rogers State Historic Park, in Pacific Palisades, California." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424575/original/file-20211004-12705-rfkwei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424575/original/file-20211004-12705-rfkwei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424575/original/file-20211004-12705-rfkwei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424575/original/file-20211004-12705-rfkwei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424575/original/file-20211004-12705-rfkwei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424575/original/file-20211004-12705-rfkwei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424575/original/file-20211004-12705-rfkwei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Actress Gabrielle Union has raised important questions around the ethics of surrogacy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/gabrielle-union-attends-the-veuve-clicquot-polo-classic-at-news-photo/1344504189?adppopup=true">Frazer Harrison/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The extreme costs of surrogacy in the U.S. limits its availability to the wealthy and to high profile <a href="https://www.harpersbazaar.com/celebrity/latest/a25747609/why-kim-kardashian-is-using-a-different-surrogate/">celebrities</a> like Union, raising important ethical questions about whether this is an appropriate use of resources, especially given the possibility of adopting. </p>
<p>In addition to ethical questions about surrogacy’s relation to wealth, feminists are divided on how surrogacy affects women. Some feminists feel that <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3174860">surrogates have a right to choose what to do with their bodies</a>. Others object to surrogacy on the grounds that systemic oppression drives women into surrogacy; or that it’s unethical for women to sell their bodies, <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/wombs-in-labor/9780231169905">arguing that it parallels prostitution</a>.</p>
<p>Cases documented in <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2010/04/surrogacy-tourism-india-nayna-patel/">India</a> support these concerns. Investigative journalist <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-red-market-scott-carney?variant=32123686453282">Scott Carney</a> found one prominent Indian surrogacy clinic where surrogates were kept in crowded bedrooms on restricted diets and forced to have caesarean sections in order to streamline the labor and delivery process. </p>
<p>Scholars also worry about surrogacy’s <a href="https://www.cbc-network.org/issues/making-life/surrogacy/">impact on children</a>. Studies suggest that children of surrogates may <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/humrep/15.9.2041">struggle with their identity</a>, especially if those children <a href="https://theconversation.com/ive-been-following-families-in-open-adoptions-for-15-years-observing-adoptive-parents-struggles-to-share-painful-origin-stories-with-kids-138672">are not told of their origins</a>. </p>
<p>Extensive research hasn’t been conducted with children of surrogates. Research by social scientists studying children born via egg and sperm donation largely mirrors the findings of adoption research: Children have questions about their identity, and answers to these questions are often most accessible when children have access to those individuals who are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/humrep/15.9.2041">part of their birth story</a>. Yet agencies and governments rarely regulate how surrogates, intended parents and children interact following the baby’s birth.</p>
<p>Finally, many religious groups, most prominently <a href="https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20081208_dignitas-personae_en.html">Roman Catholics</a>, object to surrogacy because it results in the destruction of human embryos during IVF cycles and violates their theological conviction that life begins at <a href="https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20081208_dignitas-personae_en.html">conception</a>. Roman Catholics encourage heterosexual couples who cannot procreate via intercourse to adopt as an alternative.</p>
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<h2>The case for surrogacy</h2>
<p>Such objections might lead to the conclusion that there is never a reason to hire a surrogate. But this might be too simplistic. Even with the documented struggles on the parts of both intended parents and surrogates, many are profoundly grateful for the technology.</p>
<p>Intended parents often feel surrogates are “<a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520259645/birthing-a-mother">gifts from God</a>” who help them reach their dream of parenthood. Meanwhile, some surrogates believe their powers of procreation provide them with a unique opportunity to help others. Many surrogates see their ability to create life as a source of power, a profound act of altruism and part of their legacy. </p>
<p>When I spoke with a group of surrogates in Austin, Texas, while conducting research for my book, I found that their stories aligned with <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Surrogate-Motherhood-Conception-In-The-Heart/Ragone/p/book/9780367289249">the findings of other researchers</a> who discovered that many surrogates had positive experiences in which they experienced themselves as <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520259645/birthing-a-mother">heroes</a>. These women felt empowered because they helped infertile heterosexual couples and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6280596/">gay couples</a> create families. Without surrogacy, these individuals would have no way to have a genetic connection with their children.</p>
<p>The surrogates acknowledged that sometimes intended parents could be difficult, that pregnancy and labor could be challenging, and that it could be confusing when a checkout clerk at the grocery store asked what they were planning to name the baby.</p>
<p>Becoming a parent through surrogacy can, <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/wombs-in-labor/9780231169905">as Union explains</a>, be awkward and humbling, confusing and miraculous all at the same time.</p>
<p>But when surrogates and intended parents can act freely, out of a sense of religious calling and with <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520259645/birthing-a-mother">the support of society</a>, then there is the potential for them to discover that family is not just biological but also social and relational. In those encounters, many experience the technology as life-giving, both metaphorically and literally.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Danielle Tumminio Hansen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Surrogacy can be exploitative, but a theologian writes how it can also remind individuals that family is not just biological but also social and relational.Danielle Tumminio Hansen, Assistant Professor of Practical Theology & Spiritual Care, Emory UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1676872021-09-28T11:57:43Z2021-09-28T11:57:43ZLooking for transformative travel? Keep these six stages in mind<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422143/original/file-20210920-17-1mnr3ux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C31%2C2974%2C1993&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Indonesia has reopened tourism after intensified vaccination campaigns have helped control the spread of COVID-19.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/tourists-visit-one-of-the-largest-hindu-temples-in-the-news-photo/1235376076?adppopup=true">Feature China/Barcroft Media via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>An updated version of this article was published on July 14, 2022. <a href="https://theconversation.com/itching-to-get-away-this-summer-remember-the-six-stages-of-transformative-travel-186956">Read it here</a>.</em></p>
<p>After a cooped-up year, Americans are hungry to travel. Passport offices <a href="https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/how-apply/processing-times.html">are overwhelmed</a> with applications. In July, airlines scheduled and operated <a href="https://www.bts.gov/newsroom/air-travel-consumer-report-july-2021-numbers">the highest number of flights</a> since the pandemic began, according to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics. <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/22/national-parks-are-booming-that-may-ruin-your-next-trip.html">Record numbers</a> of travelers visited the U.S. national parks this summer, after <a href="https://www.nps.gov/subjects/socialscience/annual-visitation-highlights.htm">a nearly 28% drop</a> due to the pandemic. </p>
<p>But why do we travel in the first place? What is the allure of the open road? </p>
<p>As a professor of <a href="https://divinity.vanderbilt.edu/people/bio/jaco-hamman">religion, psychology and culture</a>, I study experiences that lie at the intersection of all three. And in my <a href="https://www.fortresspress.com/store/product/9781506472065/Just-Traveling">research on travel</a>, I’m struck by its unsolvable paradoxes: Many of us seek to get away, in order to be present; we speed to destinations, in order to slow down; we may care about the environment, but still leave carbon footprints. </p>
<p>Ultimately, many people hope to return transformed. Travel <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02508281.2017.1292177">is often viewed</a> as what anthropologists call a “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Arnold-van-Gennep">rite of passage</a>”: structured rituals in which individuals separate themselves from their familiar surroundings, undergo change and return rejuvenated or “reborn.”</p>
<p>But travelers are not just concerned with themselves. The desire to explore may be a defining human trait, as I argue <a href="https://www.fortresspress.com/store/product/9781506472065/Just-Traveling">in my latest book</a>, but the ability to do it is a privilege that can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2017.11.002">come at a cost</a> to host communities. Increasingly, the tourism industry and scholars alike are interested in <a href="https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cog/tri/2012/00000016/F0020003/art00003">ethical travel</a>, which minimizes visitors’ harm on the places and people they encounter. </p>
<p>The media inundate tourists with advice and enticements about where to travel and what to do there. But in order to meet the deeper goals of transformative, ethical travel, the “why” and “how” demand deeper discernment.</p>
<p>In writing “<a href="https://www.fortresspress.com/store/product/9781506472065/Just-Traveling">Just Traveling</a>: God, Leaving Home, and a Spirituality for the Road,” I studied travel stories in sacred scriptures and researched findings from psychologists, sociologists, ethicists, economists and tourism scholars. I argue that meaningful travel is best understood not as a three-stage rite but as a six-phase practice, based on core human experiences. These phases can repeat and overlap within the same journey, just as adventures twist and turn.</p>
<h2>1. Anticipating</h2>
<p>Traveling begins long before departure, as we research and plan. But anticipation is more than logistics. The Dutch aptly call it “voorpret”: literally, <a href="https://www.wordsense.eu/">the pleasure before</a>.</p>
<p>How and what people anticipate in any given situation has the power to shape their experience, for better or worse – even when it comes to prejudice. Psychology experiments, for example, have shown that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000899">when children anticipate greater cooperation between groups</a>, it can reduce their bias in favor of their own group.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://iep.utm.edu/phenom/">phenomenology</a>, a branch of philosophy that studies human experience and consciousness, emphasizes that <a href="http://ummoss.org/gall17varela.pdf">anticipation is also “empty”</a>: our conscious intentions and expectations of what’s to come could be fulfilled or dashed by a future moment. </p>
<p>With that in mind, travelers should try to remain open to uncertainty and even disappointment.</p>
<h2>2. Leaving</h2>
<p>Leaving can awaken deep emotions that are tied to our earliest experiences of separation. The attachment styles psychologists study in infants, which shape how secure people feel in their relationships, <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-attachment-and-how-does-it-affect-our-relationships-120503">continue to shape us as adults</a>. These experiences can also affect how comfortable people feel <a href="https://www.proquest.com/openview/cdd5594c53a7864881fb71e54a7422f1/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1819046">exploring new experiences</a> and leaving home, which can affect how they travel.</p>
<p>Some travelers leave with excitement, while others experience <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0047287520966392">hesitation or guilt</a> before the relief and excitement of departure. Mindfulness about the stages of travel can help people <a href="https://web.a.ebscohost.com/abstract?direct=true&profile=ehost&scope=site&authtype=crawler&jrnl=1931311X&asa=Y&AN=31381043&h=nduDC2UXNGxscORELrBj%2fjZ6b4Xdbo4r5mkTwNhY2n2D7Oi0KAOPOw%2fsqhqshijmc4%2bMd%2fLjR2%2b3rONsdCopzg%3d%3d&crl=c&resultNs=AdminWebAuth&resultLocal=ErrCrlNotAuth&crlhashurl=login.aspx%3fdirect%3dtrue%26profile%3dehost%26scope%3dsite%26authtype%3dcrawler%26jrnl%3d1931311X%26asa%3dY%26AN%3d31381043">manage anxiety</a>.</p>
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<img alt="Mask-clad passengers pass through an airport arrival hall in Lisbon, Portugal in September 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423194/original/file-20210924-46597-1r365j1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423194/original/file-20210924-46597-1r365j1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423194/original/file-20210924-46597-1r365j1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423194/original/file-20210924-46597-1r365j1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423194/original/file-20210924-46597-1r365j1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423194/original/file-20210924-46597-1r365j1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423194/original/file-20210924-46597-1r365j1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Travel has picked up since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. For many people, taking a trip prompts anxiety as well as excitement.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/mask-clad-travelers-and-people-waiting-for-arriving-news-photo/1338516440?adppopup=true">Horacio Villalobos/Corbis News via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>3. Surrendering</h2>
<p>Travelers cannot control their journey: A flight is canceled, or a vehicle breaks down; the weather report predicts sunshine, but it rains for days on end. To some extent, they have to surrender to the unknown.</p>
<p>Modern Western cultures tend to see “surrendering” as something negative – as hoisting a white flag. But as a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00107530.1990.10746643">therapeutic concept</a>, surrendering helps people let go of inhibiting habits, discover a sense of wholeness and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1215/10407391-2005-006">experience togetherness</a> with others. The perfectionist learns that a changed itinerary doesn’t mean a diminished travel experience and lets go of their fear of failure. The person with a strong sense of independence grows in vulnerability as they receive care from strangers.</p>
<p>In fact, some psychological theories hold that the self longs for surrender, in the sense of liberation: letting down its defensive barriers and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0022167820975636">finding freedom</a> from attempts to control one’s surroundings. Embracing that view can help travelers cope with the reality that things may not go according to plan.</p>
<h2>4. Meeting</h2>
<p>Meeting, traveling’s fourth phase, is the invitation to discover oneself and others anew. </p>
<p>All cultures have unconscious “<a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Location-of-Culture/Bhabha/p/book/9780415336390">rules of recognition</a>,” their own ingrained customs and ways of thinking, making it more difficult to forge cross-cultural connections. Carrying <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Serene-Tse-2/publication/347739970_Assessing_explicit_and_implicit_stereotypes_in_tourism_self-reports_and_implicit_association_test/links/60ad92f1299bf13438e82cbe/Assessing-explicit-and-implicit-stereotypes-in-tourism-self-reports-and-implicit-association-test.pdf">conscious and unconscious stereotypes</a>, travelers may see some people and places as uneducated, dangerous, poor or <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/su12229405">sexual</a>, while hosts may see travelers as rich, ignorant and exploitable. </p>
<p>Going beyond such stereotypes requires that travelers be mindful of behaviors that can add tension to their interactions – knowing conversational topics to avoid, for example, or following local dress codes.</p>
<p>In many parts of the world, those challenges are intensified <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1468797603049658">by the legacy of colonization</a>, which makes it harder for people to meet in authentic ways. Colonial views still influence Western perceptions of nonwhite groups as <a href="https://hrcak.srce.hr/index.php?show=clanak&id_clanak_jezik=80794">exotic</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2012.762688">dangerous</a> and inferior.</p>
<p>Starting to overcome these barriers demands an attitude known as <a href="https://melanietervalon.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/CulturalHumility_Tervalon-and-Murray-Garcia-Article.pdf">cultural humility</a>, which is deeper than “cultural competence” – simply knowing about a different culture. Cultural humility helps travelers ask questions like, “I don’t know,” “Please help me understand” or “How should I…” </p>
<h2>5. Caring</h2>
<p>Caring involves overcoming “<a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003070672/moral-boundaries-joan-tronto">privileged irresponsibility</a>”: when a traveler does not recognize their own privilege and take responsibility for it, or does not recognize other people’s lack of privilege.</p>
<p>[<em>3 media outlets, 1 religion newsletter.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/this-week-in-religion-76/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=religion-3-in-1">Get stories from The Conversation, AP and RNS.</a>]</p>
<p>Travel becomes irresponsible when tourists ignore injustices and inequities they witness or the way their travels contribute to the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/TR-03-2017-0066">unfolding climate crisis</a>. Ethically, “empathy” is not enough; travelers must pursue solidarity, as an act of “<a href="https://www.fortresspress.com/store/product/9781506472065/Just-Traveling">caring with</a>.” That might mean hiring local guides, eating in family-owned restaurants and being mindful of the resources like food and water that they use. </p>
<h2>6. Returning</h2>
<p>Travels do end, and returning home can be <a href="https://doi.org/10.4337/9781786438577.00025">a disorienting experience</a>. </p>
<p>Coming back can cause <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/90015633">reverse culture shock</a> if travelers struggle to readjust. But that shock can diminish as travelers share their experiences with others, stay connected to the places they visited, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2016.05.004">deepen their knowledge</a> about the place and culture, anticipate a possible return trip or get involved in causes that they discovered on their trip.</p>
<p>I believe that reflecting on these six phases can invite the kind of mindfulness needed for transformative, ethical travel. And <a href="https://www.scielo.br/j/aabc/a/76CfqdL5pPBZLcQy9FdWwxn/?lang=en&format=html">amid a pandemic</a>, the need for thoughtful travel that prioritizes host communities’ well-being is clear. </p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jaco J. Hamman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>COVID-19 has intensified wanderlust – but also the need for mindful, ethical travel.Jaco J. Hamman, Professor of Religion, Psychology and Culture, Vanderbilt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1672412021-09-07T12:53:44Z2021-09-07T12:53:44ZWhen does life begin? There’s more than one religious view<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419172/original/file-20210902-27-p91yt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=99%2C0%2C5866%2C4010&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People protest in Texas after the governor signed a bill to outlaw abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/protesters-march-toward-the-governors-mansion-at-a-protest-news-photo/1233171885?adppopup=true">Sergio Flores/Getty Images News via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The most restrictive abortion law in the country went into effect on Sept. 1, 2021, after the U.S. Supreme Court <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21053670-whole-womans-health-v-jackson">voted 5-4</a> to deny an emergency appeal. In Texas, abortions are now illegal as early as six weeks into a pregnancy — before many women and girls know they are pregnant.</p>
<p>To date, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/abortion-laws-government-and-politics-health-77c9ba98c4f4ab46fdbd5bcc47b5b938">13 other states</a> have passed laws establishing this six-week limit, but they face court challenges for state interference in women’s constitutionally protected right to terminate a pregnancy.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2021/05/18/texas-heartbeat-bill-abortions-law/">Texas got around that problem</a> by forbidding state officials from enforcing it. Instead, the state authorized private citizens to sue anyone who helps these women — family members, rape crisis counselors, medical professionals — and promises at least US$10,000 plus attorneys’ fees if they win. Opponents have dubbed it the <a href="https://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/planned-parenthood-seeks-immediate-restraining-order-against-texas-right-to-life">“sue thy neighbor”</a> law.</p>
<p>These so-called heartbeat bills outlaw abortion after an embryo’s cardiac activity can be detected – generally around six weeks – although <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/05/abortion-doctors-fetal-heartbeat-bills-language-misleading">many doctors</a> argue that <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/the-fetal-heartbeat-that-can-be-detected-at-6-weeks-isn-t-quite-what-we-think">the idea of a heartbeat</a> at this stage is misleading since the embryo does not yet have a developed heart.</p>
<p>In addition, these laws generally refer to the fetus as an “<a href="https://www.scstatehouse.gov/sess124_2021-2022/bills/1.htm">unborn human individual</a>.” These are strategic choices designed to muster support for the idea of <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/the-personhood-movement-timeline">fetal personhood</a>, but they also reveal assumptions about human life beginning at conception that are based on particular Christian teachings.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/in-texas-reproductive-freedom-congregations-catch-on-as-new-abortion-law-looms/2021/08/25/851b2a78-05fb-11ec-b3c4-c462b1edcfc8_story.html">Not all Christians agree</a>, and <a href="https://slate.com/human-interest/2017/04/when-does-life-begin-outside-the-christian-right-the-answer-is-over-time.html">diverse religious traditions</a> have a great deal to say about this question that gets lost in the polarized “pro-life” or “pro-choice” debate. As an advocate of reproductive justice, I have taken a side. Yet as a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=9KgEkVUAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">scholar of Jewish Studies</a>, I appreciate how rabbinic sources grapple with the complexity of the issue and offer <a href="https://forward.com/life/faith/406465/what-youre-getting-wrong-about-abortion-and-judaism/">multiple perspectives</a>. </p>
<h2>What Jewish texts say</h2>
<p>Traditional Jewish practice is based on careful reading of biblical and rabbinic teachings. The process yields <a href="https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Halakha">“halakha,”</a> generally translated as “Jewish law” but deriving from the Hebrew root for walking a path. </p>
<p>Even though many Jews do not feel bound by halakha, the value it attaches to ongoing study and reasoned argument fundamentally shapes Jewish thought. </p>
<p>The majority of foundational Jewish texts assert that a <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=xh9vy_dvO6YC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=absence%20of%20the%20%22full%20person%22%20status&f=false">fetus does not attain the status of personhood until birth</a>.</p>
<p>Although the Hebrew Bible does not mention abortion, it does talk about miscarriage in Exodus <a href="https://www.biblestudytools.com/rsv/exodus/21.html">21:22-25</a>. It imagines the case of men fighting, injuring a pregnant woman in the process. If she miscarries but suffers no additional injury, the penalty is a fine. </p>
<p>Since the death of a person would be murder or manslaughter, and carry a different penalty, most rabbinic sources deduce from these verses that a fetus has a different status. </p>
<p>An early, authoritative rabbinic work, the Mishnah, discusses the question of a <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Oholot.7.6?lang=bi">woman in distress during labor</a>. If her life is at risk, the fetus must be destroyed to save her. Once its head starts to emerge from the birth canal, however, it becomes a human life, or “<em>nefesh</em>.” At that point, according to Jewish law, one must try to save both mother and child. It prohibits setting aside one life for the sake of another.</p>
<p>Although this passage reinforces the idea that a fetus is not yet a human life, <a href="http://traditionarchive.org/news/originals/Volume%2010/No.%202/Abortion%20in%20Halakhic.pdf">some Orthodox authorities</a> allow abortion only when the mother’s life is at risk. </p>
<p>Other Jewish scholars point to a different Mishnah passage that imagines a case of a pregnant woman <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Arakhin.1.4?lang=bi">sentenced to death</a>. The execution would not be delayed unless she has already gone into labor.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275207/original/file-20190517-69204-193eh8f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275207/original/file-20190517-69204-193eh8f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275207/original/file-20190517-69204-193eh8f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275207/original/file-20190517-69204-193eh8f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275207/original/file-20190517-69204-193eh8f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275207/original/file-20190517-69204-193eh8f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275207/original/file-20190517-69204-193eh8f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Traditional Jewish practice, or halakha, is based on careful reading of biblical and rabbinic teachings, like the Talmud.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Talmud_Set.png">User:Magister Scienta</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>In the <a href="https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Talmud">Talmud</a>, an extensive collection of teachings building on the Mishnah, the rabbis suggest that the ruling is obvious because the fetus is <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Arakhin.7a?lang=bi">part of her body</a>. It also records an opinion that the fetus should be aborted before the sentence is carried out so that the woman does <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Birth_Control_in_Jewish_Law/ZWQ0iIOUnaUC?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=precedent-narrative">not suffer further shame</a> – establishing the needs of the woman as a factor in considering abortion.</p>
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<h2>Making space for divergent opinions</h2>
<p>These teachings represent only a small fraction of Jewish interpretations. To discover “what Judaism says” about abortion, the standard approach is to <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/58044.26?lang=bi">study a variety of contrasting texts</a> that explore diverse perspectives.</p>
<p>Over the centuries, rabbis have addressed cases related to potentially deformed fetuses, pregnancy as the result of rape or adultery, and other heart-wrenching decisions that women and families have faced. </p>
<p>In contemporary Jewish debate there are <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=rIhh_Rx7utwC&pg=PA28&lpg=PA28&dq=%22The+murder+of+an+unborn+child+is+classified+as+a+crime%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=GDVR3Ndm4V&sig=HIMz-n5TMbuAfO-joplDqYphCwc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjk5aCm5YDcAhVkrlkKHU7yAy0Q6AEIKTAA">stringent opinions</a> adopting the attitude that abortion is homicide – thus permissible only to save the mother’s life. And there are <a href="http://rcrc.org/jewish/">lenient interpretations</a> broadly expanding justifications based on a women’s well-being.</p>
<p>Yet the former usually cite contrary opinions, or even refer a questioner to inquire elsewhere. The latter still emphasize Judaism’s profound reverence for life.</p>
<p>According to a 2017 Pew survey, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/22/american-religious-groups-vary-widely-in-their-views-of-abortion/">83% of American Jews</a> believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/abortion-in-jewish-thought/">All the non-Orthodox movements</a> have statements supporting reproductive rights, and even <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/abortion-in-jewish-thought/">ultra-Orthodox leaders</a> have resisted anti-abortion measures that do not allow religious exceptions. </p>
<p>This broad support, I argue, reveals the <a href="https://forward.com/opinion/393168/why-are-jews-so-pro-choice/">Jewish commitment to the separation of religion and state</a> in the U.S., and a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0748081400001387">reluctance to legislate</a> moral questions for everyone when there is much room for debate.</p>
<p>There is more than one religious view on abortion.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/there-is-more-than-one-religious-view-on-abortion-heres-what-jewish-texts-say-116941">an article</a> originally published on May 19, 2019.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Mikva has contributed to the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and Planned Parenthood.</span></em></p>‘Heartbeat’ abortion laws like the one enacted in Texas are often based on particular Christian views, but there are many religious perspectives on abortion. What do Jewish texts say?Rachel Mikva, Professor of Jewish Studies, Interim Academic Dean and Vice-President for Academic Affairs, Chicago Theological SeminaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1623342021-09-03T12:37:44Z2021-09-03T12:37:44ZSlavery was the ultimate labor distortion – empowering workers today would be a form of reparations<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418876/original/file-20210901-16-nd6f8p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4308%2C2360&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Labor violations disproportionately affect Black Americans.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/labor-groups-and-workers-including-john-beard-with-the-la-news-photo/567385215?adppopup=true">Katie Falkenberg/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The conversation about reparations for slavery entered a new stage earlier in 2021, with the U.S. House Judiciary Committee <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/04/14/986853285/house-lawmakers-advance-historic-bill-to-form-reparations-commission">voting for the creation of a commission</a> to address the matter.</p>
<p>The bill, <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/40">H.R. 40</a>, has been introduced every Congress since 1989 by Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee and John Conyers, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/10/27/773919009/john-conyers-jr-who-represented-michigan-for-5-decades-dies-at-90">until his death in 2019</a>. But this year marks the first time that its request to study and develop reparation proposals for African Americans has cleared the committee stage. </p>
<p>Calls to redress the lasting impact of slavery and racial discrimination have been amplified recently following further evidence of the impact of systemic racism – both through the <a href="https://covidtracking.com/race">disproportionate effect of COVID-19 on the Black community</a> and the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others at the hands of U.S. police.</p>
<h2>Disruption of labor relations</h2>
<p>To many, the question going forward is not so much whether or not reparations are in order, but what kinds of reparations might be appropriate.</p>
<p>Most of the conversation to date has focused on reparations in terms of payouts of some form. Prominent author <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/">Ta-Nehisi Coates</a>, in a powerful argument for reparations, said payments must be made by white America to Black America – much as <a href="https://qz.com/1915185/how-germany-paid-reparations-for-the-holocaust/">Germany started paying Israel in 1952</a> to compensate for the persecution of Jews by the Nazis.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://divinity.vanderbilt.edu/people/bio/joerg-rieger">scholar who has written on economic justice and the labor movement</a>, I agree that reparations must have economic substance, because the impact of racism is inherently linked with power and money. But my <a href="https://chalicepress.com/products/unified-we-are-a-force">research suggests another model</a> for reparations: If one of the most significant aspects of slavery – even if not the only one – was a massive disruption of labor relations, then a crucial part in the reparations discussion could involve reshaping the labor relationship between employers and employees today. </p>
<p>I believe such a reshaping of the labor relationship would substantially benefit the descendants of enslaved people in the United States. Labor, as my research has argued, has implications for all aspects of life and labor reform would, I believe, address many of the problems of structural racism as well. In addition, reshaping the labor relationship would also have positive effects for all working people, <a href="https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/2018/findings/country-studies/united-states/">including those who still experience enslavement today</a>. </p>
<h2>Growing racial wage gap</h2>
<p>Labor relations can be considered “distorted” when one party profits disproportionally at the expense of another. In other words, it is a departure from a “<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/26159/26159-h/26159-h.htm">fair day’s pay for a fair days’s work</a>” – a concept that forms a bedrock demand of the labor movement, alongside good working conditions.</p>
<p>This is not just a matter of money but also of power. Under the conditions of slavery, the distortion of labor relations was nearly complete. Slave owners pocketed the profits and claimed absolute power, while slaves had to obey and risk life and limb for no compensation.</p>
<p>Black Americans continue to be disadvantaged in the labor market today. As CEO compensation <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-surged-14-in-2019-to-21-3-million-ceos-now-earn-320-times-as-much-as-a-typical-worker/">soars</a>, the number of Black CEOs remains remarkably low – there were just <a href="https://fortune.com/longform/fortune-500-black-ceos-business-history/">four Black CEOs at Fortune 500 companies</a> as of March 2021. In general, the wage gap between Black and white employees <a href="https://www.epi.org/blog/black-white-wage-gaps-are-worse-today-than-in-2000/">has grown in recent years</a>. Fueling these disparities, as well as building on them, is the structural racism that reparations could be designed to address.</p>
<p>Unionization can be a tool to rebalance labor relations and can <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4300995/">diminish this racial gap</a>, <a href="https://cepr.net/report/black-workers-unions-and-inequality/#five">studies have shown</a>. But union membership in general – and among Black workers in particular – has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/01/22/workers-are-fired-up-union-participation-is-still-decline-new-statistics-show/">declined in recent decades</a>. And a weaker labor movement is associated, studies show, with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/663673">greater racial wage disparity</a>. </p>
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<img alt="Black members of the Domestic Workers Union Members march down a road in protest." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418983/original/file-20210901-13-vcj2s3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418983/original/file-20210901-13-vcj2s3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418983/original/file-20210901-13-vcj2s3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418983/original/file-20210901-13-vcj2s3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418983/original/file-20210901-13-vcj2s3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418983/original/file-20210901-13-vcj2s3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418983/original/file-20210901-13-vcj2s3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Unionization can help reduce the racial wage gap.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/domestic-workers-union-members-picketing-news-photo/534275792?adppopup=true">Joseph Schwartz/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Another tool to rebalance labor relations is worker-owned cooperatives, which have a <a href="http://johnjay.jjay.cuny.edu/newsroom/7396.php">long tradition in African American communities</a> as <a href="https://www.jjay.cuny.edu/faculty/jessica-gordon-nembhard">economist Jessica Gordon Nembhard</a> has noted. From early on, she points out, “African Americans realized that without economic justice – without economic equality, independence and stability … social and political rights were hollow, or actually not achievable.” Gordon Nembhard’s work also shows that such cooperatives were often fought and ultimately destroyed because they were so successful in empowering African American communities. </p>
<h2>A ‘more permanent’ solution</h2>
<p>Some in the labor movement are beginning to link reparations with union rights. Labor <a href="https://dsgchicago.com/">lawyer Thomas Geoghegan</a> has suggested that the proposed Protecting the Right to Organize Act, a bill before Congress that would strengthen workers’ rights and weaken anti-union right-to-work laws, should be viewed as “a practical form of Black reparations.” He argued in <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/160530/labor-law-reform-racial-equality-protecting-right-organize-act">an article for The New Republic</a> that wealth redistribution through union membership is “more permanent and lasting than a check written out as Black reparations, however much deserved, and far more likely to get a return over time.”</p>
<p>While there is considerable disagreement about the profits employers should be able to make from the labor of their employees, there is little disagreement about the wrongness of practices like outright <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/employers-steal-billions-from-workers-paychecks-each-year/">wage theft</a> – which today takes the form of employers not paying part or all promised wages or paying less than mandated minimum wage. Even those who rarely worry about employers making too much profit would for the most part likely agree that wage theft is wrong. Agreement on this matter takes us back to slavery, which might be considered the ultimate wage theft.</p>
<p>Addressing the ongoing legacy of slavery and systemic racism requires not only economic solutions but also improving labor relations and protecting workers against wage discrimination, disempowerment at work, and violations such as wage theft that <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/employers-steal-billions-from-workers-paychecks-each-year/">disproportionately affect workers of color</a>.</p>
<p>Reparations that fail to pay attention to improving labor relations may not achieve economic equality. The reparations paid to Israel by Germany, for instance, have not helped to achieve economic equality – the Israeli economy is still, alongside the U.S.’s, among the <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2015/05/21/news/economy/worst-inequality-countries-oecd/">most unequal in the developed world</a>, with the richest 10% of each country’s population earning more than 15 times that of the poorest.</p>
<p>Simple monetary payouts are not, I believe, sufficient to solve the problem of racial inequality. Wage theft can again serve as the example here. While repaying stolen wages – as <a href="https://apnews.com/article/76a9403fe9dc4c2daf8a52c38e16284c">New York state did in 2018</a> by returning $35 million to workers – is commendable, repaying stolen wages does not in itself change the skewed relationships between employer and employee that enable wage theft in the first place. Greater empowerment of working people is needed to do that.</p>
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<h2>Benefiting others as well</h2>
<p>So while redistributing money can be part of the solution, it may not go far enough.</p>
<p>Tying reparations to the improvement of labor relations – which can happen through the empowerment of working people or the promotion of <a href="http://www.usworker.coop/home">worker-owned cooperatives</a> – would not only help those most affected by wealth and employment gaps, Black Americans, it would also <a href="http://www.co-opsnow.org">benefit others who have traditionally been discriminated against</a> in employment, such as women, immigrants and many other working people. </p>
<p>Improving labor relations would address systemic racial discrimination where it is often most destructive and painful: at work, where people spend the bulk of their waking hours, and where the economic well-being of families and by extension entire communities can be decided.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joerg Rieger is supporting the work of worker cooperatives, including the Southeast Center for Cooperative Development, which is hyperlinked at the end of the piece. He is not on any of their boards and he is not receiving any remuneration.</span></em></p>Rebalancing labor relations so that workers are empowered would be an effective way to address racial wealth disparities and atone for the legacy of slavery, a scholar argues.Joerg Rieger, Professor of Theology, Vanderbilt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1648262021-07-23T12:13:15Z2021-07-23T12:13:15ZHow limiting Latin Mass may become the defining moment for Pope Francis<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412522/original/file-20210721-21-tb5cee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C213%2C4193%2C2611&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pope Francis is presiding over a divided church.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/pope-francis-celebrates-holy-mass-at-the-altar-of-the-chair-news-photo/1291196683?adppopup=true">Grzegorz Galazka/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Pope Francis took sudden steps on July 16, 2021, to curtail the <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/motu_proprio/documents/20210716-motu-proprio-traditionis-custodes.html">traditional Latin Mass</a>, in an abrupt reversal of his predecessor’s policy.</p>
<p>To non-Catholics – and many Catholics – the decision may seem on first glance to be a technical, even obscure action not worth very much attention.</p>
<p>But it sent <a href="https://www.ncregister.com/news/latin-mass-supporters-react-with-dismay-to-pope-s-severe-new-restrictions">shock waves through the Roman Catholic Church</a>. As a <a href="https://ctu.edu/faculty/steven-millies/">scholar who studies the Catholic Church</a>’s relationship to the world, I believe the move may be the most important action Francis has taken in an eventful papacy.</p>
<h2>A history of the Mass</h2>
<p>The Mass is the central act of Roman Catholic worship. During the earliest centuries of Christianity, there was <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15735a.htm">widespread variation in the Mass</a>. Local irregularities thrived at a time before printed books, and easy communication, were available.</p>
<p>But after the Reformation of the 16th century split the Western Church in two, the Roman Catholic Church regularized the form and the language of the Mass. At the <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15030c.htm">Council of Trent</a>, a gathering of Catholic bishops in northern Italy between 1545 and 1563 prompted by the rise of Protestantism, the Mass was codified. Disseminating the new rules to churches across Europe was made easier <a href="https://theconversation.com/on-the-reformations-500th-anniversary-remembering-martin-luthers-contribution-to-literacy-77540">with the help of the newly invented printing press</a>.</p>
<p>From that time, the ordinary celebration of the Mass followed a precise format that was set forth in printed books – and was always celebrated in Latin. </p>
<p>This Mass held firm in Catholic life for 400 years.</p>
<p>That was until the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2012/10/10/162573716/why-is-vatican-ii-so-important">Second Vatican Council</a> of 1962 to 1965. Also known as Vatican II, the council was convened to address the position of the Catholic Church in the modern world. Vatican II decreed that Catholics should be full, active participants in the Mass. Among other changes favoring that decree, the Mass was to be translated into local languages.</p>
<p>But before long, some Catholics began to express misgivings about the new rules regarding Mass, fearing that it changed too much by upending centuries of tradition.</p>
<p>One of them was French <a href="https://sspx.org/en/about/founder">Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre</a>, who refused to conduct the Mass in anything other than Latin, saying, “I prefer to walk in the truth without the Pope than to walk a false path with him.” On another occasion <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1991/03/26/rebel-catholic-archbishop-marcel-lefebvre-85-dies/a4c709d4-e672-4cb5-aa83-3786e2f31842/">he commented</a>: “Our future is the past.”</p>
<h2>How call to unity backfired</h2>
<p>In 1976, <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en.html">Pope Paul VI</a> <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/vatican/paul-vi-accused-archbishop-lefebvre-acting-antipope">suspended Lefebvre</a> from acting as a priest. Lefebvre responded by defying the pope to form his own school in Switzerland where seminarians could be trained in the pre-Vatican II Mass.</p>
<p>Paul VI’s successor, <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en.html">Pope John Paul II</a> tried to mend fences with Lefebvre and his followers, but ended up <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1988-07-01-8801120125-story.html">excommunicating him in 1988</a> after the aging Lefebrve ordained four bishops to continue his movement.</p>
<p>Lefebvre’s death in 1991 <a href="https://fsspx.org/en">did not end the movement</a> to return to the Latin Mass.</p>
<p>Although the traditionalist movement was not particularly large, it remained persistent. In 2007, <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en.html">Pope Benedict XVI</a> <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/motu_proprio/documents/hf_ben-xvi_motu-proprio_20070707_summorum-pontificum.html">expanded the use of the traditional Latin Mass</a>. In an <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/pope-france-traditionalists-deserve-place-church">apparent olive branch to traditionalists</a>, Benedict said at the time that everyone “has a place in the church.”</p>
<p>After consulting with bishops around the world, Pope Francis has now concluded that Benedict’s approach backfired. Expansion of the Latin Mass had, in Francis’ <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/letters/2021/documents/20210716-lettera-vescovi-liturgia.html">words</a>, been “exploited to widen the gaps, reinforce the divergences, and encourage disagreements that injure the Church, block her path, and expose her to the peril of division.” As a result, the pope announced rules including preventing bishops from authorizing any new group wishing to use the Latin Mass, requiring them to personally approve any use of the Latin Mass, and preventing groups wishing to use the Latin Mass from worshipping at regular churches. This is more or less a return to the conditions before Pope Benedict acted.</p>
<h2>‘What we pray is what we believe’</h2>
<p>The history of the Latin Mass controversy is important to understand the position in which Pope Francis found himself and the Catholic Church. But some other things are important, too.</p>
<p>There is a <a href="https://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/how-we-teach/catechesis/catechetical-sunday/word-of-god/upload/lex-orandi-lex-credendi.pdf">saying in Catholic theology</a>: “Lex orandi, lex credendi.” Loosely translated, it means that “what we pray is what we believe.”</p>
<p>This means that prayer and the Mass are not isolated realities. How Catholics conduct the Mass says something about what Catholics believe. And since Pope Benedict widened the Latin Mass’ availability, two different ways of praying had begun to signify two different, competing communities within the Catholic Church. </p>
<p>Many people prefer the Latin Mass purely for its beauty, and not all of those people are uncomfortable with Pope Francis’ leadership. But many traditionalists are, and their views are not confined to prayer and Mass. The worldview that many in the traditionalist movement share with someone like Archbishop Lefebvre, who supported such <a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1991/03/26/662091.html?pageNumber=32">far-right political leaders as Jean-Marie Le Pen in France, Spain’s Francisco Franco and Augusto Pinochet in Chile</a>, is very uncomfortable with the modern world. It does not fit with Francis’ vision of a Catholic Church aligned with open societies and on the side of the oppressed. </p>
<p>Traditionalists opposed to Pope Francis have <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2021/07/21/latin-mass-vatican-ii-pope-francis-241093">found a refuge inside communities that celebrate the Latin Mass</a>. It has insulated them from the direction in which Francis has been trying to take the church.</p>
<p>Restricting the traditional Latin Mass as he has, it seems that that Pope Francis is challenging traditionalists to be part of the same church as he is.</p>
<h2>Schism or not, a defining moment</h2>
<p>Some people have wondered whether Pope Francis <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/is-pope-francis-leading-the-church-to-a-schism-11626447418">will cause a schism</a>, a permanent division in the church, with the new ruling.</p>
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<p>That seems like the wrong question. In my view, the divisions were already there and would remain there whether or not Francis limited the traditional Latin Mass.</p>
<p>The church unity Pope Benedict had hoped would follow the expansion of the traditional Latin Mass has not happened, the Vatican has concluded. How traditionalists respond to Francis’ new restrictions will tell us much about the church’s future – and may prove to be the defining moment of the Francis papacy.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven P. Millies does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Pope Benedict XVI expanded the Latin Mass in 2007 in an olive branch to traditionalists. His successor hopes reversing that decision may better serve unity in the church.Steven P. Millies, Professor of Public Theology and Director of The Bernardin Center, Catholic Theological UnionLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1628202021-06-15T20:01:50Z2021-06-15T20:01:50ZUS bishops set collision course with Vatican over plan to press Biden not to take Communion<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406549/original/file-20210615-21-1v6bzcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C56%2C4173%2C3053&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Vatican has warned U.S. bishops not to deny Communion to President Biden.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/VaticanPopeBiden/8900b7d6a24d44c5b975f33a4feb21a6/photo?Query=Biden%20AND%20pope&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=106&currentItemNo=6">L'Osservatore Romano/Pool photo via AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/14/world/europe/biden-vatican-communion-abortion.html">rift between conservative American bishops and the Vatican</a> could be laid bare on June 16 as the <a href="https://www.usccb.org/news/2021/us-bishops-meet-virtually-june-16-18-assembly-be-livestreamed-and-live-tweeted">U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops meets</a> amid talk of a growing divide in the church over Pope Francis’ leadership.</p>
<p>During the virtual event, U.S. bishops are expected to approve a motion to begin drafting a document on “Eucharistic coherence” that would exclude Catholic political figures who support abortion rights from receiving Communion. </p>
<p>If they do proceed, the bishops will have opened a breach with Pope Francis and the Vatican, <a href="https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2021-05/vatican-letter-ladaria-bishops-us-communion-politics-abortion.html">which has all but instructed the bishops not to go ahead with the motion</a>. </p>
<p>They would also be putting the Catholic Church in the United States in unprecedented territory regarding its relationship with the wider Catholic community.</p>
<p>It all stems from a dilemma President Joe Biden poses for Catholic bishops. Many prominent Roman Catholics in public life – including Democrats such as Biden and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2021/05/02/pelosi-archbishop-communion/">House Speaker Nancy Pelosi</a> – support abortion rights. Yet the Roman Catholic Church teaches that abortion is the taking of a human life, no different from murder, and <a href="https://www.vatican.va/archive/cod-iuris-canonici/eng/documents/cic_lib6-cann1364-1399_en.html#TITLE_VI.">so grave a sin that it incurs an automatic excommunication</a>. This has led some bishops to grow concerned that a contradictory picture of Catholic faith is being presented to the public.</p>
<p>Their response is a pastoral statement on “Eucharistic coherence” that would instruct Catholics about when they should and should not receive Communion. The effect of that document would be to exclude Catholics like Biden and Pelosi from full participation in the church.</p>
<p>Communion, also known as the Eucharist, is the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-catholic-church-bans-gluten-free-communion-wafers-81062">central act of Roman Catholic worship</a>, in which Catholics receive bread and wine that they believe becomes the body and blood of Jesus Christ.</p>
<p>Church law particularly excludes from taking Communion those who are guilty of what is known as “<a href="https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1GCEU_enUS822US822&sxsrf=ALeKk01_DKSggHXXXnubRL67cN6Sw_gKlg%3A1620126811994&lei=WyyRYLKTPM7NtQac06O4AQ&q=code%20of%20canon%20law%20915&ved=2ahUKEwjyrPrY8q_wAhXOZs0KHZzpCBcQsKwBKAB6BAgcEAE&biw=1366&bih=625">manifest grave sin</a>.” This means no one who has committed a serious sin in a way that is publicly visible should receive Communion.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/468335-catholic-priest-was-correct-to-deny-communion-to-joe-biden-heres-why">bishops argue</a> that in supporting abortion rights, Democrats like Joe Biden have made themselves unsuitable to take Communion.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://ctu.edu/faculty/steven-millies/">scholar who studies Catholicism in political life</a>, I argue that the proposed pastoral statement reflects existing divisions inside the Catholic Church that have been heightened by the election of Biden as president. Moreover, it will serve only to deepen the divide.</p>
<h2>Greater authority?</h2>
<p>Joe Biden is <a href="https://www.christianpost.com/voices/the-greatest-commandment-has-guided-my-politics.html">a devoted Catholic</a>, attending Mass weekly and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/09/20/913667325/how-joe-bidens-faith-shapes-his-politics">carrying a rosary</a> everywhere he goes. He has talked many times about how important his faith is to him.</p>
<p>But his policy position on abortion jars with more conservative elements in the Catholic Church. In October 2019, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-joe-biden-was-denied-communion-at-a-church-126171">a priest declined to give Communion</a> to the then-presidential candidate when he presented himself at St. Anthony Church in Florence, South Carolina. The priest, who had never met Biden before, <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/politics/biden-denied-communion-mass-during-campaign-stop-south-carolina">told reporters</a>, “Any public figure who advocates for abortion places himself or herself outside of church teaching.”</p>
<p>The picture is not as clear as that priest suggests, and the Catholic Church’s history of dealing with Catholic public officials is more inconsistent. Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, for example, presided over a <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/06/15/bringing-justice-franco-era-crimes-spain">brutal regime of atrocities and torture</a> known throughout the world, yet he <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws5IDep_3TA">received a Catholic burial</a> in 1975 over which the archbishop of Toledo presided.</p>
<p>More pertinent to the Biden case, Pope John Paul II <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/editorial-john-paul-ii-model-abortion-debate">gave Communion in 2001 to Rome’s mayor, Franceso Rutelli</a>, who had campaigned to liberalize abortion laws. Likewise, Pope Benedict XVI gave <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/no-hard-line-pope-communion-pro-choice-pols">Communion to Rudolph Giuliani, Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry</a> – all of whom support abortion rights.</p>
<p>The reason the issue has come up now in the U.S. appears to be more about concerns among bishops over their waning influence.</p>
<p>Kansas City Archbishop Joseph Naumann, chair of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities and one of the main figures supporting a pastoral statement about Communion, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/health-coronavirus-government-and-politics-religion-22e0d1ba299fe8693013036e3cc85c81">told The Associated Press</a> in April, “Whether intentional or not, [Biden is] trying to usurp our authority.”</p>
<p>“He doesn’t have the authority to teach what it means to be Catholic,” Naumann <a href="https://apnews.com/article/health-coronavirus-government-and-politics-religion-22e0d1ba299fe8693013036e3cc85c81">continued</a>; “that’s our responsibility as bishops.”</p>
<p>Naumann may have reasons to be concerned. A 2019 poll found that <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/43041/survey-americans-dissatisfied-with-bishops-response-to-sex-abuse-crisis">63% of American Catholics have lost trust in Catholic bishops</a> because of their <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-catholic-churchs-grim-history-of-ignoring-priestly-pedophilia-and-silencing-would-be-whistleblowers-102387">handling of the ongoing crisis</a> of sexual abuse.</p>
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<p>To many Catholics, Biden’s presentation of Catholic faith as aligning with <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2021/04/29/biden-speech-congress-catholic-reaction-240557">racial justice, economic justice, climate justice and health care justice</a> offers a pointed contrast with bishops mired in scandal and unhappy about trends such as same-sex marriage in American culture.</p>
<p>Denver Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila wrote in mid-April about what he sees as <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2021/04/14/aquila-denver-eucharist-politicians-teaching-240396">the need to establish “Eucharistic coherence”</a> through a pastoral statement that would set out when someone like Biden should not present himself for Communion. It seems many bishops like Aquila see that as the solution to their dilemma over Biden.</p>
<p>But not all bishops agree. Approximately 70 of the nearly-250 bishops in the U.S. signed <a href="https://www.ncregister.com/news/fissures-on-holy-communion-some-bishops-push-back">a letter urging the bishops conference to slow down</a> and consider this pastoral statement and its effects more carefully. Yet the great majority of U.S. bishops are as <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2021/05/26/usccb-president-archbishop-gomez-eucharist-240755">undeterred by that letter</a> as they have been by urgings from Rome.</p>
<h2>Communion ‘not a prize’</h2>
<p>This proposal for a document about “Eucharistic coherence” will come before the <a href="https://www.usccb.org/">U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’</a> virtual meeting, being held June 16-18. But even if a pastoral statement is written, <a href="http://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/motu_proprio/documents/hf_jp-ii_motu-proprio_22071998_apostolos-suos.html">the conference has no authority to enforce it on any particular bishop</a>. The result would be an incoherent patchwork allowing each individual bishop to decide. Washington’s Cardinal Wilton Gregory already has indicated <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2020/11/24/cardinal-wilton-gregory-joe-biden-communion-dialogue">he will not prevent Biden from receiving Communion</a>. As such, the pastoral statement could serve only to highlight <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2021/01/27/bishops-joe-biden-inauguration-statement-vatican-usccb-239833">differences among many American bishops and the pope</a>.</p>
<p>It also could backfire as an attempt to wrestle back authority for U.S. bishops. A preelection debate over <a href="https://religionunplugged.com/news/2020/8/13/is-joe-biden-a-catholic-it-depends-on-who-you-ask">the sincerity of Biden’s Catholicism</a> proved divisive among the faithful. Biden, through Baptism and participation in the other sacraments, is a Catholic. There is no question about that.</p>
<p>Because it reflects intense divisions in the church, this effort to disqualify the president from the sacraments and the church are, I believe, a threat to church authority today. Nothing that furthers or deepens those divisions will help the bishops or the Catholics that they lead. And the growing visibility of the divide between U.S. bishops and the pope is a threat to the church itself.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/bishops-move-to-press-biden-not-to-take-communion-reflects-power-struggle-in-split-catholic-church-160157">article originally published</a> on May 5, 2021.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven P. Millies was a member of the Biden-Harris campaign's Catholic Advisory Council.</span></em></p>A debate over whether President Biden’s views on abortion disqualify him from taking Communion serves to expose a rift between US bishops and the pope, and is a threat to the church itself.Steven P. Millies, Professor of Public Theology and Director of The Bernardin Center, Catholic Theological UnionLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1624572021-06-14T12:28:50Z2021-06-14T12:28:50ZSouthern Baptist Convention’s focus on mission recalls history of promoting white dominance<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406025/original/file-20210613-21-8t30gv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C24%2C3252%2C2475&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">J.D. Greear, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, has called on the denomination to focus on its theological mission.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ReligionSouthernBaptistsMeetingFriction/5a63ed4ecfe4401f9cd2d857e951fcb8/photo?Query=Southern%20AND%20Baptist&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=552&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/Jay Reeves, File</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Rocked <a href="https://apnews.com/article/tn-state-wire-baptist-sexual-abuse-by-clergy-religion-02eed70aa285370d4419c8fb585e6e38">by controversies</a>, <a href="https://religionnews.com/2021/05/21/southern-baptist-decline-continues-denomination-has-lost-more-than-2-million-members-since-2006/">dwindling numbers</a> and <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/on-religion/the-fight-for-the-heart-of-the-southern-baptist-convention">internal divisions</a>, the Southern Baptist Convention will meet for its <a href="https://sbcannualmeeting.net/">annual meeting on June 15</a> under the banner: “We Are Great Commission Baptists.”</p>
<p>The slogan is notable not only for the unifying “we” but for the statement of intent regarding the SBC’s theological mission – the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-great-commission-and-why-is-it-so-controversial-111138">Great Commission</a>” refers to Jesus’ call in the Bible for his <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2028%3A16-20&version=NIV">disciples to spread the word</a> throughout the world.</p>
<p>Expounding on his choice of the motto for this year’s event, SBC President J.D. Greear remarked, “<a href="https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/2021-sbc-annual-meeting-to-remain-in-nashville-shift-venues/">I can’t wait to join brothers and sisters as we assemble to focus on the Great Commission and keep the Gospel above all</a>.”</p>
<p>His comments come after a number of prominent leaders left the SBC over social issues. In December 2020, several <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2020/12/23/black-pastors-break-southern-baptist-critical-race-theory/">influential Black pastors from the denomination</a> departed after all <a href="https://religionnews.com/2020/12/29/the-sbcs-critical-race-theory-debacle/">six Southern Baptist seminaries declared</a> critical race theory – which analyzes racism through the role of structures and institutions rather than individual prejudices – to be incompatible with the “<a href="https://bfm.sbc.net/">Baptist Faith and Message</a>” and antithetical to the Gospel. In the spring, <a href="https://baptistnews.com/article/why-beth-moores-departure-from-the-sbc-really-matters/#.YLegd_lKiUk">Beth Moore</a>, a widely popular writer and speaker, and <a href="https://religionnews.com/2021/06/02/russell-moore-parts-from-southern-baptists-professionally-and-personally/">Russell Moore</a>, not related, who was until recently the president of the SBC’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, left the denomination over its handling of issues including race, gender and sexual abuse.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://religionnews.com/2020/09/16/southern-baptists-warm-to-moniker-great-commission-baptists/">moniker</a> “Great Commission Baptists” – which some Southern Baptists have been using as an unofficial descriptor for nearly a decade – indicates a focus on theological purity over social divisions. Jason Allen, president of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, <a href="https://twitter.com/jasonkeithallen/status/1305882501110550528">tweeted in regard to the “Great Commission” moniker</a> that: “Geographically, it reflects our national identity. Missiologically, it states up front what most unites & animates us.”</p>
<p>But this mission orientation is not as neutral on social issues as it might seem. As a <a href="https://memphisseminary.edu/dr-janel-kragt-bakker/">scholar who studies the history of mission and evangelism</a> among white Protestants, I examine the connection between <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/sister-churches-9780199328215?cc=us&lang=en&">cultural imperialism and the modern Western missionary movement</a>. And Southern Baptist rhetoric about mission taps into a long history of promoting white dominance through religious means. </p>
<h2>‘Making disciples of all nations’</h2>
<p>William Carey, an English Baptist shoemaker, is often <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-bb/Christian+Mission%3A+How+Christianity+Became+a+World+Religion+-p-9780631236207">considered by historians</a> to have jump-started the modern Western missionary movement among Protestants with his 1792 manifesto, “<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/11449/11449-h/11449-h.htm">An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens</a>.”</p>
<p>In this widely circulated tract, Carey argued that Jesus’ words in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2028&version=NIV">Matthew 28</a> to “go therefore and make disciples of all nations” were not just a directive to Jesus’ contemporaries. Rather, they served as a command to modern-day Christians to spread the gospel around the world.</p>
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<img alt="An engraving of shoemaker turn missionary William Carey" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405999/original/file-20210612-15-cwu3t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405999/original/file-20210612-15-cwu3t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405999/original/file-20210612-15-cwu3t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405999/original/file-20210612-15-cwu3t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405999/original/file-20210612-15-cwu3t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405999/original/file-20210612-15-cwu3t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405999/original/file-20210612-15-cwu3t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">William Carey’s missionary beliefs were entwined with white supremacy thinking.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:William_Carey.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p>Carey urged Christians to “use every lawful method to spread the knowledge of [Jesus’] name.” </p>
<p>He advocated for Protestants in Europe and North America to borrow the capitalist model of the trading company to establish voluntary missionary societies dedicated to global evangelism. </p>
<p>But from the beginning of this movement, this missionary work was <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300171365/christian-imagination">intertwined with white supremacist beliefs</a> and the <a href="https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15798.html">exploitation of nonwhite bodies</a> that spurred Carey’s native U.K. into becoming a colonial superpower.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.zondervan.com/9780310830627/from-jerusalem-to-irian-jaya/">Carey convinced fellow Christians</a> to buy shares in his missionary venture, send his family and him to India on a merchant ship, and support him financially while he spread the Christian message among those he described as “heathens.” The return on investment would be the spiritual reward of following Jesus’ command while rescuing (black and brown) souls in foreign lands from eternal damnation.</p>
<p>Voluntary missionary societies like Carey’s sprung up all over Europe and North America in the 19th century with the intent of widening the boundaries of “Christendom.” But closely overlaid was the concept of “<a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9780230616493">civilizing” nonwhite people</a>. Many white Protestant Christians believed themselves to have not only the right, but the duty, to <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-kingdom-of-god-has-no-borders-9780190213428?cc=us&lang=en&#">expand their version of the “Kingdom of God</a>.”</p>
<h2>Southern Baptists and slavery</h2>
<p>Although <a href="https://www.orbisbooks.com/transforming-mission.html">Christian understandings</a> and <a href="https://www.eerdmans.com/Products/7562/migration-and-the-making-of-global-christianity.aspx">practices of mission are far from monolithic</a>, the Southern Baptist Convention was a direct descendant of the embrace of imperialism as mission.</p>
<p>Baptists first <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/baptists-in-america-9780199977536?cc=us&lang=en&">organized nationally</a> in the U.S. in the early 19th century in order to collectively support mission efforts both abroad and on the American frontier. Understanding salvation as the <a href="https://bfm.sbc.net/bfm2000/">rescue of an individual from eternal condemnation</a> through belief in Jesus, many Baptists focused on promoting individual conversions rather than challenging the social hierarchy or creating a more just society. In the South, evangelizing people who were enslaved was often encouraged <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/slave-religion-9780195174120?cc=us&lang=en&">as a means to keep them docile and compliant</a>.</p>
<p>The SBC, which <a href="http://www.baptisthistory.org/baptistorigins/southernbaptistbeginnings.html">was founded in 1845</a> in a split with Northern Baptists, owes its very existence to assumptions about the rightful dominion of white male Christians. </p>
<p>While the national Baptist body adopted a position of “neutrality” on slavery, in which they neither condemned nor condoned the practice, prominent Baptists in the South pushed the issue by demanding that slaveholders be eligible for missionary appointments. When Northerners refused, Southern Baptists split. They created the SBC for the express purpose of continuing the work of mission. </p>
<p>This pro-slavery legacy of the SBC continues to haunt the denomination, producing <a href="https://sbts-wordpress-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/sbts/uploads/2018/12/Racism-and-the-Legacy-of-Slavery-Report-v3.pdf">halting attempts to clear its name</a> while <a href="https://www.sbc.net/resource-library/resolutions/on-critical-race-theory-and-intersectionality/">evading systemic analysis of racism that is found in critical theory</a>.</p>
<h2>Continuing cultural imperialism</h2>
<p>It is important to keep this history in mind when considering the current agenda of the Southern Baptist Convention and other white Christians steeped in a legacy of cultural imperialism and white supremacy. Without an interrogation of the meaning of their rhetoric, current SBC appeals to the gospel message and an evangelistic mandate – as shown though the promotion of the “Great Commission Baptists” moniker – reinforce rather than challenge this legacy. </p>
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<p>The SBC maintains in its statement of faith, “The Baptist Faith and Message,” that the role of “missionary effort” is “<a href="https://www.sbc.net/about/">to win the lost to Christ</a>.” At the annual meeting in Nashville, the Southern Baptist Convention will likely adopt “<a href="https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/2021-sbc-book-of-reports-released/">Vision 2025</a>.” It is a plan that includes increasing missionary activity and <a href="https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/vision-2025-5k-new-congregations-reachable-if-churches-step-forward/">planting more churches</a> in a bid to retain more young people and stave off <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-End-of-White-Christian-America/Robert-P-Jones/9781501122323">ongoing numerical decline</a>.</p>
<p>But coming from an almost entirely white male SBC leadership, such rhetoric about “winning the lost” and “planting churches” may echo a familiar quest to regain cultural and political territory in theological terms.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Janel Kragt Bakker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The SBC is meeting amid divisions, controversy and dwindling numbers. But in pushing rhetoric over its theological mission, the denomination is tapping into a history of white supremacy.Janel Kragt Bakker, Associate Professor of Mission and Culture, Memphis Theological SeminaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1601572021-05-05T12:09:29Z2021-05-05T12:09:29ZBishops’ move to press Biden not to take Communion reflects power struggle in split Catholic Church<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398677/original/file-20210504-15-1cnnilo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=51%2C0%2C5751%2C3305&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Joe Biden's progressive values jar with the conservatism of some Catholic bishops.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/BidenCatholicBishops/6d0255c397814a4880e3833624decf66/photo?Query=Biden%20AND%20communion&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=4&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/Evan Vucci</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Joe Biden is the <a href="https://theconversation.com/60-years-after-jfk-biden-as-second-catholic-president-offers-a-refresh-in-churchs-political-role-148766">highest-profile and most powerful lay Catholic</a> in American life today – but he also holds policy views that diverge from many Catholic bishops. And that is causing some problems.</p>
<p>The dilemma looks like this. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that abortion is the taking of a human life, no different from murder, and <a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a5.htm">so grave a sin that it incurs an automatic excommunication</a>. Yet prominent Roman Catholics in public life – including Democrats such as Biden and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2021/05/02/pelosi-archbishop-communion/">House Speaker Nancy Pelosi</a> – support abortion rights. It has led to concern from some Catholic bishops that a contradictory picture of Catholic faith is being presented to the public.</p>
<p>In response, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/health-coronavirus-government-and-politics-religion-22e0d1ba299fe8693013036e3cc85c81">U.S. bishops reportedly are</a> preparing a pastoral statement expected to be released in June that would instruct Catholics about when they should and should not receive Communion. The effect of that document would be to exclude Catholics like Biden and Pelosi from full participation in the church.</p>
<p>Communion, also known as the Eucharist, is the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-catholic-church-bans-gluten-free-communion-wafers-81062">central act of Roman Catholic worship</a> in which Catholics receive bread and wine that they believe becomes the body and blood of Jesus Christ.</p>
<p>Church law particularly excludes from taking Communion those who are guilty of what is known as “<a href="https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1GCEU_enUS822US822&sxsrf=ALeKk01_DKSggHXXXnubRL67cN6Sw_gKlg%3A1620126811994&lei=WyyRYLKTPM7NtQac06O4AQ&q=code%20of%20canon%20law%20915&ved=2ahUKEwjyrPrY8q_wAhXOZs0KHZzpCBcQsKwBKAB6BAgcEAE&biw=1366&bih=625">manifest grave sin</a>.” This means no one who has committed a serious sin in a way that is publicly visible should receive Communion.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/468335-catholic-priest-was-correct-to-deny-communion-to-joe-biden-heres-why">bishops argue</a> that being pro-choice, Democrats like Joe Biden have made themselves unsuitable to take Communion. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://ctu.edu/faculty/steven-millies/">scholar who studies Catholicism in political life</a>, I argue that the proposed pastoral statement reflects existing divisions inside the Catholic Church that have been heightened by the election of Biden as president. Moreover, it will serve only to deepen the divide. </p>
<h2>Greater authority?</h2>
<p>Joe Biden is <a href="https://www.christianpost.com/voices/the-greatest-commandment-has-guided-my-politics.html">a devoted Catholic</a>, attending Mass weekly and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/09/20/913667325/how-joe-bidens-faith-shapes-his-politics">carrying a rosary</a> everywhere he goes. He has talked many times about how important his faith is to him.</p>
<p>But his policy position on abortion jars with more conservative elements in the Catholic Church. In October 2019, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-joe-biden-was-denied-communion-at-a-church-126171">a priest declined to give Communion</a> to the then-presidential candidate when he presented himself at St. Anthony Church in Florence, South Carolina. The priest, who had never met Biden before, <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/politics/biden-denied-communion-mass-during-campaign-stop-south-carolina">told reporters</a>, “Any public figure who advocates for abortion places himself or herself outside of church teaching.”</p>
<p>The picture is not as clear as that priest suggests, and the Catholic Church’s history of dealing with Catholic public officials is more inconsistent. Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, for example, presided over a <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/06/15/bringing-justice-franco-era-crimes-spain#">brutal regime of atrocities and torture</a> known throughout the world, yet he <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws5IDep_3TA">received a Catholic burial</a> in 1975 over which the archbishop of Toledo presided.</p>
<p>More pertinent to the Biden case, Pope John Paul II <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/editorial-john-paul-ii-model-abortion-debate">gave Communion in 2001 to Rome’s mayor, Franceso Rutelli</a>, who had campaigned to liberalize abortion laws. Likewise, Pope Benedict XVI gave <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/no-hard-line-pope-communion-pro-choice-pols">Communion to Rudolph Giuliani, Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry</a> – all of whom support abortion rights.</p>
<p>The reason the issue has come up now in the U.S. appears to be more about concerns among bishops over their waning influence.</p>
<p>Kansas City Archbishop Joseph Naumann, chair of the U.S. bishops’ committee on pro-life activities and one of the main figures supporting a pastoral statement about Communion, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/health-coronavirus-government-and-politics-religion-22e0d1ba299fe8693013036e3cc85c81">told The Associated Press</a>, “Whether intentional or not, [Biden is] trying to usurp our authority.”</p>
<p>“He doesn’t have the authority to teach what it means to be Catholic,” Naumann <a href="https://apnews.com/article/health-coronavirus-government-and-politics-religion-22e0d1ba299fe8693013036e3cc85c81">continued</a>; “that’s our responsibility as bishops.”</p>
<p>Naumann may have reasons to be concerned. A 2019 poll found that <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/43041/survey-americans-dissatisfied-with-bishops-response-to-sex-abuse-crisis">63% of American Catholics have lost trust in Catholic bishops</a> because of their <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-catholic-churchs-grim-history-of-ignoring-priestly-pedophilia-and-silencing-would-be-whistleblowers-102387">handling of the still-ongoing crisis</a> of sexual abuse.</p>
<p>To many Catholics, Biden’s presentation of Catholic faith as aligning with <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2021/04/29/biden-speech-congress-catholic-reaction-240557">racial justice, economic justice, climate justice and health care justice</a> offers a pointed contrast with bishops mired in scandal and unhappy about trends such as same-sex marriage in American culture.</p>
<p>Denver Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila wrote in mid-April about <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2021/04/14/aquila-denver-eucharist-politicians-teaching-240396">the need to establish “Eucharistic coherence”</a> through a pastoral statement that would state when someone like Biden should not present himself for Communion. It seems as though, to many bishops like Aquila, that is the solution to their dilemma over Biden.</p>
<p>But not all bishops agree. Chicago’s Cardinal Blase Cupich wrote <a href="https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/cardinal-cupich-asked-archbishop">a private letter to Aquila</a> expressing his reservations. The letter was leaked after it was received, making divisions among the bishops more visible.</p>
<h2>Communion ‘not a prize’</h2>
<p>The proposed document about “Eucharistic coherence” is expected to come before the <a href="https://www.usccb.org/">U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops</a> in June – a move that likely will highlight even more the split within the church. But even if the pastoral statement is approved, <a href="http://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/motu_proprio/documents/hf_jp-ii_motu-proprio_22071998_apostolos-suos.html">the conference has no authority to enforce it on any particular bishop</a>. The result would be an incoherent patchwork allowing each individual bishop to decide. Washington’s Cardinal Wilton Gregory already has indicated <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2020/11/24/cardinal-wilton-gregory-joe-biden-communion-dialogue">he will not prevent Biden from receiving Communion</a>. </p>
<p>Only the Vatican has the right to enforce the pastoral statement on every bishop – but that almost certainly will not happen. Pope Francis previously has made his view clear that the Eucharist “<a href="http://www.vatican.va/evangelii-gaudium/en/files/assets/basic-html/page40.html">is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak</a>.”</p>
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<p>As such, the pastoral statement could serve only to highlight <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2021/01/27/bishops-joe-biden-inauguration-statement-vatican-usccb-239833">differences among many American bishops and the pope</a>.</p>
<p>It also could backfire as an attempt to wrestle back authority for U.S. bishops. A preelection debate over <a href="https://religionunplugged.com/news/2020/8/13/is-joe-biden-a-catholic-it-depends-on-who-you-ask">the sincerity of Biden’s Catholicism</a> proved divisive among the faithful. Biden, through baptism and participation in the other sacraments, is a Catholic. There is no question about that. </p>
<p>Because they reflect intense divisions in the church, these efforts to disqualify the president from the sacraments and the church are, I believe, a threat to church authority today. Nothing that furthers or deepens those divisions will help the bishops or the Catholics that they lead.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven P. Millies was a member of the Biden-Harris 2020 campaign's Catholic Advisory Council.</span></em></p>Communion is the central act of Catholic worship. So why are some US bishops trying to stop President Joe Biden – a devout Catholic – from partaking?Steven P. Millies, Professor of Public Theology and Director of The Bernardin Center, Catholic Theological UnionLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1591892021-04-28T12:13:34Z2021-04-28T12:13:34ZAncient Christian thinkers made a case for reparations that has striking relevance today<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396859/original/file-20210423-13-7dpil7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C2%2C1580%2C1081&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some ancient theologians argued that the Israelites deserved a share of Egypt's wealth after being enslaved for centuries.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/egyptian-taskmasters-treat-the-hebrew-slaves-harshly-with-news-photo/173447141?adppopup=true">Culture Club/Hulton Archive via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Reparations to Black Americans for centuries of slavery and oppression have been discussed for a long time. But ever since journalist and author <a href="https://ta-nehisicoates.com/">Ta-Nehisi Coates</a> wrote “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/">The Case for Reparations</a>” in The Atlantic in 2014, the conversation has taken on a new urgency. In 2021 a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/14/us/politics/reparations-slavery-house.html">House committee voted</a> to create a commission to consider reparations. </p>
<p>However, debates over compensating a group of people for past injuries or abuses date back to at least the early centuries of the common era. As a <a href="https://theology.nd.edu/people/david-lincicum/">professor of theology</a> who teaches about Jewish and Christian antiquity, I have studied how the logic of reparations has roots in the Hebrew Bible and in early Christian biblical interpretation.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396861/original/file-20210423-19-1gvi7w1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates testifies during a 2019 hearing on slavery reparations" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396861/original/file-20210423-19-1gvi7w1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396861/original/file-20210423-19-1gvi7w1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396861/original/file-20210423-19-1gvi7w1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396861/original/file-20210423-19-1gvi7w1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396861/original/file-20210423-19-1gvi7w1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396861/original/file-20210423-19-1gvi7w1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396861/original/file-20210423-19-1gvi7w1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates testifies during a 2019 hearing on slavery reparations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/writer-ta-nehisi-coates-testifies-during-a-hearing-on-news-photo/1150823656?adppopup=true">Zach Gibson/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Exodus from Egypt</h2>
<p>The classic text for thinking about reparations is the story of the Israelites’ flight from Egypt, recounted in detail in the Book of Exodus, the second book of the Old Testament. </p>
<p>The Israelites had been enslaved by the Egyptians and subjected to forced labor for hundreds of years. As the story goes, through divine intervention and the leadership of the prophet Moses, the people were set free and allowed to depart Egypt.</p>
<p>As God announces the plan in advance to Moses, <a href="https://www.bibleref.com/Exodus/3/Exodus-chapter-3.html">he assures him</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I will bring this people into such favor with the Egyptians that, when you go, you will not go empty-handed; each woman shall ask her neighbor and any woman living in the neighbor’s house for jewelry of silver and of gold, and clothing, and you shall put them on your sons and on your daughters; and so you shall plunder the Egyptians.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>When the Israelites ask as commanded, the Egyptians surprisingly comply. “And so,” the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+12%3A35-36&version=NIV">text laconically summarizes</a>, “they plundered the Egyptians.”</p>
<h2>Literal or allegorical plunder?</h2>
<p>The story seems to have been a source of embarrassment to Jews and Christians in antiquity and even <a href="https://www.thetorah.com/article/despoiling-the-egyptians-a-concerning-jewish-legacy">in more recent times</a>.</p>
<p>Whether deceit was involved has been a matter of <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/1516876">scholarly discussion</a>, but at least one ancient historian used the account to paint the Jews of his day in a dim light. Around the turn of the millennium, <a href="http://www.forumromanum.org/literature/justin/english/trans36.html">Pompeius Trogus</a> wrote that Moses led the Israelites in “carrying off by stealth the sacred utensils of the Egyptians.”</p>
<p>Perhaps in light of similar accusations, some Jews and, subsequently, Christians, interpreted the text as a story about <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04768-3_25">symbolic and not literal plunder</a>.</p>
<p>The Jewish Alexandrian philosopher Philo, an older contemporary of Jesus in the first century, <a href="https://www.loebclassics.com/view/philo_judaeus-moses_i_ii/1935/pb_LCL289.349.xml">interpreted the event literally</a> and justified the Israelites’ actions. </p>
<p>“For what resemblance is there between forfeiture of money and deprivation of liberty,” he wrote, “for which men of sense are willing to sacrifice not only their substance but their life?” </p>
<p>In other words, the Israelites were in the right to take material goods from the Egyptians since the Egyptians had deprived them of the far greater good of freedom.</p>
<p>But in <a href="https://www.loebclassics.com/view/philo_judaeus-who_heir_divine_things/1932/pb_LCL261.423.xml?result=1&rskey=u3BbY4">another treatise</a>, Philo gave an allegorical interpretation in which the Egyptians’ wealth represented pagan philosophy. </p>
<p>He felt that ideas that might originate in “pagan” philosophy could be put to good use – or “plundered” – for Jewish purposes. By way of comparison, one might imagine a contemporary preacher using, say, insights from psychoanalysis to elucidate the meaning of a biblical passage. </p>
<p>Two centuries later, the Christian scholar <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/origen/">Origen of Alexandria</a> used a similar argument to <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0415.htm">make the case</a> that “pagan” philosophy should be studied by Christians as the “adjunct to Christianity” – to prepare for and supplement true Christian teaching. He justifies this taking of intellectual property by using the example of the Israelites making off with the Egyptians’ possessions. He understood the biblical text’s account of the plundering of the Egyptians to be a symbolic authorization for Christians to take the intellectual property of the surrounding pagan culture.</p>
<p>Subsequent Christians theologians, from <a href="https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/augustine/ddc2.html">St. Augustine</a> in the late fourth century onward throughout the medieval period, took up this line of interpretation. </p>
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<h2>‘Not just a few dishes’</h2>
<p>But Philo’s literal understanding of the passage – that the Israelites took property from the Egyptians as a form of just repayment for their enslavement – also found followers among the early Christians. </p>
<p>In the second century A.D., a debate raged in the Christian Church as to whether the Jewish scriptures should be authoritative for Christians. <a href="http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/marcion.html">Marcion</a>, a charismatic leader from the Black Sea region, contended that the Hebrew Bible attested an inferior god and so should be discarded. He and his followers urged that it contained morally reprehensible stories, and held up the plundering of the Egyptians as an example.</p>
<p>The theologians Irenaeus of Lyons and Tertullian of North Africa, who argued for what ultimately became the form of Christian belief backed by political authorities, however, disagreed. </p>
<p>Irenaeus replied to the Marcionite argument in his treatise “<a href="http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/irenaeus.html">Against Heresies</a>,” which contains a remarkable display of the <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103430.htm">logic of reparations</a>.</p>
<p>He writes that the Egyptians held the Israelites in “abject slavery” while at the same time contemplating their “utter annihilation.” Meanwhile, the Israelites built them “fenced cities” and made them even more wealthy.</p>
<p>“In what way, then,” Irenaeus asks, “did the Israelites act unjustly, if out of many things they took a few?”</p>
<p>His argument is straightforward: The Israelites deserved to be repaid for their forced labor. They contributed to the wealth of the Egyptians, and so had a right to a share of it.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396860/original/file-20210423-13-7asvb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Engraving depicting early Christian author Tertullian" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396860/original/file-20210423-13-7asvb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396860/original/file-20210423-13-7asvb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396860/original/file-20210423-13-7asvb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396860/original/file-20210423-13-7asvb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396860/original/file-20210423-13-7asvb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=978&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396860/original/file-20210423-13-7asvb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=978&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396860/original/file-20210423-13-7asvb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=978&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Early Christian author Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, aka Tertullian, circa A.D. 200.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/engraving-depicting-early-christian-author-quintus-news-photo/526581582?adppopup=true">Adoc-Photos/Corbis Historical Collection via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Some 25 years later, Tertullian wrote a systematic refutation of Marcion’s position, entitled “<a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103430.htm">Against Marcion</a>.” In it, he repeated some of Irenaeus’ arguments, including his <a href="http://www.tertullian.org/articles/evans_marc/evans_marc_06book2_eng.htm">case for reparations</a>.</p>
<p>Tertullian imagines a court in his own day hearing the claims of “the Hebrews.” He argues that no amount of gold and silver could repay the Israelites for their hardship. “[They] were free men reduced to slavery,” he writes. “If their legal representatives were to display in court no more than their shoulders scarred with the abusive outrage of whippings, any judge would have agreed that the Hebrews must receive in recompense not just a few dishes and flagons … but the whole of those rich men’s property.”</p>
<p>Particularly notable is the fact that Tertullian makes the case for reparations to be paid to the descendants of the Israelites who had been forcibly enslaved centuries earlier. Although the force of the passage is driven by a debate about scriptural interpretation, its logic strikingly anticipates the case for reparations in the U.S. today.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Lincicum does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The biblical story of the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt is also a historical tale of reparations after enslavement.David Lincicum, Associate Professor of Theology, University of Notre DameLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1586852021-04-28T12:13:18Z2021-04-28T12:13:18ZCancel culture looks a lot like old-fashioned church discipline<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398212/original/file-20210501-17-127qah8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C0%2C4937%2C2888&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A form of 'canceling' was common among Baptists in America.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/baptism-1870s-artist-william-p-chappel-news-photo/1218537150?adppopup=true">Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Blink and you may have missed one of the more recent controversies over cancel culture.</p>
<p>On March 23, 2021, columnist Hemal Jhaveri published <a href="https://ftw.usatoday.com/2021/03/oral-roberts-ncaa-anti-lgbtq-code-of-conduct">an opinion piece</a> at For The Win, a sports commentary website operated by USA Today. In it, she remarked on the “Cinderella story” then forming around the surprising success of Oral Roberts University, an evangelical Christian school, in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Rather than cheer, Jhaveri suggested, fans should protest the team over the “university’s deeply bigoted anti-LGBTQ+ policies.”</p>
<p>Two days later, USA Today published <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/03/25/oral-roberts-university-basketball-deserve-cancel-culture-golden-knights-column/6994502002/">a response</a> by Ed Stetzer, a <a href="https://www.wheaton.edu/academics/faculty/ed-stetzer/">professor at the evangelical Wheaton College</a>, who criticized a supposed “mob” for rushing to cancel ORU from March Madness. Ironically, it was Jhaveri who was canceled – that is to say, fired – by USA Today the next day in the wake of a tweet about mass shootings, one that <a href="https://hemjhaveri.medium.com/i-am-no-longer-working-at-usa-today-heres-what-happened-7ebd540a510e">she would acknowledge was ill-considered</a>. ORU’s basketball team, meanwhile, was removed from the tournament not by howling protesters but by Arkansas in a Sweet 16 matchup.</p>
<h2>Church discipline</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/12/30/20879720/what-is-cancel-culture-explained-history-debate">Extensive debate</a> has swirled around the purpose, effectiveness and even the very existence of what has been called “cancel culture.” The phrase itself may have <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cancel-culture-internet-joke-anything-but/">originated as a joke</a>. But the phenomenon is rooted in what has been characterized as efforts by political progressives to “call out” individuals and organizations engaged in offensive or damaging behavior. It entails public efforts, usually on social media, <a href="https://blog.thefactual.com/media-and-cancel-culture">to shame the perpetrator and instill consequences</a> and has <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-attacking-cancel-culture-and-woke-people-is-becoming-the-gops-new-political-strategy/">been seized on by many on the political right as a wedge issue</a> in the so-called culture wars.</p>
<p>But “canceling” is <a href="https://freespeech.org/stories/is-there-a-progressive-case-against-cancel-culture/">not wholly embraced on the left</a>, nor is it unknown among <a href="https://theweek.com/articles/928464/cancel-culture-conservative-glass-houses">political</a> or <a href="https://www.relevantmagazine.com/culture/a-way-out-of-cancel-culture-in-the-church/">religious</a> conservatives.</p>
<p>In fact, cancel culture should have a ring of familiarity for Stetzer, a Southern Baptist. As a <a href="https://www.sksm.edu/people/christopher-l-schelin/">scholar of practical and political theology</a>, I see echoes of the phenomenon in the history of the church.</p>
<p>From their origins in the 17th century through the late 19th century, Baptists in America – most especially in the South – <a href="https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/baptist-history-evidences-church-discipline/">vigorously engaged in the practice of church discipline</a>. Believers who had allegedly sinned would be accused, tried and then convicted by their peers – the verdict was decided by democratic vote. While the repentant were restored to fellowship, the obstinate were excommunicated, or to borrow from today’s parlance, “canceled.” </p>
<h2>Cleansing the body politic</h2>
<p>Baptists prosecuted their own for a <a href="http://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195160994.001.0001">panoply of offenses</a>, including alcoholism, social dancing and erroneous beliefs. They disciplined white males for mistreating their wives and slaves, but they also disciplined wives for disobedience to their husbands. </p>
<p>At its height, the church discipline generated a massive turnover in membership. The historian Gregory Wills, in his book “<a href="http://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195160994.001.0001">Democratic Religion</a>,” claims that Baptists in Georgia excommunicated more than 40,000 members in the years preceding the Civil War.</p>
<p>Church discipline relaxed over time and essentially disappeared by the end of the 1920s. But some Southern Baptists today aim to restore its place in congregational life <a href="https://equip.sbts.edu/publications/journals/journal-of-theology/sbjt-44-winter-2000/church-discipline-the-missing-mark/">as a bulwark against what they see as “moral relativism</a>” and a way to address what they see as offenses such as homosexuality, sex outside of marriage and false teaching.</p>
<p>At first glance, evangelical disciplinarians and progressive “cancelers” may seem worlds apart. Yet I believe they share certain key features. They both express what can be described as a purity ethic that aims to root out behaviors deemed to be harmful from the body politic.</p>
<p>Both struggle with the question of appropriate response. Do the offender’s actions warrant exclusion? Is there an opportunity for rehabilitation and, if so, how is this achieved?</p>
<p>Both disciplining and canceling are also, in my view, acts of meaning-making that may be called religious. As the sociologist Peter Berger famously argued, religion erects a “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Canopy-Elements-Sociological-Religion-ebook/dp/B004X3789G/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=">sacred canopy</a>” that provides order to one’s experience of the world. Secularization has, in many cases, transferred the function of religion <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/04/america-politics-religion/618072/">to other domains, especially politics</a>.</p>
<p>So, just as a Baptist in 1821 maintained his sacred canopy, the Kingdom of God, in part through upholding church discipline, a political activist in 2021 might maintain their “sacred canopy” – whether it is called “social justice” or “freedom” – by calling out opinions they consider too abhorrent to be tolerated in contemporary society.</p>
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<h2>Chance of reconciliation</h2>
<p>We not only discover a form of “cancel culture” in the history of American evangelicalism, but also some examples of how to overcome the polarization that often defines its contemporary expressions.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A depiction of James Mercer from 1881's History of the Baptist Denomination in Georgia" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397388/original/file-20210427-17-a483b5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397388/original/file-20210427-17-a483b5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=780&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397388/original/file-20210427-17-a483b5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=780&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397388/original/file-20210427-17-a483b5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=780&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397388/original/file-20210427-17-a483b5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=981&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397388/original/file-20210427-17-a483b5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=981&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397388/original/file-20210427-17-a483b5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=981&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pastor Jesse Mercer uncanceled a congregant.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jesse_Mercer.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>In 1817, one “Brother Lancaster” was brought before the membership of Powelton Baptist Church for allowing dancing at his daughter’s wedding. Lancaster admitted his guilt but turned accuser, declaring that the church had neglected to address weightier sins, including favoritism of the rich over the poor. The pastor, <a href="https://sbhla.org/biographies/jesse-mercer/">Jesse Mercer</a>, was brought to tears and prayed for reconciliation. The church welcomed Lancaster back in to the fold, then broke into song.</p>
<p>For a fractured nation, Lancaster’s story provides an important reminder from Stetzer’s and my ancestors in faith. The quest for moral accountability finds its greatest successes – and surprises – when rebuke and counterrebuke give way to authentic listening.</p>
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<p><em>Editor’s note: The main image on this article was changed on May 1, 2021.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158685/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Schelin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Excommunicating a church member, like ‘canceling’ someone on social media, serves to cleanse the body politic of behavior deemed damaging, suggests a scholar of political theology.Christopher Schelin, Assistant Professor of Practical and Political Theologies, Starr King School for the Ministry Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1552562021-04-22T12:24:47Z2021-04-22T12:24:47ZShakespeare’s musings on religion are like curious whispers – they require deep listening to be heard<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396365/original/file-20210421-17-if17cq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C177%2C6927%2C5153&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Caliban implores his fellow island dwellers to listen to the noises in "The Tempest."</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/act-i-scene-ii-from-the-tempest-c19th-century-miranda-news-photo/507137240?adppopup=true">The Print Collector/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>William Shakespeare’s role as a religious guide is not an obvious one. </p>
<p>While the work of the bard, whose <a href="https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/william-shakespeare/when-was-shakespeare-born/">birthday is celebrated on April 23</a>, has been scoured at various times over the past four centuries for <a href="https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/clare-asquith/shadowplay/9781541774308/">coded messages about Catholicism, Puritanism or Anglicanism</a>, the <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/shakespeare-and-religion-9781904271703/">more common view</a> is that his stunning explorations of humanity leave little space for serious reflection on divinity. Indeed, some Shakespeare scholars have gone further, suggesting that his works display an <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo6021785.html">explicit atheism</a>.</p>
<p>But as a scholar of theology who has published <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Shakespeare-Theology-and-the-Unstaged-God/Baker/p/book/9780367784836">a book exploring Shakespeare’s treatment of faith</a>, I believe the playwright’s best religious impulses are displayed neither through coded affirmations nor straightforward denials. Writing at a time of great religious polarization and upheaval, Shakespeare’s greatest pronouncements on faith are more like curious whispers – and, like whispers, they require deep listening to be heard.</p>
<h2>Religious noises</h2>
<p>I see an invitation to this deep listening in one of Shakespeare’s most unusual plays, “<a href="https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/shakespeares-plays/tempest/">The Tempest.</a>” “Be not afeared,” the half-man, half-beast Caliban tells his companions as they arrive on the island where the play is set, “the isle is full of noises, sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.”</p>
<p>It is a striking passage, made all the more so coming from a foul-smelling creature accused of attempted rape and repeatedly called “monster.” But in it, Shakespeare seems to be suggesting that there are dimensions of reality that many of us miss – and we might be surprised to find out who among us is paying attention.</p>
<p>Subtleties like this show up differently across Shakespeare’s plays. “Romeo and Juliet” is not in any overt sense a theological play. But as the tragedy comes to a somber denouement, we have the line “See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate, That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love.”</p>
<p>While there is no clear naming of gods or fates, Shakespeare implies that some great power transcends the destructive feud between the Montagues and Capulets, the families of the two lovers. He calls into question the earthly power of the two houses – heaven, he implies, is also at work here.</p>
<h2>Tumultuous times</h2>
<p>Shakespeare was, I believe, in constant search of subtle ways to imagine divine intervention within the human realm. This is all the more impressive given the fraught religious times in which he lived.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="An etching of William Shakespeare." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396408/original/file-20210421-23-wjcv7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396408/original/file-20210421-23-wjcv7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396408/original/file-20210421-23-wjcv7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396408/original/file-20210421-23-wjcv7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396408/original/file-20210421-23-wjcv7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396408/original/file-20210421-23-wjcv7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396408/original/file-20210421-23-wjcv7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Closet Catholic or atheist? Or is it more complicated?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/english-dramatist-william-shakespeare-circa-1600-news-photo/51165673?adppopup=true">Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The late 16th century witnessed religious and political polarization greater, even, than our own. Decades earlier, King Henry VIII had <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-349-22586-6">separated the Anglican church from Rome</a> and created a Protestant England. His daughter Elizabeth, who sat on the throne for the first half of Shakespeare’s writing career, was <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/stc.2016.13">excommunicated by Pope Pius V</a> for continuing in her father’s footsteps. The queen responded by making the practice of Catholicism a crime in England. </p>
<p>So even before Elizabeth’s successor, James I, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/res/article-abstract/61/251/495/1564755">outlawed overt theological humor or criticism on stage</a>, artists hoping to engage in religious themes were under considerable restrictions. </p>
<p>These upheavals affected Shakespeare directly. Shakespeare’s <a href="https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/william-shakespeare/shakespeare-religion/">family had deep ties to Roman Catholicism</a>, as likely did some of his closest associates. For any one of them to express doubts about the Anglican prayer book, or even to avoid the Anglican parish on Sunday, was to put themselves under suspicion of treason. </p>
<p>There is little in the way of biographical detail to help scholars looking for Shakepeare’s religious beliefs. Instead, they have generally relied on explicit references to familiar religious language or character types – the Catholic priest in “Romeo and Juliet,” for instance – in speculating about Shakespeare’s faith. Some have suggested that clues and codes in his play suggest the <a href="https://www.ncregister.com/news/shakespeare-closet-catholic">playwright was a closeted Catholic</a>. But to me it is more in what he doesn’t say, or where he finds new ways of saying something old, that Shakespeare is theologically at his most interesting. </p>
<h2>‘God’s spies’</h2>
<p>Shakespeare’s faith and how he expresses it are explored in a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24712408?socuuid=9b85877c-589a-4256-a51b-711cfbc818fb&socplat=email">2017 play</a> by poet Rowan Williams, a theologian and former head of the Church of England. In it, Williams imagines a young Shakespeare in search of a new language for things religious, and dissatisfied with the heavily politicized options before him.</p>
<p>In a pivotal scene, “young Will” explains to his Jesuit mentor that, despite the attractiveness of their radical Catholic cause, he cannot join: “The old religion is the only, the only – picture of things that speaks to me, yes, but it’s as if there were still voices all around me wanting to make themselves heard and they don’t all speak one language or tell one tale, and all that – it would haunt me if I tried what you do, and it would make me turn away from the pains and the question, because I’d know that there’d always be more than the old religion could say and it still had to be heard.”</p>
<p>In other words, while Catholicism “speaks” to young Will, he believes there is more that “still had to be heard.”</p>
<p>The voices that Williams’ Shakespeare wants to hear are similar, I believe, to those that Caliban talks of in “The Tempest.” So young Will does not join the Catholic cause; instead, he goes off in search of ways to stay with “the pains and the question.” Williams is suggesting that Shakespeare’s subsequent plays are an attempt to let all these complex and difficult voices “be heard.”</p>
<p>They are his attempt to give voice to religious noise beyond the range of the religious certainty of his age.</p>
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<p>We see this in “King Lear.” Lear spends the entire play cursing the gods for the lack of love and respect his children show him. But when the heaven-cursing rants finally subside, the play gives its audience a beautiful and painful reconciliation scene with his daughter Cordelia. He discovers in his daughter’s forgiveness a kind of higher vantage point, one from which they might both “take upon’s the mystery of things, As if we were God’s spies.”</p>
<p>Like Caliban in “The Tempest,” Lear learns to hear those voices just out of human range.</p>
<p>Similarly, Shakespeare asks his audience to listen and watch differently, as if we too are God’s spies or Earth’s monsters.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony D. Baker funding in the form of a grant from The Conant Foundation, through The Episcopal Church, for travel research on Shakespeare. </span></em></p>Scholars have scoured the works of the great playwright for clues about his faith. A scholar of theology and Shakespeare’s works says it isn’t as simple as that.Anthony D. Baker, Professor of Systematic Theology, Seminary of the SouthwestLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1522882021-04-21T12:24:40Z2021-04-21T12:24:40ZFamine in the Bible is more than a curse: It is a signal of change and a chance for a new beginning<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395847/original/file-20210419-17-n0utk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C2882%2C3978%2C2084&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The famine in Samaria was one of many depicted in the Bible.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/old-testament-the-famine-in-samaria-bible-engraving-by-news-photo/601071886?adppopup=true">PHAS/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the coronavirus spread rapidly around the world last year, the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/hunger-coronavirus-pandemic-antonio-guterres-famine-covid-19-pandemic-d2c3634a9ceaff7fa6324a63eb158c85">United Nations warned that the economic disruption of the pandemic could result in famines</a> of “biblical proportions.”</p>
<p>The choice of words conveys more than just scale. Biblical stories of devastating famines are familiar to many. As a <a href="https://divinity.yale.edu/faculty-and-research/yds-faculty/joel-s-baden">scholar of the Hebrew Bible</a>, I understand that famines in biblical times were interpreted as more than mere natural occurrences. The authors of the Hebrew Bible used famine as a mechanism of divine wrath and destruction – but also as a storytelling device, a way to move the narrative forward.</p>
<h2>When the heavens don’t open</h2>
<p>Underlying the texts about famine in the Hebrew Bible was the constant threat and recurring reality of <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/famine-and-drought-in-israel">famine in ancient Israel</a>.</p>
<p>Israel occupied the rocky highlands of Canaan – the area of present-day Jerusalem and the hills to the north of it – rather than fertile coastal plains. Even in the best of years, it took <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=teYfEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA149&dq=famine+in+the+bible&ots=Asdo55GcXY&sig=P0VcLiCcc7OKQ7I_3RAjC4c-UKI#v=onepage&q=famine%20in%20the%20bible&f=false">enormous effort to coax sufficient sustenance out of the ground</a>. The rainy seasons were brief; any precipitation less than normal could be devastating. </p>
<p>Across the ancient Near East, drought and famine were feared. In the 13th century B.C., nearly all of the Eastern Mediterranean civilizations <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/131024-drought-bronze-age-pollen-archaeology">collapsed because of a prolonged drought</a>.</p>
<p>For the biblical authors, rain was a blessing and drought a curse – quite literally. In the book of Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Hebrew Bible, <a href="https://biblehub.com/deuteronomy/28-12.htm">God proclaims</a> that if Israel obeys the laws, “the Lord will open for you his bounteous store, the heavens, to provide rain for your land in season.”</p>
<p>Disobedience, however, <a href="https://biblehub.com/deuteronomy/28-24.htm">will have the opposite effect</a>: “The skies above your head shall be copper and the earth under you iron. The Lord will make the rain of your land dust, and sand shall drop on you from the sky, until you are wiped out.” </p>
<p>To ancient Israelites there was no such thing as nature as we understand it today and no such thing as chance. If things were good, it was because God was happy. If things were going badly, it was because the deity was angry. For a national catastrophe like famine, the sin had to lie either with the entire people, or with the monarchs who represented them. And it was the task of <a href="https://www.bibleodyssey.org/HarperCollinsBibleDictionary/o/oracle">prophets and oracles</a> to determine the cause of the divine wrath. </p>
<h2>Divine anger…and punishment</h2>
<p>Famine was seen as both punishment and opportunity. Suffering opened the door for repentance and change. For example, when the famously wise King Solomon inaugurates the temple in Jerusalem, he prays that God will be forgiving when, in the future, a famine-stricken Israel turns toward the newly built temple for mercy. </p>
<p>The Bible’s association of famine and other natural disasters with divine anger and punishment paved the way for faith leaders throughout the ages to use their pulpits to cast blame on those they found morally wanting. Preachers during the Dust Bowl of 1920s and 1930s America held alcohol and immorality <a href="https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1800&context=greatplainsquarterly">responsible for provoking God’s anger</a>. In 2005, <a href="http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1953778_1953776_1953771,00.html">televangelist Pat Robertson blamed abortion for Hurricane Katrina</a>. Today some religious leaders have even <a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200309160852-fvwh5/">assigned responsibility for the coronavirus pandemic</a> to LGBTQ people.</p>
<p>In the book of Samuel, we <a href="https://biblehub.com/2_samuel/21-1.htm">read that Israel endured a three-year famine</a> in the time of David, considered Israel’s greatest king. When David inquires as to the cause of the famine, he is told that it is due to the sins of his predecessor and mortal enemy, Saul. The story illustrates how biblical authors, like modern moral crusaders, used the opportunity of famine to demonize their opponents. </p>
<p>For the biblical writers interested in legislating and prophesying about Israel’s behavior, famine was both an ending – the result of disobedience and sin – and also a beginning, a potential turning point toward a better, more faithful future. </p>
<p>Other biblical authors, however, focused less on how or why famines happened and more on the opportunities that famine provided for telling new stories.</p>
<h2>Seeking refuge</h2>
<p>Famine as a narrative device – rather than as a theological tool – is found regularly throughout the Bible. The writers of the Hebrew Bible used famine as the motivating factor for major changes in the lives of its characters – undoubtedly reflecting the reality of famine’s impact in the ancient world.</p>
<p>We see this numerous times in the book of Genesis. For example, famine <a href="https://biblehub.com/genesis/12-10.htm">drives the biblical characters of Abraham to Egypt</a>, <a href="https://biblehub.com/genesis/26-1.htm">Isaac to the land of the Philistines</a> and <a href="https://biblehub.com/genesis/43-2.htm">Jacob and his entire family to Egypt</a>.</p>
<p>Similarly, the <a href="https://forward.com/life/447355/the-book-of-ruth-famine-pandemic/">book of Ruth opens with a famine</a> that forces Naomi, the mother-in-law of Ruth, and her family to move first to, and then away from, Moab.</p>
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<img alt="An engraving depicts Naomi instructing her daughter-in-law Ruth to leave with Orpah, her other daughter-in-law, from the book of Ruth, in the Old Testament." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395850/original/file-20210419-21-1yk3ynd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395850/original/file-20210419-21-1yk3ynd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395850/original/file-20210419-21-1yk3ynd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395850/original/file-20210419-21-1yk3ynd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395850/original/file-20210419-21-1yk3ynd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395850/original/file-20210419-21-1yk3ynd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395850/original/file-20210419-21-1yk3ynd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Naomi instructs her daughter-in-law Ruth to leave after famine struck.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/circa-1000-bc-naomi-instructing-her-daughter-in-law-ruth-to-news-photo/51243480?adppopup=true">Hulton Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The story of Ruth depends on the initial famine; it ends with Ruth being the ancestor of King David. Neither the Exodus nor King David – the central story and a major character of the Hebrew Bible – would exist without famine.</p>
<p>All of these stories share a common feature: famine as an impetus for the movement of people. And with that movement, <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/strangers-and-gentiles">in the ancient world</a> as today, comes vulnerability. Residing in a foreign land meant abandoning social protections: land and kin, and perhaps even deity. One was at the mercy of the local populace.</p>
<p>This is why Israel, at least, had a <a href="https://www.christiancentury.org/article/critical-essay/immigration-and-biblical-law-stranger">wide range of laws</a> intended to protect the stranger. It was understood that famine, or plague, or war, was common enough that anyone might be forced to leave their land to seek refuge in another. The principle of hospitality, <a href="https://www.arabamerica.com/hospitality-in-the-arab-world/">still common in the region</a>, ensured that the displaced would be protected.</p>
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<p>Famine was a constant threat and a very real part of life for the ancient Israelite world that produced the Hebrew Bible. The ways that the Bible understood and addressed famine, in turn, have had a lasting impact down to the present. Most people today may not see famine as a manifestation of divine wrath. But they might recognize in famine the same opportunities to consider how we treat the displaced, and to imagine a better future.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joel Baden does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Famine was a constant threat during biblical times. The authors of the Old Testament used it to explain God’s wrath, but also as a narrative device.Joel Baden, Professor of Hebrew Bible, Yale UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.