Category Archives: The Evidentialism Files

And God Said, ‘I Get It’

Pope Francis speaks at the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli during an inter-religious ceremony for peace in Rome's Capitoline Hill on Tuesday.

It was easy to miss amid all of the political braying that is October in an election year, but the Catholic Church did something seismic today.

It acknowledged reality.

Forgive the misquote, but I’m pretty sure this is on the scale of the loaves and fishes. Because it was a hard reality for the religious: Gay people exist. And God’s cool with it.

Pope Francis, who is becoming Catholics’ Rebel Without a Pause, broke the news Wednesday to those whose faith mandates bigotry.

“Homosexuals have a right to be part of the family,” the pontiff said in Francesco, a documentary about his life. “They’re children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out, or be made miserable because of it.

“What we have to create is a civil union law,” he added. “That way, they are legally covered.”

First off: Hell yeah! The pope granted an interview? To a documentary film crew?? All Fran needs now are a pack of smokes, some Chuck Taylors and a skateboard, and I’m converting.

Chuck Taylors | Boys converse, Chuck taylors, Sneakers

The comment also underscored an inescapable truth that’s perhaps just as uncomfortable for the religious and conservative: History always drifts to the political left. It can’t help it.

Take any U.S. political or societal issue over the decades: women’s rights, minority rights, gay rights, animal rights, guns, weed, porn, language, ad nauseum; we are more liberal on that issue than we were a generation ago. I cannot find an exception.

You can’t unlearn enlightenment. You can only choose to ignore it.

Which is what The Catholic Times has apparently done. After learning of Pope Kickass’ comments, I checked out the popular publication, dedicated to Roman Catholics worldwide, to see their take it all.

I discovered that the CT is a weekly newspaper, so I could forgive it not having a piece on Francis’ bombshell. But I found something more disturbing. This picture and promotion:

Surely, I thought, this was simply click bait. The headline “Is it sinful to vote for Joe Biden?” had to be an editorial ruse.

But no: this from Paprocki’s column, which pointedly cites the Biden-Harris pro-choice stance: “In order to justify voting for a proponent of abortion, one would need a proportionately grave reason that outweighs the killing of 860,000 babies per year.”

He continued: “Note also that I am not saying that you must vote to re-elect President Donald Trump.”

Uh, yeah you are. This is the sort of semantic soft shoe that allows religion to skirt modern-age questions with Iron Age answers. Instead of telling readers to come up with a reason “proportionately grave” to the killing of 860,000 babies, how about just being honest with people? Your religion mandates that abortion is an atrocity, and your political interests must align with Republicans, even if it means Trump. We can at least be honest on that level, can’t we?

Interesting, too, that he did not bother to ask what seems a basic Catholic question — or implore his readers to ask it themselves: Which candidate is the better Christian?

But I’m not a theist, so what do I know? So we’ll turn it over to someone who is. Bruce Morrill, the Chair in Roman Catholic Studies at Nashville’s Vanderbilt University, said Wednesday’s papal wokeness is “not surprising coming from Pope Francis because of the trail of individual statements he has made here and there over his papacy.”

Morrill, a Jesuit priest, added that one of Francis’ characteristics was “that he likes to speak and act on the principle of mercy.”

Amen.

The Wonderbra Theory of Technology

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I don’t know shit about economics, and know even less about bras. But I’ve been seeing a lot in the news lately about the puzzling vigor of the U.S. stock market during the pandemic, and I have a possible explanation: It’s the WonderBra Theory of Technology.

It posits this: All technology lifts and separates, like the underwire push-up.

First, let’s tackle the “lift” component. Technology requires that human kind is able to elevate, across the spectrum: Higher speeds, higher memory capacity, increased distances, further depths, longer reaches, etc. We could literally see this being birthed in The Space Race, from 1957 to 1975.

Space Race Diary | American Experience | Official Site | PBS

Now for the “separate,” which is a bit less obvious, but hear me out. I propose that every technological advancement in modern U.S. history has had a separating effect on the culture. Consider:

  • When radio was invented in 1895, Americans no longer had to congregate to share an oral history. We could instead stay at home for radio theater or ball games, for instance.
Old Time Radio Theater
  • When television was invented in 1925, the insulating effect was even more pronounced. Why go to a play when you can see a TV show? Why go to a movie when you can do Netflix? On a personal level, we all know the frightening amount of time we spent(d) secluded in front of the boob tube. There’s a reason for the term couch potato.
Are We Nearing the End of the Couch Potato Era? | NCTA — The Internet & Television Association
  • The advent of social media in 1997, with the website Six Degrees, hermetically sealed the American population in our technology cocoons. The ability to work, date, shop and essentially exist within a string of 1s and 0s helped create a social landscape of divots. We have created personalized echo chambers that resonate our confirmation biases like a holler in a canyon.
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The same can be said for almost all technological advances; electricity nullified the need to gather around heat; the telegraph eliminated the reliance on personal correspondence; better automotive technology allowed us to live further and further from home.

And, for better or worse, we’re seeing the same effect on our economy, and in the stock market in particular. Last month, U.S. News & World Report published a piece on how stocks are faring so well when the economy is faltering so dramatically. The magazine said:

“A few enormous and prosperous companies are behind the upward trend of the stock market. Recently, profits have been concentrated in a few tech companies that hold near-monopoly status, such as Amazon. and other ‘FANG stocks'” (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netscape, Google).

So how long is our underwear going to support? Anyone’s guess. But as much as we love to curse the rise of social media and bemoan our collective addiction to cellular telephones, let’s not forget that the Wonderbra did the job we designed it to do.

Yes, technology fostered the fractured and divisive political climate we now call home. But the lift-and-separate mechanics of technology may yet save our hides. From schools to sports to socializing, from hugs to handshakes to a pat on the back, what is so unsettling about these times is that we’re learning just how much human interaction we can live without.

The Holy Isms

The Book of Genesis · The Biblical Defense of Slavery · Union to Disunion


“Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.”  Tim. 2:11-14


“Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ.” Ephesians 6:5

With the gunfire of Kenosha still ringing in our ears, I am hearing a lot lately about systemic injustice in America. Systemic racism. Systemic sexism.

The question runs so deep it has birthed the only two political movements to find footing in the past decade for Democrats: The #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements. As we bear down on a presidential election, we find ourselves grappling with just how racist and sexist we are, at almost every level of American society: economically, politically, even constitutionally.

What we seem determined not to examine is the racism and sexism rampant in our core belief system.

After all, it’s verboten to attack someone’s faith. That’s a private matter, we’re told. One of personal conscience (as opposed to, say, your occupation). Religion has always gotten a pass in this area.

But we can afford no more Get Out Of Jail Free cards when it comes to matters of faith. If we are going to honestly reflect on our biases as human beings, how can we not include an examination of the foundational system that underpins all subsystems?

Yet I’ve heard no academic, politician or member of either political movement suggest looking into religion’s role in the glacial political advances for women and people of color in America. Does it really feel like we’ve made more than a half-century’s worth of progress since the Voting Rights Act of 1965?

Consider race relations, arguably as raw and divided as the 60’s. I recently watched Good Trouble, Apple’s terrific documentary about John Lewis.

John Lewis: Good Trouble | A Magnolia Pictures Film | NOW AVAILABLE EVERYWHERE

The film is full of touching moments, including of Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Lewis and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. sought guidance from the Bible.

But there’s no acknowledgement of the passages that sit just a few pages away from the beautiful hymns and gospels that inspire the men in the movie. Passages like Exodus 21:20-21:

“When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be avenged. But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, for the slave is his money.”

I wonder how they viewed God’s warranty on slightly-used humans for sale. I wonder if contemporary leaders do at all.

This is from the MeToo Movement website: “To support and activate survivors, The ‘me too’ Movement engages an innovative model of survivor leadership with a ‘whole-self approach’ to healing from sexual violence, that grows out of understanding survival. Pathways to healing must include wrap-around interventions and support mechanisms to best embrace survivors as their whole selves. This includes healing through engagement in community organizing, where survivors are empowered to fight sexual violence with courage and conviction.”

Me Too movement: From Weinstein to Kavanaugh, change for women, LGBTQ?

Does “engagement in community organizing” include engaging with Bible-thumping communities? If so, what if that community of textualists believes Leviticus 12:1-14:

“A woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son will be ceremonially unclean for seven days, just as she is unclean during her monthly period.“

Can we really move forward with those fallen trees in the path? Just how far can women and minorities expect to go on a trail carved out for a supernatural white patriarchy?

Alternately, consider the two successful political movements over the past decade for Republicans: Trumpism and QAnon. Unlike their Democratic counterparts, the right-wing ideologies do not clash with any of their top-down hierarchies in a religious worldview. If anything, they enforce them.

And look at the difference in reception. Women and minority rights remain a top priority for Democrats, but the left still struggles with the kindling. Trumpism and QAnon, meanwhile, have sparked like a September pine.

If we are really serious about changing the way we see each other, we have to start with the labels sewn into the cloth of religious identity. The patrons of #MeToo and Black Lives would be well-served asking if they really want the Iron Age goat shepherds who authored the Bible writing their playbook as well.