Sunday, April 25, 2010

Ideology and Immigration

The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God ~ Leviticus 19:34.

Exodus 22:21

Exodus 23:9

Leviticus 19:33


My problem with political ideologies of either the right or the left, is that they provide pre-designed templates to apply to the issues, rather than forcing one to think through specific political and social problems on the substance of the issues.

Karl Marx used the term “mystification” to describe the distorting aspect of ideology to deceive people into accepting a condition of oppression or exploitation. This is why he called religion the “opiate of the masses” to the extent that religion provided an ideology that allowed the lower classes to be lulled into a state of exploitation and justified economic injustice. Subsequent thinkers pointed out that the distorting effects of ideology can be applied not only to the exploitation of the poor and workers, but also in a socialist or communist context where the workers are supposedly in charge, and yet terrible repression occurred. In other words, the distortion of truth that happens with ideology is equally likely on the left or on the right. Ideology serves to cloak the naked grasp for power with robes of righteousness and truth. But Ideology inevitably distorts truth to make it fit the left or right template. If the truth is a square peg, it must be rounded out to fit into the round ideological hole.

This makes it quite difficult to be a non-ideological truth seeker. It is much easier to have someone hand you a pre-designed template, than it is to try to understand and think through the substance of relevant issues of our day, each one on its own merits.

This brings me to immigration reform and illegal immigration. I have dear friends on the right and the left who hold entirely incompatible views on this issue. Nevertheless, there are very clear practical and moral issues involved that demand sorting out the truth and avoiding empty political rhetoric, nativist fear and populist ideology.

Here are some relevant facts on this issue:

-Most estimates indicate that there are at least 17 million illegal immigants in the U.S.A., 12 million alone from Mexico. If these people are removed from our economy, as some suggest, hotel chains will not be able to clean rooms, tomatos and strawberries will not be picked – which Americans are going to be willing to take those jobs EVEN if they are unemployed? Answer – almost none. What are the conservatives going to do, put them on boxcars and send them south? paLEEEASE -- give me a freakin break ....

-Illegal immigrants should be brought into the legal system and required to pay taxes and contribute to health care and education.

-By resolving the status of 17 million people living underground, the Customs and Border agents would be freed to focus most of their resources on stopping terrorists at the border.

-Morally, the Judeo-Christian tradition is very, very clear that immigrants and aliens should be treated with kindness, respect and mercy.

To consider one possible 'Christian' view in favor of rational immigration reform see this article by Allison Johnson quoting Rev. Jim Wallis.

Anti-Immigrant Law Passes in Arizona, ‘We Will Not Comply’

It is amazing to me, how Christian conservatives who are very literal about the scriptures in some areas can so easliy dodge the plain and simple imperatives of scripture when it suits them. Now, having said that, it does not make me a liberal. That is part of the problem with the ideological polarization ... people are forced to choose sides -- I refuse to do so. I choose to be on Jesus' side ...

but, on the specific issue of immigration reform, the weight of evidence, legal and economic rationality and moral imperative tilts clearly against the conservative point of view. I have always liked and respected John McCain as a man of prinicple who was able to work pragmatically across the aisle with Democrats. If he is forced to support the misguided Arizona law for political reasons in order to get the fearful and angry votes of Arizona conservatives, I will be deeply disappointed. Do the right thing John -- even if it ends your career. Go out on a high note!

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Why I liked Avatar


I know that people are mostly divided about the value of AVATAR and that it mostly got overlooked in the Emmys. “Great visual effects—unimaginative story-line” goes the criticism.

I also know that some Christian theological types have a problem with the world-view and the religious message expressed in the movie. Basically, it is native American pantheism. But guess what? We need to wake up to the fact that we do not live in a Christian culture and should not expect movies in our culture to have a conservative Christian worldview. When they do, we can be pleasantly surprised.

Let me try to draw out at least one positive aspect, one redemptive analogy, at least for Christians, from this story.

The message is anti-colonial, which is a “Jesus”-type message (at least more so than an Imperial message). The message is cross-cultural and missional in a non-imperial sort of way. The message is one of delight in infinite cultural diversity straight from Genesis 11 and Romans 5:9 that respects every culture, every language and values the ability to cross over cultural boundaries to learn new languages and learn new sets of cultural values. This was the message of the 1990s Jesuit movie, set in 1770s Paraguay called The Mission. One of my all time favorite movies! This was also, at least partly, the message of Dances with Wolves which I loved! (my main objection to Dances with Wolves was the one-sided presentation of military white guys = bad/Indians = good. Same with Avatar)

Having lived in another culture, learned another language, and having acquired the ability to appreciate a view of the world from different cultural lenses (in my case, Colombia), I am always thrilled to watch the process of humbling, stripping, unlearning and relearning that an adult goes through in cross-cultural adaptation.

Phil. 2 describes the original missionary process of cultural stripping, of unlearning and “laying aside” of cultural perogatives that Christ went through in the incarnation. The first seven steps were downward steps. He did not grasp for equality, he surrendered his divine perspective, he submitted, he humbled himself, he took on humanity, he became a Jewish carpenter in a specific place and time, and he became obedient to the point of death.

This process of “letting go” is absolutely necessary in cross-cultural adaptation. One cannot learn to understand the Colombian mindset without “letting go,” at least temporarily, the U.S. mindset. One cannot understand another culture without taking a step back from one’s own culture and learning to hold it loosely and view it objectively.

As AVATAR illustrates, there is an aspect of death in letting go of one’s own identity, as Jake Sully did, in order to become a Na’vi. And it is never just a uni-directional, cross-cultural experience: as Fernando Ortiz demonstrated in his study of Cuba in the 1930s, it is a bi-directional TRANScultural experience in which the change flows both ways.

And that my dear reader, is the primary reason that I liked Avatar. My God is a divine Father not a divine Mother (and yes, I enjoyed the Shack) and stands apart and above his own marvelous creation. I get it. But, there are still lessons that can be learned from this visually stunning movie and the story, repeated in many other formats and venues of a savior that leaves behind his own culture to take on a new identity in order to understand a people and to protect them from evil.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Crisis in the system?

This past week Senator Evan Bayh announced that he would retire from politics. Senator Bayh was disillusinoed by the current extreme cynnical polarization of the political process.

Disillusioned Bayh advocates electoral “shock” to broken system

Several years ago I read a book by German political philosopher Jürgen Habermas (Legitimation Crisis) in which he points out inherent contradictions in the modern Western capitalist system which he predicted would lead to cycles of ever increasing economic and political crises.

In the light of the Great Recession of 2008 and the current gridlock of Congress (and an 18% approval rating by the public) seem to bear out his predictions. Recent events reminds me of a passage in the New Testament (Hebrews 12:27).

Below are the wise encouragements of a prominent conservative Christian leader calling for less polarization and more communication between the parties.



-- source --- THE TRANSFORUM


Here is a question for you--do you think the system can be fixed? And please don't start with theory or scripture ... start with the pragmatic political world and the democratic system we live in.