Author: Alan Bean

Mitt, Moochers, and Mormonism

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Mary Barker is a professor of political science at Syracuse University’s campus in Madrid, Spain as well as at the Universidad Pontificia Comillas.  She is also a product of Utah’s Mormon culture, a socio-religious world she understands intimately.

In this piece written for Religion Dispatches she explains how Mitt Romney’s Mormonism shaped his “severe conservatism” but why his faith also provides a foundation for a merciful vision of American community.  The two sides of Mormon spirituality help explain why Utah backed the New Deal and voted Democrat up until the 1950s when the civil rights movement and fear of international communism sparked a retreat into the world of John Birch paranoia that is still evident in the rantings of Glenn Beck.

Mitt, Moochers, and Mormonism’s “Other” Legacy

Growing up with Mormon narratives—a two-part memoir and reflection on the good, the very bad, and a dreamed-for future.

By Mary Barker

There are many stories on which a Mormon is raised: narratives of the elect, America and the Constitution, the latter days, and free agency—all of which play a role in Mitt Romney’s “severe” conservatism. The bombshell release of video in which he trumpets his disdain for moochers, and reveals a remarkably casual approach to Middle East politics, all resonate with the Calvinist heritage of Mormon theology, as well as with principal Mormon narratives. But Mormonism also holds the seeds of a decidedly progressive politics—a possible Mormon liberation theology.

Does Romney’s religion matter? It’s a question that has been asked many times this election season. My answer, below, is in two parts, as I journey from End Times theology (the “latter days”) through Mormonism’s radical social and political past.

I.

I grew up at the end of the world. As a Latter-day Saint, I made my debut just before the final curtain. During my youth, rumors circulated about neighbors and boyfriends whose special “patriarchal blessings” prophesied that they would never taste of death. That fairly clearly set the limit on time. The rebellious Sixties just confirmed what the Cold War had already shown us—that we were in a final showdown with evil that would only get worse until the second coming of Jesus which is now. (more…)

Osler: “A Biblical Value in the Constitution”

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Barack Obama has rarely used his power to pardon offenders and to commute sentences.  Most likely, he sees little political upside to a public show of mercy to persons who have been defined as criminals.  This issue matters to Friends of Justice in a personal way because we work with death row inmates like Curtis Flowers and Ramsey Muniz, a seventy year-old Latino leader serving a life sentence for a non-existent narcotics conspiracy.

Professor Mark Osler, a Friends of Justice board member who teaches law at the University of St. Thomas, is a leading authority on pardon and commutation issues.  Like me, he wonders why Barack Obama has been so stingy with his pardon pen.

Osler has recently addressed this pressing issue in two articles, a brief Huffington Post piece and a journal-length essay, “A Biblical Value in the Constitution: Mercy, Clemency, Faith, and History” which can be downloaded here.  The longer piece is the best introduction to the “Is America a Christian nation?” debate I have seen.  Here’s his conclusion:

America may not be a “Christian nation,” in the way that some would like, but it remains a “nation of Christians,” where a substantial majority of citizens look to Christian principles and teaching to inform their morality. The effort to see the Constitution as an expressly religious document is doomed by the text of the thing itself. However, that does not mean that Christians such as myself cannot celebrate and promote those parts of the Constitution that reflect and embrace our central values.  Of all the Constitution, the part that most clearly reflects the values of Christ is the pardon clause. It enables a person, the president, to grant mercy. Seen properly as not only a tool of the executive but a lever of God’s will, clemency should be embraced as a profound, important, and regularly used power of the man or woman in whom we invest so much trust.

“I will no longer have to hide”: Pierre Berastain in the Dallas Morning News

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This story on Friends of Justice intern, Pierre Berastain, appeared on the front page of Saturday’s Dallas Morning News.  Pierre is a frequent contributor to this blog and also sends out our weekly updates.  AGB

Young illegal immigrant redefines his life in Carrollton and at Harvard

By DIANNE SOLÍS

Staff Writer

dsolis@dallasnews.com

Published: 21 September 2012

CARROLLTON — Pierre Berastain didn’t embrace the role of mediator when thousands of high school students walked out of classes in 2006 in Dallas and other cities to protest U.S. immigration policies.

He wanted a change in federal immigration policies as much as the protesters.

But his high school principal wanted him to calm students to prevent a walkout at R.L. Turner High School. So he got on the public address system and took several students aside in the hallways.

“Do we want to be recognized for negative behavior or for our accomplishments?” he asked his classmates.

In five years of occasional conversations with a reporter at The Dallas Morning News, Berastain anonymously spoke about his journey through college and his social justice crusades. He’s gone public with his story in recent weeks because of a new policy initiative by the Obama administration that halts deportation and grants temporary work permits to young immigrants. (more…)

Friends of Justice brings it all back home

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Robert E. Lee iconography in Jackson MS

By Alan Bean

This is Day 6 of our Friends of Justice Reunion Tour.  We started off in Houston, Texas at a vigil for Ramsey Muniz.  Nancy Bean opened and closed the event with prayer while I explained how, back in 1994, Ramsey Muniz was framed by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Then it was on to Church Point, Louisiana, where we visited with Ann and James Colomb, their children and grandchildren.  Six years ago, Nancy and I were in Lafayette when Ann and three of her sons were released from prison.  At their trial, thirty-one convicted drug dealers testified that they had sold millions of dollars to the Colomb family.  I had been arguing that this testimony was the product of perjury parties behind bars produced and directed by Brett Grayson, the ethically challenged Assistant US Attorney.  Three months after the Colombs were convicted, the truth finally emerged in all its sleazy glory and federal judge Tucker Melancon ordered that Ann and her sons be released immediately and that a full-scale investigation of the federal prison system be launched.  It was the Department of Justice that should have been investigated, but that would have landed a bit too close to home.

The next day we drove to Jackson, MS where we visited with attorneys associated with Curtis Flowers, the native of Winona, MS who has been tried six (6) times on the same murder charges.  The Office for Capital Defense is now located in the Robert E. Lee building in Jackson, an elegant art nouveau building constructed in the 1920s as an homage to the iconic Confederate general. (more…)

NPR exposes the immigration industrial complex

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A Border Patrol agent offers water to two men caught after illegally entering the U.S. through the Arizona desert. Roughly 80,000 federal workers have jobs related to immigration enforcement.

NPR’s Morning Edition story on September 12 is the first mainstream mention of the immigration industrial complex I have encountered.  Hopefully, it won’t be the last.  As the story suggests, the United States has poured over 200 billion dollars into the border war since 1986 with nothing to show for it but broken lives.  Actually, that’s not quite accurate.  Thousands of men and women owe their jobs to the anti-immigration boom and a long list of corporations (and politicians) are profiting from an insane policy.  Removing the little piggies in their starched white shirts from their trough won’t be easy.  AGB
September 12, 2012

The United States’ southern border bristles with technology and manpower designed to catch illegal immigrants and drug smugglers. Since 1986, the government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on fences, aircraft, detention centers and agents.

But even as federal budgets shrink and illegal immigration ebbs, experts say that there’s no end in sight for the growth of the border-industrial complex.

A Growing Investment On The Border

Stocked with equipment like Blackhawk helicopters — hundreds of aircraft fly daily missions — much of the southern border has grown into an industrial complex that is fed by the government and supplied by defense contractors and construction companies.

The infrastructure includes a border fence that in some places has been built and rebuilt several times. And up to 25 miles north of the border, towers, sensors and permanent checkpoints spread across the landscape. (more…)

Lies, Damn Lies, and . . .

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By Alan Bean

Like they say, you can prove anything with statistics.  I got an email this morning pointing out the ten American cities with the highest rates of poverty all have Democratic mayors.

Here’s the list:

1. Detroit , MI              32.5%
2. Buffalo , NY               29.9% poverty rate
3. Cincinnati , OH         27.8%
4. Cleveland , OH         27.0%
5. Miami , FL                26.9%
6. St. Louis , MO           26.8%
7. El Paso , TX              26.4%
8. Milwaukee , WI         26.2%
9. Philadelphia , PA        25.1%
10. Newark , NJ             24.2%

And the moral of that is:

It is the poor who habitually elect Democrats yet they are still POOR!

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.

You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.

You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.

You cannot build character and courage by taking away people’s initiative and independence.

You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.”

I have seen similar lists of American cities on racist websites.  There, the moral is that many poor cities have black mayors which shows that black people are incompetent.

Now let’s consider the opposite indicator: the ten American cities with the largest concentration of high net worth individuals.  These happen to be:

  1. New York (currently the mayor is independent, but NY historically favors Democrats)
  2. Los Angeles (Democratic mayor)
  3. Chicago (Democrat)
  4. Washington, D.C. (Democrat)
  5. San Francisco (Democrat)
  6. Philadelphia (Democrat)
  7. Boston (Democrat)
  8. Houston (Democrat)
  9. Detroit (Democrat)
  10. San Jose (Democrat)

How do we account for the fact that the American cities with the highest rates of poverty and the highest net worth individuals tend to have Democratic mayors?  (Detroit, by the way, makes both lists because it’s economy, after several years of free fall, recovered remarkably last year with the rebirth of the auto industry.)

There are two reasons. (more…)

Peter’s Vision and the Gay Rights Debate

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By Alan Bean

Fred Clark’s Slacktivist blog features some of the best discussions of the Bible and the gay rights debate I have encountered.  In addition to the piece pasted below, this should interest you.

What is the Bible?  Is it a book of rules?  Pick it up.  Select a passage at random.  Does it sound like a book of rules?

So if the Bible isn’t a rule book, what is it.  Sociologist/theologian Christian Smith puts it this way: “The Bible is not about offering tips for living a good life.  It is about Jesus Christ who is our only good and our only life.”

When I find the time, I will write a post about the growing number of evangelical scholars who are breaking ranks with the Christianity-lite world of popular evangelicalism.  In the meantime, I commend Fred Clark to your attention.

‘God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean’

By Fred Clark

In comments a few days back, I see there was a question regarding whether I believe “that homosexuality is objectively immoral.”

It’s my fault if I haven’t been as clear as I need to be on that point: No. I do not believe that homosexuality is objectively immoral.

But that’s not strong enough. It’s more than that: I believe that denying LGBT people full legal equality is objectively immoral. I believe that excluding LGBT people from full inclusion, full participation and full equality in the church is objectively immoral — and objectively unbiblical.

Such civil discrimination and religious exclusion violates core principles of biblical Christianity — principles as pervasive and essential as the Golden Rule.

More specifically, I would point to Acts 10:1 – Acts 11:18 as a compelling argument that followers of Christ must not “call anyone profane or unclean.” This story teaches us that appealing to biblical law in order to declare another person or group of people as “profane or unclean” is not legitimate, even if we think we can make a strong case for interpreting the law in this way. The biblical laws regarding circumcision were not ambiguous or optional, yet such clear commandments regarding Other People’s Genitals were not to be allowed to exclude the uncircumcised from being baptized.

Let me be clear on that point: God commanded Peter to disregard those laws, commanded him not to allow those laws to exclude others. Peter wasn’t told that he now had the option of welcoming those who had been excluded. Peter wasn’t told he might maybe kind of sort of “tolerate” these people as second-class members of the community, “as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed” the gift of the Holy Spirit.

No, Peter was told that he must welcome them, fully and openly as equals. “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” Anything short of full acceptance would itself constitute disobeying a command from God.

I’ve been preaching this sermon from Peter’s vision in the book of Acts for many years now (for a few examples, see: “The Abominable Shellfish: Why some Christians hate gays but love bacon,” “Slavery, seafood, sexuality and the Southern Bible” and “Selfish Gentiles and ‘Shellfish Objections’“). I think it’s important. I think it’s very important, because right now, throughout most of the American church, across almost all denominations, we Christians are calling profane those whom God has made clean.

And I believe that is objectively immoral.

“Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” Peter asks. LGBT Christians have received the Holy Spirit just as we have. To withhold the water for baptizing them, to call them profane or unclean, is wrong — it is disobedient, unloving, hurtful, harmful, unbiblical. It’s a sin.

It’s particularly astonishing that the very same American Christians now excluding LGBT Christians from full inclusion and full participation in the church are, overwhelmingly, Gentiles. We Gentile Christians would, ourselves, be excluded if it were not for that lesson Peter learned in Acts 10:1-11:18. Freely you have received, freely give. For the measure you give will be the measure you get back.

I’m very pleased to see an increasing use of this passage as the case for full equality — in the church and under the law — gains momentum. (“Who am I to Think That I Could Stand in God’s Way?” Mal Green asks in arguing for marriage equality in New Zealand.) I expect that this will produce some backlash — likely an attempt to reinterpret Peter’s vision to mean something other than what Peter himself said it meant (as both Al Mohler and Timothy Dalrymple have done recently).

There will always be a Jonah Faction in Christianity — a group that shakes its fists at God for “abounding in steadfast love” toward even the Ninevites whom that faction despises. They seem driven by the fear that if God’s love and mercy are extended even to include the Ninevites, then there will be less of them left over for us. From the perspective of the Jonah Faction, salvation is a zero-sum game.

Peter’s vision is a rebuke to Team Jonah, so that faction will eventually have to come up with a way of explaining away its expansive, explosive message. They will try to say, somehow, that this passage from Acts is only about Cornelius, or only about dietary law. They’ll dissect this passage with a lawyerly eye, studying the finger while refusing to look where it is pointing.

I’m sure they’ll find a lot to say about the finger, but it will all be beside the point.

Cell phones create new moral and legal challenges

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By Alan Bean

Parents, coaches and administrators at DeMatha Catholic High School in Washington DC are expressing outrage and disbelief after five football players hired local prostitutes the morning after an away game in North Carolina.  According to the story in the Washington Post, chaperons did their level best to avert this kind of behavior.  Bed checks were performed until 1:30 am and motel hallways were monitored until 4:30 am.  But the players waited until 5:00 am to call the prostitutes on their cell phones.

Principal Daniel McMahon assured parents that “The school community is saddened and hurt by the actions of these few who do not reflect the character of the community.”

But what exactly is the character of the community?  Who defines that?

WP columnist, Petula Dvorak isn’t surprised that football players would dial up prostitutes as easily as they could call  out for pizza.

It all begins with internet porn, Dvorak believes.  Back in the day, the natural curiosity of adolescent boys was sporadically sated  by occasionally ogling the skin mags at the local newsstand or convenience store.  Then came the anonymity and convenience of internet porn.  Many parents countered by using filters like Net Nanny, but with the advent of cell phones with internet access all bets were off. Now fourteen year-old boys download hardcore porn on a daily basis.

The ubiquity of porn (sometimes called the “pornification” of America) isn’t just a problem for children, of course, but at least adults have some sense that pornographic images deviate wildly from sexual reality.  With little basis for comparison, adolescents easily assume that porn sex is standard issue eroticism.  The social consequences can be dreadful.

Much has been written in recent years about sexual addiction, an ailment that normally begins with the compulsive consumption of mainstream porn and frequently spins off into violent and degrading fare featuring the intentional humiliation and debasement of women.  These disturbing images have little appeal to the neophyte, many believe, but as the viewer becomes desensitized to standard issue sexual content it takes stronger and stronger stuff to produce the same psychic effect. (more…)

Giving God a Bad Name?

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The Almighty

By Alan Bean

Republicans and Democrats are fighting about God.  The GOP scored points by publicizing the fact that the blue team’s platform doesn’t mention the Almighty.  Democrats responded by putting God back in their policy document and ensuring that virtually every speaker at this week’s convention referenced religion at some point during their presentations.

This Convention-as-Godfest idea didn’t sit well with all delegates.  Big-tent Democrats don’t want to exclude the non-religious or privilege any particular religion.  Moreover, the manipulation of God-talk on the right makes a lot of liberals uncomfortable with religious references of any kind.  This explains why sticking the Creator back into the party platform wasn’t easy.

Should the name of God be associated with party politics?  Let’s face it, both parties are working overtime to spin the issues in their favor.  Party conventions are about translating pretty faces and fancy words into votes.  Truth telling isn’t a big issue.  I’m not complaining; that’s the nature of the political process.  At least no blood is spilled.

Electioneering is a species of sales.  On two occasions I have tried to sell things.  First it was the Encyclopedia Britannica.  Then I tried to hawk high-end cook wear.   I’m not a good pitchman.  The guys who sold lots of books and pots were never on good terms with the truth.  Frankly, they would say whatever it took to move the product.  Some were outright liars; those with winning personalities just sold themselves.  It is no different with party politics.  It’s a form of rhetorical roller derby where a good elbow to the trachea always gets style points. (more…)

Great speech, Bill, but I’ve got a problem

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By Alan Bean

Only Bill Clinton can hold an audience through fifty minutes of uninterrupted wonkery.  His speech at the Democratic Convention displayed rhetorical skill, a keen grasp of policy detail and a deep understanding of political reality that only comes with painful experience.  They say convention speeches have little lasting impact.  Clinton’s performance last night may qualify as the rare exception.

But I’ve got a problem.

Mr. Clinton’s triangulating legacy is a big part of the mess we face as a nation.  The Man from Hope mastered the art of the deal.  He met his opponents half way.  He stole their best material.  The new corporate aristocracy could live with a free trading Democrat like this.

Thanks largely to the repeal of Glass-Steagall and the speculative bubbles that followed in its wake, the middle class prospered on Clinton’s watch.  But the poor and the vulnerable (the folks Friends of Justice, and God Almighty, cares about the most) have paid a dreadful price for Clinton’s political success.

In 1996, Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Act that ended welfare as we know it.  The plan worked reasonably well where job markets were strong.  But in many small towns and urban neighborhoods the move from welfare to work, wonderful in theory, didn’t translate to the street.  Now that the job market for the poorest 20% has virtually disappeared, Mr. Clinton’s chickens are roosting everywhere. (more…)