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UrbanFaith.com Poll

2010-03-11T06:01:57Z

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What do you think of the "Black Children Are an Endangered Species" antiabortion campaign?

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2010-03-09T23:05:38Z

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Do We Need a 'New' Christianity?

2010-03-09T20:12:03Z

In his latest book, Brian McLaren calls the church to a deeper and broader vision of the gospel that makes room for contemporary issues of justice and reconciliation. But has the controversial author gone too far this time? PLUS: Keep reading to find out how you can receive a FREE copy of McLaren's book, A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith.

]]> Reading a Brian McLaren book is not for the theologically faint of heart, nor is it for those who wish to stay safely ensconced within their doctrinal comfort zones. McLaren is, to put it mildly, an evangelical agitator. He has been labeled everything from "unbiblical" to "dangerous." A lot of that stems from his prominent role as a leading proponent of what we now call the "emergent" or "emerging" church movement, which seeks to recast the Christian faith in the context of postmodern culture while staying true to Scripture. More often than not, this means questioning the customs and practices of the modern evangelical movement and its various institutions.

The founding pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church in Maryland and a popular speaker and writer, McLaren has traveled far and wide with his controversial ideas on spirituality and faith. In 2005 TIME magazine named him one of the "25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America."

His latest book, A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith, envisions a Christianity revitalized by outside-the-box approaches to ten crucial issues the church must address:

• The Narrative Question: What is the Bible about, and what problem is it trying to solve?

• The Authority Question: What does it mean to say the Bible has authority?

• The God Question: Is God violent? Does he make innocent people suffer?

• The Jesus Question: Who is Jesus and why is he so important?

• The Gospel Question: What is the core message of the Christian faith?

• The Church Question: What are the church's primary, essential functions?

• The Sex Question: Can we move beyond polarization to constructive dialogue on the issue of homosexuality?

• The Future Question: What is our vision of the future?

• The Pluralism Question: How should followers of Jesus relate to people of other religions?

• The What-Do-We-Do-Now Question: How can we open a discussion about these questions without creating needless controversy and division?

McLaren argues that he's not proposing a new set of beliefs, but rather a "new way of believing" the truth of God's Word.

Not surprisingly, the book is already stirring up debate. In Christianity Today, North Park University theologian Scot McKnight, usually generous toward thinkers in the emerging church, finds the book lacking in evangelical orthodoxy. And Kevin DeYoung, pastor of University Reformed Church in East Lansing, Michigan, takes it a step farther. He writes: "McLaren's Christianity is not new and certainly not improved. I don't believe you can even call it Christianity. It is liberalism dressed up for the 21st century."

With these criticisms in mind, UrbanFaith's resident Jazz Theologian, Robert Gelinas, spoke to McLaren about what he wants to accomplish with his new book, as well as the popular critique from many that the emerging church movement is a decidedly "white" phenomenon that has very little relevance for non-Caucasian believers and those coming from an urban context.

JAZZ THEOLOGIAN: How does A New Kind of Christianity build upon your past works, and what's wrong with the old kind of Christianity?

BRIAN McCLAREN: Several people have said that the book summarizes my work to date and extends it into new territory, and I think there's a lot of truth to that, although it is less directly engaged with contemporary crises than Everything Must Change, or with spiritual formation than Finding Our Way Again. Instead of saying what's wrong with the old kind of Christianity, I'd simply say that as the Christian faith matures over the centuries, we are ready for new challenges, new learnings, and it would be a shame to fail to keep maturing. So older kinds of Christianity were appropriate to their times and our maturity, but we need to keep growing, learning, and maturing.

In your 2001 book, A New Kind of Christian: A Tale of Two Friends on a Spiritual Journey, you draw an analogy between modern churches that look like everything is fine with being like "horse buggies" that were built when the automobile was invented. That is, the best buggies were built right when they were becoming obsolete. Is that who your new book is for, Christians who have bought into a form of Christianity that is fading?

Nobody has asked me that question yet, and it forces me to face something that I probably haven't really faced so far, namely, that the folks who are thoroughly bought into current forms of Christian faith are unlikely to change. They'll be likely to interpret this new book as an attack on what they hold dear, which really isn't what I intend at all.

I'd say this book is more for Christians who have tried and tried to buy into the dominant forms of Christianity today ... traditionalism, the religious right, the prosperity gospel, and so on -- and who simply can't give their hearts to those forms of Christian living. They feel there's something more calling them, and they're on a quest for that something more. That's more, I think, who I'm writing for, although I'm glad to have any of the others come along who are willing.

I'm assuming that you believe that the emerging church is not just a renewal movement for young middle-class Caucasian Christians. So I'd like to ask you a few questions to get at how emergent Christianity addresses the issues of following Jesus within the urban context. First, how does A New Kind of Christianity help urban Christians address issues such as the high incarceration rate among young men, substandard schools, and fatherlessness while at the same time there is a proliferation of churches preaching a prosperity gospel?

In the book, I'm trying to help us get a deeper and broader vision of the gospel. The gospel that many people believe in says very little about issues of justice and peace in this life; it focuses on personal morality in this life and salvation from hell after this life. It would be very concerned about, say, homosexuality, but not very concerned about systemic racism and economic exclusion and oppression. It would say a lot about personal morality but not so much about social morality. I'm proposing that the gospel of the kingdom of God -- the gospel Jesus preached (and Paul too, I propose) -- is about God's will being done on earth as in heaven, and so that has everything to do with the city, with racism, with incarceration, with unemployment, with equity in education, and so on.

I'm also suggesting that the eschatologies that many of us were taught -- eschatologies that predict the world will get worse and worse and then be destroyed -- work against working for the healing of this world, including our cities. So I would say that this book, along with Everything Must Change, would be of real interest to folks engaged with urban issues.

You argue that a new kind of Christianity will require that we ask, "What is the overarching storyline of the Bible?" How will the answer to this question help African American churches that often read the Bible through an Exodus or Exile narrative?

Actually, in this book I'm saying that those African American churches that read the Bible through an Exodus narrative have been right all along, and that the white churches that tended to read the Bible exclusively through an atonement and evacuation narrative are missing something tremendously important. Sadly, in my experience, quite a few of our African American churches are switching over to the more traditional white narrative, which says that it's only about Jesus and me (and maybe my family, or my religion), with little concern for the more social dimensions of the gospel for the poor, oppressed, excluded, marginalized, and forgotten, not to mention our enemies. I'm recommending that we take that Exodus narrative that African American theology has cherished, and then set the narrative of Creation as its prequel, and the narrative of reconciliation as its sequel. In that way, I think we'll have a three-dimensional narrative that has room for us to live, serve, and breathe.

Not long after telling our nation about his dream, Martin Luther King Jr. said that he started to see his dream turn into a "nightmare." One of the reasons for this can be found in his "Letter from Birmingham Jail," in which he expressed his love for the church while at the same time he pled with pastors to reject the "fear of being non-conformists." Do you ever feel like that?

The pressure to conform really is great, and the punishment for stepping out of line can be harsh. For a lot of years, I did what a lot of people do: tried to conform and stay out of trouble! But eventually, I just couldn't do so any longer. In part, the Bible drove me out of conformity, because the Bible didn't fit in the narrow framework I was given. In part, people drove me out -- when I met people who were experiencing injustice, and when I took seriously my call to love them as I love myself, their burdens and concerns became my own and I had to take some risks.

Knowing how much to risk when is a real matter for spiritual discernment. Some of us are liable to be too timid, and others of us to be too rash, so I think there aren't one-size-fits-all answers to this, except to say that we need to be prayerful and open to the Spirit's guidance, and we need to have a circle of soul-friends with whom we can process our lives and our work.

Malcolm X's main critique of Christianity in America had to do with how race seemed to determine our habits more than Jesus. Which of your ten questions in A New Kind of Christianity can lead us closer to the unity that Christ prayed for in John 17 and why?

The first of the ten questions probably is key here -- the Narrative Question. I suggest that what many of us take to be the biblical narrative is actually the Greco-Roman narrative, and that narrative is inherently dualistic. It creates us vs. them, civilized vs. barbarians, insiders vs. outsiders, and that dualism easily gets translated into racism and related -isms -- white versus black, settlers versus native peoples, Americans versus immigrants, whatever.

I'd also say that the third question is really key, the God Question: Is God violent? If we believe that God plays favorites -- loves some, hates others; chooses some, rejects others; makes some rich, lets others be poor -- then it becomes very easy to see our race (or nation, or denomination) as blessed and everyone else as cursed. That connects us quickly with the fourth question, the Jesus question, because if we believe that God is like Jesus, and we see Jesus constantly crossing boundaries to show love to the other, then we see God as being the God who breaks boundaries too, rather than the one who creates boundaries.

Then I think about the sixth question, the Church Question, because we need to ask how we manifest and embody our view of the biblical narrative, our view of God, our view of Jesus, in our local churches. All of our theology needs to be translated into real life in local faith communities. That's where it makes a difference -- especially in our cities, where it is needed so much!

You're a musician and songwriter and I'm a jazz theologian, so let's jam a bit. Jazz assumes standards and practices before one takes the stage. What are the basic practices that need to be assumed before we can experience A New Kind of Christianity?

First, that there's a key we're playing in: that's the key of the gospel of the kingdom or dream of God. Second, that there's a rhythm we're working with: that's the rhythm of Jesus' birth, life, death, resurrection, and indwelling. Third, that there's a bandleader who calls the tune and sets the rhythm: that's the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Fourth, that there's a chart, the Bible, that gives us some basic chords and notes and melodies to learn by heart and play from the heart. Fifth, that the chart makes room to improvise -- that each of us has the freedom, opportunity, and even responsibility to let loose and make our unique solo contribution, always being sensitive to what the other musicians are doing and to the integrity of our song. Sixth, that there are dynamics to be respected -- you don't play too loud, you don't solo too often or too long. And seventh, that there is a goal -- to get people up off their seats and dancing with joy to the music of God, so they're caught up in the glorious dance, something bigger than any of us, something that enfolds all of us in God's song of celebration and love.
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Win a FREE Copy of A New Kind of Christianity by Brian McLaren, compliments of UrbanFaith.com and HarperOne

To enter, leave a comment below that responds to the following questions: What should genuine, biblical Christianity look like in the 21st century? And what shouldn't it look like?

Post your responses until Sunday, March 21. We'll randomly select FIVE names from among those commenting and notify the winners the next day, Monday, March 22. The odds of winning depend on the number of comments we receive. Though you're welcome to leave as many comments as you'd like (we encourage you to interact with other readers), there's a limit of one contest entry per commenter for the giveaway. Comments must be received by March 21 at 11:59 p.m. Central Time in order to qualify. (If you have trouble leaving a comment, please send a message to info[at]urbanfaith.com.)

The retail value of the book is $24.99. No purchase is necessary to enter or win, and the giveaway is void where prohibited.

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Robert Gelinas is the lead pastor at Colorado Community Church in Denver and UrbanFaith.com's resident Jazz Theologian. He blogs at JazzTheologian.com. His latest book is Finding the Groove: Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith.

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2010-03-08T18:49:55Z

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Mo'Nique's Victory Grew Out of Tragedy

2010-03-08T16:34:33Z

Mo'Nique's Oscar-winning performance in Precious came from a dark place in her family history. Say what you will about the actress and the movie, her Academy Award victory caps the unlikely rise of a black woman who turned personal tragedy into professional triumph.

]]> Well, Mo'Nique did it.

The movie, Precious, for which she won the Academy Award for supporting actress, may have made us uncomfortable, but doggonit, Mo'Nique did it.

The sadistic way in which she'd make Precious, played by fellow Oscar nominee Gabourey Sidibe, wait on her like a slave and tell her that she wouldn't amount anything. The pain and rage in her bloodshot eyes as her chapped lips sipped a cigarette bud revealing yellowed teeth. Mo'Nique, who broke through showbiz as a foul-mouth standup comedian, was absolutely believable as a dramatic actor.

And I'm sure she believed the Oscar would come.

By now you know Precious, based on the novel Push, is about an illiterate teen mom who triumphs after having been abused by just about everyone. She's ridiculed at school and in her neighborhood. Family life is even worse. Her young child and newborn are from her father, who raped her. Her mother is arguably the most abusive and least sympathetic character in the movie. This is the role Mo'Nique worked into an award-winning performance.

The movie caused a stir, even anger, because it, yet again, put on display a highly dysfunctional black family. Even C. Jeffrey Wright, CEO of UrbanFaith's parent company, chimed in about what many viewed as the movie's lopsided portrayal of African American life. During the Oscar Night edition of The Barbara Walters Special, which aired before the 82nd Academy Awards, Mo'Nique addressed this. Abuse is "colorless" and that the actors just happened to be black, she said.

True, abuse and other dysfunctions exist in families of all ethnicities and races, but black dysfunction is too common in movies and throughout the media. This gives the impression that dysfunction is the only state of the black family. I realize family hell sells better at the box office, so I'd settle for more positive black characters in these same movies. Write in a black doctor who has it together, or an honest black business owner.

Truthfully, there are few families that are not dysfunctional and this is what many of us spend our careers -- our lives -- trying to overcome.

Mo'Nique's Oscar winning-performance came from a dark place within her family. She was abused as a child. During the Walters interview, Mo'Nique discussed the sexual abuse she endured at the hands of an older brother beginning around age 7. Fear kept her from telling their parents until about age 15. Her brother went on to abuse someone else, and served prison time.

Mo'Nique modeled her Precious character after him. She told Walters that the last time they spoke and were together was as adults while she was in the hospital after birthing twins. Visiting, her brother picked up and held one of the babies in his arms. Bad move. I can only imagine the rage the welled inside Mo'Nique. She wasn't specific about the encounter, but must've torn into him. With therapy, and the help of her husband, Mo'Nique released the burden, she said.

Faith is about believing deeply in what you can't see despite the reasons to doubt that are before you. You can't please God without it. As Mo'Nique's name was announced as the winner, she paused and then stood and composed herself before heading to the stage. In her acceptance speech, she invoked the late Hattie McDaniel, the first black woman to win an Oscar back in 1940, and alluded to the politics that typically go along with being nominated for an Academy Award -- politics that Mo'Nique boldly refused to partake in. It was at once clear that this Oscar victory -- and her involvement in Precious -- was much bigger than just playing a role in a movie. As I watched, I thought about all those rough times she must've endured, and perhaps, like Precious, how she might've wanted to give up. How Mo'Nique must've willed herself to focus not on the immediate trials in her personal life and career, but on the future rewards she envisioned.

You may not like her opinions or lifestyle choices, but Mo'Nique did it. She kept the faith.

"To every last person that celebrates a victory of being abused, and you can stand baby, congratulations," she said backstage to the thank you cam. "...To the whole world I simply say I thank you and let's start loving again, unconditionally."

Now that's a storyline we ought to be comfortable with.
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Wil LaVeist is an award-winning journalist and author of Fired Up: How to Win When You Lose Your Job and a professional speaker. Find out more at www.willaveist.com.

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2010-03-05T23:18:16Z

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Black Children Are Not Baby Seals

2010-03-05T22:00:09Z

A controversial billboard campaign in Atlanta is bringing needed attention to an issue that's having a devasting effect on the black community in America. But is this the right way to do it?

]]> Perhaps you've heard about the controversial billboard campaign sponsored by Georgia Right to Life, that state's largest pro-life organization, in partnership with a Christian group called the Radiance Foundation. In signs put up around Atlanta, as well as through a dynamic website, the campaign puts the abortion issue squarely in the faces of passersby with the image of a young child next to the startling words: "Black Children Are an Endangered Species."

It's a provocative, thought-provoking image and caption. And the campaign is brought to you, in part, by black and biracial folks, many of whom have deeply sympathetic stories related to the pro-life issue.

Like other pro-life efforts geared toward African Americans, the campaign draws attention to The Negro Project, a controversial initiative of Margaret Sanger, who founded one of the organizations that later became Planned Parenthood. The Negro Project, which was initiated in 1939, focused on teaching birth control methods in black communities, often with the help of black ministers. The paternalistic and eugenicist language of Sanger's writings is often interpreted as evidence of a racist conspiracy to control black reproduction.

I applaud the campaign's message, and the attention it will generate about the Negro Project. The statistics the website raises about the disproportionate impact abortion has had in the black community -- for example, that black women have abortions at three times the rate of white women and almost twice the rate of other racial groups combined -- let us know that there is knowledge for us to share and to act on.

I'm adamant about my support for the campaign's aims, because it's important for African Americans to become aware of the devastating impact of abortion. At the same time, I believe it's important to use language and symbols carefully. I find the use of "endangered species" language and imagery to describe black children to be profoundly inappropriate.

First, there's the problem of comparing African Americans to animals. Anyone with any knowledge of the way that kind of imagery has been used in the past should think twice before leveraging it for its shock value and attention-grabbing potential. The fact that the cause is to save black children doesn't make it right.

I get it: They want us to see that, like cute little penguins or baby seals, whose survival has become a subject of passionate concern for millions of people around the world, black children are in danger too. So the point of the Georgia campaign, like those famous "Save the Baby Humans" bumper stickers, is to emphasize the hypocrisy in caring more about animals than we do about people.

But black children aren't animals -- and that's precisely why their lives are important. They shouldn't be compared to the Okaloosa Darter or the Galapagos Petrel, or some other species you haven't heard about and don't care about the survival of. That's why this imagery is such a bad idea. It "others" and objectifies black children in ways that are racially problematic and potentially harmful.

But, if it saves lives, isn't it worth it?

I believe that's a flawed question, because we're capable of thinking more creatively than that.

The words and imagery the campaign's organizers have chosen creates a false choice between saving lives and recognizing those lives as human -- which is precisely the point of the pro-life movement, as well as the blind spot it's sometimes accused of having.

Think about how we often regard animals on the Endangered Species list: they are protected with the hope that they can be released back into the wild, where they can survive on their own.

The late Spencer Perkins identified the problems with this kind of thinking back in 1989, when he raised the question of a "pro-life credibility gap." In Perkins' view, those Christians who were most visible in leading the pro-life movement were often not as interested in other issues of justice for African Americans. He wrote, "I feel that if the love of Christ compels me to save the lives of children, that same love should compel me to take more responsibility for them once they are born." Though Perkins was making the point about white pro-lifers, it's a question for all of us to consider.

An "endangered species" mentality de-contextualizes and dislocates many children from the possible sources of the issues they may face. This mentality doesn't imply that these children will need places to live free from poor environmental settings and polluted air, or a neighborhood that isn't a food desert, or a street that's safe from the bullets of warring gangbangers, or church families to help support them, or high-quality public schools to prepare them for life, or intact families with parents whose relationships provide a secure home, or people (of any race!) who will adopt them and raise them lovingly.

I am not saying that eliminating poverty will end abortion. I am saying that comparing black children to an endangered species limits our thinking about what they will need to live healthy lives.

I'm pleased that a national spotlight is being directed on a critical issue. I just wonder if the folks behind the Georgia campaign could've garnered similar attention without the "endangered species" meme.

Some may say I'm being overly sensitive, or that the anti-abortion message requires this kind of brutal frankness. Perhaps. But in our efforts to draw more attention to the tragic impact abortion is having in the black community, we should be wary of further dehumanizing the very lives we seek to save.
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LaTonya Taylor is a communications professional and graduate student in Chicago. She blogs intermittently at Gospel Gal.

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2010-03-05T01:04:30Z

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Did Tiger Choose the Right Faith?

2010-03-04T23:23:08Z

Tiger Woods was raised a Buddhist, and now he's returning to his childhood religion. Hopefully, he'll avoid one of the great pitfalls many of us Christians fall into when it comes to living out our faith.

]]> Recently, Tiger Woods went before TV cameras and a roomful of journalists and friends to apologize for his marital infidelity and all the damage it has wrought. In the midst of his confession, he revealed what he considers to be a key component to his rehabilitation: A return to his Buddhist roots.

I admit, as a Christian pastor, I would've loved to hear him announce that he had committed his life to Jesus while in rehab, but I was nonetheless thankful that Tiger seems to be confronting the spiritual dimensions of his problems. He now takes responsibility for his actions and recognizes that true restoration will require something greater than himself. And, based on his family background, Buddhism was the natural choice.

The thing is, most Christians are as Buddhist as Tiger Woods wants to be!
Can you guess what I mean?

Tiger Woods is facing the same challenge we all do: What do we do with our desires?
Two basic answers: Feed Them or Deny Them.

Option #1 is fraught with promise and peril. When we feed our desires we can say, "We are doing what comes natural." That is, God gave me these desires and it's only right to follow their lead. The downside? Weight gain, broken hearts, STDs, debt, and, oftentimes, a secret life.

Secrecy sets in because something inside us knows that just pursuing our desires without limits is wrong. Tiger said as much.

Option #2, a denial of our desires, has one big downside: Suffering. We suffer when we don't indulge our desires. There is a discomfort that goes along with not doing what you feel you have to do. Just try not to scratch your next itch and see if you wouldn't describe it as suffering. Denial of desire carries with it ultimate satisfaction. But we rarely get to experience it, because we don't like the suffering required to get there.

Tiger's solution to the dilemma is to become a better Buddhist. This ancient philosophy teaches a great deal about dealing with desires.

Here's a summary of "The Four Noble Truths" of Buddhism: Life leads to suffering; suffering is caused by desires; suffering ends when desires end; thus we should eliminate our desires.

I think that most Christians, in practice at least, are as Buddhist as Tiger wants to be ... unfortunately.

Unlike Buddhism, Christianity has a very different view of suffering and desires. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Unearned suffering is redemptive." Jesus didn't exempt himself from suffering and he invites us to take up our cross and follow him (Matt. 16:24-25). Furthermore, desires are meant to be pursued to their fullest extent. That is, all the way to God.

That's why Jesus is revealed as bread and water ... so that we might feast on Him. That's why the psalmist sang, "Fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand" (Ps. 16:11) . Our soul is able to sing because it is God "who satisfies our desires with good things" (Ps. 103:5).

Like Tiger Woods, we all need to confront the root of our sins and strive for healing and restoration. I just hope we recognize that genuine healing must eventually get beyond the act of simply denying ourselves and focus on the process of allowing ourselves to be filled with the good things of God.

C. S. Lewis was correct in The Weight of Glory when he said that our problem is that we satisfy with too little. Like little children making mud pies in the gutter when we are being offered a vacation to build sandcastles on the beach.
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Tiger Woods photo by Jim Epler from Wikipedia.

Health-Care Reform and the Golden Rule

2010-03-04T21:49:08Z

Telling half-truths about health-care reform makes it harder for us to judge Obama's plan based on the facts. But it also violates one of our greatest biblical precepts.

]]> Good will is a primary element of moral conduct. This is an important idea in the thought of philosopher Immanuel Kant. A good will is good in itself because it does not depend upon whether or not the person will benefit from a particular action or not. An individual acting out of a good will considers his or her duty to act in accordance with the moral law.

Kant's test for whether or not an action coheres to the moral law is his Categorical Imperative, which is very close to the Golden Rule that Jesus taught. The Categorical Imperative says: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it become a universal law." The Golden Rule says: "In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets" (Matthew 7:12). So, to act from a good will is to act in accordance to one's duty to do to others as we would be done by -- to ask ourselves what kind of world we would create if everyone acted the way we do.

Sadly, many of our leaders in Congress are not acting with a good will. In advance of President Obama's health-care reform summit, for example, at least one Republican Congress member said that the American people oppose the President's health-care reform proposal. He is correct. A recent Rasmussen poll reports that 56% of its respondents strongly oppose President Obama's health-care reform. However, what the Congress member does not say is that in polls where the respondents are told what the elements of the bill are, they approve of the various elements, and support for the bill goes up.

A Newsweek Poll conducted Feb. 17-18, 2010, found the following opinions of the President's plan: opposed 49%, favor 40%, unsure 9%. After hearing about the specifics of the proposal, the numbers changed: opposed 43%, favor 48%, unsure 9%. Fifty percent of the respondents favor "a government-administered public health insurance option to compete with private plans."

More people in the Kaiser Family Foundation Kaiser Health Tracking Poll believe their families would be better off if the President and Congress passed health-care reform (better off 34%, worse off 32%, 26% not much difference). This number goes up when asked if the country as a whole would be better off (better off 45%, worse off 34%, not much difference 12%). Thirty-two percent think that Congress should pass legislation that has already been approved while 20% think Congress should pass only those provisions where there is broad agreement. Fifty-nine percent think the delay is due to both sides playing politics.

That Congress member told the partial truth, which is still dishonest. There are items in the polls that would support Republican positions. Most people think it is important for health insurers to have the ability to sell across state lines. However, by giving only the facts of the poll that support his position, that Congress member violated the Categorical Imperative and the Golden Rule. The presumption here is that he would not want people to tell half-truths to him or that we ought not to make half-truth-telling a universal law.

What is worse, we have to spend time checking the facts of a poll rather than learning the facts of the various proposals, a combination of which may finally get this country to universal health care. And universal health care is a moral good and ought to be a legislative imperative.

Photo by Ryan Rodrick Beiler.
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Dr. Valerie Elverton Dixon is an independent scholar who publishes lectures and essays at JustPeaceTheory.com. She received her Ph.D. in religion and society from Temple University and taught Christian ethics at United Theological Seminary and Andover Newton Theological School. This post appears courtesy of a partnership with Sojourners.