Barack Obama and the Golden Rule

During his first few days in office Barack Obama delivered brief remarks at a National Prayer Breakfast. In part he said. “We know too that whatever our differences, there is one law that binds all great religions together. Jesus told us to ‘love thy neighbor as thyself.’ The Torah commands, ‘That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.’ In Islam, there is a hadith that reads ‘None of you truly believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself’.’ And the same is true for Buddhists and Hindus; for followers of Confucius and for humanists. It is, of course, the Golden Rule – the call to love one another; to understand one another; to treat with dignity and respect those with whom we share a brief moment on this Earth.

“It is an ancient rule; a simple rule; but also one of the most challenging. For it asks each of us to take some measure of responsibility for the well-being of people we may not know or worship with or agree with on every issue. Sometimes, it asks us to reconcile with bitter enemies or resolve ancient hatreds. And that requires a living, breathing, active faith. It requires us not only to believe, but to do – to give something of ourselves for the benefit of others and the betterment of our world."

In my estimation this endorsement of a Golden Rule is noteworthy, especially the emphasis of the notion of personal responsibility. Responsibility is a recurring motif of Mr. Obama. (His just released budget is titled "A New Era of Responsibility.") In his Prayer Breakfast remarks he charges us all with taking responsibility for the the common good of one another and our world.

What are the touchstones of such responsibility? His remarks defining the Golden Rule are clear: "to love one another; to understand one another; to treat with dignity and respect those with whom we share a brief moment on this Earth."

Return of the Indulgence

The egregious sale of indulgences precipitated the Protestant Reformation. The Second Vatican Council (1960) resulted in their disuse. But Pope Pope John Paul II reinstated indulgences in 2000 to celebrate the Church's third millennium. Pope Benedict XVI has found indulgences to be a useful means of reawakening a sense of personal sin in Catholics and to bring them back to the confessional.

Today's New York Times has an article that explores complications of the doctrine of indulgences.

"The indulgence is among the less noticed and less disputed traditions to be restored. But with a thousand-year history and volumes of church law devoted to its intricacies, it is one of the most complicated to explain.

"According to church teaching, even after sinners are absolved in the confessional and say their Our Fathers or Hail Marys as penance, they still face punishment after death, in Purgatory, before they can enter heaven. In exchange for certain prayers, devotions or pilgrimages in special years, a Catholic can receive an indulgence, which reduces or erases that punishment instantly, with no formal ceremony or sacrament.

"There are partial indulgences, which reduce purgatorial time by a certain number of days or years, and plenary indulgences, which eliminate all of it, until another sin is committed. You can get one for yourself, or for someone who is dead. You cannot buy one — the church outlawed the sale of indulgences in 1567 — but charitable contributions, combined with other acts, can help you earn one. There is a limit of one plenary indulgence per sinner per day.

"It has no currency in the bad place"

In my estimation the return to indulgences (especially as a means of restoring a sense of sinfulness) indicates the conservative strategy of the current Pope to restore the authority of the traditional Church, as opposed to the reformed Church put forth by the Second Vatican Council and associated with Pope John XXIII.

Thank You, John Updike

John Updike’s recent death took me back to the early 1970s and McGill University where I studied religion. The Rabbit books were big and Couples had explored the age’s new attitudes regarding sexuality.

It seemed to me that Mr. Updike was at heart a neo-orthodox Protestant, a critic of the innate depravity of the human condition. (For example, Couples was set in the aptly named town of Tarbox.)

As an aspiring Unitarian minister I silently dialogued with his literary jabs at my liberal religious tradition, with which Mr. Updike had considerable familiarity. His wife was the daughter of a prominent Unitarian minister.

Although I thoroughly disagree with a negative neo-orthodox appraisal of the human condition, I’m eternally grateful for Mr. Updike’s writing that so contributed to the development of my own worldview. I often think that his works offer the most important critical appraisal of the latter decades of twentieth century American culture.

Obama: Called to a Higher Purpose

At today's National Prayer Breakfast President Obama testified to his faith origins and evolution: "I was not raised in a particularly religious household. I had a father who was born a Muslim but became an atheist, grandparents who were non-practicing Methodists and Baptists, and a mother who was skeptical of organized religion, even as she was the kindest, most spiritual person I've ever known. She was the one who taught me as a child to love, and to understand, and to do unto others as I would want done.

"I didn't become a Christian until many years later, when I moved to the South Side of Chicago after college. It happened not because of indoctrination or a sudden revelation, but because I spent month after month working with church folks who simply wanted to help neighbors who were down on their luck – no matter what they looked like, or where they came from, or who they prayed to. It was on those streets, in those neighborhoods, that I first heard God's spirit beckon me. It was there that I felt called to a higher purpose – His purpose."

In my estimation this brief narrative clarifies the centering role of religion/faith in Mr. Obama's makeup.

Earlier in his brief remarks he summarized God's purpose: "...to feed the hungry and comfort the afflicted; to make peace where there is strife and rebuild what has broken; to lift up those who have fallen on hard times." My ears hear a variation of the Old Testament prophet Micah" “And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” - Micah 6:8

As I've been maintaining, Mr. Obama casts himself in a Prophetic Tradition that merges Martin Luther King, Jr faith rhetoric with the civic religion of Abraham Lincoln.