Mitt recognizes faulty bootstraps, changes entire political philosophy

Sike! Gov. Romney still believes social safety nets are for the illusive "poor", definitely not for him or anyone he ever came in contact with before he entered politics. BUT! During the debate in Sioux City last night, Romney threw out this jab at President Obama:

"I think the president is going to ... go after me and say, 'You know, in businesses that you've invested in, they didn't all succeed. Some failed. Some laid people off. And he'll be absolutely right.' But if you look at all the businesses we invested in, over a hundred different businesses, they added tens of thousands of jobs. In the real world that the president has not lived in -- I actually think he doesn't understand that: that not every business succeeds, that not every entrepreneur is lucky enough to do as well as the entrepreneurs that I described ... I myself have had the chance of leading four different organizations. Each of those was highly successful, in part because of hard work, in part because of good luck.

As Liz Lemon might say, "What the what?" Hard work is only part of the #winning equation? He goes on to point out the president's handling of the GM bailout resulted in the closing of factories to save the company, which is what Romney did in his business pre-politics life, which is why the president doesn't understand economics? That part doesn't really matter (or make a lot of sense). What matters is that he recognized that sometimes, you can try your darnedest, and fail. Sometimes, you tug on your bootstraps, at they just pull right off.

As Christians, we can see the causes for such a footwear malfunction: systems of injustice and oppression which give all the "luck" to some people, at the cost of keeping others chronically in debt, jobless, and homeless. Jesus knew this, too. How could the people he healed even begin to live a life of integrity when the religious institution and the Roman Empire thrived off their required submission? We are compelled to respond as Jesus responded, to heal the individual and the community, to extend humanity to people in every capacity of life.

We live in a country where success is a commodity, and luck a privilege. While Mitt Romney might have accidentally stumbled upon inequality, he only scratched the surface of disenfranchisement in the United States. There is a reason some people have all the luck.

Theology <-> Politics

I need not discredit philosophy by laborious criticism of its arguments.  It will suffice if I show that as a matter of history it fails to prove its pretension to be "objectively" convincing.  In fact, philosophy does so fail.  It does not banish differences; it founds schools and sects just as feeling does.  I believe, in fact, that the logical reason of man operates in this field of divinity exactly as it has always operated in love, or in patriotism, or in politics, or in an other of the wider affairs of life, which our passions or our mystical intuitions fix our beliefs beforehand.  It finds arguments for our conviction, for indeed it has to find them.  It amplifies and defines our faith, and dignifies it and lends it words and plausibility.  It hardly ever engenders it; it cannot now secure it.

-William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience

I'd just as soon argue that theology, too often, does much of the same.  So back to my age old question: Does our theology inform our politics, or does it merely serve to, as James puts it, find arguments for our convictions?

-Tim

Who is spreading the "religion is private" rumor, and how can I stop it?

Whenever I come across someone opining on the question of religion in America, I'm interested, because I myself get pretty opine-y about that very subject. And when it comes up in a national media outlet, say, the New York Times, I get my hopes up, because the Grey Lady has standards. However, I was fairly disappointed this morning when I read Eric Weiner's opinion article, Americans: Undecided About God?.

Weiner invoked the growing "spiritual, but not religious" (which is like nails on a chalkboard for this writer) contingency in the United States, blaming religion's effort to influence the political sphere as the catalyst for the trend.

"Their idea is that we’ve mixed politics and religion so completely that many simply opt out of both; apparently they are reluctant to claim a religious affiliation because they don’t want the political one that comes along with it."

I'm not sure I can swallow such a hypothesis. People are turned off by "institutional religion" (*see "spiritual, but not religious") for many reasons: hypocrisy, perceived exclusions, rigidness, promotion of antiquated practices, etc. That a specific denomination (as it seems Weiner is actually speaking of, rather than Christianity, or any other religion for that matter, as a whole) supports certain public policy is an outgrowth of a particular understanding of theology. No religion exists neatly packaged apart from human existence. Teachings compel concrete responses. But Weiner seems to long for a more sterilized understanding of God:

"Religion and politics, though often spoken about in the same breath, are, of course, fundamentally different. Politics is, by definition, a public activity. Though religion contains large public components, it is at core a personal affair... There lies the problem: how to talk about the private nature of religion publicly."

This guy has traveled extensively as a correspondent for NPR, won a Peabody award, and written a book about finding God, and yet he still states rather cavalierly something at which a first semester seminary student would gawk. Religion is a private affair?! Nothing could be further from the truth. Christianity (the only religion on which I can speak with any sense of authority) introduces a way to live in a community that reflects God's mercy and grace. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism (as emphasized by Dr. Barry Bryant) spoke of piety, the love of God, and mercy, the love of neighbor, as twin components of the Christian faith. You cannot love God without extending compassion and justice to world around you. Whether Weiner likes it or not, religion is public.

He ends his article waxing poetically about a religion for the non-religious, yearning for a "Steve Jobs of religion" who can "invent a new way of being religious." Well, Mr. Weiner, the individualistic fulfillment you crave exists within the confines of modern consumerism and capitalism, but you are correct in assessing that you won't find it in the Bible, or most any religious text. I feel as though you might be looking in the wrong places (read: the television) for the religion you seek. That new way of being religious exists around you, in churches, shelters, agencies, seminaries, and many other places where people are attempting to live in the world as an expression of God's love. And as it turns out, that way of being religious is not new at all.