Let’s fill in the swamp October 13, 2009
Posted by Alien Drums in Ethics.Tags: Charles Rangel, Congress, Ethics, Nancy Pelosi, Rushworth Kidder
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Rushworth Kidder had a good piece yesterday on congressional ethics. He hearkened back to Nancy Pelosi’s 2006 commitment to “drain the swamp” of Congress and clean up ethics violations. Republicans were the primary sleeze merchants in the news then. Now that Democrat Charles Rangel is sleeze news, Pelosi has slowed the draining.
But criticizing Pelosi is not what I liked about Kidder’s column; it is the three points he makes.
“First, politics on either side of the aisle isn’t a dismal swamp. It’s a set of interpersonal relationships. If a few are putrid, many are not. To broad-brush the opposition so contemptuously may win you high-fives from fellow polarizers, but it sets you up for a fierce attack when next they see you compromising — as they saw Pelosi doing in the Rangel affair.
“Second, as homebuilders know, it’s often harder to change a landscape by draining it than by filling it with the rock, gravel, and sand that eventually displaces the mud. Real change, topographically as well as politically, often comes by addition, not subtraction.
“Third, in the age of environmentalists who recognize marshes, bogs, and wetlands as vital to our ecology, this is a startlingly unpropitious metaphor. There’s little argument, these days, that wetlands are not something to exploit but to protect.”
Great words. I especially like the positive direction of the second point — change by addition. We can all add some integrity to this world in our interpersonal relationships and in exercising our responsibilities.
Developing a moral agenda March 14, 2007
Posted by Alien Drums in Christianity, Ethics.add a comment
Jim Wallis, of God’s Politics fame, has a great post today regarding a Christian moral agenda. It deals with James Dobson and others’ criticism of the National Association of Evangelicals’ efforts to combat global warming and with the NAE’s just-completed board meeting.
Wallis challenged Dobson to a bebate on the question, “What are the great moral issues of our time for evangelical Christians?” Dobson lamely deflected the challenge by offering a supposed Goliath from his Focus ranks to do battle for him; but Wallis is holding out for a face-to-face with the “king” of Focus (my labels, not Wallis’).
Wallis also has some great words about the NAE, Carl F.H. Henry and the importance of a moral agenda.
Vigilante moralists March 2, 2007
Posted by Alien Drums in Christianity, Ethics, Freedom, Islam, Jesus, Truth.7 comments
Those of us who are basically moral folks have to be careful. We look at the world around us and see the moral decay and it makes us want to wipe out immorality because we know how distructive it is to individuals and society. That is a good instinct. The tricky part comes in the approach we take to wiping out immorality. Do we do it from a compassionate perspective that recognizes our own failings and the importance of maintaining human freedom, or do we do it by attacking.
National Public Radio reports the latter in Gaza. A story by reported today on “Morning Edition” that a “violent group in Gaza has murdered prostitutes and destroyed a variety of businesses in the name of Islam. Some worry the crimes are meant to impose a wider Islamist social order in the area.”
This story is about Islamic moralists, but we Christians must not be smug. Religious fundamentalism breeds this sort of verbal and physical violence whether it be Islamic or Christian or whatever.
Westervelt used a great phrase — “vigilante moralists”. In other words, these seemingly moral people have taken the law, and it is religious law, into their own hands and are seeking to enforce it with murder and destruction. They don’t seem to see the murder and destruction as moral failure.
Your local Christian fundamentalist may not be murdering and destroying property, but he or she does often seek to take away the freedom that leaves the door open to immorality. And even if they don’t seek it they often secretly wish it.
Make no bones about it, freedom and immorality go together. If people are free then they will act in ways that are destructive to themselves and to others. In fact, it is a basic Christian teaching — all have sinned.
So how do we “fight” immorality. We keep holding up a moral standard, one exemplified by Christ and other great religious leaders throughout history. We keep seeking to live in such a moral way. We reach out to the “immoral” with compassion and understanding. We make sure we do not use immoral means to pursue moral goals.
